Regardless of the election.

There’s a sewer pipe

in the dark, by the L.A. river

like a grave in the ground

where people sleep

by the highway, by the neighborhood

where pumpkins soon

will be replaced by

feasts of Turkey, stuffing, corn

and carefully locked doors,

then to be replaced by balsams and fern

white lights and tender eyes

of Christmas morning,

regardless of the hole by the L.A. river

where people sleep

live, and love—and pray, regardless

of the election, regardless

of the president

I still weep.

Do you?

LA River. Nov 7, 2020

Her Genius

We are all our own genius

aren’t we? Self-help tells us

to be selfless while the world

tells us to be tough

slowly, gradually

like a surgeon’s steel

picking apart pieces

of our sanity like a game

of Operation. We are all

children at heart, aren’t we?

When our nose’s glow red

and hairs stand on end

while our souls ignite like kerosene

flailing our arms in ecstasy

remembering the truth which

from birth was wiped clean

like a board of chalk.

We’re always trying to get that

message back, that message which

in a world or man and steel and greed

can only exist as long as love at first sight

where in the morning she lay

soundlessly asleep, bound to no one

her genius in my memory forever.