Sunday Thoughts
Some poets write with speed
As if trying to stay one step
Ahead of death
Some write with the precision
Of a tailor
Wanting each line to be a perfect fit
Some poets toy with poems
Using each word as a building block
Some write hoping for a literary reputation
Some with the hope of luring women
To their bed
Today a poet editor invited me
To submit a poem on fame
I’d ask him for money
But long ago gave away my soul for free
Being a poet
I’m already a millionaire
Taking a Walk in Noe Valley
Faceless people pass by
Eyes glued to the ground
Every other one with a cell phone
Stuck in their ears
I eye the pretty young girl sitting
At an outside café table
Wearing designer shades
Oblivious to the longhaired young man
Putting down his “Jesus Saves” sign
Open sandals tap dancing a message
Only he can hear
As punch-drunk elderly man curses
Into the palm of his hand
Looking like an aged jockey
Longing for one final ride
On a magnificent horse that
Crosses the finish line without
Breaking a sweat
Mexico November 2008
Alone in my hotel room
In Mexico, thirty-six hours
Before my flight back
To San Francisco
A hundred blank poems
Rattling around inside my head
I can turn each one
Into paper airplanes
Fly each one to imaginary places
Or write poems on them in vivid old
Mexico song rhythms
If I could draw
I’d draw a rainbow picture
Of beautiful Indian women
With faces brown as earth
Soon I’ll return to San Francisco
City of dreamers drunkards
And lonely lovers
I will turn these blank pages
Into poems fished from the
Pond of my memory bank
Baited with the history of old
Mexico
