reason for living

i feel the razz the tingle
the water bumping
a silent cotton mouth
gliding in s motion
on the surface
working its way
up my spine in soft
pulsation wake up
the light glance
and reason for living
smells of chopped sage
and road kill the poison
now or never
is so sweet
that miss o’keeffe
blindly paints flowers
feint a pirouette
in the dessert sun
we copulate
in the gore of
creativity and mass
of sacred hues
plucking inspiration
and fireflies
from the wind
from the sharp stars
perplexities and
vicissitudes of
the running wolf
riding magic carpets
of geronimos’ cries
chiseling marks
on the stones
petroglyphs for
children’s fingers
singing everyday
for the turning world

bands come and go

the song was rough
a mule with a broken leg
chugging alone over boulders
a sync of a blind man
and a mute
walking through the sand
with oversized shoes
a slow go
and no traction
we are all trying
are damnest to groove
it feels like red blues
something sticky
with every beat
even the 64 par lights
are dimming and shorting
and candles flicker
in a spastic rhyme
the audience is shifting
one leg over the other
as the rain
begins out of the blue
the bartender is mixing
wrong drinks
a drop of perspiration
trickles off my chick bone
dropping to the persian rug
we’ve played this song
now it is a horrid accident
on a wet street careening
over a cliff
we all know why
we all are too lazy to admit it
why it’s old
and we don’t care
and the stench of finished
unsettles our yellow bellies
we are pros
rolling our eyes
rolling over in the grave
our spirits sneaking
out the window
for a quick one

there are tests

there is a hairline
fracture in the forehead
of my porcelain
mountain mermaid
there are compromises
there are tests
she wags her tail
and a mountain lion
gargles in
the rainy night
and prances in
the yarrow fields
the grainy crackle
of road sand
and musical flowers
under the paws
under the water
of blue eyes
my warm breath
on the nape
of her neck
the tattoo just
above her coccyx bone
i shuffle the cards
and she does a reading
there is trouble
in the house of father
there is solitude
to be recognized
calamity jane
has been beating
at my door
this camper
has been rained on
a river through the tent
water dripping
off the brim
off the straw hat
her nails on my back
taking DNA samples
everything that breaks
everything that screams
everything that is lost
is reflected on
the porcelain skin
and is graded
wakes on the water
her fin slips
under the surface
and a waning gibbous
moon slowly oscillates
passing the test

dark puppet

from each window in the camper
came a light
onto the paneled walls
angled and in corners
light bleeding in from
high low country street lamps
in a dying night
from this corner and that
annoying because we aren’t asleep
and there aren’t any curtains
so the light roams freely
above the bed
i hardly have to reach
for a respectable shadow
shockingly crisp silhouette
hand birds and dragons
talking dog horned creature
mimicking a grim dialogue
you say stop too real
you say they scare you
you move my hands into
a different shadow
you say it’s perfect now
laying beside each other
i said it could be more perfect
then i retract my statement
no it could not
nothing could be more perfect
than right now
there will never be a more perfect now
in your kiss of a thousand woman
and lioness teeth passionate
taste capricious licks
i move your face into
a different shadow
in the secondary moon
of my stoned paranoid fears
that lash out in hurtful words
that begin to cloud your mother smile
and pull the shade on your caring beam
my fingers are knotting
and shapeless
if you had just let me
work the shadows
we wouldn’t be broken
and you would be blaming
the dark puppet
not me

in the darkness of good bye

scarf skirted woman
i gaze at your cleavage
through a shawl of sheer aqua green
the pliers and hatchets
that pick at my propensity
to devour your flesh
this dead fly that i feed to the fish
this servitude that binds me to your kiss
this stumbling through chalice forest
drinking in the touch of your thigh
painted toes and rings
we meet in the ripples
of the waking pond
the denim veil clouds
when we stand erect embracing
meditating on each breath
memorizing perfume and freckles
in the fire mountain
in the grass meadow dream
elusive diamond valley
dirty and ragged
in the fresh battle of awakening
the weight of and inch that separates
our coupling
the instinct to bite
to take
and ravage in the juice
surreal lips that flash
from tongue to delirium
from the interruption that floats
like sailboats and breeze
and blood pumping in the ear
and the essences that lays just before
you leave
in the darkness of good bye
i am not that strong
to endure the dying bird
to forget the rose fragrance
to walk among the petrified heroes of war
on marble columns
i am in the instant
in the ethiopian waters bathing
washing your hair
scrubbing the monster
collecting the beautiful dust
that gathers on our embrace
that is the cricket in the night
in the walls
in the silence
smoke

summer vireos

the ethereal peeps and airy whistles
almost inaudible if you pay no attention
but they are there like sea waves
nagging the shore line
the female vireo flitters
from the aspen to the cedar
to the water spigot
to the nest with grasshopper
or fly in a fluttering feathery
flapping wing sound hovering
spying for safety
making a rapid deposit
in the young chicks beak
then back to a branch
in a routine as old as life
the four immature fledglings
are bunched together
on an inner ledge of my front porch
balancing and stretching their wings
roaring to get on with the air
shaking mites and excrement dust
down on porch chairs
a month ago I pulled the nest down
trying to discourage their activity
but the next morning the nest returned
more completed and determined
so I succumbed to that greenish-gray bird
so ensconced in maternal instinct
becoming a proxy parent vicariously
and now this morning the nest
is off the ledge and divided
part on chair part on floor
pieces left by chance
no trace of off spring
only stick debris and chick poop
my wish is that no cat got them
I wouldn’t have heard over
the thunder storm the wind
they are gone
they are peeps and airy whistles
they are on their way back
next year

my plan

my plan for solving the world’s problems
has vanished
the responsibility is not mine alone
my example is here on chico road
dirt and projecting
into a sage colored future
this new mexico sky relinquishes that
bombs and greed smell different
the only worth while explosion
is of prairie flowers
that i greedily inhale
horizon life positive
gray lumbering rain clouds
about to give more life
raining sweetness
staining the earth with sugar
fermenting in sun beams
on a rock strata and lichen schedule
performing a chico creek sonata
the plan was in jeopardy
the moment i turned east from maxwell
crossing rail tracks and canadian river
raising a dust plumb that gave chase
a silent chorus of children cheering me on
to laughlin peak and vast acreage of grama grass
the only conflict that has encroached
so far is that it is hard to tell between
the scant santa fe trail and the telephone cable trench
or the brash new barbwire boasting
a no trespassing zone that separates the road from
tall wild grass vibrating with an approaching storm
starling and crow pay no attention to such zones
the breeze is the worst violator of such zones
my little truck bustles by with its entourage of dust
and images randomly appear in my mine
of american television war and catastrophe
and before my eyes lies the warming sun
light azure sky dragon flies teeter-totter the air
rather void of mans presence
except for the postman’s truck
halted at road side box
we wave and dust dissolves our passing
at a splintered bridge and stream i stop
with my dog we shuffle down the embankment
he laps up water causing aquatic life to dart
i splash him in the heat
burying my hands in the wet sand
i am trapped in my performance
in my time and space
but not to imagine something else
between my fingers i pinch sage
and listen to it talk
and try to remember

That sudden slap sound of leather

Carrying around a baseball mitt has become habit. Not that it is some hold over from my little league days, but rather I picked up the practice from playing catch in the alley during breaks from rehearsal with a pop-rock group The Razz, I was in during the late seventies. The garage was just off Pico Boulevard near Twenty-ninth Street on the northeast side of Santa Monica College. During the breaks we would burn fast balls at each other and have to catch them or run the risk of having to fetch a run-away ball as it bounced and spun down the center of the alley along the concrete rain gutter. The activity broke up the repetition of going over song after song and gave us a chance to bullshit.
Mitts were a cinch to fine at yard sales and goodwill stores for fifty cents or a buck. Rawlins, Diamond Masters, Winners Choice, Spaulding, or just about any brand and in relatively good condition. There is something magically enticing about the leather and stitching, the smell and feel of a mitt. I was always puzzled why there are all these phrases written on mitts, like; Professional Model, Full Flex Pad, Griptite Pocket, Flex Action, Full Grain Cowhide, Nylon Stitches, Fingertip Lacing, Snap Action, and Custom Built. I can only imagine some bored player day dreaming reading the inside of his mitt when a line drive beans him on the noggin. There should be a disclaimer or something to the effect that reads, "Keep your eye on the ball."
After the years I have become an enthusiast and keep a pair of gloves in the back seat of the car just incase I get a hankering to throw a ball. My friends think it quite a novelty when I produce the mitts and insist that we pitch a ball back and forth. After a spell we get further apart and the ball is thrown faster and wilder. Before long they’re hooked and every time we get together out come the gloves.
There are the sounds the ball makes when it hits the mitt. A smack of satisfaction. A feel of fluidity. A link to Americana sports. The easy conversation that ensues. A reason to be out under the blue sky. That undercurrent competitiveness that creeps into to the fast ball. I have to keep my index finger untucked and exposed on the outside of the mitt because it starts to throb after awhile.
You can tell allot from the way a person throws a ball and how they catch. I secretly count how many times the ball passes between us without dropping.
The relationship and harmony of keeping the ball in the mitt. I prefer a hard ball. As it zeros in on you. That sudden slap sound of leather.

night tigers

holy light
a trillion candle illuminant
in icy cold clear blackish
conduit diaphanous gown
who is the lonelier
crisscrossing in the sky
on the earth
stepping out of shadows
shadows cast by earthly things
who is watching who
crisscrossing the earth
stepping out to gaze
catching a moon tan
all the eyes that dream at you
all the wishes that reach your valleys
all the love meteors that crash land
all the craters filled with hearts
all the troubadours in voiceless space
all burning burning all
smoking crisscrossing flames
a million cry sparklers in a panic
in a crowded galactic echo
rain down with pain
flaming running to the flaming
burning burning burning
it must be the scent you give off
some designer pheromone
some smell so deeply entrenched
so warm blood
radiantly stabbing
so hauntingly tasteful
resisting is pointless
running to the flame
flaming wings ecstasy flaming
eyes glowing lost forever lost
flaming in all direction lost
all in the fascination canyons
all with the night painted on their face
all holding the flame to their skin
all grinding in the wax
all crisscrossing in the sky
burning burning burning
vision of night tigers
eating each other

in a dosing wait

that secure familiar
water chop sound
rainbirds in a grass dance
morning traffic whizzing by
my porch dog sleeping cockatiel singing
contemplating thirty ways to save on gas
during my window of opportunity to
water the front lawn adhering to the
town water time restrictions
the memorial sky rattles with the
grown of training military jet flights
and red white and blue baying
in the neighborhood
military force is used when
absolutely necessary
so says the president
absolutely necessary for who?
i remember a political science quote
absolute power corrupts absolutely
are there absolutely no other alternatives?
the richest one percent of americans
have a grave responsibility
are they up to it?
are they virtuous?
or is it a case of more money than perspective?
corruption should be relegated to rusty pipes
and not the infrastructure of a society
corruption is cancer
but cancer can be profitable
is it a new philosophy?
something’s are better left not fixed?
are these philosophers running the country?
there are a lot of sleeping dogs
on porches this weekend
hiding from the heat
listening to rainbirds singing
in a dosing wait
for the war to end


Copyright © 2006 Peter Burg