Name: Peter Bray 
EMail: petrbray@aol.co 
 http://www.peterbray.org/

Bio Info: Bay area guy. Graduate of Diablo Valley College & UC Berkeley, 
design engineer, graphics designer, corporate manager/pain in the ass. A handyman and fix-it guy. Activist upsetter of smug equilibrium. Poet and 
writer of songs - "Laid Off American Man," "Methane Jane," "Two Right Shoes," 
"Buy The Farm," "You Are The Song." Publishes: Taproot & Aniseweed, a free, eclectic, once-in-awhile rambling about poetry via Macintosh and Quark. E-mail me to be added to our mailing list.
 




Like a Knife Thrown Into Barnyard Wood...


Like a knife thrown into barnyard wood,
you get pretty good at it...
You know the weight and balance of the knife, 
know the hurricane sharpness of its point and the flash of its steel... 
and keep it that way, like surgical steel, stainless steel...
Know how to grind it down on the wheel, grind it to a fine point,
keep it balanced as an aerodynamic missile...flip it just right,
across the barnyard air, not far from the horse trough,
the white-washed buildings, over the cow manure dust,
the memores of my summers' youth, even dodge the whizz 
of the dragonflies or invite them into watch, 
them and their busy dragonfly eyes..."Watch this..." you say,
and flip it once, twice, three times, twenty-four times, thirty-two...
each time across the barnyard, a few early ones go high or low or errant, 
a few are lost until you get on target and the barnyard wood finally says, 
"OK! I got the picture...you know how to WRITE!...Go back to bed..." 
And so I do...mood nearly over...and the barnhouse/corral dust 
of my grandparents' farm settles back down into my memory 
of being 12 again and wondering if I could stick this knife 
in that barnwood shed wall over there...
And I do...Mission accomplished one more time...



©Peter Bray, 12/4/09 All rights reserved

Chester Case's Rule of Engagement & Clear Debating 
(As I recall them) 5th Period Study Hall, Spring 1960

I had already completed all the required stuff,
plus my college prep stuff and all the shop classes 
I could ever dream of taking.
It was a hot Spring day in Study Hall, Las Lomas 1960.
Mrs. Haskell, my counselor had already said that with a B+ average
for 4 years work, I didn't have the grades to enter Berkeley directly.
So who cares? I'd start at JC and later blow Berkeley's doors clean off.
OK, so I never made Paladians in 4 years, I was a second string honor student/
smartass, but I had a '32 Ford coupe, a '50 Ford and the only '36 
running LaSalle on the planet in the school parking lot with reversed rims.
I'm trying to remember Chester Case's Rules of Engagement 
and Clear Debating. I think they went like this:

1. Don't be an asshole.
2. Select your peers wisely.
3. Don't get caught up in your peers' vortex. 
If they're not your peers, whose are they?
If not your vortex, whose?
4. If visiting the enemy's camp, don't piss in the well
unless you've already filled your canteen.
5. Sometimes you may have to sleep with one eye open.
6. There will always be a Ralph Nader siphoning off 
3-4% of the vote, learn to deal with it.
7. If two guys named Cheney and Bush show up in the future, run.
They are not your peers. Nor do they have your best interests in mind. 
But they have theirs.
8. Don't be an asshole, see #1 above.
9.  If "...the vandals took the handles," keep on truckin'.
10. Rules? Make 'em up as you go. Civilizations have done that for years,
and we're still NOT that civilized, despite the media that does NOT give you ALL the news.
11. Talk to your enemies sometime, you'll be surprised what you may learn.
Some guy named Bush won't, but watch where he ends up and what little he accomplishes.
12. Remember what little you learned here and continue to learn something of value.
Discard the baloney unless served on rye with light mustard. MGD is good too.
13-28. Good luck.

©Peter Bray 9/5/08 All rights reserved 



If Christ Carried a Gun

If Christ carried a gun
maybe it was an AK-47,
something he could buy online
from an arms dealer that was 
thrown out of Heaven.

If Moses carried a knife
maybe it was a salami slicer,
me, I've got both and
it's a wonder I'm not nicer.

My gun's a .22
and it's behind the door,
the clip's in my desk,
safe inside a drawer.

My knife's in my pocket,
and it's a Swiss Army jewel...
with several blades which double
as a Handyman's tool.

If Christ carried a gun
maybe he'd still be alive today,
but where would all the religions be 
that imposed a guilt-ridden trip
on all that he wished to be?

If Ghandi carried a gun 
maybe it'd be an Uzi,
something small but effective 
for those that are choosey.

If Mother Theresa carried a weapon,
maybe it'd be for buttering bread,
for those dearly unfortunates 
with hunger still in their heads.

If Mark Twain carried a weapon
maybe it was his wit,
for those are the balancing acts
into which we all slip.

I'm gonna close while I'm still ahead,
take a walk to the park and forget 
most of what I just said.

©Peter Bray 7/26/08 All rights reserved



DumpMan

I contemplated long and hard
before deciding to buy the trailer 
from the retiring blacksmith 
on Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, but finally 
followed him home to El Sobrante, 
bought its rusting hulk from him
under the cover of night, 
and split for the Benicia Bridge and home, 
non-licenseplated, unwired, non-illuminated, 
and hoping NOT to alert the CHP 
to my latest handyman adventure.

Weeks later, fully licenseplated, wired, 
safety-chained and fancying a new top 
and sides and tailgate ramp, I had been 
officially transformed into The DumpMan, 
capable of hauling greenwaste and/or buriables, 
and/or recyclables of my own or others 
to the nearest transfer station 
or dumping ground for a fee.

My cousin David knew Frank, the original dumpman 
who lived in a scrapwood and tarpaper shack 
at the Orland City Dump in the 1950s. 
What he and Frank found to talk about 
all those years is still a mystery to me 
and that's the way it should be.
Did Frank have running water? I doubt it.
But probably a woodburning stove
left from some previous dumprun 
and made from his salvaging hands
just like his tarpaper shack.

Tomorrow the lady is preparing 
for her daughter's graduation party 
and there's a load of stuff on her back patio
and side areas. We've negotiated
a price and schedule.
The DumpMan rides again.

©Peter Bray, 6/4/08 All rights reserved



Poetry HACK Sawblade...

I am the poetry HACK sawblade.
I can cut through clutter, cardboard, 
bone, and steel.
Turn my blade over and feel 
the regularity of my teeth, 
the tempered steel.

You oughta see what I can do 
to lesser materials of brass, sheet metal, 
galvanized iron and old bolts 
headed for the recycle pile.

I am manually operated, but a battery 
or 110-volts will get me going.
But with wear and tear or overuse, 
I can become embrittled, lose my edge 
and my tempered steel, fly off the handle, 
break and have to be replaced.
It ain't pretty.

But I am sometimes honorably mentioned 
among my peers but rarely bring home 
the big prize except once when 
my toolbox was filled with love.
It should be a lesson I remember
and it is.

©Peter Bray, 9/21/08 All rights reserved



Epitaph Planning 101

Gonna wrap it around a box of ashes 
have one last encore before
Mother Nature cashes me in 
on the high tide breeze south of town.
(see attached)

Across the street from where 
we Saved the Lido, in the Benicia breeze,
it'll be so neat, Oh, Baby, Oh, Baby.

Give my successors one last chance
to feel the rhythm as they dance
to Colitis Blue, Two Right Shoes, and Methane Jane.
Dog Food Commercial will just knock 'em dead,
but just remember, it's Only at High Tide!
Peace upon you.

Only at High Tide

It was something he said
as he fell from his bed,
something about Only at High Tide,
something about Only at High Tide.

He didn't want his best,
the ashes and all the rest,
getting stuck in the muck of low tide,
getting stuck in the muck of low tide.

It was something he said
as he fell from his bed,
something about Only at High Tide,
something about Only at High Tide.

©Peter Bray, 7/17/08 All rights reserved
 



Urban Decay, Urban Decay

Urban Decay, Urban Decay,
if we can make enough money, it'll all be OK.
We can make First Street Benicia
into a good-sized parking lot, 
shuttle everybody up to the hills
to show 'em all we've got:

Call it Seeno Hills, we can even print
Seeno Bills, maybe open a Casino
and get some Casino thrills!

I want a Snowcone and a Big Slurpee,
and a WalMart to walk through,
a Costco and a Home Depot,
and a Longs, gotta have a Longs in the hills.

And with Seeno as our backer,
we can even bring in SNOW!!

Man, we gotta get busy, 
first we'll have to convince 
downtown First Street that more parking 
is what we've always needed, 
the whole street, one parking lot of closed shops.

No more Historical District stuff either,
just a parking lot with a shuttle 
to overpass or underpass 780. 
Yeah, that's a plan, and a jetport, 
and a helicopter pad for the really 
Big Sales in the hills, when the cash 
rolls in like thunder. 

And Global warming will be OK too, 
we'll be higher then, won't even notice 
the new deeper shorelines 
making the Strait less straight.
Man, that's a Non-General Plan 
if I ever heard one.
Why didn't we think of this early(er)?
©Peter Bray, 5/19/08 All rights reserved

----------------------------
Rumor Has It/Goofier Now

Rumor has it, he's goofier now,
has the odor of advancing urine
in a few years, Arizona lemon-flavored 
iced tea spilled on the front 
of his white t-shirt, Weedeater
thistles still stuck in his pantlegs.

He never was a clothes horse
though he cleans up pretty well 
for poetry gigs. 
Look for the black t-shirts
and the beige Dockers, 
the San Francisco shoes.

He can be found late afternoons
on the Benicia waterfront 
napping in his truck, 
the one that says on its door,
Home Handyman,

They say he still drops 
tools in his sleep, has bizarre dreams, 
the flotsam and jetsam of poetry 
still in his veins, twice nearly ran for
city council, not that that was 
his passion or his mission, 
he just couldn't stand 
the other moron running.

He didn't enter the race, 
just got this close twice: 
he holds up two fingers 
pressed together.
©Peter Bray, 5/18/08 All rights reserved

----------------------------------------------

Spitball and Putty

Writing poems and songs
and publishing them is often like
trying to throw a spitball against the wall
and hoping it will stick.

Some make it to the wall
and some don't. Some respond to your
e-mail promotions and some don't.
Their Delete keys must loom larger each day,
easier to find, glowing with pulsations 
on their dark keyboards
as your name appears in text
on their hard drive/monitor screens.

So you try a wad of plumber's putty,
cut its coldness from your Ace 
Hardware plastic container,
roll its stiffness/coldness in your hands
until it warms up, becomes malleable.
Then you throw it as fast as you can 
at the nearest flat wall of your choice 
and hope it will stick.

You even note the wall's porosity and texture,
dryness or wetness, openness, lack of clutter
therein rebounding, temperature of the day, 
humidity, earthbone dryness
or misty showers, and wall color.
Not just any wall should get your spitball
and/or its accuracy with surrogate.

Years later you return to the wall 
and see that the rats and/or dragonflies, 
termites may have enjoyed your creations;
eaten some, enjoyed singing some
and even left some sticking to the wall,
unencumbered, with an unmailed
e-mail noted for history:
"Not bad work, Pancho! 
The others were tasty!"

It's a good day for a spitball.
My plumber's putty is fresh
and ready to go:
Batter up and...Wall UP...
and GONE!
©Peter Bray, 5/16/08 All rights reserved

------------------------------------

To Larry Schow: 

Larry Schow Keeps Us Posted

Thanks for the continuing updates. 
W has no vocabulary, no continuity of thought, 
and only a dumpster marked Zero as a national legacy. 
In less than a year he'll be back on the ranch 
at Crawford, TX clearing brush and Cheney 
will be counting his Halliburton stock. 
Condy will get a job at a local Mervyns 
as a stiff-haired mannequin in the Junk 
Jewelry Department, and no one will 
remember their names. Hillary or Barack 
will inherit a monumental national debt, 
and McCain will open a breaded oyster 
stand in New Mexico.  ABC, CBS and NBC 
will merge into one and then fade to black. 
Popeye will return and lead us in The Hokey Pokey. 
Hopalong Cassidy will get a new white hat, 
and Jay Silverheels (Tonto) will do 
teeth whitener commercials during the SuperBowl. 
You watch. Keep us posted. I'll do the same.--Pedro
©Peter Bray, 5/13/08 All rights reserved

------------------------------------

Persona 

He started doing fewer toilet repairs,
and started working more standing up,
less crawling on his knees.

He was singing fewer of Bob Dylan's, Neil Diamond's,
and Paul Simon's songs and more of his own.
He was remembering how the microphone felt in two hands
and how to sing into it like the lady in the fourth row
might be between the highway and The Orgasm Dream on Mars.

He remembered the Make Me A Star Shirt Shop in the mall,
the black and white dotted one that Dylan wore on MTV Unplugged.
He remembered his own voice before the truck accident 
with that last asshole from Corporateville.
He was working on his own persona
and he would see where that might take him.
©Peter Bray 5/11/08 All rights reserved

-------------------------------------------------

The Reelection Candidate Blues

He was dull as a doorknob –
talking like a video tape monotone in his head 
that had been playing in an empty room 
or a kennel for the last 20 years 
on an island from another planet...

Dick Cheney could have killed a duck 
with a shotgun blast in the next station over 
and I don't think he'd have noticed.

It was hard to tell if his arteries 
were clogged or if he'd been 
in the saddle so long that his buckboard 
was driving itself home. 

"Hello? Hello?" 
"Is anything working in there?"
I'm voting for Linda Seifert.
It's time for a change. 
A real change this time.
©Peter Bray, Democrat, 5/10/08 All rights reserved

------------------------------

Dylan on the Waterfront

A single mallard takes off and looks like 
a heavy wasp, a single cargo plane of futility
headed for Viet Nam or Iraq.
It's hard to remember which is which
with the shack in back lack
of intelligence misleading 
this national/international charade.

"The medicine man comes
and he shuffles inside,
he walks with a swagger 
and he says to the bride,
'Stop all your weeping and swallow your pride,
you will not die, it's not poison...'"

But it is, and we have 8 years wasted, 
hundreds of thousands of lives 
wasted and no longer on this planet.
The Mental Dropout and Uncle Slick
hold the world hostage with contempt 
with fabricated lies like fortune cookies made 
in offshore factories at a profit to whom?

Everything is leaned like cardboard against itself,
Katrina was just a light fan's motion by comparison.
We are decimated by IEDs and lies, fabrications like 
playing cards held in secret meetings.

Who will define Waterboarding one more time?
One more time? Condy this time? 
McCain like a case of Bush-Lite, 
sipped through a war straw
a hundred years old this time?

Who will define fear larger than the nighttime?
Fear larger than the daytime, fear larger than a
single mallard flying over the waterfront?

Hillary attacks Barack with her sack of trivialities
and his rhetoric and Internet cash campaign 
swells to meet the tide, while the world swims 
in a global icepool/tidepool warming daily.
Someone attempts to make it a white lady 
versus a black war with McCain the only victor. 
How far away can Karl Rove be?
Who carries the StarWars light sticks this time?

Osama Bin Laden is still free to thumb his nose
at the Mental Dropout and Uncle Slick 
who pack their last box of lies 
into the moving man marked
"Legacy Zero/Retrograde/Ice Still Warming/
Check the Thermometer on the Way Out."

"The hysterical bride in the penny arcade,
screaming she moans, I've just been made.
Then calls for the doctor who pulls down the shade,
and says my advice is to not 
let the boys in..."

But we did and 8 years and 
hundreds of thousands of lives 
have been wasted in another useless war. 
Was God On Our Side this time too?
When will the balance wheel be restored 
and by whom? 
Polar bears are waterboarding 
for offshore homes, the tide is still rising. 
Another mallard lifts off and for where?
©Peter Bray, 5/3/08 All rights reserved
Except those © Bob Dylan.



Stay at Home Day...(& Old Poems)

I got myself $4 dollars ahead,
it's raining outside and you can't do 
electrical work or any other kind 
in the rain unless you're half duck,
and I've been there, done that.

Gonna stay home, market myself without toner,
do the computer part, get it into memory,
then clean out the work cave, 
reassemble this toolbox of my mind,
get it clean, reflect on old poems I found,
stapled to old beams that I call home.

When I get hungry, I'll eat the old poems,
see if they taste as good as
they used to:

White Hot Jet Fuel

I am white hot jet fuel,
and you can be 
my yesterday.
©Peter Bray, 1978, All rights reserved


Mixing it Up
 
I used to keep them separate,
the military man's son's mindset,
functional, determined, things to do,
left or right-sided, I don't remember which.

The other side, art-driven, torn, flapping in the wind,
poetry, song, a good scream in the midnight air,
passing gas, leaning into the poem's length, 
chasing the cat, sitting with it at 4 am: "You're a good boy,"
and he likes its, gets crazy, rolls over, bites me, 
then gives me his claws then his jaw to rub –
the computer keyboard, 
singing with Willie in the truck, 
"...Riding on the City of New Orleans..."

Now I mix it up, what the hell,
separating them has paid no dividends,
all tracks of the same train
lean in the same direction, 
hop on one foot for a change,
jump from steel rail to the other,
wear rust or steel like it may or may not 
make some difference or not.

Like who's listening anyway, this isn't American Idol. 
Even the caged bird sings
according to what's her name, 
Maya Angelou, that's who.
©Peter Bray, 1/25/08 All rights reserved


Ghandi with Tools...
 
Maybe I'll start wearing sackcloth 
and drinking sweeter tea,
stage a protest over 
liars in the government
and continue to work
for the elderly, single parents,
and women whose husbands
have lost the instructions
to their shit-from-Shinola 
cans.

It's all a big maybe,
but I've considered 
my options 
and here I am.
©Peter Bray, 12/14/07 All rights reserved



Jornalist Under the Sink

Nobody wants a journalist under their sink,
documenting every brocolli burp
and alien sewer line stink,
but give me a poet/plumber
who can conjugate and rhyme his verbs,
fix leaks and squeaks, and knows his herbs!

No Dan Rather or Katie Couric can muck with my drains
looking for hairballs and garbage disposal pains,
but give me a poet/plumber standing at the ready,
Come in, make yourself handy, 
make everything wobbly now steady.

You can do shelves too? Can you fix my gate? 
And these drapes and my drip system, 
you know anything about drip systems?

Dan Rather and Katie Couric can keep their News,
but give me a Handyman who knows his screws!!
Nuts and bolts and Phillips heads,
flourescent lights, and squeaking beds,
give me a poet standing at my door,
with knee protectors on 
now crossing my bathroom floor.
Yes! Fix this stuff!!
©Peter Bray, 10/24/07 All rights reserved



The Almost Poet Laureate of Somewhere

Both hemispheres 
of his head and heart
were busy deciphering information 
and/or pumping nutrients to
the extremities of his perceptions.

He came upon poetry like a
lump in the road unexpectedly 
while doing something else.

He could flatten it with his truck tire,
or maneuver around it
like an unknown obstacle,
or come upon it gracefully, 
pick it up and put it in his 
rock-this-from-the whole-quarry-bag
and travel on.

He chose the latter and 
that has made 
all the difference in
his night and day.
©Peter Bray, 8/24/07 All rights reserved



When Ice Comes Back/Small Broadcasting Station

It was like operating 
a small broadcasting station
in the middle of an ice floe going 
nowhere but to an evaporation station.

He put out his iced highway reports, 
other shorts, sports of alligators in the Congo, 
and the overall condition of the weather in his head,
and sure enough, over the years he’d get peers
who would respond with what 
their favorite heron was wearin’,
or how micros waved or Jesus Saved, 
but he knew from the writing on the wall,
that if things didn’t change and our dependency 
on foreign oil didn’t rearrange itself,
some polar bear losing his own home on the ice
would come in and turn off his juice.

So he began to think in earnest 
and those that weren’t earnest thinkers didn’t like it. 
So we formed a club called “Of Course We’re Earnest”
and then we changed the entire makeup of the planet.

All the princes and gardens lived on forever 
with their herons wearin’ Iced Igloo Fashions Recycled
and the world was plentiful and the mercury stayed 
in all its own thermometers.



©Peter Bray, 7/21/07 All rights reserved
 

Popsicle Sticks 

When God was cutting the cards
he looked real hard and said,
“I’m gonna give this one the
gift of poems and an occasional song.”

But as I grew I never knew 
that these things were in my quiver of tricks,
I just gathered my popsicle sticks,
small airplane engines and then 
lawnmower engines on wooden go-cart frames,
until I was finally out of college and
one night I heard Neil Diamond sing,
“...Don’t know that I will but until I can find me...”
and my universe exploded into poems and songs.

After I published my first poetry book or two or three,
I realized that I could have made more money 
from sales of hot dogs in the park in the dark 
on a rainy day, but that didn’t deter my determination
to further explore this riddle of life,
and what was I gonna do with all this stuff 
that might some day become 
honorably mentioned?

Decades later I’m still reaching 
into my quiver to deliver whatever I find here
and I have NOT GIVEN UP my collection of day jobs 
that finance the occasional popsicle stick
that I acquire along the way.

©Peter Bray, 8/6/07 All rights reserved



Building a Wall with a John Prine Song

I was building a wall with a John Prine song,
it's the best tool you can bring along.
All your screws go deeper, your shallow angles go steeper,
when you build your stuff with a John Prine song:

"February morning, my car won't start today.
I turned the key at 8:03 and the battery passed away
inside my automobile, I want my automobile,
I want my automobile, gonna drive it all around this town...."

Just above the oleander, my thoughts began to meander
when John sang,
"...I was talking to the mailman just last week
he had a letter in his sweater from Stuttering Don,
he said, 'Things are getting better, back in S-S-S-Saigon.'
Saigon. Honey, Honey, Honey, Saigon.
Things are getting better, back in Saigon!"

©Peter Bray, 7/24/07 All rights reserved 
except John Prine lyrics from Automobile and Saigon 
are © John Prine or Ohboy Music 



A Cabinetmaker Crying Somewhere

Curtis had a bookshelf in his shed
and he said he didn’t need or want it anymore,
so I said, “Let’s drag it out, I’ll saw it up 
and we’ll Greenwaste it into the trailer 
for its last ride to the dump.”
So we did and after making the neighbor happy 
about the pinetree trimming on the back hill, 
I took the chainsaw to the sides of that bookshelf.

A chainsaw goes through wood 
like a shark goes through the side of a whale, 
or a bull goes through the side of a barn, 
and as the chainsaw was eating its way through 
the once walnut-stained and finished siding 
of that once nice wooden set of shelves, 
I knew I heard a cabinetmaker crying somewhere, 
hearing the chainsaw, and knowing that his 
love- and handcrafted product was being readied for 
its final ride to the dump.

There it will go into the Greenwaste shredder, 
and come out as further pulpified woodwaste, 
and after composting to reduce toxic components,
it’ll end up in somebody’s garden, and maybe help 
make a home for some Homeless Lizard Named Bill.
But somewhere a cabinetmaker will be crying just the same
and agonizing over his loss.

©Peter Bray, 7/15/07 All rights reserved



The Boom-Boom Room

Two old codgers lived in the attic 
above the Boom-Boom Room
across the alley from the Alamo
in Small Waterfront Town, USA.

One had been a retail manager 
during the 2nd Coming of Christ
and the other was a wandering minstrel
who ductaped poems to people’s doors
with announcements that read, 
“Sale Today, $20.”

They had been served their coffee 
and eviction notices,
but the two cats that ran the place
didn’t seem to mind their not reading 
or abiding by Municipal Codes 
211-6, ABCD&E.

As our story opens...
(to be continued)

©Peter Bray, 6/27/07 All rights reserved



The Candidates Debates (Revised 12/29/07)

They rolled out the fossils 
for the candidates debates, 
some came on rollers, some on hangers, 
some on dollies, like yesterday’s 
mannequins with their lips pursed 
and their hands gesturing in wild 
if not random directions: liars, 
child molesters, intelligence manipulators, 
offshore hooligans, pedophiles, 
and those were just 
the members of the audience. 

All the polls said 
that margarine was up 
by 20¢ a pound 
and it was anybody’s game.

Members of the Red party 
were going to vote for the Blue, 
Blue members were going to vote Red this time, 
and the Greens, Progressives, and Independents 
were all looking for signs of Global Warming 
on the Moon. 

It was the same old stuff, different year. 

Locally, our own City Council 
couldn’t pass a meaningful limit 
to major corporations 
spending their life’s blood 
on 8¢ Candidate’s Nights, 
and winning a Big Box Store 
and flattening the hills above town
was the newest, biggest deal. 
Yippee! 

No wonder those without 
means  or ambition, 
choose to buy guns, join gangs, 
and look for other opportunities 
to eat one another on the streets. 

Darwin must have had 
a real headache with all his research. 
The Balclutha still rests in the harbor
and Johnathan Winters presides at half-mast.
Robin Williams is waiting in the wings. 
Poets I know keep sending out their stuff.
All is not well in Hollywood.
But angels rest where hummingbirds thrive.
©Peter Bray, 12/29/07 All rights reserved



Haikus from Tofu

He didn’t know his haikus 
from tofu or fondue.
Didn’t know Arabic from aspic.
Didn’t know Jerusalem 
from the PLO.
Didn’t know the Man from UNCLE wasn’t necessarily from StarTrek.
Didn’t know if Darth Vader was really Dick Cheney in disguise.

But he knew his Jersey cows and his pigeons 
and his Muscovy ducks and he knew when to plant his alfalfa.

He also knew to agree with his wife to leave 
the old country of Denmark in the early 1920s 
and start anew in Oakland, California.

He also knew when to stop the old LaSalle 
and let me ride with him in the front seat 
to the garage at 98 Castro Street, San Leandro. 

He also knew when to retire to the dairy farm in Orland...
...and from this gene pool, we all came out laughing 
and jumping and splashing in Stony Creek, California. 
Our grandfather, Adolf Viggo Larsen, 1892–1976. 
A proud former member of the Danish cavalry. 

©PB 2007 All rights reserved


Pulling the Plug On Poetry

I’m pulling the plug on poetry,
closing the door, taking down the flag,
digging up the bulbs,
rototilling over the garden
and throwing the last ashes 
of aspiration and inspiration
into the compost pile 
of expired dreams.

No I’m not.
It was just too good an image
to waste yesterday while 
doing taxes and dishes.

However, I’m not gonna 
live in the P.O. Box anymore
waiting for the Big Poetry 
Contest Winners to be announced. 

I’ve got serious fences to fix,
multiple customers to work for,
estimates to get out, 
and these damn taxes to finish.

However, T&A 6 & 7 will mail 
after taxes with poetry by Jeremy Cantor,
Gloria Rodriguez, Sherry Sheehan,
Kevin Farey, Hal Kane, Virginia Caswell,
and yours truly. 

Stay tuned. No doubt, 
there’s still more to come.
Yesterday was April Fool’s Day!

© Peter Bray; 4/2/07 All Rights Reserved



Chickie in 205, Bob Dylan and Me

The chickie in 205 was enough 
to knock your socks off,
but she had a funny way
of cleaning up after a party 
by dumping her ash trays
straight into the garbage disposal.

Dos Equis bottle tops
do not go down the disposal.
Not once. Not twice. Not three times.

When she finally moved out,
Bob Dylan and I moved in,
he on a CD, me with all my tools,
not to fix her drawers, her cabinets now bare 
and/or moved away, but the sinks, drains, fixtures
and everything else.

I will miss her suggestive poster of Mariah Carey,
the one with more cleavage than last year’s 
naked and plump Thanksgiving turkey headed for the oven,
but after seeing all the junk she left behind for me to fix,
I’m saying one last Adios to the Chickie in 205.

“Everybody knows, Baby’s got new clothes,
but lately I see her ribbons and her bows,
have fallen from her hair...” – Bob Dylan

©Peter Bray, 3/8/07 All rights reserved

Love Looks for Love 

You take love and make it into a soup.
I take love and fix somebody’s failing fence.
She takes love and makes it into a book, 
or writes a song, or sends her cartoons off 
in the e-mail for love.

He takes love and fashions it into an IED
and straps it to his chest 
and tells us that 
his love for his god and hate for us 
will take him into the Promised Land. 

Some will COOK for love. 
Some will LOOK for love.
Some will LOVE for love, 
and others still will even HATE for love, 
and then will even EXPLODE for love.

We are a confused species 
still full of alternatives.
And some are far more 
constructive than others.

©Peter Bray, 2/27/07 All rights reserved


Butt-Crack Dirt Monkeys

They were a bunch of butt-crack dirt monkeys,
working on a sewer line beneath an asphalt driveway 
lined with oleanders. The hole was deep 
and I built a diversion dam to redirect the water flow 
around us and the hole.

Rudimentary assholes, working in the rain, 
butt-cracks soaked and more,
unsure of anything they were doing, 
untidy as hell, mud everywhere.

My job was to learn from them.
Mentors for awhile but definitely assholes.
Sometimes you have to have really disgusting peers
to help you crawl out of a hole in the earth
or your career or yourself.

©Peter Bray 2/21/07 all rights reserved


Minor Cowboy On the Last Bus to Nowhere 

A minor cowboy choked on hubris 
and his divisive architect 
made their way to the nation’s capital.

They macheted their competition 
with caustic remarks and attacks 
until no one with any brains was left 
standing in the central hallways.

After inauguration, they continued 
their charade of pasting superlative titles 
on flaky legislation that gutted anything 
that was previously left standing.
Kyoto Protocol among other things
was dropped from their vocabulary. 
The polar ice caps were melting 
and this administration attributed it to 
"non-science."
Stem cells talked to each other about miracles 
and no one even listened.

Old intelligence reports were reinvented 
turning floordust into caviar.
Many said, “Wow, this is great, 
who needs a Surplus, anyway?” 

In time, more cronies were stacked in office
than old root canals in need of extraction.
The odor in the beltway smelled like old, tired belts, 
yesterday’s ideas, and decaying hubris.

Wars were invented and called Freedoms.
Press conferences were called but 
fewer and fewer attended.

Towards the end credibility and competence 
sank like two stones thrown at each other.
The ochre and green Kharma truck 
slowly arrived one day and a single hand 
slipped in and turned off the last power panel.
At first no one really noticed.

The new fresh darkness was a real treat 
after all that putrid wind.
In time new seeds were sown 
on the empty lawn and Rose Garden
and fresh ideas began to sprout.

The minor cowboy and his divisive architect 
were seen on the last bus to nowhere
selling each other to no one 
to raise their last gasp of money.

Ethanol and other alternative fuels 
had been invented, big time.
The Mideast became a Disneyland attraction.
Oil was now old hat.
Osama and Saddam forgave each other 
for mutual transgressions and opened a 
free satellite TV station in Jerusalem 
selling low-cost home, college, and 
entrepreneurial business loans 
to women of all ages.
The applause was deafening.

Everyone stood and took a bow wave.

©Peter Bray, 11/30/06 All rights reserved 



Merry Xmas with a simple, throwaway song:

It's just a simple, throwaway song,
it won't say much, or take too long.

You can sing it from the back of your head 
when you're black and blue,
or when the blues are getting to you,
it's just a simple, throwaway song.

It's like the junk that comes in the mail,
you can sing it at your front door or on the trail. 
You can sing it to yourself or to a friend,
just when you think it's over, it comes back again.
It's just a simple, throwaway song.

It's kind of like a cat or a dog that needs to be pet,
the stakes are high, but you can bet,
if you can pet it once, but you'll have to pet it again.
Once you feed it, it'll always come back again,
even though, it's just a simple throwaway song.

It may stick to your shoes and follow you home, 
keep an eye on you when you're all alone.
Angels can fly and so do songs
they won't say much, or take too long.
See, it's here and then it's gone,
but then it comes back, but not for long.
It's just a simple, throwaway song.

You can add your own verse, or give them away.
Take it to Good Will on a rainy day.
Let others sing it in front of a store,
it doesn't ask for a whole lot more,
it's just a simple, throwaway song.
(Merry Xmas too!---)

©Peter Bray, 12/23/06 All rights reserved



Rocket Science

The rocket scientist didn't want
to become a rock star.
Didn't want to travel the world,
and watch each flag unfurl.

Wanted to be home in time for dinner,
watch and fix the kids' Big Wheels,
know how it feels to skate on steel wheels 
on concrete sidewalks.

Balanced his life on the corporate edge,
superficial loyalty in a bad trade for a transient dollar.
Like a camel riding through an empty desert.
Where is the real water anyway?
(Donde esta la agua?)

When that dream died its fourteenth death
he decided doing whatever needed doing
for those with real needs,
not just bottom-dollar line dancing
to an empty mirror.

Listens to Bob Dylan's "Dignity," 
"Jokerman," and "Thunder on the Mountain."
Sets the repeat key and likes it that way.

Life's a simple pleasure 
wrapped in a pound of crap 
until he found the opener to it all.

©Peter Bray, 12/8/06 All rights reserved


Landlady Away

The landlady was away,
the two old gents at the Old Vets Home
had to scrounge around for dinner. 
Big adventure comes in takeout boxes.

One could drive the tired Chevy
while making carpet repairs 
under passing thunder.

The first night they had KFC,
the second night Chinese.
By the third night they had found the rib place
but too much pepper on the fries
and the side of baked beans
tasted like badnews on the wrong side 
of the highland prairie.

By the 4th night they wondered 
when the landlady would return
and heartburn was no friend of theirs. 

They took out the garbage and the recycles
and contemplated chicken soup.
But one look at the complicated kitchen
and they drove off to find salvation.

Orange juice with or without rib fat and pills
does not make for healing nights.

©Peter Bray, 12/8/06 All rights reserved


New Leaf Sucker/Hurricane In a Box

I’ve got a new leaf sucker,
it’s a hurricane in a box.
It sucks up entire trees,
economy cars, and rocks.

I can suck up a season’s leaves
in a single day.
It’s the fastest thing 
since lightning on the Bay.

I’ve sucked up all the leaves 
from here to Brazil,
and it’s 8,000 acre-bushel bag 
I’ll never fill.

All the city lights from here 
to San Francisco begin to flicker, 
when I shove its power switch 
on to Even Quicker.

I can suck the beauty 
out of a single rose,
and I’ve got to be careful 
not to point it at my toes.

I’ve sucked the gravel 
right out of the street,
turned that Rocky Road 
into something really sweet.

I’ve pointed that sucker at a single tree,
that tree disappeared,
then reappeared fully naked
in back of me.

It’s a Handyman’s Holiday 
every time I greet 
that new leaf sucker 
that’s so complete.
It’s like a hurricane in a box,
it sucks up entire trees, 
economy cars, and rocks.

©Peter Bray, 11/17/06 All rights reserved



Poets Come

Poets come in all shapes and sizes,
aspirations and strange disguises,
complete with entry forms 
and well-earned prizes.

Some write in classic forms,
others stand in ice and think it’s warm.
Some dream of great events 
while others reflections soak in brine,
still others whisper or perform their words,
like glasses of seductive, erotic wine.

One poet I know 
stood in the middle of the street
expecting a parade to arrive.

Just in the nick of time 
a parade arrived so he didn’t 
stand there too long,
or look too silly.

Carry on with what you do,
and I’ll be the first to applaud, 
whistle or stamp my feet
as your parade passes by.


 
 
 
 
Flying Up From the Bottom...

Phoenix got nothing on me,
I fly up from the bottom
of my checkbook balance like 
an albatross trying to gather wind mass and air 
beneath its wings, like The Spruce Goose 
with Howard Hughes at the controls
in San Diego Bay, like the black crow
in the opening scenes of Walk The Line, 
had enough of this economy and culture's 
sand cans and cigarette butts so he straps 
a jetpack on his back and goes straight up 
away from the center of the earth,
like a black bamboo/radius spike out of nowhere 
to where Icarus's wax began to melt
then he levels off in the icy contrails of space...

This is no place to be for an easy lunch but 
when the truck money ran out at the bottom
of my checkbook balance forming a cushion between 
a rock and a hard place, what else was I supposed to do?
The greedy bastards in the home industry and Wall Street
telling me now their greedy speculation was so much Crap,
the US Government has to bail them out
and our house ain't worth crackers compared to the 
breadlines others are standing in.

Someday this species may get its shit together
but it'll take more than the bickering morons
in Sacramento and Washington, DC...
No longer gonna watch and wait,
got hunger on my plate...

The dumbest of our species sits on the pot
of leadership circles holding the fate of others 
in its hands and bickers thinking it's doing 
something for others but only itself again...
Stalled in low IQ-stupidity again...and again...and again...
Had enough of this Shit.
©Peter Bray 9/21/09 All rights reserved



Old Man McCain and the Carhop

He walked in the shadow of the moron
that preceded him and his age said 
that he wouldn't be around forever.
Darth Vader and the Moron ousted him
from his ascendancy 8 years before
and so this would be his last 
prairie schooner if not bus ride to the White House.

But who needs a geriatric with a moneyed wife 
and a beer enterprise if not former pills
in the corroding seat of power
along with failing mortgages, an endless war,
a sinking economy, and a stock market 
looking like the Tombstone Blues?
More tax breaks and abuses by and for the rich?
That'll fix everything, Ohboy!

Aha, invent the Plastic Carhop from Alaska.
An earmarked enterpriser who would ban books
from her own library, rifle-whip those wolves 
into aerial submission, chase those polar bears 
out of the oil fields, fire every staff member
in her way, and get a few Creationist prayers
onto every box of Post-Toasties.
And don't forget the lipstick on 
each and every hockey puck and snowcone. 
Who cares if she's only been out 
of the small town and/or oil-rich condos 
for the weekend? 
Drill everywhere for the less ingenuous.
Now we've got some candidates!
Fire up that prairie schooner!
Relight that busride to the Wh-Wh-Wh-White House!

©Peter Bray 9/16/08 All rights reserved



Persona 

He started doing fewer toilet repairs,
and started working more standing up,
less crawling on his knees.

He was singing fewer of Bob Dylan's, 
Neil Diamond's, and Paul Simon's songs 
and more of his own.
He was remembering how 
the microphone felt in his hands
and how to sing into it like the lady 
in the fourth row might be 
between the highway and The 4th 
Orgasmic Dream on Mars.

He remembered the Make Me A Star 
Shirt Shop in the mall,
the black and white spotted one 
that Dylan wore on MTV Unplugged.
He was remembering his own voice 
before the train wreck with that 
last asshole from Corporateville.

He was working on his own persona
and he would see 
where that might take him.

©Peter Bray 5/11/08 All rights reserved
 


Second Layoff of Three/Mud 2

By that time I knew how to bark 
and shut up as well
and the work was good 
and I was a happy camper.
I could have stayed there forever.

But one day after 6.5 years there,
they said the economy was falling out
if not slowing down, and they froze our salaries,
and I asked, "For how long?"

Our VP in charge of BD and boss 
said he didn't know which I took 
as a further pile of elongated crap
so I put my resume into the wind.

They laid me off in a few short weeks,
and gave me a liberal 2 months 
to phase out my work, saying I 
had been a "valued employee" and I said 
I wouldn't need that long, my new offer 
came in just a few days later.

But by that time my name was Mud 
as in Disgusted and my soon 
to be ex-employer's name
was Mud 2, as in Dirt-sucking Groundhog, 
Fever-ridden, Mangy Shitpile.
I left and never went back.

©Peter Bray, 6/18/08 All rights reserved



Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues

"The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course,
the city fathers are trying to endorse
the reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse,
but the town has no need to be nervous..."
©Bob Dylan, The Tombstone Blues

Used to be Lake Herman was a good place for a walk,
now all I hear downtown is developer's hill-leveling talk.
They've got one eye on their bottom lines, and one eye in the hills,
seems like they just can't get enough of carving up the hills...

I've got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues, 
got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues,
nothing I can't lose like the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues.

They say that Mr. Seeno has extravagant taste,
seems like Permit Violations follows him like a paste.
Oh, Boy who was it that opened up our City's doors to him?
"Environmental Violations" must be a new kind of Developer's HYMN.

'Got the Lake Herman//Seeno Project Blues, 
got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues,
nothing I can't use like the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues.

We used to have a General Plan, was good for the common man,
good for the ladies too and organizing our developmental stand.
But Seeno figures he doesn't have to comply and prefers it was up in smoke,
how many counties away is he from seein' that his is the sad joke?

'Got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues, 
got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues,
nothing I can't use like the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues.

Gonna go downtown, and stand at the podium,
some will swear it's just another Project Mad Cow Disease
and they've lost it on their sodium.
But I'd rather stand in an empty room than sing to a stagnant lake,
sitting across from The Lake Herman Highway,
humongous residential lots inclusive on the county side of the lake?!

'Got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues, 
got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues,
nothing I can't use like the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues.

East Second Street will become an artery just like the Gran Prix.
Better wear your crash helmet if you attend Semple Elementary.
Downtown becomes a ghost town, just like it was in Ghost Town 3.
Better get us a BIG box store, a couple dozen with wall-to-wall perfume,
transfer our downtown culture to the Made-from-China-&-Brought-Into-The-Hills-&-the-Walmart-BOOM-BOOM!

OH, Boy, Oh, Boy, I just can't wait, watching the ships go by from the Lake Herman
Walmart/Costco/Home Depot/18-wheeler Freightliner Parking Lot Gate!!
Who did we elect to figure out this to be our NO LONGER LITTLE TOWN fate?
Adios Little Town, once more we've got CRAP on our plate!
Call us Dublin/San Ramon/Fremont/San Jose/Wall-to-Wall Peninsula,
who needs greener grasses and an environmental buffer zone?
Is our own General Plan dying on The Lake Herman Highway?
Urban Decay downtown?? Count on it! A ghost town!
Widening of 780? 280% traffic increase on East 2nd Street?? NO THANKS!!
Whoopee, another Century Plaza Vallejo Mega Mall!! Will New and Used Car lots
be next?? Oh, Boy, we can have our own Vallejo PLAZA in the hills!!??

'Got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues, 
got the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues,
nothing I can't use like the Lake Herman/Seeno Project Blues.

(New verses to come as this charade deepens.)

©Peter Bray, 5/18/08 All rights reserved



Hubris Removal Program (HRP)

This just in:

The White House is undergoing a Hubris Removal Program (HRP)
which will be in effect for the next nine months.
Like a coat of lead, toxic and dull, the White House Lawns
and Rose Garden will be replanted and all White House floors 
will be repaired from excess chain mail, dragged uselessly 
from room to room for eight years.

Bush will be returning to the ranch where only morons will call him
to chat about How to Catch an Armadillo or Where to Stack Brush
at the ranch. Cheney will return to his perch at Halliburton 
to recount his millions earned in partially completed 
Rebuilding of Iraq Construction Projects funded by US taxpayers.

Condy Rice will be returning to Stanford 
to teach a class on Waterboarding 
where her students will be required to recite the mantra: 
"Yes We Do/No We Don't/Yes We Do/No We Don't." 
Colin Powell will open a national chain of carwashes 
where Renderings of Suspected WMD Mobile Labs 
will be given away as door prizes. 

Eventually all Bush Administration names 
will disappear from government records 
as if they never were at all. 
Disappearing ink works that way. 
Polar bears will return to the North Pole. 
New constellations will appear in the sky. 
Barack and/or Hillary will figure it all out.
McCain will open a pancake stand in New Mexico.
©Peter Bray, 5/1/08 All rights reserved
www.peterbray.org

----------------------

Good Poets Still

Go to Berkeley and fix the lady's toilet, 
she'll be a happy camper with new 
fill and flapper valves, leave her a bill 
on the kitchen counter, just like she asked.

Stop at Home Depot on the way home
and return the wrong, high-tech redwood stain
for cash and enough to buy that extra 1x8 x 6,
then to Benicia for the MGD and KFC
and to the Poet's Picnic in the park, 
wear your workclothes, it's OK. 
They know who you are, no pretensions, 
stains and all, paint spots and weeds
from weedeating last week still stuck in your pantlegs, 
holes in your working shoes, what a piece of work.

There will be good poets still, some old, some new,
who will knock your socks off, so bring your business cards,
flyers, new DVD; you can be the station break,
and now a word from our sponsors, 
always a laugh and a half-track under the April 
is Poetry Month park trees, fracturing light patterns
and dark glasses. 

Flowers still despite the decline 
in honey bees across the nation and the controversy 
of pending aerial spraying for terrorist Brown Apple Moths 
in the National Poetry Month blues. Mother Nature
still stacks herself in strange arrays, 
but there will be good poets still,
so sit down, stand up, listen and be heard.
©Peter Bray, 4/28/08 All rights reserved

-------------------------------

Leaves of Grass 2

Walt Whitman had his Leaves of Grass,
Lincoln, and the Civil War.
We've got FasTrak Passes,
Bush and Cheney and an endless war.
Condy Rice and waterboarding,
squirrels in their own darkness hoarding
another country's oil reserves
while we preserve our global warming.
We are our own dark clouds forming
from manufactured intelligence
where there was no intelligence at all.
A pheasant in a cage of our own making,
and wondering how we ever got into this mess.
Wondering what in 2009
will lead us home and to what?
We claim to be Recycling while
polar bears climb onto their disappearing ice floes
and look for another airline headed south.
Where are the bright people hiding out?
Is Washington DC just another homeless 
camp of uselessness? How about Sacramento?
An election coming up, Oh boy!
Show me the polls one more time,
and just one more pundit with the 
electronic game play arrows and traffic 
and weather forecast updates at 7 and 11.
I'll try to stay awake and believe you
while surveying the first Leaves of Grass.
And wondering how we ever got here from there.
©Peter Bray, 4/24/08 All rights reserved

-------------------------------------------

Cheap-Assed Plastic

Here where Indians not from India
used to crouch behind geologic rocks 
and lesser timing trees and watched 
the infusion of Los Conquistadores, 
seriously taller men in even taller, 
not so ultimately funny metal hats,
where Spanish land grant cattle chewed 
their morning grasses without concern 
for nighttime future commuters' exhaustion
meeting daytime's need for speed or reason.

Here I sit backwards on a toilet seat
and peer into an awkward, open white 
ceramic toilet tank, slipping my hand 
over its cold edge and unscrew 
its broken cheap-assed plastic toilet tank 
flushing handle.

I wonder how much time and/or profit 
the developer saved for himself 
by installing such a artifact and icon of 
man's inventive cheapness.

But you're right, it doesn't rust,
it lasted for more than twenty years, 
the lifetime of that Indian not from India
who fell for whiteman's lies, beads bought this land
or some other in Manhatten and we confuse 
progress for those who will pick our lettuce today 
cheaply without legal greencards,
no keys of gratitude for waiting in line at Ellis Island,
nor wink or smile from the Lady of Liberty,
given to us by the French who saved our butts before 
in our own little necessary Revolutionary War.

Cheap-assed plastic saves the day.
The new one is plastic too, but reinforced.
We may have learned greatly
not to park our cars where the vandals can
steal our handles and/or our grassy hills.
Even the county is considering a new General Plan.
How new is it and for whose benefit?
©Peter Bray, 4/16/08 All rights reserved
www.peterbray.org

--------------------

Ripped on a Tuesday/Leave that Chainsaw Alone!

I was born on a Saturday,
ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.

Bought on a Friday, sold on a Monday,
you’d think I could leave that pawnshop alone.
Deals to the left of me, leaves to the right of me,
why don’t you leave my raingutters alone?

I thought I was doin’ just fine.
Corporate life buyin’ this fine bottle of wine.
Goofballs to the left of me, dingalings to the right of me,
think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.

Guess things turned out OK.
Me, I’m a Handyman today.
Lady wants her new shed, I got my tools,
others want fine water in their new swimming pools.
Deals to the left of me, leaves to the right of me,
why don’t you leave my new raingutters alone?

Born on a Saturday, ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.

I remember you, lookin' so fine. 
Better than a breadtruck at Woolworth's five and dime.
Goofballs to the left of me, dingalings to the right of me,
think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.
Think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.

Born on a Saturday, ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.

©Peter Bray, 1/30/08 All rights reserved @65!
(4:55 am, Saturday, January 30, 1943, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
“Saturday’s child works hard for their money...” – Children’s Nursery Rhyme)



Flying into 65

Both hands on the wheel,
flying into 65.
Watching the splatter pattern 
of the trucks and the vans in front of me,
I gauge the runoff of this highway.

Will I hydroplane again today 
like in 1982 or 2007?
On the Bay Bridge moving 
sideways into other lanes
or on the Parkway, 
up on the center divider,
nearly not missing a power pole, 
but hitting it.

Now to slow down, to feel the squish 
beneath these tall rubber boots, 
rolling on rain-slicked highways.
Bay Area events, me flying into 65, 
satisfied, breathless even
to be alive and smartly slowing down
to maintain this life, precious as it is 
and fragile, vulnerable too.

Anxious eyes on the sidewalks, 
chickie and then a mother and child, 
me into the underground parking lot.
Things to do, not to hydroplane today,
but work. Flying into 65.
©Peter Bray, 1/25/08 All rights reserved



Minor Poet

He was a minor poet
though he was legally of age.
The best part of his stuff
was always on some other page.

He never won a Pushcart Prize
or a Nobel.
His greatest ship 
was a little dinghy,
and his trolley had no bell.

He nearly lost his poetic license
in an auction for $8 bucks,
but he renewed it every year
in a Benefit for Homeless Ducks.

He stirred his coffee with great passion,
he met his pets with glee,
the sparrows honorably mentioned him
on birdfeeders in his trees.

His destinations were often underplanned,
his locks had too few keys,
he was an artist and a craftsman
with knee protectors on both knees.

Daily he got older, 
weekly he got wise.
He said his greater poems
were probably underwritten under skies.
And probably undervalued by their size.
©Peter Bray, 12/29/07 All rights reserved



Ripped on a Tuesday/Leave that Chainsaw Alone!

I was born on a Saturday,
ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.

Bought on a Friday, sold on a Monday,
you’d think I could leave that pawnshop alone.
Deals to the left of me, leaves to the right of me,
why don’t you leave my raingutters alone?

I thought I was doin’ just fine.
Corporate life buyin’ this fine bottle of wine.
Goofballs to the left of me, dingalings to the right of me,
think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.

Guess things turned out OK.
Me, I’m a Handyman today.
Lady wants her new shed, I got my tools,
others want fine water in their new swimming pools.
Deals to the left of me, leaves to the right of me,
why don’t you leave my new raingutters alone?

Born on a Saturday, ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that new chainsaw alone.

I remember you, lookin' so fine. 
Better than a breadtruck at Woolworth's five and dime.
Goofballs to the left of me, dingalings to the right of me,
think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.
Think I’d better pick up my last tools and run.

Born on a Saturday, ripped on a Tuesday,
you’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.
You’d think I could leave that chainsaw alone.

©Peter Bray, 1/30/08 All rights reserved 



The Whale Bones & Tar Shop (To PSH)

1.
We all worked in a previous place, 
in a previous time.
The technology was far simpler
though the artistry and craft
were just as deep.

Oak drawing boards 
gave way to computer consoles,
PageMaker to Quark, 
cut and paste and airbrushing 
to PhotoShop. 
Art layout boards, waxed galleys 
and marked-up tissue overlays
became hard drives and megabytes.

But we were all artists then 
and still are.

Looking at your most recent stuff,
glossy and impressive as it is,
those earlier days were the days 
of whales bones and tar.

2. 
The lady said she wanted
freestanding shelves in her shed
and then she introduced me to 
her winter woodpile of fence material
under the wet and fallen leaves 
of her apple tree.

Yes, I could turn those 
redwood 2x4s into 2x2s,
rip them to size, 
bring in my powersaw 
on the tailgate of my truck, 
hose off the dirt and leaves,
rip those suckers to size and length.
Turn their freshly cut faces 
to the inside of the shed.
The first impression being
that they were freshly cut wood
having flown in from 
some lumber yard,
mine and hers.

Her second woodpile inside the shed
held drier, flatter recycled stock 
from some other event. 
Yes, they could be the flat-sided 
holders of all things.

I drove long, steel Makita-driven 
deck screws into freshly wood joints. 
One point determines a pivot point,
two points determines a straight line
of irreversible rigidity.

The whale bones and tar shop 
is still alive and doing very well.
Thank you for the opportunity 
to report on our progress. 
Art remains where we are 
or where we can find it.
©Peter Bray, 1/25/08 All rights reserved



The Candidates Debates

They rolled out the fossils
for the candidates debates,
some came on rollers, some on hangers,
some on dollies, like yesterday’s
mannequins with their lips pursed
and their hands gesturing in wild 
if not random directions: liars, 
child molesters, intelligence manipulators, 
offshore hooligans, pedophiles, 
and those were just the members of the audience.

All the polls said that margarine was up 
20¢ a pound and it was anybody’s game.

Members of the Red party were going to vote for Blue,
Blue members were going to vote Red this time,
and the Greens, Progressives, and Independents
were all looking for signs of Global Warming 
on the Moon.

It was the same old stuff, different year.
Locally, our City Council couldn’t pass 
a meaningful limit to major corporations
spending their life’s blood on 8¢ 
candidate’s nights, and winning a Big Box Store
and flattening the hills above town. 
Yippee!

No wonder those without means 
or ambition, choose to buy guns, join gangs, 
and look for other opportunities
to eat one another on the streets.
Darwin must have had a headache
with all his research.

©Peter Bray, 6/27/07 All rights reserved



Old Poet 1 & 2

1. The Old Poet returns to the mobile home park,
they shipped him in a couple of hours before dark.

He arrived inside a pinewood box,
no doors or windows, keys or locks.

The shipping label was recycled but said BULK RATE,
with advancing age, he’d lost some weight.

He was mummified in every old poem he’d wrote,
some still not bad, and others worthy of note.

But he wasn’t dead, he was just asleep,
with customer promises he’d still have to keep.

Outside in his garden he posted a future epitaph,
“This guy was always good for a coupla laughs.”
 

2. The Old Poet crawled beneath the kitchen sink,
(this wasn’t the time to eat or drink).

The 1-1/2” ABS black plastic kitchen drain line
was broken at the connection to the wall, 
a river of putrefying wastewater had leaked out 
over time to the cabinet floor, rotting it out, 
and then it leaked further down and through the wall 
and onto the garage ceiling below.

He surveyed the scene, unplugged the garbage disposal,
laid his thick, absorbent towel into the murky fluid 
and stuck his keyhole saw into the deteriorated sheetrock 
and carefully exposed the drain pipe in the wall.
As he did it he thought to himself:

“The Mac guys say they can increase the RAM in my G3,
install a System 10.3 from a DVD, and then I can download
an upgrade to 10.39 for free wirelessly, and connect 
the new HP color printer with a USB cable as well. 
How cool.”

He returned to his plumbing work, 
cleaned, dried and reglued the broken joint,
realigned the garbage disposal, the exit line and p-trap 
and installed new seals, and when dry, 
he will cover the hole in the wall 
and build a new cabinet floor as well. 
He tells all this to the tenant and then 
calls the owner with the same information 
and then goes on to his next customer.
Eventually, the day’s over. 
Different technologies have been handled 
but not mixed. Yeehaw!

©Peter Bray, 6/6/07 All rights reserved



Mish, Miners, and Open-Toed Sandals

Michelle was sometimes fragile as a ping pong ball, 
and the world seemed like a friggin’ tennis match.
Then the pots and pans of medical knowledge 
intervened, like a blacksmith shop of things to try.

Kaiser did a really good job of it, 
technology abounding, but in the end 
we realize we as humans don’t know shit 
about Shinola except that it’s black as ignorance 
and comes in a can, but so does SPAM, 
so are we supposed to eat it, 
or what do we really know anyway? 

150 years ago Pasteur discovered germs 
while the medical profession took their surgical knives 
unwashed from house call to house call
and Pasteur’s peers said he was nuts 
when he first proposed germs on the planet 
could be the root cause for multiple sicknesses.

We haven't been on the planet long enough 
to have all the answers. 
That should be our first clue.

We survive in a boot of darkness, 
and then the sun rises and we think 
we’ve discovered light.

We have miles to go before 
we discover the end of the boot 
is not a two-way street 
and that an earlier U-turn 
might have been real smart.

Another bridge falls down
and hopes for the survivors
are as wet as the river they once crossed.
Whose technology was being followed
like a solid line of approval 
all the way across that bridge
and for how many years? 

Question the authorities 
that approved the bridge
and then approved 
the death certificates 
for those they never found.

Miners are lost down some dark hole 
because profits said everything 
was just fine but it wasn’t. 

Maybe all boots of ignorance
should be open-toed sandals 
to let the ignorance out 
and the sunshine in.

Maybe the war in Iraq 
is just Jack Shit from Shinola
on the march again.

©Peter Bray, 8/12/07 All rights reserved



Berkeley Engineers/Chapter 2

There was something weird
about all Berkeley engineers,
it was like we didn’t fear anything.
Like we’d passed our concrete slump test,
and had given our calculus a run for its money.
But after graduation, things weren’t that funny.
It was like a zoo out here. 

One engineer I know grilled me so hard, 
it felt like he augered through my chest 
until I addressed every detail of my daily workload
and then he went away and my chest healed
miraculously. 

Then every bozo in his face he addressed
and then they all got out of our collective faces 
and my chest healed one more time 
and everytime thereafter.

And, we went on to do many things
including all the benefits of having been 
to and through Bezerkeley, standing. 
Whatever they are, were, or will be.
We ain’t done yet, the sun is still 
waiting for ethanol, a really bright administration,
and whatever else is in Chapter 2.

©Peter Bray, 7/21/07 All rights reserved



When Stupid People Get to Washington, DC

When stupid people get to Washington, DC
it's just proof that money can buy 
mediocrity and a lot of it. 

And then he invents a war in Iraq 
to give you oil-polluted skies 
and disappearing ice for a lifetime.
And says that stem cells are against his law.
So the next time you see a real dumbass
waving his stick at a brick in Crawford, Texas,
tell him to stay there.
©Peter Bray, 7/21/07 All rights reserved



Bill The Lizard

I was thinking about a John Prine rhyme scheme,
a Bob Dylan CD, a Paul Simon song lyric,
and Neil Diamond’s “American Popular Song,”
when the neighbor on the hill above me said,
“Your pine tree needles are in my swimming pool. 
Can we do something about it?”

I told him that that 40-foot tree 
had once been an 8” living Christmas tree
one Christmas years ago and I stuck it in the ground 
long before he ever moved in and dug his pool, 
but I agreed to trim it for him and I’ve been doing that 
for the past several weekends. 

While I did it today, I sang Paul Simon’s song lyrics, 
“...I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible,
and I’m tryin’ to keep my (neighbors) satisfied, satisfied.”

Before I did that I was watering the side yard 
with Miracle-Gro plant fertilizer when Bill The Lizard 
ran through the garden trying not to get wet
and I thought about squirting him with Miracle-Gro 
but then I realized that that wasn’t such a nice thing to do, 
so he snuck under the side garage door just in time, 
and made a U-turn and then peeked back out to look at me 
like that was a really cool thing for a lizard to do. 

That’s when I named him Bill the Lizard, and realized 
he’s just trying to make it through life also, 
eating bugs and whatever else a lizard does in the garden.
“I’m just tryin’ to keep (Bill The Lizard) satisfied, satisfied.”

©Peter Bray, 7/15/07 All rights reserved
(Except Paul Simon lyrics)



No Prizes Here Lately...

Something about my poetry just sucks,
like the diesel wind from a thousand trucks,
or the molting feathers of migrating ducks,
something about my poetry just sucks.

The latest poetry event we attended had 248 entries 
in 8 categories, one grand prize, and 49 winners in all, 
or 19.75% of the entries were winners, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes
and 3 Honorable Mentions per category. 
After we sat with anticipation through dinner and dessert,
we heard 49 names applauded as winners, some poets
repeating their walk to the podium for multiple prizes...

Hmmm, interesting I thought, I remained in my seat...
I said the F-word at least 18 times...
something about my poetry just sucks.

Last year, different contest, different restaurant,
different dinner and different dessert, I won nothing also...
Hmmm...something about my poetry just sucks...

Like the diesel wind from a thousand trucks,
molting feathers from migrating ducks,
something about my poetry just sucks....

But that’s OK, I’ll wear it like a further scar tissue on my arm, 
giving me dash and a bit of charm,
I’ll send the junkyard dog back to the farm, 
untie my hostages from the fire alarm...

I’ll send out more flyers, with notable quotes, 
find out what it takes to fuel the judges’ votes,
more erudition, esoterica, insight, similes! 
Metaphors! Onomatopoeia!

But I’m not yet ready to leave this poetic region,
or join the French Foreign Legion...
but something about my poetry just sucks...

Maybe I should become a highly-quoted brain surgeon,
or fish in the deep, coastal waters for prehistoric sturgeon.
Or search the Atlantic or Antarctica for quotable mammalian voices,
or give better thoughts to my poetic choices... 

Naw, something about my poetry just sucks...

©Peter Bray 3/23/07 All rights reserved



Poems and Tools

I feel like I was born 
with these tools in my hands
and the poems just came along 
for the ride.

You can travel as a passenger
or shotgun, but keep an eye on
the diversity of the road.
Keep your strongbox well hidden.

As age advances 
try to find safe places to nap.
Never leave a pothole 
for the unwary.
Enter often but always knock
and pay the piper.
He or she too may have 
to sing for their supper.
Applaud the audience
and try to keep them
coming back for more.

©Peter Bray 3/14/07 
All Rights Reserved


Wingnut(s) – No Wrench Required

The wingnut is a clever invention,
consisting of a threaded nut with 
protrusions on the top much like a 
Mickey Mouse hat with ears which allow for 
the turning of the nut with the fingertips, 
no wrench required. Also an endearing remark.

It also implies a certain ease of access or 
assembly/disassembly or one who might easily come 
disassembled or change one’s direction or viewpoint
quite easily, one’s occupation of rotation 
being no difficult matter. Right, left, forward,
backward, being no problem. Hence the expression,
“No problem.”

In the plural it also implies a certain loose fabrication
wherein a pilot might want to check his wingnuts
quite often, and avoid the mishap of having 
his or her aircraft tumble from the sky
and make a mess on the countryside, 
one having lost one or a few too many 
wingnuts in passing. Hence the expression, 
“Keep your wingnuts tight.”

I just checked mine, three have lost 
their threads completely and need replacing, 
one has one ear only, two are corroded 
beyond recognition, 6 have been stolen, 
misplaced or traded for gold, 
and 37 are tight and ready for flight.
I have NOT been cleared for takeoff,
which is OK, it’s raining today, 
and it’s a good day for repairs.
How are yours?

©Peter Bray 2/8/07 all rights reserved
www.peterbray.org
www.sonador.com/pedro
E-Mail: PetrBray@AOL.com



When Your Love Arrives

You may be baking cakes in the corporate sphere,
and wondering how in the hell you’re ever gonna get out of here.
When suddenly they open a brand new wing,
and the new Frosting Lady there makes your heart just sing.
You never know when your love will arrive,
you never know when your love will arrive.

You may be fishing alone at the wrong end of the pier,
and wondering why no one else ever fishes here.
When suddenly Miss Foxey arrives and shows you 
how to remove all those old knots from your old fishing line.
You never know when your love will arrive,
you never know when your love will arrive.

You may be crossing the street when your eyes collide,
with someone you know who should win First Prize!
You follow her home and sit on her porch,
and wonder if the sun is starting to scorch,
everything you ever thought about being so cool,
and maybe it’s not so bad to be such a fool, but...
you’ll never know when your love will arrive,
you’ll never know when your love will arrive.

You may be bathing in Bermuda or where the sun don’t shine,
thinking about a beer or a glass of wine,
when up drives a Porsche and a well-feathered good friend
and asks you to sing that weird song of yours again.
You never know when your love will arrive,
you never know when your love will arrive.

You may be working in Fresno or catching a train,
never knowing all the corners or the back of your brain,
wondering if things could be better or worse in Tahoe or Spain,
when up gallops Kemo Sabe with a brand new chorus and refrain,
it’s amazingly fresh, not repulsive or strained,
and you settle for your half in cash and it’s plain 
that you never know when your love will arrive,
you never know when your love will arrive.

But send me a Valentine and I’ll do the same,
and we’ll do it by e-mail and pocket 
all the money we’ll save.

©Peter Bray, 2/7/07 All rights reserved



Raised by Wolves/A CD Can Sing 

"I was raised by wolves..." she said,
and it hit me like a freight train 
on the trail of long Saturdays, 
doing Christmas cards late while 
listening to The Essential Leonard Cohen.

I'd been to Manhatten and then Berlin,
been to the Tower Song and then her 
e-mail said she was "...raised by wolves"
and Leonard sang, "...there ain't no cure for love."

I recalled myself being a lead dog on the trail 
for a thousand days in a thousand ways,
and my arsehole being nearly frozen over,
always sucking or pulling at the winds of progress; 
leaving potholes of brain-dead debris behind me,
my tail always providing a scenic cover
to the intrusions or failures 
of loose eyes behind me.

Being raised by wolves keeps us humble and aware 
of our animal virtues and our kindred behaviors;
always knowing where our tails have been 
or gone before.

Leonard Cohen is always a good one 
to take along for a ride 
anywhere a CD can sing.
The wolf pack endures. 
Jack London in or out of town 
would agree.

©Peter Bray, 12/23/06 All rights reserved



Bob Dylan, Jokerman

He's a prophet, a poet,
a musician, an artist,
a seer and a sage.
Gives you the feeling
he's been on the next page
and has returned to 
tell you about it.

Observer, philosopher, 
comedian, rhymester, 
story teller. Icon of his 
own generation.
Wears a long coat and 
guitar strap over his back.
Sometimes looks like
he's uncomfortable 
in his own skin.
Bob Dylan, Jokerman.

©Peter Bray, 11/30/06 All rights reserved



Phase 2: Crohns Disease, Cause and Cure

Before we say there’s NO CURE,
have we analyzed adequately for a CAUSE?

Did we acquire this malady
on our hooves or on our paws?

Did we acquire it from a parasite 
travelling through an orifice to the south?

Or catch it in the winds and edibles,
entering through a northern orifice or mouth?

Have we surveyed the scene,
and microscoped the tissue?

Raised any parallels, long-term patterns,
epidemiologies, or other issues?

Was it acquired from Divinity
arriving at night from a far-off star?
Or delivered by some pathogen
from a source not that far...away?

What did Dr. Crohn have to say 
before and after lending it all his name?

How many lanes, bridges and roads
have we gone down trying to ascertain the blame?

How many seconds of pasteurization at what temperature
would it take to have ALL our maladies go away...?

Tell me what ALL you know, 
and I’ll tell you what LITTLE I’ve found out to date.

©Peter Bray, 12/25/06 All rights reserved – (It’s Christmas!)



Lime Green Motorsickle

After the poetry reading
he came out to the parking lot
and climbed on his 
lime green motorsickle.

That which wasn’t 
lime green was chrome.
That which wasn’t chrome
probably stayed home.
This was a piece of highly 
functional road art.

I don’t recall whether he
kick- or button started it,
but when he left, his lime green bandana 
followed him in the wind waving.

If I die and make it to heaven
I want to go in as a lime green motorsickle,
my global warming events 
all in order or minimized,
and ride on the solar winds
near the seashore forever.

©Peter Bray, 11/16/06 All rights reserved



Second Families Abounding

We meet at the library or at the cafe 
on the waterfront, this waterfront and that waterfront,
this second family of Intensity, Obscurity, Shape Changers,
Kahunas of Zinfandel Smiles & Melmac Plates,
Infamous and not so Infamous, 
The Handy & The Willing, Lady Underwear and Here & There,
Lady Benevolent & All Good Things & Tidings, 
The Night Won’t Change Either Dear,
Traveller’s Egypt and the Nile Too, Shutter Writer,
Bang on My Drum and Watch My Lemonade Parade,
and The Natural Waterfall Too, Butterflies Make Up Her Dresses, 
Evil Candies and Sugar Cube Offerings,
Veteran’s Day Parade and Scottish Feast and
One More Over the Bowline, 
Loose Cannons Crashing Upon the Decks, 
Design Me Anything, and we do our thing, our thing, our thing, 
one more time our thing, and the time becomes 
Tahiti time, manana time, yesterday time, tomorrow time,
eternal time, reflections and projections in a mirror grandly,
rhyme time, sublime time, one more time,
and we advance by twosies and onesies, 
and sneak one in one more time,
and then we go home again
to prepare our reserves, our preserves, 
our just desserts for just one more engagement, 
in town, out of town, around towns, all towns, 
some towns, no towns, in between towns, 
across and on county lines, refined, defined, 
planed, strained, retrained pines, 
softwoods, hardwoods, stolen goods,
’57 Chevies remembered, 
and one more engagement, 
just one more engagement. 
Oh, how this beats 10,000 nights 
of the same old crap on TV. 
Novels could be this much fun 
if they weren’t so damn long, 
and we can color inside 
or outside if not beyond 
all our own lines of sight, 
night converging upon the daytime.
Seagulls, raccoons, possums, nightowls, 
leopards in tight skins, hawks and ducks all sing, 
and we can too.

©Peter Bray, 11/15/06 All rights reserved



Upside Down Cat

You can learn a lot from any chosen one,
and you can learn a lot from most everyone.
But the most you’ll learn beats all that
when you learn it from an upside down cat.

An upside down cat knows a lot about trust,
and it rarely causes anything to rust.
An upside down cat really knows how to relax.
And an upside down cat doesn’t pay much tax.

It often enjoys a much better view, 
when watching TV than either of you.
And it’s not offensive to its other peers,
and it often extends its health for years.

It gives a much more even shine to its coat,
and doesn’t effect the way it votes.
It’s the balance we’re after and an even keel,
and it’s soft underside is still really great to feel.

You can go upside down most any time of day,
and it’s precise, concise, and rarely gets in the way.
You’ll rarely hear its colleagues complain,
and the birds of the air are likely to explain that,
“We eat over there and we’re often entertained,
by the safety from that cat with the unexplained
inversion of its body through a gravitational pull,
that defies while complying without a lot of bull.”

So I suspect it has aspirations for a higher degree,
or at least public office or a candidacy
to erase poverty, neglect and disease,
when it goes upside down with the greatest of ease.

So if I’m ever missing in action or an appointment time,
I’m probably just conferring with this friend of mine,
taking down notes most religiously from an 
upside down cat who’s a mentor to me.

©Peter Bray, 10/29/06 All rights reserved
www.peterbray.org



Pukes for Nukes

Everybody wants to have their own nukular gun.
All the little pukes want their own nukular fun.

“If the big guys get ’em, why can’t we?”
“Nobody wants to be bombed pre-emptively.”

So Elvis The Impersonator in North Korea begins to shout,
and The Windbreaker Dude from Iran struts about,
sayin’ “I deserve my nukes ’cause I can’t trust you.
I wanna be a player in the Nukular Zoo.”

“All ways are always fair to all religions and all zealots too.
Who cares about the ragtag, starving masses, or those who can’t vote, 
when you’re in the Nukular Zoo?
All we need is a Nukular gun and a Delivery system too, 
even a cardboard box or a missile will do,
then we’re BIG GUNS on the Global Block just like you.”

If you’re stupid or a warmonger, it’s a great arguement.
But if you can’t recall Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, it’s even more stupid.
But if you’re blatantly stupid, you’ll even think it’s a viable alternative fuel,
especially if you were alcoholic and half-awake and not reading the NEWS then or now 
when Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island nearly went south forever.

Check the radiation still at those sites, then tell me about 
THIS BEIN’ NUKULAR stuff, while I go puke.

©Peter Bray, 10/15/06 All rights reserved 



Studied Then I Went to Bed

After Berkeley, I studied Neil Diamond, 
Paul Simon, and Leonard Cohen.
I studied Robert Frost,
Walt Whitman, and Jack London.
I studied John Hartford, John Prine, 
Graphic Design, John Fogerty, John Lennon 
and the Beatles. Jim Stafford, Joni Mitchell, 
Joan Baez, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. 
Paul Williams, Roger Miller, Pete Seeger, 
Billy Joel, John Denver, Carly Simon
and Jim Blake.
Then all my local poet friends.
Then Bob Dylan.
Jesus, I’m so tired I’m going to bed.
It ain’t easy trying to figure out
who you are. Some of this stuff
is so far beyond me, I’m an antelope 
looking for a merry-go-round. 
And got my own ticket too.

©Peter Bray, 10/22/06 All rights reserved



 

 


 
 
 
 

 

 
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