New Friends

Barking dog, red hued horizon, the moon up over venus, boots muddied past the ankles, nose running, fingers stinging from standing in the frozen mud on the rim of the gorge talking to new friends, Sioux Matt and Greek Jessica, as the sun dropped below the canyon walls. They fed me artichoke dip on fancy melba toast, and we caught on fast. A jug of merlot was passed, but I told them of my cleanse and Jessica said she was a nurse, and somehow the conversation turned to colonics. In just a few minutes we covered our work (Matt is an artist with a gallery in pretty little Dixon 20 miles south), my burgeoning brewery (that sparked a flurry of conversation), Jessica's two marriages, the improbable length of the intestines, Matt's Sioux/Irish mix ("I'm the token Indian." "Really, in a place with thousands of Indians, you're the token?" "Well, for now, in this crowd." "Gotcha."), Jessica's nursing, foot cleanses, beer brewing, evil lawyers, music, Colorado, mutual friends (my friend, Anderson Khee, a Navajo artist, knows Matt well), the super bowl (consensus: Arizona), our instant likability, our astrology (me Aries, Matt Sag, Jessica Leo - a ring of fire!), our ages (we all look younger than our chrono numbers), the hope of Obama, the hard life of artists, costume psychedelic music shows, and how it would be nice to hang again sometime. How cool is that? Standing against immensity and shimmering color, the sound of a rushing, jade river 700 feet below us, the moon overhead, the hills showing their outlines, the noses, lips, foreheads and bellies, shadow raptors slow-winged and swooping over the mouth of the canyon, hovering, and the sweep of the Sangre de Cristos, with the rose petal blood of Christ lighting the snowfields under the vibrating pixie grape of the sky. New people, a circle formed without lines, a heart dropping into a cradle, faces becoming more beautiful each second we melt from the outside, as if we are being lit by the candle of the world, it's light emanating from below the horizon surrounding us. Top of the world, where the grinding of the gears tickles your feet. Sharing food, and smiles, and leading me to understand again this eden. Moments before I'd been standing on a lichens covered boulder on the north facing canyon trail, a last look at the widening river, it's blond grasses matted on the south facing side where the snow had melted off. I asked for guidance, radiated gratitude, felt for a rounded abundance, and a flow of health through my atoms. Asked for the ability to stand my ground in firm kindness and yielding peace, and to ask for what I need. And then I trudged through the ice, and then the plocking mud, mucking to my car sitting on top of the bluff, next to Matt and Jessica. Breathe deep the gathering peace, see light rise in every crease, do not fear the moody blues, for new friends can come in twos.

Couldn't resist that last part.

Afternoon Radio

a longing on the radio
the still young voice
of an aging singer
who broke us in the 70s

a piano and strings
I can't catch the words
but the sun by the couch
asks me to sit and stop

a dog from down the road
smiles at the open door
waiting for my touch
looking, wagging

he comes in on a nod
delight and wonder
and I can't resist
being a dog, too

so I grunt and wrestle
flip him over
playing on the floor
upending the coffee table

and the radio plays Seal
then the new Springsteen
as the dog sniffs around
my kitchen garbage

the songs are all sweet
and lonesome, but still
filled with old love
that never disappears

Sleepwalking in Snow

Venus blows a french horn to the rust-edged moon hanging upside down,
and the moon returns a wavering, old fiddle stroke, holding out a hand.
They are close tonight, in earshot, low to the west, riding the river,
and I find myself leaving the warm space of lights, no hat or gloves, out the door and over the wall onto the petrified snow that holds my weight even as I hop. It is like a frozen beach, textured sands blown through the centuries, down from the mountains and up the wide sage valley to the buttes and crags of Colorado. A sea of satin white waves shows as ink spilled by the stars, and the shadows of blood willows purple the pueblo slopes leading to the hidden gardens and lakes where the piping leads my heart. But I can't really hear it tonight. I look back to the moon and venus behind me, still together, lowering early, early, soon to be lost to the other side of the planet. The mountains call tonight, the dark ones that will take me in, and I keep walking, no jacket, no hat, no gloves, but walking past the place where the dogs go, no coyotes, a tiny wind on my numbing ears, and I know it is cold, but it doesn't mean anything. Past the strewn houses, into a place in between things, a non-place, there is a circle of open snow where the sage doesn't grow. I don't know where this is, and I've forgotten my house. The moon is dipping a tip below the curve, it is a Japanese red and venus is blinking back tears, she is sinking, bathed in crimson, so unlikely. And I lie down with my head to the west looking straight up to the Big Dipper and other spills and swirls of light, feeling the mountain between my legs. My head pushes into the hardened old snow and I arch back to catch one more look at that cherry ristra moon, but she's already gone. So soon. Venus, now small and wobbly, a pinprick of blue light without her playmate, crosses my eyes. I get up and dust off the ice grains and trudge a snaky line among the sage, colder than I remember, but closer to the fiddler in green.

Protecting the Kill

This will be short. I'm feisty, not in that moon spell, waters rippling from a raindrop outward to evermore. Nahhhh, I'm home, no TV, nobody around which for 5 minutes I think is good, then the next 5 I feel like a hermit freak wasting my time. I did get out of my asylum for a jaunt, late afternoon, and busted up Divisadero. It turned slap-face cold today and my fingers stung inside my crap gloves. No mud, all frozen dirt lips and glass shard snow. It's 8:19 and I'm wide eyed, too much energy to tame. I have gourmet fries in the oven, 425, the olive oil and basil baking in, hitting their point of crisp perfection. I'm hungry, so much so that I ripped into a ham shank with my bare hands (after the knife and fork failed me) and started gnawing on it like a desert wolf, the lobo. And I caught myself baring my teeth when I looked at it on the plate, trying to figure out the thickest part. Here I am in front of my computer, 7 o'clock at night, craving meat after a day of eating apples, snap peas and jalapeno jack, and I have a lamb shank, already half eaten, but cleanly so, shaved with a knife for use in a morning scramble, and I'm moving my head up and down, side to side, eying that shredded shank like I'd killed it myself. And I notice my elbows are out to the sides and my back is hunched, the muscles alert. Fuck, I was protecting my kill. Who knows what other animal, some Facebook foe or IMing hyena, would pop out of the big screen and snatch my flesh? No fucking way. So I found myself with the shank in my mouth, scraping with my front teeth and incisors, chomping, but having a hard time finding the thick payoff. It felt lousy, sloppy, crummy and my right cheek was smeared with a white streak of chilled fat. I put it down, disgusted, although the aftertaste was sweet and I thought of cubed ham, or a much larger ham I could slice into with an electric knife like lamb on a skewer for souvlaki. And then I looked around my big, minimalist-style house, and remembered I was alone, and I laughed a little, and thought as I walked the long plank to the kitchen that I'd never have man-handled a ham shank like that if I'd been with a woman, and that maybe that was the problem...you know, not being yourself. If you're a ham shank devourer, a face in the gristle motherfucker, then be it, man! And I had it resolved right there in the kitchen that I'd be that guy in my next relationship. Yes, that would make it work and lead to fat streaked sex all over the house, and especially the kitchen. But, then I realized that that was the first ham shank I'd ever eaten, indeed maybe ever seen. I'd bought it on a lark, when I was hungry, looking for something to kill and there it was at Cid's, in the refrigerated meat section with the specialty products. And I lifted it and it had heft. I looked at the price - $7.59. Hmmm, steep but it had bulk and it felt meaty. But there you go, it was my first, and I was mistaken, it was mostly bone, maybe better for hambone soup. I really have no idea. So, now I'm sated, and feeling sheepish about my ham shank, and that revelation in the kitchen is long gone, and I hardly ever eat pink meat, maybe a Denver omelet here and there. It was a one-time thing, and it's not that I'm so neat and clean and civilized with my eating, indeed I've felt the filling mouth crumbs on goatee sloppiness a lot these past years, but ham ain't my bag, really. That said, I am a wolf and I do need more kills, so I think I'll head to Cid's tomorrow, probably after my hike, and stalk the meat section, but this time with an eye toward something sliced or pounded and wrapped up tight.

Pregnant Woman

Lonely pyramids greet me
as I walk the clay road
a striding gait
into a winter wind
gray upon gray moving
over the pregnant woman
on the other side
of the black cut
where the river runs
at the bottom
feeding the trees
that knead her belly
remembering hawks
who saw the men
in skin paints
on warmer days
etch circles
in the granite
and look up
knowing
keeping
telling
spinning
fading
out

Top of Divisadero

I'm Lichen It!