Good Luck

“Awwwwwww...What a cute dog!”

She exclaimed.

“What kind is he?”

“A Chinese Nazi!”

He replied.

“He’s  smart as hell too...”

“Do you want some good luck?”

He asked her.

“What?...”

“Do you want some good luck?”

He asked her again.

He picked up the small dog

Pulling it into his abdomen

And with his other free hand

He secured

The Chinese Nazi’s 

Small black balls

Between his fingers.

“Go ahead! Rub his balls! They’re good luck!”

“Eeeeewwwwww!!!...”

She said.

“Go ahead. He doesn’t mind.”

He assured her.

“Look how smooth and shiny they are!”

He moved them closer to her.

The mid-day sun reflected 

Off of tight dark grapes.

“Go on.”

I told her.

“It’s no big deal.”

“Noooooooo!!!” 

She said adamantly.

Good romances

Winning lottery tickets

Financial success

Unblemished skin

Fame

Recognition

Health

World travel...

All took wing.

“Hell...I’ll do it!”

I said.

I rubbed the talismans.

At 51 years of age

I’m not one to let

Good luck

Purposely

Elude me.

Truth be told

I could use it more than ever.

I finished

And took my hand away.

The man was right.

The dog didn’t mind at all.

Cicadas (Okanagana Rimosa)

Mid-August

I’m awoken 

To the noise of the annual cicadas

In the morning

Through open 

Screened windows.

Louder than the birds were 

Announcing 

The arrival of spring.

These developed adult wings

Of once silent larval insects

Sing emphatically 

Of the approaching

End of summer.

Their chorus is purposeful 

And tireless

Like the feedback

Distortion

From Hendrix’s guitar

On an overdriven amp

Invoking transition.

Cicada tymbals

High in the trees 

Encourage me

With their electric drone

To sleep longer.

Promising me everything

Is the way I left it

When I fell asleep 

Last night

To gentle rain

And Chet Baker crooning

Almost Blue

From the other side

Of summer.

Banana Seat

We all had Schwinn’s

Back then.

It was the choice bike

And if you didn’t have one

You just weren’t in.

Some were cooler than others.

Some had wide flat back tires.

Some had shifters

Or steering wheel handle bars.

There was an array of 1970’s colors.

But your own 

Was the coolest

And we’d still talk shit about it.

Mine was metallic green.

I had a silver flecked

Sparkling vinyl banana seat

With chrome sissy bars.

I attached playing cards to the spokes

With clothespins

And sounded

Almost

Like Evil Knevil

As I pedaled

At high speed

Towards a homemade repurposed plywood ramp...

Younger prospects

To our group

Involuntarily lay below

In a line

Shaking nervously

Pissing their jeans.

Morgue rule.

Just past the ramp

As I flew over them

Not knowing what would happen

If I didn’t make it.

My bike was metallic green

With a sparkling silver vinyl banana seat.

It had to be pedaled.

In my mind

I made it over 

The Grand Canyon

To fanfare

With each jump

I made.

Engines roaring

From playing cards

Held to metal spokes

With wooden clothespins.

Black ribbons of fresh tire rubber

Peeling for ten feet 

Or more

Across suburban tarmac

Hot from the sun.

2015 Perseid Meteor Shower

I had just arrived back

At home

At 1:00 in the morning

Fully prepared

To watch 

The annual passing

Of archaic meteor fragments

Flare across the night sky.

Some only the size of sand.

First discovered 

In 36 AD.

Tonight 

Would be prime viewing

For there was

No moonlight.

But I just came from a reading

And I’m drunk.

Drunk from words.

Drunk from high proof moonshine.

Drunk from people speaking words

About being drunk.

Drunk.

A man got dressed up

As an elderly woman

And read a recipe 

About

How to bake

A ‘Heavenly Angel Food Cake With A Sinful Cherry Center’.

It was hedonistic

As far as recipes go.

Another writer

Read a story 

About criminal activities 

That took place in a quarry.

It involved bulldozers

And teenage invincibility...

Bad decisions and cigarettes...

Adreneline

And mishaps.

It was very real to me.

I listened on the edge of my seat

And it brought me back 

To my childhood.

A handsome

Well-worn man

Read a poem

About 300 lesbians.

I listened to a proud poet

Talk about his son

Who chased his dream

Since he was six years old

About becoming

An aviator.

I am too drunk from all of this

To stay up now

In hopes

That I’ll see some far off trails

Of the annual fly-by’s and waves

Of Perseids.

They don’t give a shit about me!

They never have.

They have have not given a shit about me

Since 36 AD.

That itself is astonishing.

It might’ve been the perfect night to check them out...

Again.

I’ll try to wake up at five

In the morning.

Astronomists concur

That it should be optimal viewing

Barring cloud cover.

But words from fellow journeymen

Were my meteors

Tonight.

Burning through 

The black sky

On fire.

Infernos

Each one.

Moonshine

Was only

A plus.

Landscape Painter

His brush painted colors

Back onto dead lobsters

And fish

Aviary

And fauna

The dry brittle branches

That no longer bent

To the wind

The world had become

Brown and grey

Gone of pigment

One day

A day he feared 

More than his own death

He would squeeze 

The last paint

From all of his tubes

Remiss

That he could never

Return the color

To the absent leaf of a tree

Or reach 

The blue on the tip of his brush

To touch

The sky

Route 35 (Passenger Seat)

Route 35 is crowded ugly

With heat

Tire stores

Used car dealerships

Liquor outlets

Vacancies

Pool and marine supply

Sleazy hotels and motor lodges

Hard luck

Strip clubs

Psychic readers

Legion halls

Bait and tackle

Abandoned buildings

Body shops and collision repair

Shady places of worship

Trailer parks

Lost dreams

Dirty dilapidated houses

Pressed up against 

This dirty highway

It seems that every car that passes by

The occupants are chain smokers

And drinking Big Gulps

It smells of grease

In 90+ degree heat

And at certain overpasses

Low tide

We pass billboards

Advertising 

Personal injury lawyers

Bankruptcy and divorces

For $180

The fastest route

To paradise

Toll free

Just stoplight

After stoplight

This

The penance to be paid

To get to sand

And cool water

Just get me to the beach

Blue Moon (Full Moon) (2:30 AM)

I am not a scientist

Or whatever

Nor an astrologist

But I’m in my backyard

Cloaked in mineral blue light

Looking through my telescopes

At the full moon

This last night of July

First morning of August

And I can see 

Where the heavy debris

Of a cow 

Trying to jump

Over the moon

Just didn’t make it

Falling short

Creating the

Tycho Crater

Spreading schrapnel

For hundreds of miles

As the impact 

Of solid calcium

Bovine bones

Skull

And thick scarred flesh

Battered lunar bedrock

Fashioning

Mountains 

Furrows

Canyons

Gorges

And dry empty oceans

Radiating

From Ground Zero

Like vericose veins

While

I may not be

Galilei

Kepler

Ptolemy

Or Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

It’s right there

In the blue lenses

Of telescopes

I am also reminded

How good the first

Ripe peaches

Of summer taste

As I rotate the fruit

On it’s axis

Exposing the nut of the pit

The core

Syrup pouring down my chin

Throwing the center

Deep into the blue night

The earth never trembling

From it’s impact