Sunday, August 28, 2011

Po'em

Berkeley, how fun
How similar you are
too.

[Bukowski, and crew]

So similar,
that street brew.
That jazz trumpet drifting
cross the electric pond reflecting,

You,
eclipsing.
You

[And..]

Berkeley, World;
How i have loved..

Familiar to,
familiar as
my brain,
under
stood
you.

Friday, August 26, 2011

"Kaiser is where God lives. I am not so sure it is at churches."


Mario S.'s Yelp Reviews
http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=TgfvhtGxMKjlzLTuq6Hb4g



Oliveto Cafe

I met a first date, Craigslist-derivative, from among the many responses, mostly naked pictures of women derived from one or maybe two men, I guess, who acquire e-mail addresses. I can't quite figure that scam. But, she had long flowing black-brown hair with blue eyes; she wore a gray and white plaid trench with an inexactly similar Gap scarf, part American Indian and Nordic. When she moved, it was like she was scattering pixie dust. Her coral-colored finger nail polish and the smoke that was her hair dazzled. The first thing I noticed was the open drink menu, turned to an early page. It said: "Negroni," which was exactly what I wanted. She ordered a Moscato. Hers was lighter, a bit like Lillet Rouge and mine was viscously thicker and stronger. We immediately enjoyed each other's company and the drinks made us loose and giddy. It is hard to be serious when someone seems to like you. You open up, say just about anything, and you may even read a poem to her. It was the poem I read at the Calistoga Inn and then another one, and she didn't seem to get it. I guess you have to read poems to know what they mean, but I am not like that. You don't have to know the meaning of every word, but you hear them. There's enough of the sense of where something is going to know that there's a wonderful world opening up. So, I stopped. Maybe the woman who was correcting papers at the other table heard me and could appreciate what made me want to be a writer. When I was in intermediate school, I sat in the Kaimuki Public Library listening to T.S. Eliot read "The Wasteland" on a record player. We ordered the beet salad with almonds and watercress or arugula with a subtle dressing. It cannot be beat, pardon the pun. She ordered and got the cannelloni, I the hen. I am allergic to wheat, so I didn't want any of hers. My hen was moist, glazed over with herbs and oil. It was hot and perfectly cooked. I loved the stuffing. There were two more drinks for her, and I had a glass of red I let the waiter pick. I had planned to say: "What you would like, but by then I was less articulate. The man, who made my drink, wore a black shirt. He had a moustache and beard. His glasses were black-rimmed. He was strong and reminded me of a close friend, who had the same smile. It's as if he had traveled the world and he had seen everything and the Negroni was a reflection of his wisdom. And the waiter, I bet Spanish, thinner, I think long hair, and beard. I remember his modesty, and respectfulness. How he made me feel was like I was royalty. I want to tell both of them now, how good I felt, how safe to be myself with this woman, who was making me feel good. Everything the waiter did was kind. The bartender was professional when he brought the drinks. There was no flaw, no complaint, only the sense of being in a fine room with generous friends. In all, the meal and drinks were about $70+. I left $20. It was not just a light meal; it was being in a room with people who made you feel better than you might feel about yourself.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Friday, August 19, 2011

Daydream in Blue

I looked at the setting sun from my post at the coffee shop. I didn’t just look, i stared. Big, beautiful smiling circle that it is, as it were. Almost wholly unreal, on a day like this, how the sun just sits there as if it sat its whole life.

I watched it explode in brilliance and in light, and thought of how now, as people, we forget that we live off of it, we try to take care of it, but at the end and beginning of each day we can’t do much but admire it. Pretty with no doubt, is our glowing orb of life-bearing light.

Then I saw a plane fly by, the kind of plane that ferried human passengers all around through the sky. From one port of air unto another, the plan was to move all the passengers, with little delay, until the end of time. What must those passengers be thinking, thoughts coursing through each of their minds, as they become ferried as they were; to be. From the same port to a similar position, later in time.

Further down the line come more checkpoints and options and dotted lines. This one to go here, as that one goes there, and following the laws of thermodynamics that leads to problems that change but never go and disappear. They just keep on changing, only to reappear as different things in different scenes.

A nightmare, must be this dream! I keep watching the plane trailing away, up higher in elevation with all of those same people that flew out of sunny L.A.

It’s the passengers time; the lucky ones’ sitting on the west side, gently looking at the opposite of this suns’ rise. The moon comes over opposite, gently bugging the tide. The passengers that sit to the east crane their necks, each trying to catch the last glimpse of that big ball fleeting in the sky, before it slips underwater, determined; efficiently having set.

They’re all hopefuls, we’re all hopefuls as of yet. From my position on the ground i thank the gods that i’m not challenging physics, rationality, and Bernouli through heavier-than-air jets. Jets made of space age materials that we as a people have harnessed, pretentious.

And so i digress. I try to do what they told me, in class and in all those years that have now become history lessons. There’s no stop to looking at the light as i trudge forth, as Icarus begins his fall, blind. With boots strapped on so hard that my veins turn black as they beg to be untied. I go running as i begin to notice markings on this planes aft side. Vertical stabilizers marking DHL or Fed-Ex or some other shipping collective leaves only one clear meaning: All those passengers i quantified, all those souls flying over this great divide, all of this strolled in my imagination as i sat perplexed outside...

Thursday, August 18, 2011

DMT laced Jibber Jabber from an alternate universe!


"I feel like the lazy river i've been trying to get to for weeks." -JB

"This is like smoking acid." -JB

[staring at a fire] "Dude, I see a fucking Phoenix staring at me in 3D!" -JA

"I see the fabric of the fire." -JA

"This is a shamanic thing." -JB

"I haven't seen avatar but this shit is way better."

"They should make a 3D movie of just fire in HD." -JB

"I want to get all magic-schoolbus on this [fire]." -JB




Image by samantha magowan



(( Anyone else have any memorable chemical quotes? ))