Packing my
steamer trunk
snow began falling
A trick to pack enough
can never take it all
The khaki or loden
worsted or twill
a hat or knife
a boot too much
overfilling the bill
Saw solid gold idols
far north of Katmandu
Rode camels for a week
sipped tea in Timbuktu
Looked for El Dorado
sailed on seven seas
Rode across Bolivia
over the Pyrenees
Shrunken heads
Beds of nails
Golden cup
Tiger’s tail
Crystal skull
The magic lyre
These and more
have crossed my trail
each has left a curious tale
Grandpa and I dug for clams
at low tide nasturtiums thrashed
at the old canvas circus tent
disturbing my slumber
Rose from my cot
slipped into storm gear
rolled my bike into the night
Muddy tracks hugged an agate beach
Rode a ridge threading arcadian wilds
pines heaved rhododendrons on my legs
This engine drove me to rush the moon
huge and orange over a winding river
Rode my brakes down the wet trail
skidded until I stormed the beach
Marina's swinging electric lights
hissed among rainy shadows
dancing the slick boardwalk
Mud splattered from tires
sticking to my knickers
At the far end off the pier
moored the dark teak and ivory
brass trimmed Waterfalls of Suriname
Raindrops pounded my helmet, peered in
a tree twinkled in the candlelit salon
cheery on the mahogany counter
supper wafted from the decks
Pulling anchor to head East
Full sail, bone in her teeth
she made for the far islands
drawn like a shimmering wraith
white speck blown into the horizon
Waterspouts shot skyward, splashing
I dug against a fresh northerly wind
My task was done and the meal won
Sand beneath my the toes and feet
sucked away by the incoming tide
Wondered how my life would be
Were I like so many folks I see
Sitting with the wife and kids
Brushing both of our dogs
In our two-story home
With pool and nursery
I’m raging with this bike
Rushing a moon dusk set free
I'm not broke, bent, scared of life
Afraid of anything resembling a thrill
Get answers from the same source
The same grind and the same mill
Shouldn’t tell you my secret lives
Or the sources of my pleasures
Or where to find my treasure
The dangers of full measure
Like a well-worn cookie jar
Tugs of many little hands
Where I’m exploring for
Is always the deepest
Dug the lowering tide
I ate the clams boiled
Windslashed nasturtiums
Pounded the old canvas tent
One-handed Scrabble by gas lamp
Coal black night and the campfire spent
I ate clam chowder, lost word games
Learned of the rain, sea and sand
I zipped on my weather suit
Left the warm, dry tent
Riding into the rain
I love being dry
As the world is wet
Riding through a storm
Knobby tires splashing mud
Rushing a moon huge and orange
Rising from the banks of a sumptuous river
Digging clams is like life, how you muck
Through the sand to find what's good
A cookie jar with a cookie in there
Baked from my favorite recipe
Cookie with my name on it
In a bleak, cold universe
and the harder I pedal
The better the taste
Rushing the moon
Because I can

Life passes by like scenes from a train window. The bad, the good the ugly ones shoot the loop and say goodbye. Volumes of people pass through our lives and us through theirs. Looking for love.

I would be nothing without friends, assume they'd be less without me in their lives. Many lives. In many lands everywhere.

I was many shapes before I took constant form
I was a narrow sword, a single drop in the air
A bright shining star and a lantern’s light
I glowed gloriously for a year and a day
A bridge spanning three score rivers
Flown as eagles, birds on the sea
Was a lonely drop in a shower
Years lived in enchantment
In water I absorbed fire
In Arcadian coverts
One/Everything
I’ve been
You

I was born to earth wet and swollen
Green leaves pounded, slashed
Thick air swept with rain
Pushing yawning trees
Against the ground

Fire broke against thickly armored sky
Sulphurous charges tore at the trees
And in the rocks I huddled, hungry
Weighing the uncommon hunger
Against the comfort of my lair

In the dark
Sitting on my heels
My chest against my knees
Staring at my toes
Which sometimes disappeared

I blinked my eyes in the dark
And thought of nothing but food
Hunting, stuffing my mouth
Sleeping if all went well

The rain stopped

I hugged my knees and swayed
Shoulders shoving rock walls
Rain delivers one benefit
While I wasn’t hunting

I wasn’t being hunted

Sorting though the matrix of life, many of the most pleasant landmarks are constructed around women. Some of those constructs are little more than wattle-and-stick sort of straw brides. Others are Polestars toward whom I navigate.

It’s a timeless process. Mostly ethereal, but occasionally corporeal. In other words…sometimes we touch.

She came
running from the ocean
an angry crab in every hand
A bronze discus sun
melded into azure sea
Firelight danced
in her ebony eyes
She plopped in the sand
and waved the writhing crabs
in my face
Driftwood embers
snapped and popped
I poked the fire with a stick
Sparks raged into blackening sky
Folie loosed the crabs
her interest drawn skyward
to twinkling diamonds cascading
shot from the tail of a passing comet

I was Folie’s age
Single falling stars
Were enough to wish

Tonight
Had I one
wish to make
to the night sky
it would end now

I knew she was dangerous

Her crabs meandered down the beach
As crystals of light shimmered across her eyes
Flames mounted her cheeks, exhausting precious fuels

Folie peeled off her suit
hung it over the fire
Brilliant specks
In the dark
Behind
her

Rolling surf clapped the beach
She sat close head on my shoulder

She left awhile ago
What’s left of my time
is running out by the hour

At night
I gaze the night sky
and often spot a falling star
Or two
Or three
Too many for wishes.

Me and Sam kinda sat there…stunned by it all. I was thinking about breakfast, reckon Sam was on track as well. I dunno, you look back on stuff and sometimes you don’t even want to have an opinion, but you do. Have one.

Comes with the territory.

I scratched Sam and stared off into the trees. A deer made it’s way through the wetlands and through the woods to the property. Either my fences were down or this was one hardy specimen.

Sam looked up at me with that look I know so well. He wasn’t going to go unless I let him, so I whistled once, then let Sam go. Evolution. Proves itself without argument.

At some point, every morning, the sunrise eludes us. We drift into something not quite so extraordinary. More… mundane…you know, the day. We wish something special would last, we hope something special will come.

Meantime…do we feel special?

Whether it comes or not it is there.
Never beyond anyone’s grasp.
Free to all, it stands today.

As long as memory it has been here
Bathing, blessing, feeding my people
Carrying us afar and back once more

My people give it old familiar names
The names change as time flows past
Always it flows to salve us every one

Water builds cities, washes our dead
Brings us to war and wins our peace
Lifts our despair and cleans our eyes

Hatred raging as unslakeable thirsts
Flowing past the doors of my people
Who taste from the soul of the beast

The river is my people full of dream
Drunken on want and bloated desire
Arid souls and hollow hearts flaming

The river promises a sumptuous kiss
Seductive plenty without satisfaction
Threadfing beyond curtained windows

People and river being one and same
Starving beyond a hope of fulfillment
Build boats to trade jewels and spices

Gain nothing when our homes are lost
Seeds lay on soil destroyed by the sun
A river of love flowing past my people

Wisdom abandoned if we do not drink
Flowing past us with eternal promising
My people damp their tongue on tears

Ignore peace to get what they want.
Blame others for any dissatisfaction.
Grow fat critisizing everybody else.

They never look at who they are.
If there's anyone else to blame.
Anyone other than themselves.

Freedoms of our Constitution.
We suffer for them everyday.
Yuppie assholes in our way.

Consumerism rules the day.
How people lose their way.
It’s time to seize this fray.

I never drank any water.
In my rowdy childhood.
Nobody ever bleated:

“Oh, Stoveman!”
“Your water!”

If you want the world you want.
Be prepared to be very thirsty.
Future's worth every struggle.
Give our friends your water.

You’ll be measured drop by drop.
Our tongues swollen like sand.
Hope you know how to love.
With water in your hand.

I poured Sam some crunchies and freshed his water bowl. I washed my hands and pulled a slab of bacon out of the reefer and slapped it on the butcher block. I pulled out a long knife and a sharpening steel. A few deft strokes and it was sharp to a thrill.

I sliced a few strips for myself, and a few for Sam. The eggs were from my own chickens, each chicken has a name. The bacon came from a pig who was my well-fed friend until I slashed his throat. The bread...I bought the flour, wise ass, but I baked the bread in a wood-burning stove.

Revolution will be easy.

sometimes one stumbles…for fruit
close to the nose but far from reason
that scent of hair…that’s always in season
that pearl of truth on the tip of the tongue
that begs to remain…unspoken

At the close of my final semester of teaching English at Mudville College, my outlandish instructional methods attracted a devoted, cult-like following. Because of the Governor’s push to build more prisons, budget cuts eliminated my position at Mudville College.

Faced with the prospect of a dreary winter, I was overjoyed when I got a call from Dean Lustic at Honey Springs Academy of Women, known widely in the academic community as Breathless U. The English department was desperate for a replacement teacher.

They don’t last at Breathless U. It's said he elements conspire in Honey Springs, especially at Breathless U.

The water in Honey Springs is sweet as plum blossoms, bubbling freely from the earth. Grapes and pears in Honey Springs are more tender and juicy than anywhere else in the Golden State.

The air never seems to stand still and breezeblown hair is an irksome, everyday condition. Honey Springs Academy of Women is called Breathless U because it is home to many of the most gorgeous females in the West.

The campus is an icon of exquisite rapture, a place where reality is often stranger than fantasy. A Temple, of sorts.

It’s no surprise Dean Lustic hired me. They say the truly afflicted are those who have no afflictions. My affliction is my devotion to Tara Vinson, the Grammy–winning R&B singer who is the most beautiful female in the human population, and the presumed cause of my status as a sort of crippled Holy One.

Dean Lustic assumed my affliction would save me from being distracted by the students while I taught the most electrifying course on campus: Romance Technology: Tara Vinson 101.

At Mudville College I supplied my own chalk. At Breathless U, I had my choice of multimedia computer platforms, my own selection of “learning suites”, and my personal interior designer.

I selected a cozy corner suite looking out on olive and nectarine trees and cool California palms, islands in a verdant pasture where four white horses grazed lazily beside a gurgling creek.

Deep maroon wallpaper complimented the red carpet; scarlet, maroon and white striped silk drapes; red leather sofas with white silk throw pillows and a white Boesendoerfer concert grand piano completed the ensemble.

Pencil colorings of Tara Vinson hung in gleaming brass frames on every wall. Tara Vinson sang daily on our 1500 watt, vaccuum tube, 78-speaker periphonic sound system handbuilt in Osaka.

The women of Breathless U have quite a reputation for being a bit out of hand. They revel in everything they do, and they do just about anything they want at Breathless U.

I recall the fatal morning, as the last Sycamore leaves fluttered past the French doors and Tara Vinson sang and danced on the 70-inch Sony television, which I lovingly rechristened TaraVision.

Verushka Polodonia breakfasted at her workstation, but whined quietly when a big, nasty dollop of lemon-custard splattered much too near her laptop.

Verushka frowned from black-pearl eyes (worth a thousand Pirate lives) then wiped up the mess vigorously, her chowder-headed little puppies gnarling and yapping at each other beneath their tight, cashmere blanket.

Verushka’s pearls (given by her Polish Grandmater) lept and clicked...the class fell silent, all eyes on palpitating Professor. Verushka licked her steamy, leglike fingers, sucking custard from a maroonraisinjubilee nail, flawlessly shaped and polished.

She smiled at me from between sticky, lipsucked fingers.

Scarlett McQueen, in a scrappy red dress and greasy Doc Martens pulled a plate of leftover duck l’orange from the microwave and shared it with her very pregnant sofa-mate, Summer Knights.

Scarlett tried to explain she knew nothing of birthing babies, and shuddered visibly at the very thought of it. She quickly lost her appetite as Summer wolfed the remains of the platter.

Cher and Cheron, the twins, munched on salmon and brie and butterfly cookies, disgusted by Summer’s incessant baby chatter. They shook their permed heads at the quiet, earthshaking terrors of pregnancy and food.

Sedna Waycat sucked slowly on a 44-ounce Big Shot. Savoring the final tablespoons of hot cherry frappe, she drew it slowly up the straw, sloshing and gurgling, her peachy lips extracted the last liquid from the noisy tube.

Sedna let out a deep, throaty laugh, tossed her rambunctious, red curls everywhere, lit a Camel and flipfoned her girlfriend.

I collected the pieces of myself off the floor as Cami approached my desk. She had a shiny bag of Crunchems and offered me some. I stuck my damp hand into Cami’s little bag and we crunched together, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Can you help me, Professor?” Cami cooed. Spent from munching Crunchems, Cami yawned, stretched and flipped her wavy hair.

Terramundi sulked at my desk, glaring down at Cami with hot, sulky eyes. “Professore, Jou promise me Jou meet me for caffe last evenink, Jou ano show up. Ima feel wery bad.”

Terramundi flared her racehorse nostrils. “How I gonna fineesha my Tata Veenson widout Jou helpa me. Mm?” She cocked her hip, threw a handful of ass-length hair over her shoulder and forced a tight smile from her unguent, rubygloss lips.

“Jou mebbe halftime tonite, eh? Helpa me, no?”

Not tonight, hot stuff!” Sugar Gold lept over her table, cartwheeled to my desk. “Gymnastics meet tonight, Prof!” Sugar deftly mounted herself. “You promised the whole squad, Prof! Don’t let us down.”

Cami flushed, fists on her hips, she stood ready to mount.

“Gee. I don’t know, girls. Better work on the ol’ story tonight. I gotta write when I’m hot. You understand.”

Laranda, front left corner, crossed her legs slow. She wore a Dunce cap, but no skivvies again. “Professor. Have you forgotten me?

I took an early lunch with a gallon of Dreyer’s peanut brittle ice cream. In the sauna, I smeared the contents on my skin. Miss Apesbury walked in. Glassless, she’s as blind as a bat. She sniffed the air…her round eyes stared.

“Professor! I see you’re at it again. I have never seen this approach to English.” A crunchy handful slipped down my creamy thighs, I jammed some into my mouth.

“The English language is about feeling, Miss Apesbury. You see, I just feel different.”

Dean Egol Parse sauntered into the sauna. She munched on a crunchy piece of celery. She plopped down next to Miss Apesbury. She paused as she chewed on her stalk.

“Using obsession as a learning tool.” Dean Parse observed, sweating into a puddle. I must say it sounds interesting in its way. But tell me…how’s it working for you?”

I smeared two big handfuls of ice cream through my black, steaming hair. I filled both armpits and mashed it between my toes and into both eyes.

“Developing language is growing, learning how to ascend.’

I thought for a moment if there were some place without ice cream. Some place without joy or promise of ascention. Some dreary, dreamwracked place in desperate need of love’s attention.

Melting ice cream spread upon my hips, flowed down in sweet declension. Dean Santana, towel wrapped around immense cascades of chestnut hair, slipped into the sauna, gazed at me...lips parted...nostrils flared..her eyes electric.

“In my Department, we need all the stimulation we can get.”
Dean Santana gulped, snaked over to where I melted slowly.

“Do you mind if I have some?” I dug my hands deep into the box and smeared it all over Dean Santana. She choked and shook slightly. Her eyes danced like candles in a breeze.

“Oh.” She murmured. I dug both hands down deep.

“My.”

“Um. Does this have anything to do with Tara Vinson?”
I turned her about and smeared her backside.

I pulled her towel off and smeared more ice cream through her massive, silky locks. We all showered, lept in the pool, did eleven laps around the indoor track and then dressed.

“You know.” Miss Apesbury whispered hesitantly to me in the locker room, “I have this thing for Barry White.”

Fiddling with a welk on her chin, she checked her teeth in the mirror and did lipstick.

“I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I put on Victoria’s Secret and listen to Barry White.” She fiddled with a locket the placed it carefully between her breasts.

“How can you know what it’s like to be a woman without a man to dream about?” She yanked on her pants, laced up her boots and slid into her lacy tank top.

I regretted the short lunches at Breathless U. When I returned to class, students were playing the new Tara Vinson video “Taj,” written, directed and produced by Her friend Shoestring, the enigmatic, love-mad scientist who is driving the world crazy with best love songs ever.

Students left their workstations to gather about the TaraVision, munching popcorn and sipping sodas. Tara Vinson bellydanced inside the Taj Mahal in nothing more than seven thin veils.

Snakes writhed at Her feet. Doves fluttered about golden-hued marble columns.

Phelandra tossed two cornpops at Donprakarnen, who pulled them from her hair, a few errant strands of which caught in her lips. She pulled them away slowly and gazed at Phelandra, grinning with her hands on her knees.

Donprakarnen picked up her plate of pate and crawled over to Phelandra. She scooped up pate with her little finger and stuck it in Phelandra’s ear, then removed it with her tongue. Donprakarnen finished. They wrestled.

Triplets Akira, Aprika and Aria screamed at the rowdy students.

“Will you porkers get out of the way so we can watch Tara!”

“She’s down to four veils! Get out of the way!”

Chesney Maidenshire grabbed Donprakarnen’s leg and dragged her across the carpet. Phelandra grabbed Donprakarnen’s bangled, tattooed wrist and dragged back. Donprakarnen scooped up a wad of pate and splattered Chesney in the face.

The fight was on.

QP Thunders stuffed her dirty rice, mango and swordfish-guacamole, tomato-spinach wrap into Sara Palada’s big, naked face. Sara howled, and dumped her Tupperware overnighter full of Colorado con Queso Tomatilla Fajita verde all over QP’s new hemp bustier.

“Dammit! You guys!” Glee Chumley hollered.

“She’s down to three veils!”

Verushka Polodonia yanked Glee Chumley’s collar and poured Sedna Waycat’s frappe down her back, staining her snowy linen Tee a bright scarlet. Sugar Gold stood spreadeagle in her Cheerleader’s uniform, blocking everyone’s TaraVision.

Sugar Gold mounted Terramundi and wrestled her to the floor. Running shoes and argyle socks, water bottles and orange peels, baguettes, parfaits, bon-bons, Caesar’s salad, Boston Baked Beans, dry Oodles ‘o Noodles and croutons garlique flew through the air.

Cami yanked handfuls of Pica’s curly mop, Akira and Shoshone took each other in half-nelsons, Ginger Polodny threw Sakamatokatuni Watanabe in handcuffs, pinned her to the floor.

Vesuvia spewed Krispy Kritters and Virginia Hurtzowell got a fresh-from-the-oven pizza Alfredo con latte piled on her lace bodice.

Snuffy Krankenheimer Gatoraded the mob.

“Cool it, you cows!! Two veils left!” The writhing, slimy females froze in tableau.

“Quiet, you guys. One veil!” Verushka wiped, snarled. You could have heard a slice of pepperoni hit the carpet.

Chancellor Frugalhorn strode into the middle of the room. The last veil began to give way, a tantalizingly slow avalanche of gossamer satin down Tara Vinson’s generous, swellingdeweysilkebony all-consuming breast. Every eye strained saved one.

Chancellor Frugalhorn unplugged TaraVision, adjusted her eye patch and spun around to face the class. “I don’t want to be rude. I fail to see how this, she shook her arms hopelessly, relates to the process of teaching English.”

Collective groans and tsunamis of sighs swept the squishy, lumpy, juicy wet mobsters. “Isn’t this whole Tara Vinson…affair… a bit like climbing Mount Everest barefoot? Seems like it would be easier for all of us…and a bit tidier if you considered her Tara Incognita.”

Chancellor Frugalhorn stepped cautiously around the messy, naked scholars
Wouldn't you prefer to teach Shakespeare or perhaps some Alice Walker
You like call it a learning tool, but it’s the only way you have to cope
Some folks will hang themselves with just a skinny inch of rope
Continue to want what you want, you’ll surely earn your due
I guess that’s what makes teaching hard at Breathless U
The vibrant air’s ideal there, all the element’s conspire
The sum of which dynamize a language of desire
It soars free of the landlocked moral vista
Language liberates your average sista
Liberated me from Breathless U.

Slow morning. I woke up as the coffee grinder lept in my hands. I poured the fill, a powdered east African bean known to be exciting and flavorful, into a cone filter and left the teapot to rumble and stumbled out to the deck.

Sam was curled up on his pad by the door...my snoozing guard. He's never been inside, has never seemed interested. Seems perfectly rational, when you consider there are millions of people who have never really been outside...outside in the sense that the American outdoorsperson knows it.

I lay in my chair with a Tepco china mug of joe. During my years as a ship's captain, every single morning I'd be ahelm with a mug of Tepco china, built to withstand everything short of a direct hit. In the worst blows, my mug would still stay relatively warm.

The mug served as my calm in the storm. It has a rim chip, but my rank is intact. I often dream of the Tepco China mug, and I look forward to the mysterious moments when the mug will again be in my hand brimming with a candid java laced with cold Jersey.

Maybe a bit of fine Bavarian pastry on a plate nearby (the French may have had pastry before the Bavarians, but still, they were never Bavarian. Pity), then I know the day is truly under my command. I would sail through the jaws of hell as long as I have a reasonable start to the morning.

I learned in my Leyte Gulf adventures during the Big One the Tepco wouldn't take aircraft fire, but a smaller caliber bullet isn't much problem. In the long run, I figured it's hard to concentrate on a mug of brew when you're being shot at.

During the heaviest storms, like what I saw in the Atlantic and 'rounding The Horn I'd munch snorkers on rye (heavy on the mayo) up in the wheelroom and sipping from The Tepco...the very mug that sat on the glass patio table under the umbrella next to a funky, hotrod MacBook running Ableton...software I use for my poetry.

Next to the laptop glistened a Mason jar holding a fat, juicy specimin of Colas de Zorro recently shipped meward by a good friend, Hector Bonefrit from the East African nation of Malawi. As an archeologist and cultural scientist, Hector is always interested in my opinions concerning the offbeat or paranormal.

My interest in certain herbs is probably equal to that of Luther Burbank, Martin Luther, or even Martin Luther King, for that matter. Certain herbs interest all kinds of interesting people. However, as interesting as this specimin appeared to be, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.

I hesitated to tackle the paranormal alone, but resolved the dilemma by falling back on the old Dirty Harry saw that a man's gotta know his limitations. I know mine. And making such a decision so early in the morning before the joe sets in is a repudiacious, impudent and brazen. I screwed the Mason jar ring once more to its open thing and put some in the pipe.

I made sure Sam, the half-wolf, was on patrol...surely enough, he occupied his sullen aerie on his mat by the door. Sound asleep. I've wondered which part of the wolf Sam actually represents. There must be a small part of every wolf that flies blind into the night.

That part would be Sam.

I thought some bum had taken my lighter. If there was a bum here, I decided through elegant string theory and deductive logic, Sam would rip the living hell out of him.

Sam was still asleep, even snoring, occasionally displaying the claw-and-ear twitch common to all sleeping mammals, so there must not be a bum here, which meant the lighter must be somewhere. Maybe in my pocket. You gotta love reductive deductionism, the lighter was in my hand the whole time...and the whole time I knew it.

I sat with my Tepco in my hand as the world swirled around me. The Mountains were lost in purpling gauzy rapture as shields of gold and bronze stretched elegantly across a fastening horizon.

Majestic magenta on showy sequoia
Purpling sawtooth ridges of snow
Sway and knock of wind in the pines
Ravening thickets of boughs and vines
Moribund glens, coves in the gloaming
Fetch little comfort for I who am roaming
The lightness, terrible bleakness of things
Coming of darkness, and all that it brings
Things that I don’t hear, things that I do
Visit my mind as they’re passing through
The orbit of fear over dreams of the mild
In the depths of the night,
the Call of the Wild

The trees blazed, shimmered...then settled into luminous emerald as fires of sunrise faded into day. Lazy lambs of morning, drawn to blue sky pastures, dawdled across the heavens...sometimes resembling birds in flight, sometimes hovering like gentle faces gazing from above.

I sipped and tapped into elastic audio to check my work from very late last night. When everybody else would technically asleep. I get on Ableton to mix, loop and globalize my poetry. Sam came over, sat down and smiled at me. It's a cute smile, and I can never resist a good scratch.

He curled up beside me, I leaned back in my chair and let the sun pour in to my closed eyes. Both East Africans caught up with me at once as I drifted into a morning meditation...

caterpillar winds through gnarled bark to highest limb
salmon fights upstream from salty sea to cold shallow waters
pollen floats on wind without eyes a seed without home
endures
the same wind carves stone in time
waiting, an industry which shapes destiny
but I am no stone
my destiny will be measured by drops of water
only those drops which will fit in my hand
and only as my hand has strength to carry them
when I fall, they may not wet my face
nor wet even my tongue one last time
I am no stone
And waiting carves me more than the wind
Dust falls through my fingers as birds fly south
Climbing, swimming, floating, flying
They are not waiting, nor am I a stone
Carved by the wind

As sweet as the moment was, it was time to get to work on the score for a script I've been working on for a year. I publish, perform, write and edit from the same keyboard on the glass table or in the kitchen, on the butcher block next to the wood-burning stove.

Running Ableton on the laptop through my little Mackie PA/Mixer, I’m able to be a pretty good one-man band. Elastic audio lets me match any tempo to any text, on the fly.

Unlike your average one-man band I have hundreds of real-time video, spoken word, instrumental loops…plus instant repose to my audience and provide everything from stage production and live video production from two can-sized cameras to keeping in touch with my crew around the globe while I perform.

I like to loop Miles, Duke and Flava Flav with Tara Vinson and Xavier Cugat (whoowah! UNHH!) with Jimi, Esquivel and Smokey Robinson.

I click and drag elements from archived loops on one screen while reading text on another and monitoring the live video feed to my website on yet another screen...checking my blog, e-mail and website for content and response.

My fans often get to be part of my show as the show is happening. The choicest text comments are scanned, translated into my voice, looped, bookmarked and loaded into the mix.

Nobody gets off cheap in my world when I'm on the job. When work's done and I come back to the farm, it's just me and Sam, the birds and cougars and all the Great Outdoors at my feet.

A week of steady work on the acres sets a body straight. I settled by a crackling fire with halfwolf Sam and poured a dash of my favorite bourbon, Ol’ Piswidgit.
Sam’s a young fellow, but already much larger than many full-growns. For a whole bunch of reasons, I’m glad Sam is my friend. He’s awful big. I know wolves don’t hurt people. That’s silly.
Sometimes I sneak up on him and he takes it personal for days.

Heck, after 22 years in Ranger Recon I can pretty much sneak up on anything though there’s not a whole lot of sneakin’ up going on out here.

Took a long time to get used to dogs after the trouble they put me through. Seemed like growing up, dogs would hustle up from miles around to mess with me, like the big, lovable Labrador retriever that had me by my face and head, dragging me down to the river before my dad smashed it with a tire.

Later, I was trapped in a collapsed tunnel in North Vietnam, face-to-face with a Vietcong German Shepherd attack dog who wanted desperately to crawl three feet and kill me except he was trapped, like me.
He snarled and barked, barked and snarled of and on for hours until all he could manage was a nasty string of snarks.
Sam could easily leap onto the 8-foot, blood-red Spanish leather sofa and make short work of me…just rip my face completely off…his dog-breath the very last thing I smell.

That's’ why I like the guy. He likes me because I feed him.

Sam figures out things he can do to make me want to grub him. One big thing he does is he sits there looking like a half-breed devilton who is pondering why he hasn’t eaten me yet. Can be convincing.

Despite the langorous fire and the exhaustion of the day’s labor, Sam stared at me; smiled, panted, rose and nosed toward the kitchen, luring me single-pawedly into delectible skullduggery: Hot lentil-jalepeno-chicken sausage soup with sprouted, whole-grain buns smeared with Jersey hand-cranked butter and Pekmez, chive and dill-laced garlic goat cheese, charming Humboldt olives plated with salmon wedges, asparagus spears and sizzling, grilled portobellos flanked by a goblet of snappy but whelpishly energetic Santa Cruz organic Shiraz which faded into deep denoument as it was displaced cunningly by a wicked sidebar of Bavarian three-chocolate cake draped in ganache, bolstered unnecessarily with a steady but bucolic and somewhat lecherous Claret glassed slowly, as a hand-fed natural filet of beef (from an evening of roughhousing with Prudence) warmed in the fireplace.
Sam got dog log.

The self-designed, home-built, kitchen is the real heart of the ranchhouse, brimming with stuff I collected during decades of sailing most of the seven seas.
Oddly, debate remains whether I sailed all Seven Seas. The navigator on the voyage in question unfortunately took on a nasty tropical fever and later, in a fit of weakness, we presume, fell overboard with our charts, sextants, and the last of my absinthe.
Hard accounting for some people.

At any rate, the Mariner’s Society fell skeptical of my findings. Poof!..You know them, a bunch of cigar-chomping, armchair buggernauts content to spoil the game for everyone. Who cares what they think?
Anyway, those days are long gone. The moment’s always more important to me than the memory.
Shake it all up…what remains is story, one that hopefully reaches beyond the personal to the universal.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a 99-cent story about a one-dollar dog written by a guy with hands like banjos, long as it’s your story, and as such carries at least a taste of authenticity.
And it’s got to come from your place.

That place where you are.
Your self.
Your personal bioregion. Your vision of yourself. Your aura of personal responsibility: where you belong. Tenuous as it seems, your place is how you explain yourself…not to others, but to yourself.

Your place is how you define and redefine your continually evolving relationship to the world. It’s can be a major source of esteem, and, naturally, if there is much trouble in your life, you’ll find it’s source somewhere in your place.

Respecting your place is a necessary part of taking ownership. It’s a very good thing to take care of your place long before you tell others how they might do the same.

t was some righteous grub. Me and Sam finished every scrap. I belted on my .44 and snagged a snifter of cognac, put one of Tara Vinson’s early cd’s on and turned it up real loud. We stood out on the deck staring into a conspicuously fat, wet and shiveringly nasty completely full moon and counted our blessings.

As well as a good night to recount the struggle we as homenids and humans have gone through: dragging ourselves, usually kicking and screaming from the Iron Age to the Age of Irony. I think you know what I mean.

Sam quietly disappeared, I followed him down the stairs. I was worried about him. In his frenzy to protect me and his place, he would do nigh anything. Reckon I know the feeling.

My people call it fancy names, territorial imperative, or some such nonsense. With the dog, you can rest assured it is always, and unremittingly, about the food.

Soon, Sam was at my leg once more, and I never heard a thing. You know my ears were once well-tuned killing machines. I scratched him hard and pulled on his ear. I had to bite his ear one night to get him to pay attention. That’s where he likes to be pulled now.

I would have sat on the ground because I was bone-tired and probably over half drunk and definitely too overfed to walk. Dog won’t let me sit or lie down. He will never allow himself to be above me. Raises hell on a soft summer day.

Damn dog.

I went back up on the porch, railed back in the big wooden chair, took a pull off whatever I was drinking and stared at the fat, full moon. One thing was left on my mind at that point. Between me and that big full moon it was a secret torn open, except I had nobody to tell it to except Sam…and he don’t give a rat’s ass.

I dunno, it’s something like a prayer at this point. Maybe a prayer with teeth. I think about it all the time, and as I settled in for the night last night it was the last thing on my mind. Goes mlike this:
The nature of politics is not to liberate but to instill fear as a prime motivator for social change or political intervention..solving immediate problems for quick credit instead of bracing collectively for the vast global struggles ahead. And while we're at it, a major obstacle to the rational discussion of sustainability in our bioregion is the fear of a social movement capable of threatening the status quo. Anybody who talks about putting more power into the hands of ordinary citizens risks grave danger: from prison to torture to murder-it's little exaggeration to suggest more extreme methodologies could be construed by some to be threatening to the Homeland.

Heck if I know what was on Sam’s mind.

When you live on a farm, chores have got to be done. no matter how one "feels." I could hire somebody, but I've worked all my life and see no reason to slack off now. I like being alone. Reckon I've heard enough noise in my life, so the silence won't bug me a bit.
Out here there's nothing noisy except the peacocks and peahens, and they rip up the night in some sort of waterfowl ecstasy.
Between rock n' roll and a few wars I've fought in, some of my hearing is gone. Now it could be surmised that I only hear what I want. What I want to hear is far beyond my auditory skills.
That's why I have Mozart. He gives me exquisitude when the world feeds me nothing but lunchmeat.
Music when I can't hear a thing.
I think a lot while muscling a big wheelbarrow up the hill for hundreds of yards. Sod has to be removed for the corn, then hauled up the hill to fill in the croquet green next to the koi pond.
I don't want to go back to sea.
She's gone.
That's the main thing. I got this eight acres to take care of. It'll keep me busy. Maybe She wouldn't have liked it here anyway. Rains a lot and the people are goofy. I could've taken sasha from the islands...but never could I have taken the islands from Her.
I busted ass up the hill exactly 21 times today...hauling sod for a little spot by the pond I'll never really have time to enjoy.
It's just the Feng Shui of the whole thing. If the sod improves my fortune just a squeak, then maybe I'll finally be happy. Maybe.
As I wrestled the first haul up the hill I got to thinkin': by the time I get to the top of the hill I gotta come up with what I would consider to be my two most important lessons in life.
Whew. If my keys weren't strapped to my body I couldn't find them.

My conclusion: The first thing you would have to learn is how to read.
The second thing would be to learn how to make friends. Having something to talk about helps...that's why the reading. Friends are your portal to everything in life and without them you are less than nothing...not good enough to be shit. Think about it.
Tell you something about damn wheelbarrows. The Studebaker was the best 'barrow you could buy. After The War Studebaker decided to build cars, and my uncle's Studebaker Commander was one of the best American cars available. It was built by folks aching to do something good with their skills. Something more than building tanks, airplanes and ships.
I dumped the sod, wiped my brow and rolled the Heavy-Duty Jackson 'barrow down the hill.
I cut and loaded more sod,hoisted the load and grunted uphill...

I raised three girls on my own. It was the right size of family for us. We all wished for many things but we always had each other.

Don't know what you believe? Challenge yourself. Believing comes from within.

It's cool being human.
It's human to be cool.
Thinking about being cool,though...is usually not.

Don't know what others believe? Challenge them. Never be content just listening.

Despite the latest information, you can change the world.You could do it in 188 days if you desired. In the process, you will change yourself. Are you ready?

You can count on the efforts of others to help you along the way...but every offer must be met in kind or the path will be short.

Opportunity knocks, but only when it expects an answer.

Don't measure love, it's too exquisite. Give and accept it freely. You can never give or take too much.

We are the products of our choices, each and every one.

"I was here first!" You'll hear this phrase often. Ignore it. We all arrived at the same time and we are equals in our greatness.

Stop hurting yourself. Life demands it and so should you.

Some dreams grow in darkness...where few would look. This is where you are most likely to discover irony, the most valuable tool of all.

Don't read too much. The moment is more valuable than the memory.

See if you can do better than me.

Always include everyone. This can get ugly quick, but you'll feel better.

Trust your gut, but know the difference between food and intuition.

Feel yourself.

But don't lose yourself.

Sweet Jesus that was a hard job. Why would anyone go up and down a goddam hill unless there were food involved? And to think I should be splitting and stacking firewood now that the weather is more willing. Last winter was tough...one of the worst in 80 years.
I've got five gardens to manage, but I planted every seed. I reckon I'll be eating top-flight in a few weeks. In the late summer there will be more. In the Fall the joint will be raging. Wish you were here.

Some lives are stranger than fiction, my cohorts told me...therefore, I should learn to write so I could pass some of my blarny onto innocent ears, they'd say. I've a ball o' yarns by now, I should let it roll. So you know, writing has been far from my first choice of things to do for a long time.
Main thing is, I've had a bunch of careers. Each seemed like the only thing to do at the time, and I reckoned as though I would never leave any one of them. You know how it is, with all good things and how they eventually come to an end just as regular as sin.
My life has gone to Hell a few times...what keeps me going at a pretty good pace is the fact that they liked me a whole site more down there than what makes me comfortable. Man's got to know his limitations, and I'm fairly sure one of mine is dancing in fire.
I've always had a lost woman or a good ship for excitement. The best of either so far have been the Tara V, a three-masted schooner out of Gloucester, and sasha naya, who I found in the remote islands of the South Pacific. Which ones don't matter, for many years...I saw Her everywhere.
I loved her in a way that doesn't go away easily. Wind and weather have no effect on the passion we shared, time and circumstance diminish it very little...a love that could carry us through anything. She seemed as though, in every respect, she was made for me. In fact, she was.
Tara V proved to be the perfect ship.
sasha naya was even better.
I found Her in the islands and I lost Her there. By the time we pulled anchor and bolted for Birmingham, She was the only wind in my sails. Can't say that my time with sasha naya was the happiest time of my life, it was the only time in my days so far I've felt really alive.
Days were long and lazy, pretty much taken care of. sasha and I had little to do except fool around, fish, sleep, pick fruit and flowers and fool around some more. It took months to refit the Tara V and get her ready for the next leg around the globe.
Every moment sasha and I spent together was sweeter than the one before. Inevitably, the wind rose in the palms and the salt rose in my nose. The ship was brilliant in fresh paint and acres of fresh canvas ached to be unfurled. The aromas of the islands fought with the lure of canvas, manila rope...the varnish and paint.
The little hut we shared was the closest thing I had to home until I sold the Tara V and bought the farm in the Pacific Northwest. I grow lavender and blueberries, mushrooms and vegetables...fruit trees dot my ten acres on a steep hillside.
Naturally, I have a half-wolf named Sam.