The last day of June. I want to say something. What's there to say? Really?

Cell Phone Poem
Waiters are bringing wine to the table
Chardonnay - the house
we'll be leaving in a half hour

here they come
did you talk to the realtor
about closing costs?

I can see grass out the window
sprouting over my parent's graves
it's where last time

my friend's test was positive
the cancer is malignant
she wants to lop them both off.

Peace
To hear the trees tell it
would be in the rustle,
rustle in each breeze
with new growth at its heart.

To hear the birds sing it
would be a cry after dinner,
a canyon born
into purple.

To hear my love say it
would be a whole world
fogged in devices,
cleared at its breath.

Was it love?
You gave meaning to her life,
and she took that away from yours.

Gossip

About a poetry coordinator sitting beneath an umbrella
who reports so and so
is booking readings all over town
now that she's screwing your know who.

About an editor who thinks she's single
because her husband has gone
on a business trip to Italy for two weeks
while she stays home with her son.

About a manager cut and pasting grants
for a million dollar project into a Word document
who's pissed his boss doesn't know
the first thing about leadership.

About the head of armed forces in Falluja
who said Abu Ghaib happened
because an enlistee tucked his brains
up a black hood.

About the Israeli government who thinks
Palestinians are terrorists
who should go back to where they came from
or get pushed back into the sea.

About Palestinians who said
Israelis see history with one eye
and who don't understand
how a tree can die standing

even when it's been cut down.

Carnival: 24th and Mission
A blue screen of death
shut down my operating system,
the narrow escape between bed and desk
widened into the street where I found myself
first uncertain of which way to go
down the steps and then what,
without a mouse, a roller ball to guide my hand.

My feet took over,
went through the turnstile
under the water over the top
to Carnival.
Chiquita QuiroPractico
Szechewan Sapphire Photo
El Farolito Senegalese Highway
where people sit on the ledge of Wells Fargo bank
partying on fire escapes pressed to windows,
Mission Groupo
bands, schools, Filipinos, Polynesians, Bolivians,
Hunters Point, Chinatown
Aztlan Brazilian Mamas in red pasties,
I even checked out Zorro,
his black cape swirling near Vista Hermosa fashions
feathers growing from everyone's mouth, red, orange,
chunks of fruit, grilling sausages, onions
urine-watered doorways,
fire trucks and cop cars catching
women passing out.

My feet kept moving,
my feet kept dancing,
my feet kept dancing,
my feet kept dancing,
if I have to die, let it be at Carnival.