After the walk in the cold
   Those dogs had stopped barking,one
         after the other,
      as if calling to
        each other.

  By then the twilight
       filled the very distant trees
      along the ridgeline
          the horizon

        Never quite seemed like embers
             to me, not then
         more like embers
     late in the night
       at the end of the camp fire
     Might seem like glowing sunsets
      like this one.

       My friend had gotten
    this picture from some guy
   he installed cable for.

    We didn't know
        just what it was
       but then,
   after
       visiting a burned out
    Tahoe mountainside
          (using the 4 wheel drive)
      It all became clear.
 
      This was a picture of the
         thickets on fire.

      The orange was not a sunset
        but flame.

           And then the photograph
          of the painting
        made me appreciate
         what I didn't recognize
          before:
              the flame.
              It had always been there
        I just didn't recognize it 
               before.

       I was listening to
    Howie Carr making
          fun of poetry and
      poet lauratte seeking
 social climbing
           icon-baiting
     lefties wanna-bees with
their deomgougic urges and
       wanting what is right
    for social
        justice.

    Doesn't all the
       space count for
          anything?
      Nothing poetic
    about creating a website
      to bang in these
      spontaneous poems
         Howie?

      If you
   read these
       as poems
     and you
     didn't
     pause
    no 
 you didn't
       pause
 at each place
where I pause
      in my thoughts
     putting this
       here
    for you
     to read
     then maybe
    just maybe
    you can't see
these as poems at all.

      If I'm not writing this
          for you
     then who am I writing it for
      dear reader?

     Isn't it possible
    that a poet like me
      isn't going to care
   if you 
      like me
     or my poems?

    Isn't my 
          indifference
    even a little bit
       poetic?

       Oh rage of rage
        of rage of life
      and worrying about things that you 
                   can't change.

   Do you try to heat the yard
      to melt the ice
    when you know that the sun will
        better do it for you?

    Oh fires to heat the passions further
     when passion doesn't need any help.

   Do you write the scree to right the wrong
       when everything is alright with
                   the world?

  If I had answers to the questions
     that I asked
    then why did I need to ask them?

      If I delete this scree so none will see
      would that be the better
           virtuosity?

  Or do I, as some would have it,
   delete the lines that don't rhyme?

  Greggory Curso
    appeared to me in a dream
       (no he didn't)
   and said that if he could get a hit of
         (no he wouldn't)
     that great big unspoken thing
     wouldn't I then go down
      and meet the Devil at a
       crossroad and . . .

   Oh what a load of crap
     to try and rhyme some truth
     through lines aloof and my
                          false poet's voice
    that comes to me without a choice.

    And if the sea did rise to the sky
  then doesn't it define where the horizon
                    starts??

   My fingers are starting to hurt and
      I haven't typed anything brillient yet.

  On a Saturday
  at the sunrise
  Out on the mounatinside
   He made a list
   of all of the things that he wanted to buy
    when he got to Heaven
      and wearing the cap he
   found in a cave
    which might have been thousands of years old
    at least in the story that he made up at the time
  and he wasn't going to accept that he had to give up 
             his dreams.
  He wouldn't do it.
     What is it for a boy to do but live the life of fantasy that
             is real?
  At least that is what he told himslef
    when he was leevemn yars old.

      Jesus
     is not the sound of 
       water


  Jesus
   is not the scent of
     roses
   
    And Jesus is not
       an nasturtium sky,
           a South Coast sunset
     at Gooseberry Island.

         

   If I had to explain
        what the poem words mean
     then you aren't in a poetic
            mood are you?
    
       If you are
          not
            in a poetic mood
        then why then
       why and what
        are you trying to buy
          by reading my
        poem pages
            and my middle aged
          rages of life
           craft
            words
            left
            on a 
           page for
          strangers to
            enjoy?

         If you don't 
               get these
        pages then
          you maybe should
                be doing
           something else

               this wasn't
         really a poem at all
        just a savage rant
           from poets gall.

      

      Best poetry I wrote on a plane . . .
         best poetry I wrote on a plane?

     The police man, just a kid really,
        on some interview show
             that's shown on 
        local cable
         and he's looking for a date
              probably a wife if
       you think about it, 
         guys like that
               all duty
           and society
         and humanity
       and it ought to be right
      don't neglect your duty . . .

       

    Railings
     along beach walls
   in cities
     On the North Shore
    Often overlook a view
       of splendor
       
    The beach 
       down below the wall
    is forbidding 
     in Winter
    at high tide
      and the furry
     of a gail

     If you wondered out drunk
        like John J might do
      out on to the jetty with the high surf
        Then the same thing
        that happened to
       him
           might happen
              to you

      I always knew that story about
         bank stocks was a lot
      of lies in that how could a 
               sot
       like him inherit
         such a great amount
          as what he said?

      and the thousand dollar
        silver certificate
    from 1892, well that
         coulda been real except
     that it wasn't as all notes
      of that type
         were redeemed
               long long ago.

      What is normal for a normal person isn't
        normal for a strange person.

  To a strange person a normal person is strange
    and the strange person is normal.

  And they would not see it like that, would they?
  They would call us abnormal.

   The whole idea of normal is a fallacy
    And what is the point of trying to concoct
    some list or poem of what it is?