1.
Just My Neighbor's Parrot

The neighbor has a parrot.
I hear it squawking in the courtyard.
It's all I hear.

No,I hear Ramon's sister distant on the phone.
It must be mere recitation for her by now,
For she gives the details all run together:
Tuesday...4:55...his house.
She pauses to permit me to say something.
I thank her and we hang up together.

She had no idea who I was.
Outside of a list Ramon must have made,
But she was going through the motions
Like a good administratrix.

The parrot had not stopped squawking,
Never stopped squawking.
What could be on it's mind,I wondered..
To make it scream so much
When I could not speak even a single word.



c.2010
t23k

Mmmm, what was on that parrot's mind I wonder.

They do squawk pretty much constantly when they're not sleeping...I understand.

obsessed said:

A lot!
the cage is big and so is parrot,
and
this parrot never sleeps.

Anyway, interesting title....must mean there are 24 of whatever.
That could take a while...lol

obsessed said:

thank you,
there are 23 more exposure's.
The working title was "The journey begins,..Snapshot's of Our Trip to the River".
I had to cut back somewhere.

2.
Here We Are at the Airport

I'd rented a burgundy Monte Carlo.
Because it was the largest car the agency had,
Because my parents always drove a Monte
They always drove a Monte,year after year.

Julian stands stiffly,arms at his side.
And beside him,in a similar pose
The camera,balanced on a wall twenty feet away
Calmly observing us
Finally makes it's comment on the scene:
A long quirr and a quick click.

We exhale,relieved.
Still without speaking,I retrieve the camera
And Julian throws our bags in the trunk.
"I hope we can find them later," he says humorlessly,
The trunk is so big.

3.
This is Jason's Street

We find too much of everything in a city
Everything except what we honestly need:space.
Space to breathe,stretch,dance,park a car...

Verticles rising,limitations of opportunity,movement
I went along narrow streets,cracked sidewalks,
like a rat through a maze with no marker.
I could take any turn
and draw the streets and sidewalks up behind me like a robe
lose myself here
Become a wild stranger there
Taking adantage of each opportunity,
Every movement.
Cash in pocket,a feral hunter on the loose.

But I take each step, a random footfall
But each in line,heel to toe,heel to toe
Leading---and I know this with a dreamer's resignation--
Leading back to the dry bones of love.

4.
Here We are Dressed to Go Out

Jason has me park the Monte
At a bank parking lot,
The only parking for blocks around Club F.

It is dark,dirty and dangerous here
And I'm lost,following meekly,
Julian and Jason ahead of me.
Shoulder to shoulder,dressed in flowers
Beneath their dark coats
Leaning into the cold wind.
I think of flowers
Clinging to twigs in the rain.

Two men are talking on the sidewalk ahead of us,
Deliberately blocking our way
We slip around them ,stepping into the gutter.
"Queers" one of them growls,
Dark,..dirty and dangerous.

5.
This Is Some People Dancing

Inside it is a different dimension
A hot steaming dancing jumble.
Angles and dancers all unreal
Jostling like kaleidescope pieces
Red shirt,blue jeans,glasses,blondes
A green hat,a black chest and spinning lights--
An absolutely silent geometry
Save for the deep,pressing pulse of the music.

We slip into the scene,new pieces of stained glass,
Lit bright from the other side.
Anonymous suddenly.
The piece I wish to be
Wanders through the colognes and sweat,
Drinking beer after beer...Faces rise..
Glistening,phototropic
Searching shadows for other faces
Lingering only long enough to recognize,
Accept or reject.

I see Julian and Jason dancing together
Like old times before me.
Shirtless and shining,among the others
Shirtless too,and shining.
Above us ,go-go boys and girls flicker
In colored strobes like candles behind colored glass.
I lean against the hard wood railing,
Beer bottle bottom on my thigh
Neck in my fist,watching.

I think of how Ramon would dance,
Slow sometimes,and sometimes in a frenzy
That seemed likely to tear him apart.
The dancers,sweating and panting to the music
Sweating and panting in love and lust together,
Sweating and panting,the dancers,torn apart
Become bones..breathing to a rythm diminuendo.


Where would Ramon be now,I wondered.

6.
This Is Us, Waiting for the Monte

We left,
Sweating with the multitudes
Seeping through the streets,along the sidewalks.
Big cat feet,disappearing into the verticals.
We make our way into the wind to the parking lot,
Where we left the Monte.
But we three stand stunned,
Staring at the tow-away warnings
Visible now from behind where the grey step van had parked.

Jason knows the address and he flags a cab.
He speaks to the man there and all I have to do is
Hand him plastic and wait outside.
Julian and Jason wait inside..sipping burned coffee
From styrofoam cups.

I feel the wind,sharp were my clothes are thinnest.
Finally the Monte comes rolling out
From behind a line of wrecks
One headlight lit defiantly,
The other dark and the bumper beneath it bent.
They claim the tow-truck driver did it,
And later he claims that the yard did.

I only want to sleep,
And wake with Julian on a morning
Just three months ago..
When waking still meant having the sweetest dreams.

7.
And This Is Ramon

All power and piss,
The Monte cruises up the winding road.
Like an airboat on the Everglades.
Windows down, cool air whips inside
Shaking the tattered directions on Julian's lap.
After a while we find Ramon's little road
And his little house clinging to it
Like a tangerine on a twig
A little orange house on the steep mountainside
Surrounded by redwoods and ferns.

We go down the creaking wood steps
Leading from the road to his house
A pair of uneven tilting flights of weathered wood,
To his long narrow porch.
There is a ratty overstuffed chair
And a small table with a cup on top.
The door opens quietly,before I even knock.
Ramon smiles slowly when he sees us .
It is the middle of the afternoon
And he is wearing a blue terrycloth robe.

8.
This Is the Blu Diamond Coffee Shop

Everybody has mashed potatoes because
"At the Blue Diamond,everything comes withum",
According to Diana,who looks like she is maduvum.
"And everyone has coffee",a good unpretentious brew
Diana serves with a minimum of splashing.

Julian,who knows Ramon as little as I know Jason,
Sips and asks him if he still writes.

Ramon nods,"But not novels anymore,
Now I write poems,...short poems:
No kiss could be the last kiss,
I said, and we kissed.
No eyes should see my eyes,
Your eyes said and looked away."
Stuff like that.
It might not mean much to many,
But I think a poem that lots of people understand
Is unfocused,like light passing through a lens.

I remembered that once Ramon was hit by lightning
And that he was blind for a month.
In his darkness, he said he felt like
He could live forever.
"No one lives forever,"I reminded him.
I wince now to think of that innocent retort,
While a sighted,dying Ramon
Looks across the worn pink flecked formica at me,
I look at Julian,so beautiful...still.

9.
A Shot of Some of the Locals

Ramon glows,cooper colored in the fading light.
He is tired and leans on my arm.
Julian and Jason walk ahead of us, chatting.

Three boys approach us,
Crowd past us on the narrow sidewalk.
"Fags" one of them barks.
"Yeah" another one echoes.
"Why don't you faggots just go home?"

Why don't you,..you children!"Ramon barked back.

The boys pause,surprised at such a reasonable response.
A couple more boys and some girls sit on a low brick wall.
Ramon turns to the tallest boy.
He wears loose jeans,a short t-shirt inspite of the cold.
His eyes are dark and deep,covered by a single brow,
Young,arrogant eyes that had not yet seen beyond
The bucket battered city limit signs.
"I know you" Ramon grins,shaking a finger at the boy.
"You're little Donny Someshit,aren't you?"
The boy is surprised that Ramon has recognized him.
"Where do you get off calling me a faggot?"
"What do you care who or what I fuck?"
"That's a pretty unnatural interest in my sex life,
Don't you think?"

The boys and girls laugh nervously.

"I hope you all get AIDS and die"
One of them yells after us.

Ramon stops and spins back at them,
Skewering each now silent one,one slowly at a time.
It is a long time before he speaks.
"No you don't",he tells them softly,
"You're to young for such evil thoughts."

It is too late.
Someone has scratched
F..A..on the driver's door,
And broken the antenna.
The last laugh,it turns out.--

10.
Here We Are at a Country Western Bar

Thursday is CW night at the Pipe.
Levis,leather and cowboy hats
Slip over white collar bodies
Like paper clothes on cardboard dolls,
Tabs folded under.

I am leaning against the patio railing
Other men lean here,steaming from inside.
They laugh,they talk ,they kiss.
Behind me,the Pipe's resort cottages
And the famous sinuous garden paths
Along the River.
But I am looking back into the bar
Through double wide,wide open French doors
To where scores of two dimensional bodies
Glide in a circle
Like tin cutouts moving around a music box.

I see Julian and Jason,not gliding but stumbling,
As Jason tries to show Julian how to two-step.

They spin among the cowboys
And the cowboys,spinning
Conceal them,then reveal them
And the cowboys,packed in jeans
weathered in the right places
Or still stiff and new
And the cowboys spinning
Their faces all hats and shadows spinning.

I see Jason standing with a young Mexican.
The boy's arms are bare,gleaming bronze
His biceps big and round,with veins standing out
Like bands to hold the muscles in.
They begin to glide.

11.
This is a Song We Heard

Once upon a time I was a wild young thing
And I loved to play the town
Wasn't a man or a fool or a fear
Could make me settle down

But I met Junior playing pool
Chased me all around the table
I chased him home when the bars all closed
And moved in as soon as I was able

REF: You'd better not laugh,better not cry
Could happen to you anytime
Don't matter how high you build your wall to
Love'll get through,yeah,love'll get through

I loved Junior every..day
And once or twice a night
Thought we were the perfect pair
And everything was just all..right

Thought we'd last forever
Carved our initials in a tree
But one cold morning just last fall
Junior took his leave of me

REF:

12.
Here We Are in the Redwoods

God,how the trees spring up like architecture:
Big and wide as buildings
Columns,walls corners,doorways,roofs.

It is a group picture:
Jason,his arm around Julian who has his arm
Around where I am supposed to be standing.
I had set the camera in the crotch of a tree,
Set the timer and run,
And tripped.
I appear as a head at the bottom of the frame
My mouth open,lunging at Julian.

Above,very far above,a lacy canopy is drawing
It's lacy shadows back and forth across
The coarse carpet of twigs and dry leaves below.

These trees live for a thousand years --
But for what?
We live for sixty seventy fifty
Forty eighty thirty ---
Who knows how many?
Who knows for what?
Slipping through the leaving leaves,very far above
The wind is whispering something that sounds like
"For each other..."

Who has heard?

Interesting story so far....your writing is fascinating
as well as criptic at times.

I'm still looking at the ceramic ashtrays/dishes
and wondering what the connection is between
them and the story. I'm sort of expecting to
see photo snapshots of each story segment in
place of them.

It's like putting together pieces of a puzzle...
sort of a mystery as such that will reveal itself
in the end.

Anyway, I hope it will...lol

obsessed said:

thank you

obsessed said:

And that's the thing...
In every life scenario,there's always a few pieces of the puzzle missing.

Did they fall on the floor?-under the rug?

Maybe someone forgot to put them in the box.

13.

This is Ramon's Garden

The sun has dropped behind Ramon's mountain,
And the big trees drape big silent shadows
Over everything
Julian and I walk in the garden:
Flowers,ferns,and herbs,...strange fragrances,
Spotted and dripping from a recent sprinkle.
We sit on a cold, rough stone bench.

Back up the path, we can see Ramon's little orange house,
Almost ground level along the hill
And into it's little dining room.
Ramon and Jason illuminated at the window seat,
Jason's arm along the windowsill near Ramon's shoulder.

Jason passes Ramon a joint.
They are speaking silently.
What could these men say to each other?
I wonder..these strangers?

Then,... Julian beside me,what can I say to him?
Now that we speak so rarely?
Sitting beside him on the cold,rough stone bench
How can I ask him how far he is from me?

Their mouths move,Ramon laughs,
Throws back his head and laughs--
I can hear him laughing even from here.
Why is it always easy for strangers
To share laughter?
What could these men be laughing about?
These strangers?

Julian and I go back inside after a while,
For it has grown cold.

tony23k said:

I know what you mean. Sometimes we really need to search for those
missing pieces. They may be very important.

tony23k said:

This is very familiar
I love that artist, whose name escapes me at the moment.

obsessed said:

Laurel Burch,a wonderful poet and artist.

obsessed said:

Not to mention painful,and can sometimes drive you insane.

tony23k said:

Mmmm...yes...but who ever said life would be easy.
I guess we have to experience pain to know joy.
It makes us stronger, maybe.... but it doesn't always feel that way.

14.
Here We are at the AIDS Benefit Carnival

I wander away from the Carnival
Leaving Julian and Jason oblivious.
I wander away from the booths
Which pander for a worthy cause
I wander along the periphery
The seam between the motley carnival lights
And the final,gentle darkness.

It is a morbid deja vu,
Gathering in country carnivals
While plagues ravage cities
Only the name of the disease has been changed
To afflict the innocent.

There is a big tent for dancing on the other side
And I hear the music like at a club
But distorted and dampened,
By the wind in the trees.

I step backtoward the Carnival,and I hear something else
A pair of heavy breathings,not six feet away.
Behind bushes I see two bodies
Just the curves of reflected carnival light
Playing along their shiny skins,
Rocking in the shadows.

obsessed said:

15.
This Is Us Dancing

We dance,following the beat though frozen in motion.
The distant clarity of the strobe
Displays our faces, fleshtones,and sweating.
Expressions of exertion and ecstacy
Like renaissance paintings of the saints.

Darkness comes--flashes
Then big brightness.
Our positions change slightly
But still we do not move
Our faces still ecstatic.

The light fires on and off
And we advance with the certain randomness
Of subatomic particles.
The music excites us,shakes us
Climbs inside and pushes inside out.
We vibrate,start to jerk and jump
But only in the dark flashes.
The light always finds us frozen--
It's the dark that makes us move.

Jason and Julian spin around each other
The gravity of their friendship
Providing some pattern of their movement.
I float nearby,circling..slowly,
The particle with the funny name
The one no one has quite put his finger on.