Last Poet Standing

Like Dead Trout will be my last poetry post. These next two weeks will be hectic and frankly doing 30 plus poems in as many days has left me somewhat bored. I will not shut this blog down yet as I might try something new or come back and post a few. Thanks for commenting.
peace
scot

Like Dead Trout

sometimes
when it rains
rainbows
trash floats
from upstream
belly up
like dead trout

today
I am a streetcorner
brautigan in berkley
& haight handing
out poetry
for free

tomorrow
without
a big brass band
parade
in Bolinas
I will leave
my key
on the desk
beside a wine-stained
copy of Zen Concrete

checking out
of this
beat motel
without a word
to my name

The Last American Sentence #14

Sometimes I am Brautigan at Bolinas without a word to my name.

For a Moment

head propped up
stretched out
on summer grass
I watch a gentle wave
of ancient chinese
practice tai chi
in golden gate park

they wave hands in clouds
disguise family secrets
in soft-slow movements

next to me
a young family
flies a red dragon
on a bay breeze
dips and rises
against the blue

for a moment
I close my eyes
to the sun
& dream about
nothing in particular

American Sentence #13

Ancient Chinese move like a slow motion ribbon–grasping sparrow’s tail.

American Sentence #12

30 poems in 30 days has sucked my word bank dry–strained and drained.

Skimming Vegas

out the window
of the Riviera
while we slept
the Stardust fell
to March
fireworks

in a neon
cloud
of dust
and mirrors
it was like
an old
goombah
leaving town

I Googled David Franklin Young–You Weren’t There. Now You Are.

I remember when
marijuana was $15 oz.
I was neal cassady
on that magic bus
zig-zagging
across the south
ontheroad to Miami
nonstop to Jamaica
teenagers caught
free in America

I remember
you threw up
in that Arkansas midnight
taking ludes w/o water
falling out of the car
flat on the bluehighway
you would do anything
to keep from driving
you laughed
looking like a
half-assed
snow angel
laid out
on that delta asphalt

28 years
since I have
seen you
not that we haven’t
thought or talked
your name
I tried to picture
you in a nursing home
couldn’t
blocked it out

we got a letter
saying you died
I was angry
not that you were gone
but for other reasons
maybe for the way you lived
or didn’t
or could have
maybe for the way
they left part of your
brain on the stoop
that black-damned night
as the ambulance
pulled away
maybe because you
never found the
easy way to make
a buck
your get-rich-quick
schemes always
fell apart
but you would quickly
come up with another

I don’t normally do funerals
but
would have done yours
would have wrote
a long poem
celebrating–
cried reading it
would have read
something from
Kerouac’s scroll

like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding
like spiders across the stars

and slipped something
under your hand for
your trip
I would have looked
deep into your face
behind that little
shit-eating-grin
you always wore
seen our past
like a childhood
flip book
and said good-bye

American Sentence #11

On the road with too much magic bus seems fitting to end the beat scene.

Jim Croce singing Rapid Roy