October 11, 2011—
The heart hangs like a thick branch of a cypress tree
over a wake in the narrow Mobile River.
Looking at the water and the sky
like the space between now and then.
*
Did you see the turkey vulture?
Flying over the side of the freedom highway. Look!
Maybe you were sleeping to a Mavis Staples lullaby
as I drove off into another day.
*
My father always said to stay cool.
He has the warmest of souls
He now sleeps and rests a trembling arm
And unforgiving legs that showed me the way.
*
Decency is the tributary into a sea of understanding.
He [...]
Oct. 3, 2011—
Travel is a stream of consciousness thing.
That’s what I was doing late Friday night when I was sitting alone at the Terrace Bar at Pioneer Place in downtown St. Cloud, Minn. Nightdreaming.
The bartender asked me if I had seen “The King.”
Well, of course I have been to Memphis. But he was referring to the monster porcelain floor urinal on the second floor of the former Elks Club, 22 5th Ave. South not far from the Mississippi River.
I normally don’t hang out at urinals. The only memorable urinal I have seen is the rock waterfall urinal accented by clamshell sinks at the technicolor Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Calif. That [...]
