TONY CAMPISI AT THE ELEPHANT ROOM
Tony Campisi plays Jazz
on an old tenor sax
notes you can’t play on a new
Brass as rich as stone walls
in an old world church
soaked in a thousand years
of latin mass
Tony Campisi plays Jazz
and somebody’s cryin, somebody’s dyin
somebody’s fallin in love – right now
HANGING TEN WITH DEBBIE
When she was alive
she was just so damn alive
It makes her being dead
just so damn much more dead
We were together
the day the Challenger exploded
and the day the Gulf War started
Violence all around but we never fought
We just laughed and played
and howled at the moon
And surfed ten years
on that sweet sexual edge of almost
then she died
If either of us
had leaned ten degrees closer
we might have caught the perfect curl
and saved the world
Three degrees and we might have been
two reef torn bodies on the sand
but I block out scenes like that
I just see her innocent wave goodbye
I just watch the uncaught waves roll by
DORSEY BREATHES
Dorsey breathes deep
at Jacquie’s workshop
Drives through pain
like Houston traffic
Coughs up fifty years
of smog and burnt rubber
Parks under a tree in River Oaks
and lets her six year old out to play
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KAUAI LIGHT SCARS
There are two
jagged lines across my palm
where I learned to use an axe at six
and a fingertip crushed by a grader at seven
There are marks made by light
that will remain forever too
here are a few still pink and new
Airport greets with morning rainbow
rare cardinal flies in for our meeting
Chinese screens roof tiles blue
getting to know you
Four hundred gathered
sacredness of Huna and Hula
A Wessel becomes a vessel
power pours through palms again
Flowers wrap the torch lit towers
dancing to Elvis “The night is young
and so are we in blue Hawaii”
Millennium poem a gift to all
little saint Tutu honors with a lei
passing it on is sacred enough
to say what I have to say
Rainbow in the valley of mists
forms a circle with us in the center
Walter the bear gives us a wave
to prove that we are there
A can of spam, coke, chips and thou
alone on a beach at the end of the world
COUNTERPOINT
If you’re going to grow old anyway
Consider doing it as an artist or a poet
Waxing powers may well meet the waning
Tides coming in meeting waves going out
Coals cooling as the iron tempers
BEFORE AND AFTER YEATS
The Athens of America
Timothy Leary dubbed our Austin town
Whatever opinion you had of him in life
you must admit he is dead right now
Just witness the round bellied Socrates
peddling wisdom in South Austin agoras
The poetry movements in galleries
still afoot above Sixth Street
from midnight to dawn
Comedy and tragedy enough in Hyde Park
to have no need for Greek theater
And yet the center will not hold
Attack is everywhere
Enemies with impervious armor
threaten to cover the sacred South
Monthly skirmishes break out
between the Nobles and their foes
along the Northern Borders
While all the young Turks
fill the Parthenon with dynamite
oblivious to every warning
the roof may blow off
THE GIFT HORSE
It is not so simple
If you question every action
you will find forces pull in other directions
If you look in the mouth of the horse
not all teeth will be straight
and many may have been grinding
for some time
It is more likely
that happiness will be found
by looking deep in the mouth of the adage
GOLDIE AT THE HOLIDAY INN
At the Holiday Inn at the Dallas market
They have a goldfish named Goldie
who has his own quarium
and swims around lonely all day
At the Holiday Inn at the Dallas market
You can sleep late
and make love
and eat room service
and light a candle if you bring one
And Goldie don’t care
if you sleep late
and make love
and eat room service
but he sure do like that candle
SHAMAN’S STICK
When dead Shamans spirits
pick a new Shaman to carry the stick
they always start by making them sick
In every tribe in the natural world
they whisper and press the same old trick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
Pick up the stick or your relative’s dead
pick up the stick or you stay in your bed
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
Life won’t be easy if you pick up the stick
life won’t be easy if you lay down the stick
You can’t teach a dead Shaman any new trick
so most times it pays to just pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you heal the sick when you pick up the stick
REMEMBERING SOCRATES
Last walk on the Acropolis
Last look at the Parthenon
Last time through the door
of low roofed home
Last glass of wine at kitchen table
the tightness in the chest
Last talk with pupils and friends
comforting around the couch
Bitter taste of hemlock
Dead cold creeping from feet
up through legs, torso, chest
Spots of light leaps upward from brow
Where is Socrates asks the guide
did he die
Socrates is the light I reply