42 Across

windy car snot breeze blow my bucks

slit sorrow sidewalk pound my boot

will power border wall kill my brothers

Happy birthday Ansel Adams! One of the few landscape photographers who understood & applied timing in that style.

I wiped my eyes & shook my head

Three years vanished

Along with the years went two girls

one I missed

one I hardly knew

I chased the time &

found myself falling backwards

I unplugged my lamp,

threw it at the ceiling fan

  home run

I’m lost now

Who voted yes for taxation without question?

I’m lost

But I know three ways to find north

& that’s no metaphor

Zion, what happened to my sister?

She’s being eaten alive 

by a scavenging flock of union workers

So I went to the shower

  my sanctuary

& sat, but the water didn’t come

Instead I was splashed with formaldehyde

But hey, I hear it keeps you young

Jesus? I still cant find what I have done with my years

I tore apart my bookshelf looking for some hints

but I just found truth

“Well surely this isn’t my fault,”

I screamed at the television

I’m a good kid

and the road to hell is paved with

Probably pavement

How many times do I have to explain-

I don’t have any opinions

Then I started ravaging my closet,

hoping to find myself in there

wearing my suits to school

in 2005 in 120 degree weather

But I just found 

nine shoes

one cigar

& monsters

I then dumped my change collection

thinking that maybe I’d spent all my time

because now I fund all my time timing my funds

then the world starts spinning

but its ok

that’s normal

Then somewhere I lost my blue Schwinn

my best friends

my cap guns

my parks

my imagination 

& I got a job

& the photo album didn’t help

It was just full of things I don’t remember

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring

-Carl Sagan

I Need To Hear It From You

Notice me, you!

you & your dread locks

cat eyes

filterless cigarettes

Notice me, 

sitting here with so much to tell you

The other loud smokers—

I’m not like them.

They yell hip hop &

smoke &

curse.

So notice me, wise professor. Because

you’re wrong here too.

You belong

in Oxford

Stanford

Pratt

or UCLA
in the 60’s.

Not here

Not you

Not I

So much I could share with you!

Talk to me

I read John Fante!

Oh the things we could talk about

Did you hear me?

I read Fante!

I read him now as I sit

& eye you.

I read Fante!

We could talk hours about it.

Hours about your everyday black sport coat

leather shoes

cat eye glasses 

filterless cigarettes

Mutual love for Fante.

Or better, 

you haven’t read Fante!

Oh that I introduce Fante to you!

& when next we meet you rave about him

& your love for him you owe to me

Notice me!

& the third time we meet you say again—

OH FANTE!

& you liken him to Kerouac 

OH KEROUAC!

& for hours we speak of Kerouac 

OH FANTE 

OH KEROUAC

Oh you & I

Two noble scholars 

You the greatest Oxford professor 

& I the noble student

The great Norman Grant Woolsey III

Both behind & ahead of his time!

Two noble scholars, we are

The noblest of the nobles

Standing & talking for hours

of John Fante underrated

in our time

Paving the way for the Kerouacs

& the Norman Grant Woolsey The Thirds

So notice me!

Much have we to discuss

I try to be noticed

by your eyes behind you cat eyes

by your intellect 

I read Fante &

tilt the cover so you can see it

Can you see it grand professor?

Grand cat eyes

Grand everyday sport coat

Grand filterless cigarettes

We really should talk you & I

Can you see the title? It says

ASK THE DUSK

Its by Fante

OH GRAND FANTE!

Every day you don’t see it

Every day I leave the 

dusty gazebo &

give up

I go sit in the sun &

my day goes on.

Oh tomorrow—notice me

Notice me & we can talk 

OH FANTE!

OH KEROUAC!

Oh you Norman—you’ll say—

you’ll be something

A grand writer

with Fante & Kerouac

guiding you

Oh you’ll be grand—

you’ll say

So notice me & we’ll talk

Tell me I’m good.

Take my wrinkled courier new pages

Take them home

Bring them back

Tell me I’m the best writer in this school

OH GRAND PROFESSOR 

It needs to come from you.

From your

leather shoes

every day blazer

& filterless cigarettes 

Oh lets talk

OH FANTE!

OH KEROUAC!

OH! OH! OH!

Oh Norman Grant Woolsey III

Oh what glorious conversations to be had

If you’d just 

notice me  

Stole half from the Native Americans, stole the other half from the Mexicans, & now neither are welcome. Look at us go. Happy birthday Arizona. Here’s to leaving this beautiful chunk of land in worse shape than we found it in for 100 straight years!

HAPPY DARWIN DAY!