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
