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.
 




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


Interim Monday

It's like doing yardwork 
for a neighbor 
at the end of the season
when you're 15 years old:

"...cut the lawns, trim the hedges,
finish the patio design, repair the fence,
groom the entire area 
and pick up after the kids..."

You're sure to be paid
because he pays on time
and he wants the place 
to look good for the buyer 
who's coming this weekend,
but it's likely that the buyer 
doesn't really doesn't give a damn 
about yards or landscaping
and next year at this time,
this place'll be a mess...
©Peter Bray, 7/3/78 All rights reserved



Mrs. Robinson and My Toner Cartridges

 
"Here's to you Mrs. Robinson..."

Office Max no longer carries 
my toner cartridge, 
how am I gonna market myself?

I went to hp. com, they no longer carry them either,
OK, my printer's 13 years old.
In it's day it was hot, today it's still warm
and functional, but low on toner...I've been busy.

"...Heaven holds a place for those who pray..."

I called the locals, they put me on hold, 
I left a voice mail, "HP printer, 4MV, 
Cartridge # C3900A,
call me back please. Pedro."

"...Put in your pantry with your cupcakes...
Jesus loves you more than you will know..."

I called the number on the old shipping box,
they've still got them they say, 
they'll try the old number too,
see if it works in their "system"...
It's going through, I have a customer ID 
number too and I'm in their computer.

"...Laugh about it, shout about it, when you've got to choose..."

They can order them, shipping's free, 
plus tax it's $164.27, 2-5 days delivery...
Amen, let's see if they send the right one...
I have an order number too, and I spoke to Christy.

Mrs. Robinson's still walking around the grounds.
"...Jolting Joe has left and gone away...
hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey...."
 

©Peter Bray, 1/10/08 All rights reserved
except those of ©Simon & Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson"



Sweeping Out the Depot 1, 2, & 3
1. 
From the remnants of a passing dream
and too little time, 
we built ourselves a depot.
And one man knew 
the jingle-jangle of money
and how to use it, 
and one man knew 
just where to put the nails.

2.
Someone did a number 
in the phone booth again
or is that pee-green smell
just the essence of 
my sweet imagination?

3.
I crawled inside the bowels
of a Greyhound bus
and slid across the skidrails
to the center of her belly.

©Peter Bray, 1972, All rights reserved


Dog Door/A SeaBee Can Always Talk to a 12-Year Old

The owner came home and 
I told him he now had a dog door.
I voiced some details to him 
as he shuttled inside to check his mail
and sweep the kitchen floor 
with a dust broom. 
My details went over the top 
of post-middle-aged head.
The dog door and dog for that matter,
were no doubt his wife's doing, 
his wife's projects. 

But their 12-year old daughter 
wanted to know if the new glass panel 
above the dog door was hinged, 
and would it open out? 

I said No, it wouldn't, it was fixed 
and showed her how to move Bailey, 
their beautiful if not rambunctious puppy 
Golden Lab/Retreiver through the new dog door, 
making it an adventure in its new life, 
no longer needing to look in or out 
through the cat door/puppy door 
for someone to let her in and out. 

I told her further she could entice 
Bailey with her dinner, put it outside 
and call her to it, and then inside, 
a few of these maneuvers and Bailey 
would forget the old, small catdoor/puppy door 
of her childhood as she also 
grew out of her puppy teeth 
and into the adult dog feet 
she had been standing in 
for the past several months.

The 12-year old absorbed my input 
like I was a wizard of creation or a swami 
or a SeaBee of illumination/construction,
new to the beaches of the Pacific in WWII 
and determined to make it a better world,
with or without a Hitler, the Japanese 
and US world conquests colliding, etc.

A Seabee can always talk to a 12-year old,
our language of enthusiasm and determination 
is just about the same. 
Bush and Cheney never figured 
that one out. 
Their days are numbered.
They have been useless,
and are over. I repeat, over.
Thank God and Christ too.

©Peter Bray, 1/22/08 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.


Dear People of Iraq

Our US and global policies under 
President George W. Bush really suck!
We have no business being in your country, 
not by HumV, depleted uranium, or truck.

Our intelligence about WMD was “cooked.”
We should have looked harder at Osama Bin Laden’s larder
of Post-9-11 creeps in his caves, and let Saddam Hussein be saved 
or deployed elsewhere by his own countrymen
or the world’s court or marketplace dealing 
with oppressive tyrants and despots, but alas.

Our neocon mindset for oil and global conquest
found it easier to outwit our dimmest wits in Washington, DC
and divert the troops from Afghanistan (Hey, we’re more than halfway there, 
the US public won’t know or care so long as it’s 
Sunday Night Football and gas prices stay low).

So off we go to cook the books about Saddam’s quest for “nukular” glory.
Aluminum tubes! George W., Condy and Dick Cheney, give me a break!
Even the former George Tenet falling on his sword wanted in on the action 
and Action Jackson himself, Colin Powell, the once proud soldier with his 
“renderings” at the UN, who believes an artist’s conception of a vegetable truck 
that coulda been a mobile weapons lab? PhotoShop can make anything 
look exciting or sinister. Hold it up to the light and look for the Disney 
watermark or trademark next time, Colin.

So send us back our war profiteers and we’ll stand down provided that
someone there will stand up with you, if that’s in your best interests. 
If the Shiites and Sunnis are embroiled in a full-blown civil war, well, 
we had one too and our people are still arguing over who should be given the vote 
or not, and we’re only 230 years old as a country. 

Who said or believed that Iraq should or could become 
a democracy in a matter of weeks or years after how many years 
of oppression under Saddam Hussein? I refer to the dimmest wits of us 
mentioned earlier above.

We are not a fully bright, species, Dear people of Iraq. Charles Darwin tried to 
point this out years ago when he compared us to bananas and those who hold bananas 
close to their chests while playing in a game of war. We haven’t got all our oars in the water, 
let alone our apples in a sack, or our marbles on our tables, and although these brief words 
won’t bring back your loved ones, ours won’t return either.

I’d appreciate your knowing that not all of us share the sentiments 
of our dimmest wits in Washington, DC. We hope and pray that the 
mid-term elections next month will serve to propel forward the 
brighter wits of the species, and thrust the others into self-imposed, 
if not early retirement or unemployment.
Do write to us, the grassroots assembly of the US. 
There are more of us here, and we can still vote.

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



Birdfeeder Logic

1. I’ve been to the frog pond,
and I’ve seen it clear through. 
I have no clue how those frogs 
do what they do.
It must be the mosquito fish 
that keeps everything aligned.
Kinda reminds me of a 
friend of mine.

2. Bird feeders are made 
for the birds, ya know?
Not made for squirrels.
So when the squirrel comes down 
through the trees to eat at the birdfeeder,
he’s likely to break at the base of things.
All his heavy words, ya know?
I don’t mind him eating here,
but I just wish he’d bring his tools with him,
and fix what he’s broken.
I’ve got enough to do.

3. I’ve got a bougainvillea explosion on my hands.
Jesus, what color they give off, with petals 
that look like soft but fragile folded paper.
Got an explosion of color on my hands.
I’ll use my best collection of black bamboo sticks
to fix it back into a corsage of color again.
And God, what a bundle of thorns 
that protect it from the likes of me.

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


5th Runner Up–In the Basement, I Love it!

We attended the Ina Coolbrith 87th Annual 
Poetry Banquet in Oakland last week 
and ate like kings and queens.
I popped the cork on our wine bottle
just as the main speaker was making a point, 
it was like an exclamation point.
I later apologized for my intrusion, 
she took it well, like a point of departure.

In my category of Short Free Verse,
there were 8 winners: 1st Prize, 2nd Prize, 3rd Prize,
and then 1-2-3-4 and 5 Honorable Mentions.
I received the 5th Honorable mention. 
If the list of winners and successes was any longer, 
we would have been eating in the basement.

My entry with improvements after the award
went like this:

No Pedigree/A Feral Cat of Verse 
(with post-contest  upgrades)

I have no pedigree for poems,
no advanced perch upon which I sit, 
I am a mongrel patchwork of coincidence,
a veterinary lab creation, a poem dog
baying at the midnight moon,
mocking even the mockingbird himself.

A feral cat of verse with talons and/or claws
scaling unevenly the barks of rejection, 
shredding them with exuberance 
and going for the cat bite-flight, the flight, 
just one more flight, just one more flight.

Wings open, dodging and soaring,
Just one more flight, now lifting off.

Make the trees open enough
for a midnight flight for a jaybird, daybird,
dogbird, junkbird and his trailer, silver crimsoned, 
to fly into, if not through,
just one more time.
Just one more time.

©Peter Bray, 10/21/06 All rights reserved



Tahiti Time

At the Cafe Voltaire on the Benicia waterfront
there’s three clocks on the wall.
One has the time in Papeete, Tahiti,
one in Benicia, and one in Paris, France.

Now you can contemplate all aspects of the globe
and just so that you don’t think we’re alone,
or ahead of our times, how many times 
can you tell time in a poem?

Our mentor sets our rounds in Tahiti time,
and we break for ten minutes, arriving back 
at the Voltaire (if not Tahiti) at ten past the break time 
just announced in Tahiti time. We can’t wait to get started.

Imagine how long the war in Iraq or Afghanistan would last 
if Congress had to convene in Iraqi time, just before the next 
bunker-busting bomb for Democracy and leaking but perennial 
oil supplies were announced to go off 
or be cut from production in Iraqi time?

Would George W. Bush and Dick Cheney make it 
back to the bunker head first through the dust and 
depleted uranium in time for the IED of a lifetime 
if they set their watches by Iraqi time?

Would the midterm elections arrive any sooner?

Time to get back to Tahiti. The next round 
of poetry is gonna start. Drop in, it’s a hoot, 
second Tuesdays of the month, while Tahiti time 
dances on the clocks on the wall.

©Peter Bray, 10/11/06 All rights reserved 



Put Me On An Ice Floe (For Ron Toryfter)

When I’m old and ready to go,
just put me on an ice floe.

Save the long faces and the I-V lines,
the anti-fibrillators and the resuscitators,
urinal bags and a thousand meds –
it’s OK to use the Arctic Foodchain Exit Plan
and just put me on an ice floe.

I can be an eskimo’s cultural icon
or a polar bear’s icy snow cone.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
and over-cooled squares to icey cubes, ya know?

Just put a Colonel Sanders chicken wing 
in my mouth and head me south (Original recipe, or course).
I’ll pretend our ’fridge was on the fritz,
or that our 100-year appliance warrantee policy 
was really the shits.
And as my temperature begins to drop,
my anxieties about failing health in old age 
will surely stop.

Jesus, it’s cold out here!
I’ll just fade to blue (then black with arctic frost). 
Think about the fantastic savings in cost!
HMOs eat your heart(s) out.
Wow! Check out the Arctic Lights!
Is that Santa Claus and his reindeer all in tights?
Adios...on...the...rocks, amigos y amigas.

©Peter Bray, 9/22/06 All rights reserved 
www.peterbray.org
www.sonador.com/pedro



Morning Serenade

Walk into a cold shower,
and stand naked until the 
steam begins to rise. 

It's a Standing Room Only crowd, 
with an audience of one. 
The wall is a microphone,
come close enough to it 
so that it can hear you breathe,
but don't knock it over.
Think about Gina Lolabrigida.

Start like an explosion, 
and then go for it:

  Colitis Blue
  Buy The Farm
  Two Right Shoes
  East Benicia Jail Song
  Methane Jane

Knock 'em dead until they're 
head-banging for more.
OK, and encore or two, 
"Life's Just a John Prine Song"
followed by "Dear Writer."

You don't have to be 
at work until 10. 
This is what we rehearse for, 
it's Concert Time!

©Peter Bray, 8/19/06 All rights reserved



Using a Stepladder Too
I didn't make it into their book 
for two years in a row, 
so I quit submitting. 
Now look for empty spaces 
above the urinal and write all day 
and all night as an alternative publisher. 
Am not wasting my time on those 
who really don't give a crap 
about what I write. 
Selectivity is a step ladder 
in a restroom used for seeing 
my really aspiring/inspiring stuff
much nearer to the ceiling.

©Peter Bray, 8/15/06 All rights reserved



 
 

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


Barking at Each Other

Maybe all the governments of the world
are nothing but a bunch of dull pack animals
running wild, barking at each other.

And maybe Darwin was right,
maybe the biggest and dullest ape 
with the most money or bananas
stands in the middle of the highway,
directing or blocking traffic
just because he can.

And the first fool sells 
the second nuclear device in the planet
to the third fool and now they all want one
because who can trust a barking dog,
running in packs or standing in the middle
of the road blocking traffic?
©Peter Bray, 12/20/07 All rights reserved



With Leonard Cohen on Highway 24

You will spend all day in some tired toilet or a tub 
or looking up into some tired and debilitated
bathroom ceiling fan, fixing it, but right now you’re 
flying down the highway with Leonard Cohen 
and Suzanne and Marianne,
and it’s a good day still, the afternoon will be 
even better still with a paycheck in the mail 
in a few days:

“Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river
and she feeds you tea and oranges that come 
all the way from China...

“Come over to the window, my little darling, 
I’d like to try to read your palm. 
I used to think I was some kind of gypsy boy 
before I let you take me home. 

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began 
to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again...” 

©Peter Bray, 12/13/07 All rights reserved 
except those © by Leonard Cohen


Your Handyman...

If you put on your lipstick
but miss your lips,
if your parakeet is too wide
at the base of his hips,
call me, I can be your Handyman.

I can fix your toilet, fix your sinks,
I can fix the world when the world just stinks.
Call me, I can be your Handyman.

All my ex's say, "Experience pays."
I can turn the night into a brighter day.
Call me I can be your Handyman.

I spent my youth in a hardware store
listening to the squeaks in its wooden floor.
Counting the threads on 1/4-20 bolts,
knowing 110 was a helluva a jolt.

Then I spent some time in the corporate sphere,
happy as hell to get out of there.
They've got a left-handed way of doing things right,
couldn't waste myself there another night.

Now when the world is all in a tizzy,
I just call up my customers who are askin', "Where is he?"
"Everything I own is squeaking or leaking..."
So call me, I can be your Handyman.

©Peter Bray, 8/24/07 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

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

www.peterbray.org
www.sonador.com/pedro



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


Poet’s Ad For Tide (At Peace With My Poetry)

I’m at peace with my poetry,
and I use Tide at the laundry.
Dispensed in small boxes
from the vending machine,
it keeps my work rags clean.

There’s no Coke machine 
or magazine rack, 
I toss my rags out 
my truck’s back.

Then I bring them in 
like a load of trash,
no credit cards or checks,
I always pay cash.

Inserted into the change machine,
it’s a Las Vegas sound,
but my rags come out clean.

I do them here and not at home,
(that’s a long story) and this is just 
a short poem.

I write these words on a religious flyer,
no doubt my words will go even higher 
as I push my quarters into the 
washer and dryer.

But if I don’t win any prizes for this verse,
that’s OK, my clean rags come out first.
Because I’m at peace with my poetry,
and I use Tide at the laundry.

©Peter Bray, 10/24/06 All rights reserved


Minor Cowboy on the Last Bus to Wherever 

A minor cowboy choked on hubris 
and his devisive 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
pasting superlative titles on flaky legislation that gutted
anything that was previously left standing.
Kyoto Protocol among other things
was dropped from their vocabulary.

Old intelligence recipes 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 came.

Towards the end credibility and competence 
sank like two stones thrown at each other.
The ochre and green Kharma truck 
slowly arrived and a single hand slipped in
and turned off the last light 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 fresh ideas 
began to sprout.

The minor cowboy and his devisive architect 
were seen on the last bus to wherever
selling each other to no one 
to raise their last gas money.

Ethanol fuel 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 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, 10/16/06 All rights reserved 



Reading Bukowski on the Waterfront
While Blue Panels Rest Upon My Rooftop
Earlier in the summer we transported the kids’ blue art panels
from the school district’s locked-up storage area
over to the A Lot of Art class area a few blocks away. 
These are (2) 4’ x 8’ panels, two sets of them,
hinged at the horizontal tops to form a long tepee to which
kids staple their art projects during the summer classes.
These classes are led by art raconteur and village art icon
and general and specific hubbub-maker, Bonnie Weidel. 

Through a series of e-mails, phonecalls and divergent schedules, 
Bonnie and I agreed that she would get the blue panels to the 
cyclone-fenced art area, and I would transport them the rest of the way 
on my truck or trailer top, back to the school district’s storage area. 

At the end of an otherwise complete handyman day 
with one hour remaining unaccounted for, I skipped the trailer hookup 
and went directly to the art area to survey the weight of the panels. 
10,000 old staples reminded me that these panels were not only blue,
but well-stapled on over the years. The former art kids had also now been 
transformed to sports enthusiasts, eager to follow their college-aged Staff personnel 
across the street to some form of soccer or volley ball area, complete with shouting, yelling,
incessant chatter, and I stood by, waiting for the din to clear, putting on my garden gloves 
from the back of the truck, to protect me from any one of those 10,000 staples.

The din clearing, I “walked” the panels, vertically, corner to corner 
around the cyclone fence, through the gated area to my waiting truck top. 
Up over the lumber rack, the scratches and staples merging into one, but not on me. 
The second unit walked and lifted just as well. No need for roping down, my speed 
would be no more than 5-10 miles per hour across the two blocks from the art area 
to the school district parking lot area where the panels were stored for the next year 
if not eternity. 

No chance. The school district parking lot had closed promptly at 4 pm, not 5 pm 
as I was led to believe, so the ropes went up on the truckload afterall. 
I will complete my mission tomorrow morning. For now, I’m headed to the waterfront 
to roll down the window, inhale some seabreeze, sip some pink lemonade from a can, 
and read some Bukowski while blue panels rest upon my rooftop. This day is over while
seagulls fly in ever random patterns known only to them, and Bukowski adds his own 
shades of blue to the panels resting above me. Art remains all things to all people, seagulls,
and Bukowski included. Rest in peace(s) to all.

 
©Peter Bray, 9/27/06 All rights reserved 
www.peterbray.org
www.sonador.com/pedro


East Benicia Jail Song © Peter Bray, 9/12/06

I think I’ve been released from the East Benicia Jail,
the warden sent a message and I got it in the mail.
It seems that there’s some locals and me that don’t agree,
so they called the big commission and they in turn called me.

They said, You can’t get to heaven walkin’ sideways in the dark.
And you can’t fuel the furnace sleepin’ with pigeons in the park.
We’re all a little crazy, and we’re all a little weird,
but all we need is love ’cause we’ve had enough of fear.

I thanked them for their wisdom and all their sage'd advice,
I knew I’d seen the light if not the fire in their eyes.
Now when I get crazy, well, I’ll know just what to do,
I’ll sing these words to you, so you will know them too:

Oh No, you can’t get to heaven walkin’ sideways in the dark.
And you can’t fuel the furnace sleepin’ with pigeons in the park.
We’re all a little crazy, and we’re all a little weird,
but all we need is love ’cause we’ve had enough of fear.

I’ve never been to Paris and I rarely get to Rome,
but if I died in Crockett, they’d probably send me home
with a road map in my pocket from the East Benicia Jail,
they’d wait upon the high tide, then set me out to sail.
And if I never made it, well, that’d probably be OK,
I’d drift along forever on the San Francisco Bay.

Because you can’t get to heaven walkin’ sideways in the dark.
And you can’t fuel the furnace sleepin’ with pigeons in the park.
We’re all a little crazy, and we’re all a little weird,
but all we need is love ’cause we’ve had enough of fear.
All we need is love, ’cause we’ve had enough of fear. 

©Peter Bray, 9/12/06 All rights reserved



A New Saw

I got a new table saw the other day,
with a 10-inch blade, blade guard,
a real rip fence, and a wheelstand
to take it just about anywhere.

Which meant that the old saw that dad gave me
maybe 20 or 30 years ago had finally chewed through its last
rusty-nailed board. I replaced its motor at least twice,
relocated its switches, blew more circuit breakers
than I recall cutting stuff with it in the backyard,
but lately the rip fence was definitely shot, 
held on by C-clamps only, and the power cord 
looked like an electrocution waiting to happen.

So I freed it from its wooden dolly base that dad made,
saved that for a back patio plant dolly base, 
and stood the old saw upside down in the trailer 
waiting for its last ride to the dump.

Upside down is best because that old saw was that heavy. 
I didn't dismember its stand, there's always some hope 
that somebody at the dump will say, "Holy Shit, that saw base 
is hot stuff, I could make something out of that."
©Peter Bray, 9/27/06 All rights reserved


You Are the Song

She said that I might write her a song.
One that she might carry along.
But all the words inside 
tumbled from my eyes 
when I said you, I said you, 
I said you are the song.

She invited me out to see her tree.
Then told me this lemon was for me.
But all the lemonade 
that Jesus ever made,
was never as thankful as me.
Some men never know what they lack.
Some men never know what they need.
But all the words inside 
tumbled from my eyes,
when I said you, I said you, 
I said you are the song.

Now if you're ever down by the river.
And you've got love to deliver.
Just tell them all the while,
and tell them with a smile,
that I said you, I said you,
I said you are the song.
That I said you, I said you,
I said you are the song.

©Peter Bray, 1994 & 2006, All rights reserved
Video recorded at Listen & Be Heard Cafe, March 2005


In Your Own Spit and Ashes

I'm walking across this subterranean garage floor, 
wonderin' how I ever got this far or deep.
63 years of fixin' shit, putting my tools away today, 
and I'm off to Ace, Home Depot, or OSH
for more parts. No more to Yardbirds, 
their closing was like dying and writing 
in your own spit and ashes,
"Now there was a good hardware store."

©Peter Bray, 8/15/06 All rights reserved 



 
 

 

 


 
 
 
 

 

 
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