How I Got My Pen Name


Three roads
Not two
Diverged in the woods 

Cal
Took the one less traveled by 
On the left 

Okie
Took the one less traveled by
On the right

Loki 
Took the most popular 
Middle path

Nobody today 
Knows where the hell
They're going





Father Sky/Mother Earth


Freshman year in college
Outside TB sanitarium 
blue northerner chills twilight sky

Crew-cut preacher from Baptist university
stands in cowboy boots before plate-glass 
window along blanched beige wall 

which separates student evangelistic team 
from coughing and wheezing indigenous 
inmates lying in or sitting upon hospital beds

In warm, earnest tone, he assures them though their sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow through 
the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ

Dark brown eyes in Ghost Dance trance
as we sing, “Just as I am” 
And while standing on cold 

concrete floor above moist
crimson soil of Oklahoma
Choctaw word for Red Earth People

I can't help but wonder
have they too 
been “wounded for our transgressions”





Summer of ’66


One year after the riots or rebellion
depending on your point of view
I attend the Watts Jazz festival

In the afternoon under the junk sculpted tower of Simon Rodia 
The drumming is like a flower power fiesta at a love-in
and DEEP in my heart
I do believe
that one day 
WE
BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER 
SHALL OVERCOME

But as Hugh Masekela trumpet fanfares 
West Coast sundown, majority of minority 
Euro-Americans leave festival 
and l am left  with a few whites bobbling 
like a fishing float in an African-night ocean  

War beat takes over drums
Flash backs to year ago unrest follow
“BURN, BABY, BURN.”
“GET WHITEY!”
“BLACK POWER!”

Suddenly blonde Euro in bare midriff
stands up in spotlight and shakes blue jean booty
to roar and laughter of crowd

A jazz brother needs a ride
and in my ’53 Chevy, I drive him to his ghetto home
My fading blue clunker could have broken down there
but it didn’t

And even if it did
as Miles Davis might have “kind of blued” 
with muted horn
“SO WHAT”





The Sin of Gluteny


After another stimulating Saturday afternoon poetry workshop in Pasadena
Kingfisher drops me off at the Traders Joes on Parkway
See Sockeye Salmon lox for only $5.99 at south wall shelf
Back cart to look for cream cheese
Trader Joe's Goat's Milk Creamy Cheese the ticket
Drop in grocery cart

Go to produce
Pick up beefsteak tomato and red onion
Only need bagels

At Bakery shelf on Northeast wall
I come to the bagel bunch
I notice first a bag of four gluten bagels for $4.99
This would have been a savvy purchase
except for the price
and bland taste
Opt for best buy for bag of Bagel Josef's six Sesame Seed
ones with sprouted wheat for $1.99

As I walk to Fillmore St for Goldline return home to condo pad
I look forward to bagel and lox breakfast Sunday
with a cup or two of 
Trader Joe's 
Organic 
Fair Trade
Shade grown
Ethiopian
Medium bodied
Floral aroma
coffee

Ah, La dolce vita!