No luck of clovers here

If a man’s to charge me now

I don’t think that I could move

Blinded by the sun

The insects stand aloof

Counting blades of grass

No luck of clovers here

Each day’s a hangman’s pity

Each night’s a cross to bear

whether or not

Every morning

theres’s a woman

pruning bush, or

a bush pruning

woman, whether or not

either is real to me

it’s real to her,

that rose bush

pruned, green grass

now rising wet

in the morning dew

of chimney’s now

smoking, standing

in line at the DMV

with the DUI

unpaid, scratching lotto

old men lifting hats

scratching heads,

wondering like children

where all that hair

goes when it falls out

and if there’ll be

enough water

for the grass, in

the coming July drought,

no matter, still

does the woman prune

as the old me croon—

each mourning.

Golden

Tree lined
suburban, shadowed
street signs
stand aloof
in the quiet morning
daylight gloom
of happy homes
opened doors
and kisses. Questions
fall like flower petals
on sidewalks, cracked
by ancient roots
whose planted hands
can only tell
the difference between
early mornings
and daylights answers.
But the sky is new,
and the desert
Golden, only as old
as the moon which hangs
still as the sun
does rise over broken
glass bottles, which dress
Winnetka, asphalt
like a torn evening gown
come morning.

Through the air vents of my room

I’ve known a many artist in my day, say

Today old friend you come to mind

And how for a short time, your voice divine

Scratchy and old, though, you and I know

Age is just a number and it’s you who’d show

Me this: Dear, Gavin Heron Vante

Who needed a place to rest his weary head

For the night I offered you some bread

Where that night you had said, Ah man!

I haven’t seen this show in years, mind if I watch

Married with Children, Amen! Amen!

Then later I’d record you playing all the chords

I always had wish I could, watching your fingers

Slide and swoop through Sloop John B

I tried to sing harmonies but who was I kidding

Aloof in my eagerness to know everything and all

You had to offer and more, more, more I cried

Singing, drinking in the night like two old friends

Because we were in fact just two ageless nobodies

In the effortless night of somebodies

Giving me your time, cradling my wine

Looking through old photo’s now

I can still feel your spirit sing softly through

The air vents of my room

The next morning of course, saying farewell

Dropping you at Austin’s Coffee

Collecting your bicycle and taking the trash out for a buck

Needing my fix of early morning talkie

That I’m sure no one ever really gave a hoot about —

Now I hear you’re out of the Coma

That took you too soon like a phantom in the night

You were right when you told me

To take it easy man, oh man, Gavin Heron Van

Where there is no plan there in lies the plan

I now know the meaning of that age old saying

Those were the days, good sir, I give my praise

Sincerely,

Dave

P.S. There’s a place for you here, always

the bridge to Angel Valley

I set my intention

crossed the bridge to Angel Valley

unknowing of what was to come

but fully away of what I was leaving behind

I stood grounded, cool and calm

released of all tension

as if a lifetime had come undone.

It’s there I let go

of all those old ways of being

shed that snake skin feeling

and came back from beyond the pine

into that crystalline light

of my own healing.

With all stones cast

With all stones cast

There’s a pot still boiling

And a kettle left black

There’s a house still standing

With thinly cracked glass

There’s a kink in the line

With a reel still intact

There’s a spell in the ether

Waiting to be cast

With all stones thrown

There’s a hole full of flesh

There’s a crack in the arrow

There’s an angry protest

Each body a story, color, and time

Each arrow head sharpened, pristine, and divine

Each voice becomes voiceless, estranged, and unkind

With all stones turned

There lies not a soul

The truth is but squalor

Results are annulled

In a garden of daisies

Rest youthful and old

A graveyard of rubble

for silver and gold?

that old hotel

Each drive cross country

I’ve laughed, I have

Cried

Sang

Danced

Purged

Prayed

Lost and

Loved.

Etcetera,

etc…

So if you decide

to drive across state lines,

could you do me a solid?

Stop in Fayetteville.

See if that old hotel

is still standing,

the one I first told her I loved her,

—bedbugs and us—

before sleep took her away

and that cheap wine

nursed me tender

til morning’s

cruel light.

But how will you know

that old hotel? Well,

it’s just like all the rest now

I’m sure, remodeled to dust.

Another ghost among the many,

love’s whisper in the wind.

old friend

I look at you

like an old friend

someone I haven’t talked to in a while

and with enough time together

you find it odd

how good it feels

to speak again, and again

in the morning and at night

I’m the lull of mid afternoon

taking pieces of my certainty that aren’t yours to have

leading me to remember, why

we stopped speaking

in the first place.

Though you know I’ll listen when you call.

I couldn’t be that cruel.