1 > Cultural Appropriation (08 02 2024)
2 > Mental Health (08 02 2024)
3 > Gone Poem (08 03 2024)
4 > The Los Angeles River (08 11 2024)
5 > Collection (08 19 2024)
6 > Life Line (08 24 2024)
7 > It’s Funny When We Go to Costco (08 25 2024)
8 > Two Love (08 30 2024)
9 > Triumph and Tragedy (09 07 2024)
10 > Horror (09 24 2024)
1 > Cultural Appropriation
Oh oh, CaLoki, you suggested
making the November theme for
Four Feathers Press online edition
Dia De Los Muertos, isn't that...?
Not as bad as performing songs
from another culture like Paul
Simon did on Graceland, and,
now that I think about it, Me And
Julio Down By The Schoolyard.
Don't even mention Genesis!
Yikes, am I not allowed to order
my beloved bean and cheese
burrito anymore? And I just
bought dumplings at the 168
Market on Valley Boulevard
and nobody stopped me
except to say Shi Sheh.
You know why I got them,
my wife is from Dalian, then
adulted in Sanya. Is getting
Wait a minute, I'm writing
this poem in English. Talk
about colloquial acquisition....
2 > Mental Health
My fellow poet and friend
for fifteen years Marvinlouis
has worried about his mind
You see he has characters
in his head, the inner child,
the ego, and the Muse
with a capital M
Muse tells him words
that are actually poetry
which Dorsey takes down
with great concentration
Lines like burned
his fingers on purpose
so he wouldn’t feel
Even if he’s possessed,
tossing away society’s
priorities, he has a large
one of his own, his Muse
3 > Gone Poem
North Hollywood
Plastic Toys
Blurry Vision
Insurance Glasses
Half Brothers
School Chums
Stereo Components
Girl Friends
Music Center
Monterey Park
Record Albums
One Father
Used Cars
El Sereno
One Cousin
Audio Cassettes
Waist Line
Lost Teeth
Five Wives
Compact Discs
Class Rooms
One Mother
Washing Machine
Old Refrigerator
Passing Poets
Dozen Presidents
But Poetry
You Have
Never Left
Me, Your
Spirit Is
Always Here
4 > The Los Angeles River
Our family being driven
By my father on the 5 fwy
To Burbank in the Buick
Skylark to his uncle’s house
To watch Sunday football
Drink white grape juice
Poured into Styrofoam cups
By my great aunt Edith
Who was hard of hearing
My sister and I would then
Go into the hallway where
A bottom drawer was filled
With coloring books, crayons,
Brown and green Lincoln logs
While the men in the house
Would sit around the dining table
With an ornate tablecloth
That fit the particular season
And they would play cards
To 500 points the winner
(When I was 11 I got to join them)
We were given a dollar to walk
Down the block to a small
Corner market in which we
Bought comic books and candy
That stayed with the artist in me
Was looking for Leo Limon’s cat
Faces on the storm drain covers
On the way there and back
My baby's got
her collections of
toy cars
dolls
make-up
clothes
I've got my
collections of
books
CDs
poetry
clothes
Some day they
will be utterly
useless
unneeded
unwanted
unliving
6 > Life Line
Driving home
on the 101 freeway
from the Hollywood
Hills where my late great
aunt used to live
And the street
level abode of
the woman who has
just agreed to make me
a Poetry Editor of Zo
We pass to the left
my ninth story birthplace
(and my mother's too)
the Queen of Angels
Hospital now Dream Center
Almost immediately to
the right the hospital whose
name always changes where
my father died of cancer
at 58 in a semi-private room
Closer to downtown
The Music Center
location of my first job
as an usher and my
soon to be first wife
Only a short exit away
the Hall of Justice once
my dad's work in which
he incarcerated me for
an hour and a half
Changing into the 10
I delightfully see
General Hospital where
my daughter was born
after 39 hours labor
And the City Terrace
off ramp I would take
to allow my about to
become first ex to visit
the house of her childhood
The coming north
view features a sweep
of buildings that are
my bachelor's degree
alma mater Cal State L.A.
Finally Fremont Avenue
whose looping departure
points us to my sixth
marital cohabitation spot
the rear of a duplex
7 > It's Funny When We Go to Costco
“When you’re in love with a beautiful woman…” – Even
Stevens
We traverse the parking lot
holding hands as she attracts
brief glances from gentlemen
who enjoy curves in clothing
much like wolves near lambs
Entering the raised gate
I push the shopping cart
let her walk in front of me
so I can watch her hips swing
like a pendulum in jeans
If she gets too far ahead
I notice male members
accidentally steer their carts
into stock distracted by biology
unhappy wives behind them
Yes I can't leave her alone
in the meat (meet) section
because lonely gents
smile at her and want to
I'm just as guilty except
I sneak my peeks even more
sneakily until we drive home
I look forward to seeing her
try on purchases like a kid
on Christmas who just wishes
to unwrap his promised present
for animal action in the afternoon
like a genetically ruled human
8 > Two Love
from opposite sides of the dining table
single hands finger meander like cats
looking to nail nuzzle each other
one slips on top of one upturned
palm lying flat like a survival raft
as fingertips slide and meet wrists
there they go back and forth to create
soft friction sensed by skin, faster
and faster to generate welcome heat
then thumbs stroke sides, eight digits
latch in the middle like a train coupling
clench cut nail edged fists into palms
shimmy and release so whole hand can
turn perpendicular and embrace, lock
on to push up and down a squeezy kiss
9 > Triumph and Tragedy
Wheeled out the portable
Air conditioner that looks
Like an all-white R2-D2
Sat it next to me in my red
UCLA-lifted swivel chair to
Provide a 78-degree breeze
I pointed the white plastic
Caterpillar-like exhaust tube
To the parted front door space
Below the bottom of the black
Iron security screen somehow an
Orange butterfly stilled by blast
10 > Horror (a found poem*)
1 (Jupiter eats Earth)
imagine a grape
next to a basketball
like a drop of food
coloring into ocean
glowing white hot
liquid metallic hydrogen
2 (Visit HD189733b)
blue earth-like planet
with soft oceanic swirls
a Van Gogh marble
constant winds whip
rainstorms of molten
glass shards sideways
fiery cosmic tornado
chunks shred you apart
with near infinite cuts
3 (the great nothing)
everything will dissolve
voids are growing and will
consume all things forever
*Inspired by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVs7MwizT5
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