Crg Hill's poetry scorecard

"A hot old man!

I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--worse nor a toothache."

Stubb on Ahab

 

Fiercely Beautiful

I can’t remember

if I talked

to her much

the American Indian

who panhandled

Mission St.

between 5^th and 6^th

But when I did

she seemed put off

didn’t want

any of my words

didn’t even seem

to care

about any change

I dropped

in her cup.

She had a stare

beyond the place

She panhandled

or just sat

on the sidewalk

when she had

four limbs

then three

then two

the stubs of her legs

bandaged

bleeding

Then she was gone

The cliche

time slows

down

        the car

sliding

in slush

across the highway

uncoming traffic

around

the bend

        The car

skidded

into the ditch

the other cars

passed

"I could go into all

 

of the minutiae

of hows and whys

but the fact is

I will never know.

 

They don't have

to give a reason.

 

All of the evidence

and support suggests

a cut and dry case,

but I pissed

 

the wrong people off.

The whole thing sounds

 

like some spy novel.

You left at a good time—

there's some toxic cloud spreading

 right now

 

in the guise

of a new and improved regime."

Oh So 1974

I don't know how often

we went streaking,

but it was popular

drunk, stoned, or sober.

Once, returning from streaking,

Tim Kestly jumped up

on the hood of his

neighbor's car, squatted,

and rlled a ball of poo

down the windshield.

The act of stopping in the present,

as much as any of us can stop in the present or stop the present, to consider the acts of the past, to select some, to pass over others, to bring one action or only its shadow into the present through speaking or drawing or writing, is to construct something out of nothing until it becomes nothing itself, the past acting ruthlessly upon it.

If I were a pessimist

I'd squat nude

knee deep

in an Alaskan wetland

with a supersize can 

of insect repellent 

in one hand

and a 45 in the other

 

I'd improve my aim

one supersized insect

at a time

regardless of party affiliation

naraation