Been too long

since I sang a song

way too long indeed.

Or sang in the rain

with you on my brain

or eyeballed you with glee.

The sun burns dark

from lightening spark

the trees all smoke and burn.

Still no rain

man’s gone insane

and we still never learn.

Twenty/twenty

you of plenty

none of it we want.

But here it is

rich man's biz

and in our face they flaunt.

Carnage spread

worse in my head

worser in my heart.

Clouds won't cry

sun won't die

reset, restart.

Been too long

since I heard your song

way too long indeed.

Or felt the rain

on my pain

upon the planted seed.

Upon the wind

our carried sin

our virus wide to spread.

Wide and vast

our souls are cast

are we finally dead?

I have so many different feelings when I visit this place. Sitting on one of the many cliff-faces, staring and scanning across the ocean, the "Big Pond" as I call it, I am awestruck, peaceful and serene. I get really excited when I climb the many mini-cliffs to the top, camera in tow, and I feel accomplished when I reach the top, relieved that I didn't fall, and fearful on the way up. I feel disappointed and a little frustrated when the local Park Police shoo me back over the barrier cables. I feel like a little kid in total wonderment as I sift through all of the polished glass on that part of the beach, and I discover the very rare piece of blue glass: Acheologist Extraodinaire!!!!! I feel heartbroken at the history of how Glass Beach came to be, and how that history is still polluting the ocean today. I feel pride of the other history, the military history of Fort Bragg. I feel the pull of the ocean, calling me, like Siren Song, a sense of longing and loneliness come over me. I feel like I need to live in cabin on the beach, or a houseboat just off the coastline. I feel reconnected to the world, and to myself, and an overwhelming sense of dread and loss when I have to leave. I feel a sense of purpose and hope when I spontaneiously decide to go back. I feel like everything is right with the world as I sit on the beach, and watch the sun set.

Where do you go from here, my lost lonely friend?

You can’t go back and this road has reached it’s end.

No one to blame, but the fault is all my own,

the heart-wound festers, the heart-scar has grown.

Yet that is where I'll keep you, safe and snug and warm,

With all those scars this hardened heart will keep you from harm.

The epitomy of everything wrong with us. Quintesscentially our greatest weakness, and our greatest motivator. It throws us into fits of unexplainable behaviors, and indefinable inactions. The source of paranoia, high-anxiety and psychosis. It controls us, sometimes to the point of capitulation, and there we sit, and never know the the triumph of success, nor the knowlege gained from failed attempts.

Everything we ever wanted is just on the other side of fear.

As I was standing in line at a Dept. store in Auburn, purchasing some Tea Candles for a meditation group, an elderly lady came up behind me with her cart. I didn't really pay much more attention to it at the moment, but placed the little red divider on the belt so she could put her items on the conveyor. She then stated "Thank you, but I'm not lifting this up there." I noticed that she had a single item, and it was a vacuum cleaner. I smiled, clearly she was mcuh older than I thought originally and would have trouble lifting it out of her cart. As I was paying for my candles, she asked the cashier if we would call someone to help her load it into the trunk of her car, and I decided to just give her a hand with it myself. On the way out of the store she thanked me and stated that todays youth would just as soon run you over as give any help. Made me kind of sad that she has experienced this. Nonetheless, it was a short trip to her car and as I was lifting the vacuum, she offered to hold my candles, which I accepted, they were far less heavy, and were proving to be a mild hindrence, she asked me what they were for. I explained that I was a Drug and Alcohol Counselor and that they were for a meditation group I was performing later that evening. I heard a noise from this woman, and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, it could have been a snort of disgust, a cough, or just simply a sigh, it's sometimes hard to decipher Old People Noises

We all have at least one, a special moment in the crisis' of our lives that stands out, has a special meaning to only us... Our "Norman Rockwell" moment.

I also have a few of these, but the one that I always remember, that will always have that special place in my heart was this one.

I had been living in Spokane Washington, or Mars as I called it. Homeless, living on the streets and being a general nuisance to society at large, drinking and getting high, and doing all the things one might expect of a junkie. On this particular day, early December of 1988, I was in my little box-house. We had built a little city of cardboard boxes along an allyway that used to be the warehouse district, where the frieght trains would deliver goods to the backs of the stores. Long abandoned and unkempt. There were dozens of us out there, and in spite of it being a community setting, one really needed to know how to protect oneself. The snow was deep and the temperature frigid, and little campfires were scarce but welcome, and I had one going. It happened quite suddenly, as most sudden things do, that a raid came pouncing down upon us all. From both ends of the allyway they came, armed, suited, and unforgiving. The Spokane police department proceded to trample our little village into an even messier dumpsite than it had been before. Strewing our belongings all willy-nilly in every direction, stomping our make-shift homes flat with relative ease. And of all the criminals, dope-fiends, wanted, and outcasts that society had labeled as undesirable, I was the only one that had been taken into custody and carted off. And I will admit, that even with the threat of spending a life time in prison, I was grateful when the warm air of the squadcar hit me. I don't remember any of the conversation (interrogation) as we cruised to what I believed at the time would be the jail, as I was high and on my way to drunk at the time. I had just been in the County Jail a week before, and was released due to a missed arraignment, and when we passed the road that would take us to the jail, I started to get a little bit nervous, and after another 5 minutes of travel, I was near panic, the old scenes of the brutality and whims of police officers flooded my head and i was filling with dread. But alas, we did not pull into some deep dark out of the city warehouse where they could beat me to death without witnesses, instead we pulled into the local Frieght Yard, where they could also dispose of me. Instead, they led me, still in handcuffs, into the office, where there were 2 "Bulls". Basically Frieght Yard cops. I was directed to sit down and not move. The police told the Bulls that they wanted me on the very next trian and they didn't care about the destination, as long as it was out of Washington State.

After they took my information... for identification purposes, should I fall of the train under the wheels, the Bulls put me on a frieght train, and I had my choice of cars. So naturally, I chose a box-car, unladen and great protection from the elements except of course from the cold. I had decided that now would be a good time to head to my birthplace of California. I had an old room-mate from Arizona who moved to Long Beach, and told me to look him up if ever I were in the area, so I decided to be in his area, and a couple of hours later, the train lurched into motion, and I was on my way to sunny warm Ca.

I'm not really sure how long I was on that train, I slept as best I could on that rockity hard floorboard, and it didn't stop until we reached Bend Oregon. The conductor told me that I would need to switch lines if I were going to California, so off I hopped, into the midst of a genuine Hobo Camp. There were large 55Gal drums along the sidelines of the tracks, all of them lit with the sweet smell and welcoming warmth of fire. As I approached one, I was met with a knife and a scowl. The weilder of the blade then informed me that I needed permission to encroach upon any Hobo-camp, and if I took one more step I would be skewered. Hands up, eyes properly bugged, I then did ask in as polite a manner as I could to be allowed to warm myself by thier fire. I must have impressed them with my genuine concern for my wellbeing and manners, as they not only allowed me passage, but they all shook my hand and offered me food. I was accepted without hesitation save for the initial meet, and after that, I knew I would and could present myself into any Hobo Camp successfully, and be made welcome. Truely a community that is oriented on family values and community welfare. I had not felt so safe in such a place, in a very long time. There's a Norman Rockwell moment in itself, but not the one I'm working towards. I was informed that the train I needed to get on was the Southern Pacific (SP) line, and it wouldn't arrive for another 2 days, and not leave until the 3rd day. I spent a great deal of time getting to know the Hobo's of Bend, and about that little town. I went into town every day, to the food banks and clothing donation centers, pan-handling all the change I could, and doing my part to help with the community stores and labor. And on the 3rd day, as promised, my train pulled out, with me in a new box-car, laden with supplies for the slow long ride to Long Beach.

I awoke sometime in the morning as the train was slowing down. They only do this when going through a town/city where the tracks lead the trains through intersections and common traffic areas. I opened the door of my boxcar and sat on the edge, waiting for signs of life. I was not prepared. The snow must have fallen earlier that morning, for it was pristine. No marks, footprints, tire tracks, nothing that would have given clue that there was any sign of human life in the area, except for the snow covered roofs of the houses and stores. The sun was shining brightly on the snow and it was almost blinding. I then saw the sign that said "Welcome to Dunsmuir", and still I knew not where I was. What I did know at that moment was that if there were an epitomy of Americana, this was it. I fell in love with this place, and never set foot in it. And another side event that happened for me there was that I had for the first time in my life, acknowledged that I might have had a problem with my lifestyle choices. I often wonder if anyone looked out thier window and saw a long lost Hobo, legs dangling over the edge of the boxcar, watching the beauty as it rolled slowly through town.

Tiredly wide awake

typing just for typings sake

Square donut to my face

doesn’t know it’s out of place

Hair itches scritchy scratch

just another bug to catch

Little squiggles in my eyes

bigger squiggles in my thighs

The night rushes slowly on

finger puppets on the lawn

Stupid medication

emotional sedation

Cognative meanderings

thinking of everything

1, 12, 84

reality is my whore

The wheels came off my bread

can't remember what she said....

Oh yes, "Don't talk to me."

And yet it remains undone. Like so many things in our lives; the promises of betterment may as well be New Years Resolutions; we contrive to make a new start, or at least to improve our behaviors, right the wrongs, and may even make an effort at first. Alas, to no avail for most of us. We succumb to the headiness of our past beliefs and ideas that we are either not worthy, or it is too difficult, uncomfortable, and justify it with the idea that it isn’t going to make a difference anyway. And keep infecting the lives of those who we have sworn to protect from the very types of people we have become or reverted back to.

We are only at fault if we recognize and do nothing.

God he loved the sun, it always shed it’s light on the lies and deciet of the night. He, the Sun, gave him the knowlege of himself, that he would know himself, and have a purpose, something to show him where he needed to improve, to change and better himself. The way it always warmed him to his core, even in the coldest of winter days. His ever shining companion to light his way, and guide him through the parts of his world that he had yet to explore, and he gave life, the Sun, to all around his domain, save for the night. It’s guiding light ever bright, always without fail showing him the path. Their relasonship, his and the Sun’s, was the only true relationship he had ever known and the colors of the clouds as Sun went down were to him a gift and a promise, personal to him, from the Sun, that he, the Sun would soon return with even more gifts and blessings and lessons to learn.

And then the onset of Night, and her.

God he loved the Night. He loved the smell of her, the sweet promise of the things of pleasure and bliss and unethical, immoral endeavors that would permeate his soul to the point of non-redemption. And her, always her the Night would bring. She would always be his downfall, and fall he would everytime. He would bare his deepest, and she would soothe it away with promises of her own, and then leave him with the dawn, hollow, empty, alone and betrayed, Her and the Night. Left to dance alone and his sins of her and the Night exposed to the Sun and ashamed.

God he hated the Sun and the Night. Forever with thier own dance and back and forth like the pendulum that so keenly sliced his being into frothy agony. Forever reminding him of his place in the world: that one place in the corner, forever facing both the Sun and the Night, forever alone, in their game of hide and seek.

So he bought some sunglasses and a lamp and all is right with the world.