There is no door .. and more

there is no door  (and more)

includes alphabet soup

by David L White

Front matter at the back / bottom.

In late summer 1974 I had $300 set aside. There was a Les Paul Custom guitar, white with gold hardware, in the North Sioux City Pawn Shop. I never even strapped it on. I imagined drooling.

Or … or … I could take the money and do my first book – a thousand, 64 pp self-cover, newsprint rag set in my hand with Speedball pen and India ink. Ten bundles of 100 over 9 feet tall. My graphologist’s nightmare …

The ‘more’ to which the title of this ebook refers also includes the pieces in Songs for Tentative Guitar, Ice Cream Koans, Panboy, Gone Fishin’, and some previously unpublished works from 1974, 1975, 1976.

This could be considered the prequel to Lost and Found, my 2014 40th Anniversary Anthology.

Note: I do not know what I meant by ‘there is no door’.

Perhaps … Yeah. No. Here we go.

~~~~~

To Linda Coming Back

She took me deep

Playing ode to joy

Trembling fingers impaired

By the quantity of escape

She consumed the nights before.

What is there left to say 

when you’ve lost deaths together

And the clichés passed so quickly? 

For it seems sometimes as if 

I don’t know them now or ever did, 

those I loosely call friends. 

And I asked her, did we ever 

know each other? She whispered yes,

over coffee once and quietly.

~~~~~

Ah butterfly

Lives that touch are all too short, 

music songs and bottles of wine, 

and seasons tides meander on, 

with hope to make it wide

Ah butterfly, aren’t we travelers 

of minds and roads which makes 

us then just souvenirs, blown far 

and wide by pleasures, tormented 

by our fears? 

Ah butterfly, we have been conceived 

in time, in essences of brevity, make 

each moment count for all. for peace 

and strength and memories

Ah butterfly, if I have not touched you yet, 

though I don’t hold much with fate, 

that we were meant more not to be, 

unless we meet again someday.

~~~~~

I have not written of love 

it’s been some time and 

sounding strange are varied 

lines and so many worn out words 

misused, born of nostalgia and s

o are fused to stare at me 

so innocent, so foolishly assuming 

that I wonder what I meant.

~~~~~

A golden thread of nameless faces 

weave an aimless river

Through mirror lakes and whirlpools 

the answers are delivered

~~~~~

Sometimes I am Not Enough

I live in circles 

and climb my inside walls. 

And sometimes I peer 

into emptiness, the other part 

of a couple, hoping to find that 

one and one make three 

or even two. And sometimes 

I feel meant for mostly alone. I 

couldn’t survive the children’s games. 

For I see all around me so many who 

spout love with words and don’t 

even know how to speak or listen. 

I would have one at least at a time 

closer than most, close enough to 

keep me from freezing to death.

~~~~~

The overused words 

are thorns to my feet 

and sorrows to my heart. 

In the space our eyes 

meet and fill, I 

see reflections of 

something deeper 

than so shallow, something 

as deep as silence. 

And only silence will echo 

what needs to be heard.

~~~~~

Long Distance is the Next Best Phone

I had so much to say 

and forgot it when you said hello, 

and so much more to live 

went dying out the door.

It’s hard to bear the silent home 

long distance is the next best phone

Closer than when we sign off 

this poor connection party line 

and leave it to the party 

I’ll right when I have time.

It’s hard to bear the cold alone 

long distance is the next best phone.

Shallowness will disappear 

in retrieving all the miles 

only to lay them down again 

over a long, long distance wires.

~~~~~

Words of a Various Mouth

Thinking 

is embracing a thought

Inspiration 

a thought embracing

Words for various mouth 

heard by a various ear, 

subject: interlacing.

~~~~~

Connie Own

What seem to be 

the New World greeting 

a hug and a kiss 

and my heart was bleating. 

Contradicting though 

as she spoke never I,

 heard all that was said 

 and she meant goodbye.

I won’t hold it against 

California though 

for what Connie‘s 

is Connie’s, is Connie’s alone 

and I can’t have what 

Connie’s own.

~~~~~

Gypsy Melody

Inquired of my whereabouts 

I replied that I had none 

till I dance that day with gypsies 

oh God it’s so much fun

A thousand gypsy dancers 

serenading bells and eyes 

loving, trading constantly, 

a thousand gypsy smiles

In late and crimson afternoons 

the zealots died too young, 

then came out celebrating 

beneath midnight sun

I danced that day with gypsies 

oh God, it’s so much fun.

~~~~~

Maybe a little

Color blind 

but you love 

I would change 

the world to love 

I know no reason 

love those little 

alas, maybe a little 

is all there is

Maybe a little 

is all there is

~~~~~

From the Projectionists Booth

And so I breathe 

in the projectionist’s booth 

and so they shit 

on the projectionist’s truth 

and so they plant fear 

in the moist fertile youth 

and so suffocate…

Who was it stole into the 

projectionist’s booth 

who was it that squatted 

over the truth? Who was the 

gardener that fooled the youth?

Perhaps, just me, 

in a cynical mood.

~~~~~

If I wasn’t going anywhere 

or feeling that I had to be 

I might get into coffee 

and my brother or painting  

the house, side by his side 

not to paint, but to be part

And if I had a lot of time 

the dog and I might go 

for one of those long 

philosophical walks 

I’d only loved to plan 

and now regret

Yes if I wasn’t going anywhere 

or feeling that I had to be 

I might take a long long time.

~~~~~

Coming Down the Lane; lyrics for Vicki

Through the party curtain 

past the bridal wreath 

outside the house 

that first moment 

I knew it was you 

and I couldn’t move 

and I hold myself to blame 

and what if I had met you 

coming down the lane

There is a little comfort in saying 

that this is how it’s supposed to be 

the what if’s crop to haunt me 

and even here is not the same 

and what if I had met you 

coming down the lane? 

~~~~~

First Chant of Darkness and Light

It has been night 

for much too long a time.

It has been night.

It’s gotten darker and darker,

for much too long time. 

It has been night.

It’s gotten colder and colder 

for much too long a time.

It has been night.

 And now it is, finally dawning, 

 dawning on me.

~~~~~

Soliloquy in Autumn; a touch of gold 

Various excursions in the autumn glow 

have brought not harvest, but seedtime. 

I’ve left more than many blank pages begging.

Seasons, not bound to spaces of time, 

or any other predictability. So… 

thirst when the well is dry.

I seem to bind my trials in a bag of dreams 

and imagine a following after that, but that 

is just a touch of gold, a glittering thread 

of reason to hold it all in place

Transparent ideals and training wheels 

I need them, too. Too late the chair was 

kicked from under me and all my philosophies 

have pretzeled themselves … they are too salty now.

I’m tired of trying to make connections between 

realities and draw the line of fantasy. What makes 

a difference where I live? Be careful … 

you’re standing on a chair.

A friend said it was worth living for these days, 

all days. Yes, but now why? I stole the 

golden ingot of reason … then … lost it in the night

II

How is it the greatness passed so quietly and 

barely noticed through what deep gorge or 

unmarked freeway in the sky? 

Life, it is you I have called. A disappointed 

fool stands in the echo for you are not the 

far off glow. Today, unbidden and unwanted 

come flurries of memories and aspirations. I

 know you faceless bastards of come only to 

haunt and mock as desire, the  hungry devil, 

sets upon my flesh, only to belch and grin 

when I have rested free.

III

With you, without you, I am called. 

All the voices have had their say. 

Silent partners now in this business 

of life. I must go alone.

Life? I thought you’d come as a 

magical winged God, but you are 

as weak as I.

IV Fini

~~~~~

Sad Dog in my Eyes

Your 5 x 7 lies in the top drawer 

fading into yellow. I don’t go 

that way no more. 

All the sad dog in my eyes 

I can’t get used to night.

all the sad dog in my eyes.

Oh for the love of a woman 

nights would find me at home. 

Oh for the nights of a woman 

love with find me at home. 

All the sad dog in my eyes 

I can’t get used to night with 

all the sad dog in my eyes.

~~~~~

It crushes me 

to see you take 

my magical ‘it’

all in your hand 

 nd say, so what?

~~~~~

I take what light 

is burning in me 

and burning in me 

to shine when I can 

and you don’t need 

to see. And that 

wastes me.

~~~~~

For Julie

You came in to me 

excited and alive 

peeking out from 

a November cap 

and collar

Smiles and scarlet cheeks 

starburst your jubilance 

against my dark gray sky

With thoughts in other moments 

your so brown eyes touched 

as deep and true as the chill 

that rushed in the door 

telling me you were gone again.

~~~~~

Slower for me (the morning) 

staggering in broken 

pieces of light till the 

assembled torch bearers 

are amassed in the 

multitudes needed to 

see past my nose. 

Mornings have come 

slower for me.

~~~~~

Along splash of cool

Years of heated third-degree 

gearing down the brash and 

throaty engine 

momentum 

            riding 

                   gliding 

                               into

~~~~~

Shaking Leaf 

(13 short pieces running together)

The wind, deep whistling 

it’s night train east, through 

treetop pass the sun trod west  

…

Take your drink hot or cold or body warm 

and run it over tongues and taste and 

aftertaste bittersweet and each

… 

Lurking through the darkened eve 

the foggy lakeside, shadowy trees 

like some wrought iron frame, 

dark ivy on a crystal ball

And weeps the eternal willow 

for diffusing stairways of colored light

If I could walk them on the silent water…

…

Neither wanting nor having to be here 

just being here being just here being here being

… 

And we love in the pungent dark, 

to the melody of silences 

crescendoing into murmurings, 

whisperings of love till fresh light

…

Oh to the sun, through my morning window, 

fills my room, heart and soul, and wakes me, 

blossoming

…

Your perfume is daintily yet 

and found nowhere but 

in my smelling. I have looked. 

From our embrace I am taken by 

as easy arms of hope and knowing 

that you may be as gifted as I with you.

…

We’ve languished 

in the garden pool 

much again too long 

white water striding 

drowning eyes 

head up now 

one last rush 

before the falls

…

What good will it ever be for me to be running 

wild naked free in some moonlit ecstasy spree …  

what good will it ever be for me to leave the ones 

I love … caught and hanging from the tree … 

what good will it ever be for me?

…

Postcards and letter telegrams 

therein I sent you who I am 

that’s only where I just once was 

and Lord that ain’t enough

…

Sorrowed children stolen wings 

must learn to fly without such things

… 

Walking slow for kicking stones 

and knowing, simply knowing

…

Shaking leaf 

in sea breezes 

I in your arms 

it comes to be as sand 

on those ocean floors

~~~~~

Closing Hymn

The sun crept slowly, 

silent, and still warm, 

grief sighed and sucked 

my insides out

The sun, now hastening, 

wind rush follow, 

swirling hollow over the 

verdant belly of the earth

~~~~~

The pounding surf of wanting you 

smashing down the few light musics 

that ask me away, the ceaseless melting 

flame foundation and every breath 

draws farther away

I have followed your barely audible tones 

through numbing eyes and ears to my 

very heart beat, that pounding surf of 

wanting you too much, and it has mattered 

wanting you too much.

~~~~~

Melting dribbles down candle side 

touches my center a waxy plaque of chord 

resounding one candle warmth 

within my chest in tones and drones 

~~~~~

Some fear has risen 

from the murky depths 

casting shadows on my light 

and trembles the cup 

to pleading lips 

left shivering in need 

of some everlasting fix

And drowsy do I say 

to cobweb tangled arms 

to mumble incoherencies 

in embryonic sleep 

and he would bury me, 

the eye, who shelters him.

~~~~~

Pale Shades

Free blown by any wind 

picking whatever merry way 

my tunes their pale shades 

but yet and blinding bright 

to see between the shadows 

of the pebbles and the other 

sometimes mountains

~~~~~

As night rolls back to the valley 

that sunrise smile 

breaks slow 

like the brown earth warming 

across your eyes 

and we may touch 

though earths away 

your sun is my quarter moon rising

~~~~~

Meetings / And

We parted then, no sorrow 

arms reached out 

and trailed off 

in farewell’s frantic grasp. 

A gentle step said “let us go”.

and fingers locked and tingled

We parted yes, and you left right. 

I could not vary/blink 

to chance and mist a memory 

and if you turned your pretty head 

I’ll always wonder like to know 

even though I now know better

~~~~~

If you love me, too

I love you, that sweet nectar lust 

but share it where it sparingly 

on rarely afternoons,

 or it will turn to vinegar 

 and pucker burn my nose 

 and it will turn to liniment 

 and Epson salts and alcohol a

 nd I’ll be hooked on love, 

 that crutch of love, 

 until I’m crying corners 

 whenever I can, 

 whimpering ‘love’ while I cannot breathe 

 I love you but please let me go. 

 I love you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. 

 I love you and now I know. 

 So share it where it sparingly 

 on rarely afternoons, that is, 

 if you love me too

~~~~~

Sang some low and mourning river poem 

Shenandoah I love your daughter 

and oh you damn and rolling river, I’ll find who 

I thought you were, where my heart was lost 

in skipping stones on the whisper song surrender 

and on the wind carried me to the shore where I was not

~~~~~

The Many Still Wind

The Crier, bearing his crying, no longer crying, 

but being the cry. And the wind took up this cry 

and thrashed and about until it was no more. 

The cry being the silent voice of the Many Still Wind

The laugher, bearing his laughing, no longer laughing, 

but being the laugh. And the wind took up this laughing 

and thrashed it about till it was no more. The laugh being 

the silent voice of the Many Still Wind.

And by and by, after all this thrashing, came upon the hearer 

of the Many Still Wind and was caught up in the cry and laugh 

and was thrashed about until he was no more. The hearer being 

the silent voice of the Many Still Wind.

~~~~~

No Longer River

No Longer River but hush and a gurgle 

and Watching the river and being the thirst 

that even the river couldn’t quench

On the wind of his wanting sent an exchange 

“M cup, sir, of emptiness,” to No Longer River

But No Longer River would but hush and a gurgle 

and send not other back on the wind.

So the wind returned a Cup of Wanting 

full now with Wanting Not Wanting and said 

“Sir, your cup is filled.”

So Cup of Wanting was no longer wanting and 

No Longer River was No Longer River as it danced 

in the cup … a hush and a gurgle.

~~~~~

Lyric 

oh my lady 

my sweet lady 

my sweet sweet lady

Guitar wind, 

front porch swinging, 

broke my heart crying, 

I thought I’d heard 

all the songs, 

but this one, s

o sad

Oh my lady 

my sweet lady 

my sweet sweet lady

(written to music)

~~~~~

From the unfinished …

alphabet soup

Building monuments to monuments 

to monuments and putting up my 

three ring tent I tight-roped Webster’s 

iced kaleidoscope, that kite string, 

through strata ephemeral. My equilibrium 

must be out to lunch side, say I, falling 

flat on my tongue. Mostly now I just giggle 

and blow the breakfast cereal’s plastic whistle 

(tweet tweet) while alphabet soup drips from my chin

But this will never do .. not when I need 

to touch you across this communion rail 

and need to be touched by you and walk 

with you and listen to your fluid eyes 

and make love with you 

and make love with you.

~~~~~

We dragged out all the old tapes and sat crosslegged and laughed and marveled at the gods and the caretakers of the soul sanctum‘s of music were naked primeval ghost meld in evening supplication.

We would verily flow of our boy-ish whirlings into the pulsing orgasmic, rhythms of heady freedom off in the next whenever

Blues shadow ivories by chamber candlelight and waiting and waiting and being released, he to his sunrising orange flicker glow and me to my writing you this poem

~~~~~

In cosmic broken weeping 

they caught young Aesop there 

and strung him headless from his clouds 

with paranoias bloodshot orbs 

they tied him to the mountain top 

and burned fables at his feet. 

zapped from smoking poetry 

they were unwittingly apropos 

and buried what was left 

right next to Mother Goose.

Cradled in your wordless 

knowing I would take 

young Aesop‘s place and 

make my broken noises 

with my half educated throat 

(soon hopefully I’ll be completely 

unlearned) meanwhile I’ll bathe 

your translucent mooning face 

and hope they don’t hear me 

making animal cries 

behind my paper wall.

~~~~~

Them (of me)

Call your dogs my lady 

send the children away 

for I am going home 

nowhere yonder over there 

where last I saw the sun 

haloed ‘neath the rainbow sky 

past my eyes / frozen / looking there, 

past my skeleton fingers reaching there, 

past where the jackals carry my dead flesh,

past where the worms leave them (of me). 

in the dust I will be home leave us alone.

~~~~~

Janus-faced 

in my lotus floating 

my one eye ever seeking 

that euphoric holding stone 

and my other one eye 

tearing letters to the 

windswept distances 

between us and my 

poor bastard, last one eye 

beholds my spinning head

~~~~~

The silence 

definitely scrolled 

of Birdsong 

deafened even 

by my want to hear 

(the scrolls will be) 

as prison bars 

when my hearing 

seeks the silence

~~~~~

Reached a plateau 

or other new low 

and backwards looking 

other it was, upon it the 

bottomless box I tried 

to fill saying here, look 

at what I’ve done.

~~~~~

Going nowhere(s) 

I am (if I am) 

and/but if I am 

going somewhere(s) 

in particular 

then let it only 

these there(s) 

some other where(s) 

no else.

~~~~~

Throatings of ecstasy 

darting / hesitant explore 

yes we touch again 

the tear I am yielding both 

to sorrow and joy and laughter 

and weeping

The two pains 

in each our breast 

arise at once and 

the two healings with them 

you and I, you and I, 

in the bundle of a flash, 

yes we touch again

a whisper glow of lived in souls 

timeless during none between 

yet we touch. I sit alone 

and wait until eyes.

~~~~~

there is no song called 

Coconut Wine

Chorus:

Oh mama

Drank too much

Wine tonight

And cried all night

Coconut tears

~~~~~

The last letter in alphabet soup

All what I hear 

is words, words, words, 

slobbering off 

your spoon shaped tongue

So what 

you can spell your name? 

All what I see is noodles

~~~~~

Green Stamp Blues 

12 Bar in E

I went to singin down the alley 

stumbling on my worn out shoes 

‘don’t you join no rally’, rallyin’ 

with my own blues

I went singing down the river 

I need an oar for my canoe 

I’ll pay the freight if you deliver 

trade you my green stand blues

When I get down to the Delta 

I’m gonna send you a picture postcard 

there ain’t much I can tell you 

but them good old blues done me no harm

~~~~~

Jason your son, oh mother Medea, 

waterway of his sailing ship, 

pathless journey weaving the cloak 

of Golden fleece

Jason your son,, oh mother Medea, 

suffer him not his sailing ship

~~~~~

Molly by the Sea

I’d like to sit someday by the sea 

near a little place for Molly and me 

but Molly her name don’t need to be 

as long as she likes to sit by the sea.

~~~~~

Some there are princes 

and some there are frogs 

yet to be a prince is to sit 

on a log is to know you’re 

not far from being a frog.

~~~~~

There is no door

There ain’t no door 

that you can open 

like a cheap whore 

there ain’t no light 

that wouldn’t make shadows 

on the floor. there ain’t no light 

there ain’t no shadows anymore

Blah blah blah 

there ain’t no door 

and I can’t say it anymore 

and I can’t say it anymore.

~~~~~

What follows are previously published pieces and not: broadside, pamphlets, and scribbles from 1975 and 1976.

Songs for Tentative Guitar 

Pilot Press 1980 Austin Texas

A single, French fold, legal sheet. 

AZML

~~~~~

Dripping Springs

I spent last night in Drippin’

with another man’s woman 

we slept in separate bedrooms 

he stayed in New York City

I spent last night in Drippin’ 

south of Ausin 30 miles and 

you know how the truth hurts 

when you get it caught in lies

We hung out talking dirty 

country western sings the blues, 

drinking beer and wild turkey, 

shooting dollars worth of pool

She introduced me to the kitty, 

the riot shotgun and the dogs. 

We smoked a couple bowls, 

watced TV, like falling off a log.

I spent last night in Drippin’ 

with another man’s woman 

we slept in separate bedrooms 

he stayed in New York City

He called her late that evening 

to ask her where she’s been. 

She said out Christmas shopping 

and hung up the phone then. 

I spent last night and dripping 

south of Austin 30 miles and 

you know how the truth hurts 

when you get caught in lies.

~~~~~

Dear Lisa

I wish out of known you 

before you got married, 

got older and Harry, 

and Harry got gray, 

because the song in my heart 

is a hard one to carry. I guess 

I’ll just sing it away.

Don’t take this poem home 

to Harry, dear Harry, it’s no 

laughing matter he’ll throw it 

away and the song in my heart 

is too big to bury. I guess 

I’ll just sing it away.

~~~~~

Maria

Double barrel shotgun blues

Pancho Ganzillas kid sister 

Maria is waiting for you down 

by the river. Pancho’s kid sister, 

Maria, she loves you, is waiting 

for you down by the river

Pancho can see you and smell you 

and taste you. Pancho’s shotgun,  

the barrel is blue. Pancho can 

hear you and hear you and hear you 

and follows you quickly down by the river 

Pancho can touch you, almost can touch you, 

and Pancho he takes shotgun aim. 

You and Maria down by the river and 

Pancho’s kid sister takes half of the blame 

and Pancho’s kids sister takes half of the blame

~~~~~

Hancolite ™ Blues

Got me a mean old case 

of the Hancolite blues 

got blue plate edge and 

fast drying on my shoes 

got cobalt dryer from here to there 

I got offset powder in my nose and my hair 

got me a mean old case or the Hancolite blues

Walk out on my knees 

on a Friday afternoon feeling 

like a half tone of an old blues moon 

got me a mean OK so that Hancolite blues

Take my Friday paycheck to the local tavern 

get me up set me up with a hanger light 

and I say with a grin got me a mean old case

~~~~~

Cold Spring 

a lyric with missing chords

There’s no one waiting in Wisconsin 

with their arms flying wide. 

The winters aren’t bad and Austin 

but I got Cold Spring on my mind

There are winters here in Austin 

you don’t need to own a shovel 

and no work days you stay home 

from on account of the weather 

and you wonder why I complain 

well it just ain’t Cold Spring in the rain

I had a crazy painter lover 

from New Orleans Houston Denver 

city daughter of a doctor 

we got nowhere real soon

She hasn’t asked that 

we stay friends yet now 

that lovers over it’s OK 

I’ve been busy in a 

Cold Spring memory

She spent some time 

at the University 

and heard it all but 

the Coldspring Melody

Northern high school buddy 

climbs at salesman‘s ladder 

his wife makes good lasagna 

they came here for the weather 

next year their daughter will 

be three with a British Texas 

accent and a Coldspring memory

Just an hour from Milwaukee 

80 miles from Chicago are the 

tourist Vista Lagos that I call home 

and when I think of Coldspring 

don’t even ask me why I get those 

tiny Coldspring teardrops in my eye

So I guess I’ll go to Coldspring 

and buy myself a shovel and 

teach their children Sunday school 

and forget about I am. I guess I’ll go 

to Cold Spring, where there are no 

cops or stop signs, with the weekly 

farmer socials at the local tavareen.

I can almost feel the breeze 

and I’ll be writing 

central Texas memories.

~~~~~

Gone Fishin’

One sheet, two sides, hand written 

1979 Austin TX

When sometimes like now I’m getting busy or involved in or out of doors, I hang this sign on my off-the-hook telephone that reverberates: gone fishing. Gone fishing.

Hell is freezing over, the cows are coming home, walking right across it, on the other shoe that dropped. Famous authors are dead and living in New York, the marriage of Art and Life is getting a divorce, and while the end of the world is coming and going, I am gone fishin’.

Been fishin’ a long while, from the long drawn out tales of Cave dwellers, the scrolling of low too, and Gutenberg‘s wildest dreams, through the declarations of interdependence, decreed on bazaar walls of Chairman Mao, the great American flyer, a ghost is fading fast.

I noticed live poems dying 

when I say let me write that down. 

They go down sounding better than 

Rachmaninoff and 20 violins, with 

the southern wind, attached is the 

harmonica like Siamese twins

Buzzard revision… According to the blue there’s a piece to brother Thomas revision follows itty-bitty turkey throat to read buzzard neck

All of us have sat one time or another reading this wall clock ticks we could be fishing, fresh tracking blood, young medicine, 

Gracie had a thought, but no I’m in Pavlovs doggy sideshow, chasing bells and celebrating molten Monsanto from a raw meat mouth, Monsanto, an engineering plastic, sit with a chameleon memory and transparent lizard that crawls across the face of my past, I can barely see through it while a neon pterodactyl in the carnival day glow sky, flapping plastic leather wings while radar blips, fading out of range, leaves me a working man’s hobo, a grade less than master hobo, drifting from job to job for shit wages. I’d rather be an alcoholic writer.

Here, where we find the psilocybin in the shit of our existence, I find myself missing in action, while the archives on recorded cemetery somewhere or yet in brain field lay the poetry ??? red line riding a low tachometer depraved, I go for days without letting up

It’s raining and I am drinking beer, while one side of the river or the other, where the toxins and poisons enemy camp and pull raids and party and parade through my nervous center cities

All my relatives passing under that big sky, 

all passing, all going south, somewhere in their blood, 

all my relatives travois light and gather there where the 

stuff is lush and abundant

Give me a couple of guns and a couple of cane poles, lay in a stock of hooks and bullets, some gardening seeds and tools in a sail cloth teepee and a round-trip ticket to nowhere and could you wrap that to go? And if you haven’t left already, then don’t pack, please turn back, don’t talk or make contact, cause nobody will be here, gone fishin’.

…

Poem to Amy, a

This piece is dedicated to 

going fishing, hunting cow pies, 

and flying kites.

~~~~~

Panboy, a single sheet, pocket folded, burgundy ink on slate parchment, @ 6” x 14”, with a copper etching, by Rhoda Grossman, of the poet reclining nude. Printed at Kenzle’s Third Coast Press 1978

…

On writing poems

Eat a bowl of fuck 

was the only comment 

Bernardo could make 

on writing poems

…

Panboy’s got a lot of balls. 

Panboy’s like that. 

He’s got a lot of balls. 

They hang between his 

legs like a bunch of grapes.

…

Fried in the brain pan, you’re wondering the coast and digging clams and making fishers of some fine folks y’all fried in the brain pan, sucking salt tuna and workin’ the boat, you fishers of small talk and tall tuna city evening too and cheese and bread and wine frog in the brain pan you hadn’t ought to be getting stoned. It’s like I was telling my brother Earl, “You hadn’t ought to be getting stoned when you’re putting up the summer screens or before you know it flies are buzzing all over your old ladies twat.

…

Tuna Fishing with Onions

after all night fucking we 

got up late and she asked 

was I going to works like that 

smelling up tuna and I said,

yes, with onions.

…

Sherlock Wastebasket

“I actually have my period”, she said, having been worried. 

“I know”, I said, being the Sherlock wastebasket I am

…

When you cried perverted me 

I just shot this guy put it back 

all in your mouth and let’s 

give God another try.

~~~~

Ice Cream Koans 

A 1976, 16 page,  pocket chapbook.

Art by Rhoda Grossman

Plain Muse, narcotic Muse 

chocolate Muse, ice cream cones 

are poking fun and it’s giggling

…

I want you so bad to understand 

what a fool what a fool

…

Just you and me and the scenery 

and that hot muck where the mythos grows

…

Hunched into the wind 

rushing to settle affairs 

before death arrives 

and dying embers.

…

Flies buzz screen door slam, 

Shiva boogie, tugging her jeans

…

And so to Chinese patience 

and Buddha tiger Jell-O

…

Acid yellow painted lines 

a new blacktop road 

they blow and dance away

…

With or without prepositions

Statue park breaks it up 

for the freeway traveler 

who wasted two shits by and

for the bench sitter

…

A bird does not fly in the rain 

across a dark windshield and 

shiver my teeth… But

…

All evening at 60 miles an hour 

night falls on the highway and 

just before the sleet Madison 

and Minneapolis were 

mapped out 

in the john

…

Hunched over the earth  

the sky is all moon tonight 

scraping frost from the windshield

…

Blushing she came to poetry class 

with a letter reading in French

…

Can you draw dying dragons dripping déjà vu? 

Can you drift on this Chinese junk?

…

I feel like drifting on the river… 

Days go by and now splash

…

The sun sets on my 

southern fried fingers 

sucking an orange

…

Black coke flared nostrils 

unbridled snorting on the 

fingerboard

(a tiny ode to Hendrix)

…

Satin explosions spidering 

eight points of light 

fully synchromesh

…

A full four lane tourist highway 

roars all night long in the middle 

of nowhere.

…

Sucking the frost of 

a December third moon 

standing on a tractor 

balling the earth

…

Either some vast 

nostril sucking prana 

is loving you or 

something else is 

sucking you 

all by itself

…

Shutting down tonight 

slowly letting the cars go by 

and the temperature drop

…

Automatic rheostatic 

satori pilot 

locked on high

…

Oh those pirate nights and

ice cream cone days while 

cheesecake cool lips dribble 

blueberry beardedness

~~~~

A poem from 

Love, Basho

Hi Vicki

I spend my days in wastefulness, 

wastedness, thinking of you, thinking of you

And it’s so nice to be high again… 

Getting so by again… thinking of you.

~~~~

Sweet Flag Root

You know where the sun comes up 

but not where the roads toss you like 

sticks in your second hexagram

Do you know where the sun comes 

up but not wear night gathers over you 

in that thick dust till rain pocks and 

star flecks and the obsidian wind 

and you know where…

~~~~~

The alphabet soup conversion kit $9.95

You wonder if you won’t someday 

be into a can of soup with your spoon 

well in hand… You stand in the field, 

the wind blows, the oats are sewing you, 

isn’t that wild?

~~~~~

Poof

So hankies, draped over nothing, 

then flowers, then poof, nothing but 

my sleeve

~~~~~

Poems from Pleasant Street

Taste treat recipes for cookie

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

Kiss the little C for me

Run your fingers through the boys hair. 

Feel the sun good warming all over your own. 

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

Shoot a full moon

Sneak a peek in the mirror

Laugh out loud at nothing

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

~~~~~

When once there was

Does it cause your concern,

is their Eskimo cold when once 

there was fire in your belly?

When once. A particular night. 

Your front porch. My prick in 

my pocket. Your panties still on. 

There was fire in your belly.

When now in your 23rd year. 

Two children. Ex-husband. 

Ex lovers. Some female parts 

cauterized and laparoscopied. 

Does it cause you concern? 

Is there Eskimo cold? When 

once there was fire in your belly.

~~~~~

Pleasant Street

Much as we get along and don’t 

hello goodbye and I miss you 

even when I look at you and 

while we know our respective 

places, though I tend to forgetting, 

and while we won’t get married 

or live together or have even sex 

and though you don’t close the 

screen door till I step off the curb, 

there is something so pleasant on 

Pleasant Street. We throw water 

at each other instead of goodbye 

and laugh in the kitchen instead of cry 

and you don’t close the screen door 

till I stepped off the curb.

~~~~~

Hey Mister

You know you’re getting older 

when the neighborhood kids 

call you “Hey Mister.*

*that goes for you too, “Hey lady.

~~~~~

Getting Lost Together

For Cookie

We get lost together, separately, 

in other people, places, miscellaneous, etc.

And we could get found again, after while, 

throwing ourselves into each others, 

figuratively speaking, arms. I don’t know 

what else to say.

You are there, vaguely somewhere and 

in that same where, I know the roads, 

country back, tourist town alley, and 

vaguely someday I will knock on your 

door. It will be the future already.

….

Pleasant Street and other poems 

Copyright 1979 David L White

AZML

~~~~~

The official 

Goodbye Delmar Blue, 

revised list of titles only, poems not included:

When your forwarding expires I won’t know where to reach you

Springtime like a long shot at a horse race

Chameleon Memory

Squeaky Mice

Give thanks for your freedom: attend church

Del Mar subdivision

April May

Mrs. Peaches

Falling Madly in Bed with You

Genital Chords

Cat Lick Job

Ambulatory Siesta

Too many poets selling typewriters

Hobo with a Cloth Napkin

Grocery Lists and Poetry

Buzzard: revisions

The Alphabet Zoupe Toy Book Game

Goodbye Delmar blue

The Someday I’m going to write a book book

For Kathleen

Copyright 1979 David White

Pony Express/Austin

Member AZML

~~~~~

Someday we will float through New Orleans

like a bag of dead cats thrown in at Sioux City 

nonchalantly

~~~~~

Where is our airplane?

A man says by the White brothers a drink. 

One of the brothers says where is our airplane? 

Tiny said that. Tiny, my brother, sitting old style 

somewhere in southern Wisconsin blasting 

bullshit poetry over illegal airwaves. 

He never writes it down. 

And I, of course, scribble what I can.

Honorable mentions to hawk face kitty

~~~~~

Five above

Five above the limit 

we come rolling into town 

hootin’ and hollerin’ 

with the top down on our 

vintage Russell Edson

~~~~~

Freight train over Kathleen

On a Milwaukee railroad bridge deck trestle 

an unknown spray painted Kathleen and for 

a long long time I thought of her often until 

one day it was a freight train over Kathleen.

April 6, 1988

10 years after 

~~~~~

Melanoma Roma

When the whole of your existence 

carries hazard labels and you’re stinking 

of carcinogens like a puppy in skunk shit, 

the soup says: lift your spinal tailed cranial kite, 

set the breeze with your feet, and let go of it.

May 1, 1988

~~~~~

While on tradewinds

Supple warm brown 

earth breast of life 

Gail comes in, 

kind of brown skin, 

bringing fruit from Jamaica

1975

~~~~~

Jen Jen

I feel some strange poetry coming on, 

having less to do with words or having 

to do with fewer words or more to do 

with taking up that rock space, watching 

cars go by listening to nothing and waiting 

for weeks to go south for the winter.

August 18, 1976

~~~~~

Going Home

Riding the glacier home, south on a 

southern breeze down that wide star way 

you know so well

Sleet freezes the muck in your nose. 

You laugh, snort the wind and take 

the reins in your teeth

Rolling up some bud and picking songs 

on a tentative guitar, it’s onto the long song. 

Hot tea, for just an afternoon occasion. 

So nicely twisted as Hunter would say. 

Shanti Deva soon enough climbs on and 

takes the reins.

1975 or 1976

~~~~~

Scratching crackles over the phone 

while doodling someone specific in mind. 

You hang up the phone, little Buddha’s asleep, 

the doodles are phoning themselves

1975

~~~~~

It’s when earth ball gossip sucks you 

like a pucker piss poor group that you 

wonder what dumb fuck this is through 

your mealymouth mime of techno rape 

1975

~~~~~

Side One in E flat Major

Sometimes he turns on Beethoven 

and stands up for a performance and 

sometimes he doesn’t turn him on at all.

~~~~~

Hexagram XX

Six lines in a mirror I took only one

Something will come up. Something always does.

Yeah and it’s a long way in here and five other lines.

~~~~~

Pathless one

With tolerance like pathless one 

I follow the river up and up north 

of the creek on the edge of the map 

and discover it dripping between my legs. 

Oh fat beard Buddha, maker of the old way, 

follower of the clever silence, you are not winking 

at yourself, you are indistinguishable ancient. On a 

mountain goading me. On a mountain goading me.

1975

~~~~~

PJ

Set on being nobody, saving 

nothing, heartlight caring, 

little enough, and building 

no castles but clouds move

~~~~~

Rainbow violins, 

stream of light, 

caressing you, 

with rivulet fingers

~~~~~

Masai pray to the rain 

live with their cow and 

all the harmony of the 

vast rolling and wandering 

and leaving no trail and 

their cow is too big and 

killing their self and the 

Massi dance thirsty and 

pray to the rain.

~~~~~

Hot lava

Rusty blonde Mandela 

in lemon twist reflection 

and all is outside crystalness 

when she’s seating feather cushion 

to meditate on that and I my citric tongue.

~~~~~

Earth rhythm rumbles 

my flinching meditation 

and vanishes echoing

~~~~~

Ashen dim smoke eyes 

staring as the skin draws 

tight across your rib cage 

of pre-historical rude art 

drawing within

1975

~~~~~

Snoopy dancing to some of Schröder’s Beethoven

High up on my winged heels 

I’m still grinning in the silence 

of the rush and eerily stepping 

over this frothing dogs mouth.…

~~~~~

You know where

Do you know where the sun comes up 

but not quite where the roads read, 

you, like sticks in a second hexagram 

scattering puddles of blue mud butterflies 

while down at your boots your head’s in 

the clouds rippling between your feet

As night gathers over you 

like thick dust in burial grounds 

of throwaway poetry, you know 

where the sun comes up, 

when rain pocks your constellation face,

and blows the obsidian wind

~~~~~

I keep pacing and looking 

and needing to see that bird 

that whistles like Corinna Corinna

there …  pulling up at the curb

~~~~~

Winding pathways 

mountain bare feet 

carrying water in 

the Navajo sun 

carrying water in 

the Navajo sun 

~~~~~

Joshua

Were you making poetry 

in the face of growing headlights 

riding along the nightlight greeting 

formlessness head-on?)

Was that you that trite expression 

they scooped from the trunk and 

hung on the library wall?

Judy came by that afternoon 

wondering was that you, Josh, 

was that you? 

1976

~~~~~

Standing there in that blue gauze dawn

cartoon fishing in the Dr. Seuss dew

long after your lights turned off the driveway

smoking there nude while the moon floods 

wide awake while the crickets freeze

To Buffalo Rosebud

August 8, 1976

~~~~~

Honeycomb harp plays 

unknown to me the 

drooling devotion of an 

all day sucker while the 

dunes sand shift and the 

cottonwoods green waxen rustle

…

End of 1975 and 1976

~~~~~

Tribal story

In the olden days, before there was writing, 

there was scratching in the dirt, on spirit rocks, 

on cave walls, and poets, lyricist, storytellers, 

comedians, and perhaps even mimes, told the 

tribal story, kept the ritual history, reminded 

the people who they were, in the midst of 

wherever that was

They were revered and they were nobody special, 

everyone did it and to some degree or another, 

everyone still does

For keeping the song story alive is no more than 

what you tell yourself, and others, with the very words 

you say and your artful actions

That is your story and the story holds the world view, 

and in that simple since everyone is a poet, artist, 

minstrel, mime, profit, clown, historian, a keeper 

of the truth, your truth.

Own it.

~~~~~

Reeling

Reeling in adversity 

like fishes from a 

stocked pond, you’re 

mentally mounting 

trophies,  while silt  

fills your waders.

Aren’t you about 

over your limit?

~~~~~

Books by David L White 

http://www.amazon.com/author/davidlwhite

How to Do Happy Better,  a how-to, workshop playbook that challenges you to do the work that all the other self-improvement books have asked you to do.

________________________

Micro Biographies – real people

• Drive Time, micro-biographies, people/rider/customer stories I’d been encouraging and posting on the blog: shuttledave.blogspot.com

• Drive Time 2 (Homeward Bound) –  the real people/rider/customer stories rides again.

• Postcards from the Beautiful Route, the third in the Drive Time line.

________________________

Poetry

• Lost and Found, my fortieth anniversary poetry anthology. 

• Velveteen Frankensteen – Poetry 

• Cloud Fishing – Poetry 

________________________

Out of print 

poetry chapbooks and newsletters.

Poems also appearing in multiple issues of the …

Alphabet Zoupe Knews Review and

PandaLoon; a pocket chapbook series

Chapbooks – out of print ( poems include in this ebook and Lost and Found on Amazon.

• Believe It 

• Pleasant Street 

• Goodbye Delmar Blue 

• Gone Fishin’

• Ice Cream Koans 

• Love Basho 

• there is no door 

~~~~~

Your donations are much appreciated.

http://www.paypal.me/davidlwhite 

And thank you for reading along.

Copyright © 2022 David L White. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted by David L. White. All rights reserved. No part of these pages, either text or image may be used for any purpose other than personal use. Therefore, reproduction, modi cation, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission. 

Published by Small Potatoes Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 

~~~~~

http://www.davidlwhite.org • www.GigAHug.com