Homeless in Berkeley

Homeless in Berkeley

He, in his bed of yesterday's newspapers, is sleeping well.

Around him an instinctive panic errupts within the mobile public;

They retreat to the opposite end of the sidewalk,

stepping around coffee stands,

maneuvering aside light posts,

tightening grips on children's shoulders,

to be as far away from him as possible.

Oh so nonchalontly. Hardly anyone will notice.

To him, their rushing footsteps are nothing but a lullaby,

a rhythm by which his dreams abide.

put-put sounds the shoes on the pavement, put-put march the soldiers through the grasslands in Vietnam.

Recycled Ideas

recycled ideas

a single simple thought
stroking the crisp edge of a yellowing autumn leaf,
meanders, to-and-fro, down to the musty earth.

it glides over the dusty chasms of history, softly,
up the desert-brushed lands of the thirty-years war,
to laze in the lapping tides of the Ganges, silently.

a thought, a spectator of youth and age, trial and error, dismissed
in a dainty rush of exhaled breath; a sigh
fleeing from the lips of an exhausted philosopher
to turn in its grave a hundred years hence.

rain

rain
I go outside and it feels cold on my skin.
It spatters over my eyes so I close them,
and let the water play upon my lids like young children.
I can hear the drops laughing as they splash in their rubber boots,
then run home to drink hot chocolate with Mom,
and tell her all about the wonders from the sky,
while their hands thaw out from the cold.

Peru

Peru,

I look forward to meeting you,
to making myself at home,
when I am far from home.

To take off my shoes on your welcome mat
and walk barefoot through the rooms of your house,
to smell the sweet air and to shake hands with the history of the Incas.

I cant wait to lose myself in the hospitality of your shores,
in the clear water of the surf,
to mold with my bare hands the memories of your perfect sunsets.

My shoulders long to become olive under your yellow sun
and my eyes to swell with the sights of the world.