going to the dentist in Nogalles, Sonora

crossing the border
there’s a dirty little triangular piece
of concrete and ground
beside a building where
like a premoniton of the beggars blind musicians street
peddlers and
whores to
follow there is
a young boy
in bronze
running
one foot on the ground the other flung back
school books flapping beside
mouth open face flung up and back
no inscription no artist credits no explanation
of what he is running from or to
the dentist asks if I’m nervous
I say yes
because your teeth grind at night he says as HE
grinds my teeth
to put buildup on them
my legs & arms sweat
he offers novocaine
I refuse I figure I’ve done too much
escaping and pain is one of the few
real things left he
grinds away laughing
at the face I make he makes
a nightguard for me shakes
my
hand looking right thru my
grinding
teeth to my dream self that lives in the same
impoverished country
he does I walk
back across the border feeling
nameless unimportant the guard
doesn’t even bother
questioning me
later
back in Tucson I ask the woman working
the juice bar why people
grind their teeth she says
it’s all the little things
we stuff and carry
what can you do about it I ask
the fat woman on my left says
prayer and meditation
points and says the left side of her teeth
is worn down from it I think
of all the things I could not and can not say
in relationships piling up until
they hang off me like books
I can’t read
for running in
the stress of life the substance of
human disagreement so
impossible to argue
it turns to
stone in our dreams and we
destroy our teeth trying
to eat it

movie reviews

CRASH (by David Croenenberg) (movie review)

just when you think you have it all
together
some kind of rage/despair
comes up
like semen like salmon
like the meal you made---like black widow preying mantis—of yr. mate—comes up
like the way it hurts to be
touched, embraced, and then
NOT
affection
inviting
imitation
TAKING
OUTWARD back to its own goal
line leaving some lone
some scrawled little love
note from
the underground
like just get
the fucking ratshit hell
out of
here BAM! & suddenly
the sirens
are in full
passion red lights flashing all the heart
beat
calendars crossed
off firemen with those big
hoses between their
legs jaws of
life red lips of
open
wounds suddenly
you may see a
stranger the moment
itself open
ing into
eternity and
nothing and
the scars
we leave
on those
we love

When The Legends Die
the old alchy busted broncbuster asks
his young orphan Cree student
"You like it when the crowd
roars and claps for you...you
like that?"
"Yeah!"
yeah like they know
something more
than your pet bear and the songs
of the grantfather trees
and the bird sounds
by the creek everything you loved
torn from you
and a thousand people screaming
for cheap thrills
can fix it


CASTAWAY

DIFFICULT
debates with stuffed
volleyball sound
of the ocean silent
music dances with 4 sides
of the question and 2 sides
of a porta john
ripping the sky down
a line thru
yr hand to the
sand ripping the
surf and you out
to sea out of
the picture of
yr own life flowing
on without
you yr wife
is a whale
eye staring
at you at
nite language
only works by
day

Whale Rider (some priceless scenes of Maori culture)

Walkabout (young male aborigine on his first vision quest, meets white woman, a classic tale of knight meets damsel in distress, slays dragon, gets eaten by damsel) (very funny Margaret Mead, what do you do for an encore?)

Night At The Opera (Marxism at its best, I love the scnes where the singers are singing with scenes constantly shifting behind them, & everybody's chasing everybody else up & down the flyloft)

Birdman Of Alcatraz (birds humanizing people, moral: never argue with an animal who's more intelligent than you are)

Solaris (the indestructability of dreams)

Man Facing South East (crazy people know shit too)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (ditto)

The Rain People
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
You wake up one morning
don’t kno the person yr living with
get in the car and just drive like a lunatic
phonecalls from glass walls the lights of
towns and the wind
blowing thru you
what the hell’s wrong with you woman, pregnant
leaving yr husband and all that cruel strength
that used to turn you on, hooking up
with a retarded football player
so stupid he sets caged animals free
searching for god in lost motels
pennsylvania turnpike, 1967,
don’t you know the story yet, we’re living in history
life won’t tell you
a god damned thing, nothing
gives in, that’s the rule,
putting on lipstick in the rear view
mirror of a 62 Pontiac Bonneville
for a date with a cop
his daughter running around the trailer park
with other kids peekin in windows
learning how fullashit you grownups are
the cop’s worse than yr husband
the retard attacks him gets shot by the cop’s
daughter
now yr a rain people
the sun shines right thru you, you’re a real gone
baby, baby, happiness
was always too much to ask but
some crazy fuckers will always
try to break free
and end up dying out there
searching for some kindness
they can’t even explain and only tragedy
can bring

Being John Malkovich
was a tour de farce
I’m glad he gets around.

Radio Days
Long Island before we looked in the mirror
when it was only the Germans we had to fear
life having it’s way
with your lonely aunt singing
In USO clubs
"Why’d you have to take the sunshine?"
olive drab
tinkly piano
tommy dorsey in the
darkness of history smell of the ocean
the elevated clickety clack back
to the shack jack
all that time out there
beyond this little island dream
where we can only be
what we seem

Ghost Dog
samurai = gangbanger=samurai
must not think do you think
that works
in Iraq

Monkey Business
life is like a begonia
nothing is too silly when you live
in Freedonia

Down By Law
Makes you wanna get drunk
and drive a Jaguar
with a dead body in it
across town at 2:30 AM
and just keep on going
down that long road
to nowhere

Places In The Heart
reach out to somebody to fill
that old heartache
life moves them on
and on
cotton waves
in the sun

CRASH (by David Croenenberg) (movie review)

just when you think you have it all
together
some kind of rage/despair
comes up
like semen like salmon
like the meal you made---like black widow preying mantis—of yr. mate—comes up
like the way it hurts to be
touched, embraced, and then
NOT
affection
inviting
imitation
TAKING
OUTWARD back to its own goal
line leaving some lone
some scrawled little love
note from
the underground
like just get
the fucking ratshit hell
out of
here BAM! & suddenly
the sirens
are in full
passion red lights flashing all the heart
beat
calendars crossed
off firemen with those big
hoses between their
legs jaws of
life red lips of
open
wounds suddenly
you may see a
stranger the moment
itself open
ing into
eternity and
nothing and
the scars
we leave
on those
we love

When The Legends Die
the old alchy busted broncbuster asks
his young orphan Cree student
"You like it when the crowd
roars and claps for you...you
like that?"
"Yeah!"
yeah like they know
something more
than your pet bear and the songs
of the grantfather trees
and the bird sounds
by the creek everything you loved
torn from you
and a thousand people screaming
for cheap thrills
can fix it


CASTAWAY

DIFFICULT
debates with stuffed
volleyball sound
of the ocean silent
music dances with 4 sides
of the question and 2 sides
of a porta john
ripping the sky down
a line thru
yr hand to the
sand ripping the
surf and you out
to sea out of
the picture of
yr own life flowing
on without
you yr wife
is a whale
eye staring
at you at
nite language
only works by
day

Whale Rider (some priceless scenes of Maori culture)

Walkabout (young male aborigine on his first vision quest, meets white woman, a classic tale of knight meets damsel in distress, slays dragon, gets eaten by damsel) (very funny Margaret Mead, what do you do for an encore?)

Night At The Opera (Marxism at its best, I love the scnes where the singers are singing with scenes constantly shifting behind them, & everybody's chasing everybody else up & down the flyloft)

Birdman Of Alcatraz (birds humanizing people, moral: never argue with an animal who's more intelligent than you are)

Solaris (the indestructability of dreams)

Man Facing South East (crazy people know shit too)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (ditto)

The Rain People
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
You wake up one morning
don’t kno the person yr living with
get in the car and just drive like a lunatic
phonecalls from glass walls the lights of
towns and the wind
blowing thru you
what the hell’s wrong with you woman, pregnant
leaving yr husband and all that cruel strength
that used to turn you on, hooking up
with a retarded football player
so stupid he sets caged animals free
searching for god in lost motels
pennsylvania turnpike, 1967,
don’t you know the story yet, we’re living in history
life won’t tell you
a god damned thing, nothing
gives in, that’s the rule,
putting on lipstick in the rear view
mirror of a 62 Pontiac Bonneville
for a date with a cop
his daughter running around the trailer park
with other kids peekin in windows
learning how fullashit you grownups are
the cop’s worse than yr husband
the retard attacks him gets shot by the cop’s
daughter
now yr a rain people
the sun shines right thru you, you’re a real gone
baby, baby, happiness
was always too much to ask but
some crazy fuckers will always
try to break free
and end up dying out there
searching for some kindness
they can’t even explain and only tragedy
can bring

Being John Malkovich
was a tour de farce
I’m glad he gets around.

Radio Days
Long Island before we looked in the mirror
when it was only the Germans we had to fear
life having it’s way
with your lonely aunt singing
In USO clubs
"Why’d you have to take the sunshine?"
olive drab
tinkly piano
tommy dorsey in the
darkness of history smell of the ocean
the elevated clickety clack back
to the shack jack
all that time out there
beyond this little island dream
where we can only be
what we seem l

Ghost Dog
samurai = gangbanger=samurai
must not think do you think
that works
in Iraq

Monkey Business
life is like a begonia
nothing is too silly when you live
in Freedonia

Down By Law
Makes you wanna get drunk
and drive a Jaguar
with a dead body in it
across town at 2:30 AM
and just keep on going
down that long road
to nowhere

Places In The Heart
reach out to somebody to fill
that old heartache
life moves them on
and on
cotton waves
in the sun