Sather Gate Lindy Hop

'Night Oklahoma

for Jack Mongomery

He must have banged down out of the Big Sky,

and he must have hit hard

and rattled out all his teeth.

The black hole in his face said

"I'm from Oklahoma."

and I understood him.

"I'm from Kentucky, " I drawled

and the hole said "For real?" and chuckled

as if he knew the Dark and Bloody Ground.

The hole rambled on about

an old woman and a frog and

I realized I should be laughing.

The hole smelled like cheap,

Tennessee sour mash and

I shied away as he spoke Okie at me.

He sounded like Appalachia and lonely,

he looked like a dry river bed

and he had lightning bugs in his eyes.

He got up from the table and

went back to the doorstoop.

Some pork rinds disappeared

into the hole.

I must have looked like home to him,

must have seemed like a fishpond

or a sparrow nest, or maybe

an ear of corn off the stalk.

I should have laughed at

the old woman and the frog.

I should have said "For real?"

Later, when he vacated the stoop

he called out as he passed by my shoulder

"Good Luck, Kentucky!"

and I hollered back,

"'Night Oklahoma!"

one time i said to jack...

"i just like to picture you sleepin up there in that park

on Russian Hill, Jack, with the stars for a blanket and

wakin up with the birds singin."

and he says back to me...

"Try picturin me sleepin over there in that doorway

why don'tcha, cause that's where I'M sleepin and that's

what I'M talkin 'bout!" heh heh.

The Last Time I Wore A Dress

About My Mother's Business

I have never been about my mother's business.

She sat starving while my father fed me.

It was he who painted on my lips, one Halloween,

and told me I looked like Bette Davis,

and I went around the house screaming "WHAT A DUMP!"

What a dump.

I learned to curse like my father

and bit the hand that fed me.

I flipped my silver Zippo

for anyone who needed fire

and changed the spelling of my name

because she said I was just like him.

No one called me hers.

Sometimes, I see my father's belly

swollen, with me inside.

And now I reach for my mother's part in me.

I ask her to hold me but her arms are indifferent.

The defection was completed long ago, hers and mine.

I have never been about my mother's business,

and now I am the hungry one.

a dream

I walked the streets in a city of my own construction, wandering the nameless avenues, looking for landmarks. I spoke to people with no decernable expressions, asking directions. Their answers were nonsensical and nearly impossible to hear. Unsure of my own destination, I found myself in a district of warehouses and grids of criss-crossing railway tracks imbedded in worn blacktop. Every road decends here, in a vast plain of empty buildings and unused electrical circuits.

I went toward the nearest door, thinking, as one does in dreams, that it would lead me somewhere. As I stepped down into the deserted street off the curb, the door opened slowly outward toward me and a figure began to appear. I stopped, aware of the pounding in my chest. As the figure became more solid, my breathing became shallow and irregular. There was something familiar about the shape of the body, something distinctly, unpleasantly, familiar, and I backed away, and tripped and fell over the curb. I was so afraid that once I had connected with the solidity of the cold pavement I couldn't get up. I lay there on my stomach with my face pressed against the street. I felt someone kneel beside me and a warm palm touched my back and stayed there, exerting a gentle pressure, making it impossible for me to get up or even turn over. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt a single tear of terror slide down my face and across the bridge of my nose. While I was trying to find a scream, a face came close to my ear and began to whisper. It was the voice of a woman, soft and melifluous, chanting in my ear,"You know what I am and you know what I can do. "

I struggled to free myself like a cockroach pinned to a countertop by a toothpick. I threw my fist backward toward her face several times in an attempt to make her stop repeating those words, over an over, into my ear, "you know what I am and you know what I can do!" Finally my fist connected with the hated mouth and slipped, as if intended to choke those words down her throat, directly into it. I could feel the warm saliva covering my hand.

Suddenly, I was awake. Sitting upright in my bed, I found the scream!


Pocket change hit the hardwood floor in the room beneath me. I struggled to catch my breath as feet pounded up the stairs and down the hall toward my room. I was holding my fist in front of my face. It was wet with saliva.

1995-untitled

I write now like I used to drink,
turn words up like a bottle,
slam the shotglass down on the bar
like a curse word, shit or fuck,
whiskey or tequila, and all
in anger.

It's the same disease, brother,
the same function or dysfunction,
the same kind of disassociation,
like some sweet grenadine thing
that makes you puke that night
and have a headache the next day,

and I cannot scream,
though that is how I feel,
and I cannot cry, though the tears
wait on the rims of my lids,
I cannot eat because what I am
hungry for is not on the shelf at Safeway,

so I write like I used to drink,
throw back syntax like it was Wild Turkey,
mix metaphors and tenses like
vodka and vermouth,
tap whatever keg I can
to get it out of my body and
into the toilet,

I write like I used to drink,
like a madwoman who can't get a buzz,
like a sailor who's been out at sea too long,
like my heart is breaking,
because if I don't,

I might need a cocktail.

inuendo

now i understand the coyote,
rockets on his roller skates,
tenacious and appealing.
you toss explosives onto my desert floor
and i am easily done in.
there is a wide place in the road
and you are there
and i am on the verge
like some kind of hitchiker.
i turn the signs around
and send you in my direction,
i stand dancing as you
race toward me, your arms
reaching out in front of you,
my skin tingling
and itching to be caught up.
i am talking and laughing in circles,
ear to the ground,
listening for the sound
of your acme truck.

Periodic Visitations

Dispatch from JD
30 October 2005


Dawn comes, and we part ways once again.

My dreams becoming distant apparitions.
I turn to the warm wind for help, the wind I felt every time you held me...
As I was bathed in the light that followed on your heels

Spring is announced when the wild plants break out in a dance.
Summer comes to Uji, and in the fields are patterns of grass set out to dry
The autumn moon rises, let's celebrate its fullness.
Winter passes by, and I count off all the days and months again.

I can still see the too-distant blue sky when I close my eyes. (it was so warm.)
As I reminisce, I take your hand as I pluck the flowers and sing (there is no clue.)
Within the memories that are now coming back to me.
I'm setting out to find my way back to you.

Spring is announced when the mountain leaves break out in a dance.
Summer comes to Uji, and in the fields are patterns of grass set out to dry
The autumn moon rises, let's celebrate its fullness.
Winter passes by, and I count off all the days and months again.

Dawn comes, and we part ways once again.

My dreams becoming distant apparitions.
I turn to the warm wind for help, the wind I felt every time you held me...
As I was bathed in the light that followed on your heels

author unknown

Blues For Jeff

Last time I saw Jeff was back in '58. Or it it could have been '59. I can't remember anymore. He was sitting in his dusty, gray '51 Chevy two-door Streamline, parked in the red zone across the street from the Jazz Workshop, with his gig bag and a roughed up copy of Finnegan's Wake on the dash, his alto sax in his lap, and a bottle of wine between his feet. Dago Red, he called it. And then he smiled, like he was smiling to himself, and passed the bottle.

"Just 'cause it's cheap," he said, "don't mean it ain't no good."

Jeff was sucking on a new reed and fingering some kind of figure around the circle of fifths on his alto, without blowing in it. So he could play it in any key, he said. So his fingers would know what to do, and he wouldn't have to think about it. And the pads would open and close against the key holes in a rythm, with a soft, percussive sound, making their own kind of music.

"Sometimes they call up a tune in some weird key," he said. "Just to see if you can cut it. And you gotta be ready to blow, or else just go right on back to the woodshed." And then he said he was just hanging around, killing time, resting up for a jam session at Bop City.

"I might be blowing all night," he said. "Maybe I can line up a nice gig. Or maybe something else. You dig? I don't know if I'll get to sit in though. Too many names in town."

"I just caught Rollins at the Workshop," he said. "Sure sounds rough, man. Like he's playin' half an idea, an' then just leaves it hangin', like takin' fours with himself. Rollins oughta quit playin' in public," he said, "til he gets it together." That was before he found himself On the Bridge.

Jeff asked if I ever read Finnegan's Wake. I told him I started reading it once, but then put it down. "Because I have a hard time reading stuff I don't understand," I said. Jeff said I should just read it, and don't try to understand it.

"Just read it, man," he said, "and absorb the words. Like the way you listen to music." And then he passed the bottle, and then reached back into the back seat and started digging through the pile of clothes and books, and old newspapers, and Downbeat magazines and fakebooks, and manuscript paper, and old, broken reeds, and Tick-Tock hamburger wrappers, and empty wine bottles, and empty beer bottles, and pulled out a brand new Brew Moore record. You know, the one with the weird, purple, snaky, elephant trunk-looking thing on the cover. And then he said I could keep it. Because Brew was an old partner of his, he said, and he had a whole box of them.

"Man, I gotta get my tenor back," said Jeff. "I shoulda hocked the alto instead. I guess I shoulda known better. You get more Jobs with a tenor. You dig?"

"An' I just blew a job across the Bay," he said. "Like I'm tryin' to show the piano man the right changes to some tune, you know, an' he gets all pissed off, "cause he's the leader, an' he don't like to look stupid. So I tell him, man, like some tunes got more than three chords in 'em, an' he says if I'm such a great fuckin' genius, what am I playin' in his band for, and I should take my axe and hit the road."

"So I might be takin' off down the coast," said Jeff. "Get my tenor back and go to L.A. There's more jobs down there. I gotta get a good gig, man. Like maybe a nice studio job. Like I'm gettin' tired of just playin' rock 'n' roll blues. You dig? don't knock it though, if that's all you can get. If you don't mind gettin' paid for takin' your solos all on one note."

We laughed and sang a few one-note chourses, and finished off the wine, and then Jeff said he had to get some sleep.

"I gotta rest up for the session," he said. "I might be blowin' all night."

And that was the last time I saw Jeff. Like I say, I think it was back in '58. Or it could have been '59. I can't remember anymore. But then about a year later, I heard they found him down the Coast, sittin' in his Chevy, and there was bloody glass all over the place, and his horns were missing, and there was an empty gig bag and a book on the dash, and an empty wine bottle next to his feet.

I don't know if that's what really happened. That's all I heard, and that's all I know. But sometimes, even now, I like to get a jug of red wine and listen to that Brew Moore record he gave me. I still have it. You know, the one with the weird, purple, snaky, elephant trunk-looking thing on the cover.

And some day I'm going to try and read Finnegan's Wake once again, the way he said: "Just read it man, and absorb the words. Like the way you listen to music."

And sometimes, when I'm not thinking about anything, I find myself singing a few one-note chouruses, like a blues for Jeff.

Kenneth Leroy Hill (KL)

16 March 1939 - 20 Sept 2001

Photo Cee

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face. Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human, silly human race. On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place, if the summers change to winters, yours is no, yours is no disgrace.

-jon anderson

Terry and Cyn (The Projects), circa 1964

Trailer Park Cyn, Christmas 1969

Cyn and Steve, Winter 1977

and sometime later...Cyn & Ger, June 1, 2001

Musee D'Orsay, June 2001

Paris, Pere Lachaise, Morrison's Stone

Father Jerry and the Pilgram, at Morrison's Stone

Morrison's Stone

Sightings II

Douglas Ray Tucker stands before me
in ballcap and grin, hair nappy,
clothes lurched all to one side,
holding a cup, and says
jus' cause you have a CUP
don't mean nuthin',
I'm a man!
I'm tryin' to make some PROgress here.
I'm from Florida.
People different here.
People don't see nuthin' but the CUP.
Butchoo a different kinda woman, he says.
I got a sister who wears glasses, he says.
You might wear glasses, butchoo see better than most!
There is a God, he says.
We might meet each other
another time down the road!
Faith before reason, he says,
and keeps on grinnin',
faith
before
reason.

dixie's war

oh the battleground's littered
and the cold light is coming
and i can't help wond'ring
and you can't say why
oh i am the only
soldier worth fighting
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

here now, we are not wise enough
and we go on wanting
but the battle is killing us
and the kitchen is haunted

and the hill where i found you
burying your dead
has followed us here
and lives in your head
oh i'm not a prophet
and i can't read your signs
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

oh the day is not long enough
and the night will be falling
and there's no use resisting
when the allies are calling

oh the battleground's littered
and the cold light is coming
and i can't help wond'ring
and you won't say why
oh i am the only
soldier worth fighting
and you keep on wand'ring
away from the sky

hAve U hEarD tHe oNe aBOut tHe bRowN pApeR bAg?

I am not a part of your dying,

pace yourself and BREATHE.

There is a blue place in the night

like a brown paper bag over my head.

Your kiss is like multiplication tables

and eight parts of speech.

Don't crowd me into your spine,

that heated pool is YOUR place of worship.

I am sleepwalking on your thin ice.

Keep your eye on the ball and BREATHE,

and don't COMBUST if you can keep from it.

The blue place is lit by candles, but they don't flicker,

they absolutely DO NOT go dancing, so why would I?

If i talked like GOD, who would know me?

Who would believe tha I am not SANE,

that I have squandered EONS on the likes of you,

paid DEARLY to be here watching you writhe,

just to put my nuts in THAT bag, that STUPID brown paper bag,

BREATHE,

BREATHE!

The blue place in the night in NOT my heart,

is not an echo or a reverberation.

You MADE it with your MOANING and your INDIFFERENCE

and your EAGER grimace.

Open the window an take it in,

and take the brown paper bag, too,

and see if you can feel me then,

and remember what if felt like

to touch air.

A Rattler Hollingsworth Sighting

He nodded and blew smoke rings, picking his way throught the crowd with his talons hidden beneath a worn piece of leather jacket. Head down, eyes narrowed, he tried not to provoke greetings and positioned himself, unobtrusively, in a corner, and began to hum. It was a glacial thaw of a song that hit the ear burning and caused scars on accidental listeners. Like the jacket, it belonged solely to him. In a different kind of light, he would have been easily noticed, but here he was camoflaged in oddity and unrecognizable.

"You're gonna give us all some kind of conSUMPtion if you keep on whistling like that." she glittered at him. "Anyway, that song's been dead for 50 years,...it's startin' to STINK."

He took a breath and continued as if she hadn't spoken but she could tell he knew who she was. She'd seen the camping equipment in his room. She knew how to put up a tent. She couldn't remember how to make a fire with two sticks but she knew his song as well as she knew ones and zeros.

"How many lives have you got left?" she asked him sagely, narrowing her eyes to match his.

"Snakes don't have lives." he mumbled and continued hum-whistling.

"Neither do dogs." she said and put her hand out to touch the top of his small head.

"Oh no! Don't do that, don't DO that, that's how it starts, that's always how it starts." he whimpered in mock disgust as he stood still as a rock and allowed her fingers to fumble through his hair.

"You don't even know what you're whistling." she said, shivering, and turned to walk away. "It's Colder Than A Well-Digger's Ass," she said. "I oughta know, I WROTE it." and disappeared into the undertow of the dim river dream rain.

He stood on the street watching her fade.

"Was that Levitt Tate?" somebody asked him.

"I don't remember." he answered into the fog. "Now I gotta drink alone." he thought to himself and glided off down the wet night sidewalk, not touching the ground. "Colder than a well-digger's ass and I gotta drink alone."

Coat in a Boat

For years I went wearing
a coat that I borrowed
and would not return it
for fear of exposing
that no one could see me,
made out like a bandit,
disguised and intriguing,
I lay where I landed,

but, now and again
I would listen for something,
a fin in the wake of a boat
I remembered,
and sank like a shadow
whenever it neared me,
clear and distinctive,
like a name I was given,

sewn into the collar,
hemmed into the lining,
and time was deceiving,
the coat growing thinner,
I entered the mainstream
without ever knowing
there were rats in the galley
and no one was rowing,
there were rats in the galley
and no one was rowing.

For years I belonged
to that moth-eaten stranger,
my hair full of tangles
and no comb to pull
through the fury that gnawed
at the crumbs I let fall
from the cake I was eating
and kept on repeating
there’s a vessel afloat underneath all that coat!
there’s a vessel afloat underneath all that coat!

Choosing Sushi

the question here is

a piece at a time

or a whole ROLL-A-RAMA?

and how do you pick

when you don't know the language?

you may order MILKTOAST

if you don't know the name.

and how do you learn

to avoid the sea urchin,

the slimey, bad-textured, inedible kind?

MEN are like sushi,

they all look so pretty,

but how do you tell

if they're fresh or GONE BAD?

some are quite raw

and some cooked to excess,

and some are leftovers

that someone else had!

do you sit at a bar

or get served at a table?

can you eat with your fingers,

or is it SAFER with sticks?

futomaki or yellowtail,

tuna or mackerel,

it all smells the same,

and it all HOOKS like fish!

Playing Pool with a Stranger

I wait for him to pick up the cue.
I cannot hit hard enough to make the break.
I am a girl.
I watch as he bends his body over the table to line up the shot.
His hand goes down to that vast plane of green felt in slow motion,
and he rests the stick in the curve of his long forefinger.
He loosens his grip and swings it back and forth to make sure
it will strike the white ball in just the right spot,
swings his hair to one side, and then,

the music begins; the smack of the break
and the clackclackclack of the balls spreading
out in ripples, two, four, six all dropping with
quiet thunks into the side, corner, and middle pockets.
He runs the table.
I am not even allowed a poor attempt at competition.
This is a man's game and he plays it with grace.
He makes every shot with a mathematical certainty
that I do not possess.
I have seen this before, this quiet, electric superiority.
I have passed in and out of his field of vision a thousand times,
joking about my incompetence,
making sly comments on his prowess,
trying, half-heartedly, to pull his attention
from this game to mine
and always without success.

I might as well be ten years old, sitting at the bar,
drinking seven ounce returnables, watching my father,
instead of thirty-six watching Frank.
They are both strangers to me.
They are both immersed in a culture and camaraderie
that I do not understand,
indifferent to any female who is not
one of the guys.

For years I played pool with strangers like Frank and my father,
trying to gain access to the arithmetic of cool,
genderless and depressed because
I could never improve my game.
But tonight, I will not put my name on the board again,
tonight I will not stain my fingers with blue chalk,
and tonight I will not let Frank beat me.
I will play out the table until only the eight remains
and then, I will scratch
and take away his smug sense of self-importance.
I no longer care to be admitted into this silent, pre-arranged loss.

I will not go into this bar with you again, Daddy.

More Adventures with Rich (Japan, 2005)

I found a job in Sendai. It is about two hundred miles north of Tokyo. It has one million people so its a proper city unlike Kawagoe, which feels like Daly City. I travelled there this weekend to take care of some business and to satisfy my curiosity about what the city's vibe was. It is great. And the job I have is exactly what I am looking for. The school is very organized, it has a set curriculum and it is very laid back compared with the school I am working at now. For instance I am not allowed to fraternize with my students now. This new job has monthly BBQ with student. And the little things that are hard to convey through writing aren't present. For instance I am not allowed to drink while walking around campus. I cannot smoke on campus. I cannot sit on a desk nor lean on a desk or against the wall. This new job seems more Americanized. Also this new job is following the governments new energy saving policy of no ties for men during summer. Japan has a very strong code of conduct and no one wants to rock the boat and change a policy or habit for fear of looking different and stepping out of line in a strict hierarchical society. conformity and consensus rule. So it took PM Koizumi to allow a no tie policy. Also the last 48 hours has produced many many strange and exciting stories. Most of which only resonate within me so I will only share a few of the more bizarre moments that I am still trying to catogize.

1. Satoshi an 18 year old rambuctious student of mine wept in front of 45 fellow students becasue I am leaving. He bawled for at least ten to fifteen minutes. It may have been alcohol induced. The students invited me for a dinner party and I oblidged since technically they are not my students after the last teaching day so I would not be breaking the no socializing clause of the contract

2. Karaoke is fun and exciting even when you have not idea what is being sung because it is in Japanese

3. Japanese people put a lot of machismo pressure on each other when it comes to drinking. I was forced to chug chug chug from the pitcher of beer until I was literally on the brink of puking. After that I refused the continued offers through out the night--losing a little face with my students but retaining my own dignity.

4. Money does not equal happiness. I am here in Japan for many reasons. One of which is to save some cash. Most teaching jobs offer a furnished apartment--essentials like refridgerator, washing machine and bed. This new job I am forced to aquire these items myself and find my own apartment. AND I have to pay the key money to the landlord. Key money is like a deposit but sometimes you don't get the money back. Suffice it to say I am shelling out a lot of money, which is going against my money saving plan but for some strange reason it is not bothering me because I feel Sendai, the school and my collegues will provide me with a lot of happiness. sorry for the sappy ending

5. I first learned that the japanese love to take pictures when I was in Machu Pichu. I saw some Japs snapping shots of every damn rock there. With the advent of cameras in cell phones pictures are everywhere. And I noted this when after my first few beers at the dinner party with my students. I decided to take off my tie. My studetnts said I am like a japanese business man and should tie the tie around my head. Because I was a few beers in it took zero amount of time for me to tie that tie around my head. The next thing I know 45 cell phones being wipped out and shoved in my face. Snap. Snap. Snap. If a student emails me the picture I will send it to you

6. Bullet trains are cool and should be developed in the united states

rich

I dont exactly remember which student this is but it is similar to the almost dozen messages I have recieved from my students at TDU Hatoyama.

hi, Richard.

do you remember me??I'm sorry that mail becames late.I was very busy. because my graduation research is verybusy.I'll send you 2 picture.Richard'photo and "Omatsuri picture".....today is"Omatsuri" in Kawagoe.In English..."Festival".The festival of Japan is traditional and very happy.and, fireworks of Japan are very beautiful!!have you ever seen??It is necessary to see it.

good bye

your student and friend,

yasuko

My extraordinarily beautiful neice, Emma

August 20th, 1958 / Mercer County

On a long, still, heavy day
when a kiss tasted of salt
and sweat and the low sun
pressed the cotton to their backs and breasts
and ran in rivulets down their necks,
I filled my lungs with dog days
and sang my first breath,
raised by the smack of
a well-intentioned Baptist hand.

I came up out of the tobacco fields covered
in small red welts like chiggers under my skin,
tiny bugs of fear and paranoia that itched
for the calamine lotion of Ebenezer Baptist Church,
and I shouted out the hymns
(would you be free from the burden of sin)
while the ladies of the congregation
gave each other permanent waves
and stitched together patchwork pieces
of Vacation Bible School and come-to-jesus fabric,
biscuit-making, jam-canning women who won prizes
at fairs for their ability to produce perfect pie crusts,
while their men traded feed secrets
and hunted with howling coon dogs.

In the pitch-black country night
I lay under those redemption quilts chanting
the Twenty-third Psalm while all around me
the evangelical crickets jumped and sang,

and even they, it seemed, knew God.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W. B. Yeats