Tijuana Gringo

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Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Ryan went for a two week honeymoon in Mexico.  Many years later HIS name was carved in stone on the border here at Tijuana.  After he resigned I gave him a copy of a poem I wrote that summer.  Actually left it with the guard at the gate of his San Clemente estate.  My reader wraptaur will challenge itself to find the repercussions mispelled so no report is necessary eh?  Eh.     Except to me back door yeah.

(żż)TITLED(??)

Heartache lonesome yet with eyes dry
cool wind blowing on my brow, I
wonder where in world to go to now.

Overpowered by my lonely 
longing for some lost unknown sea
I might be at last fulfilled, how?

In the nights of passing wonder
where the planet song goes under
down beneath a weight of sorrow

there inside myself alone, I 
let go all I've ever known.  My 
soul turns on and off and I grow

older.  

Colder than ash are the eyes
of this hot heart burning knowledge.

Cooler than doves are the thoughts
of a serpent wise innocence.

Resurrection.  Liberation.  Eternity.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  With the Quaker Tragedy.  Telling how Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Ryan went for a two week honeymoon in Mexico.  Speaking of corruption have you heard about the video tapes showing Mexican politicians taking millions? 

Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Ryan went for a two week honeymoon in Mexico.  Many years later HIS name was carved in stone on the border here at Tijuana.  Now it has been erased. Whether this is temporary or permanent I cannot say remains to be seen at this point in temporal flux between multidimensional verses-uni yes. The man cast a long shadow over history what with China and lying about Maotian chopstix and then resigning over yet another bungled burglary.  My brother gave me a book about him which I am reading, now that our work of packing and moving is over thank God allmighty no tires blown out nor flat and the creek did Not RISE amen.

FRIDAY NIGHT Drove from Seattle at midnight Friday, "down" BIG interstate 5 past Tacoma and Olympia and beyond Portland (where I drove through that lovely downtown at two a.m. after crossing the Columbia river shining electric darkness) and finally slept from 4.a.m. to 8.a.m.

SATURDAY drove through Oregon into northern California, stopping to eat my dinner alone pollo asado after sunset in Jacksonville old gold rush town with quaint architecture yes here's a picture quoted from the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.  Earlier stopped at a rest stop maybe 20 miles north of Grant's Pass:

     surrounded by trees
     the highway
                 loops
     canyons
                       valleys

     g r e e n






until the places where they clear-cut all the trees

Robert_Shadowfire@hotmail.com left his email address scribbled on the corner of a sign at this Cow Creek Rest Area

I crossed the Siskyouus mountains however the heck you spell them in darkness and saw absolutely nothing beyond the twisting, tangled curves of mountain superhighway, nothing like ten days ago coming "up" north on the train.  No.  But got to Sacramento around one a.m. after a long evening crawling down 5 it felt like I was only going five miles an hour too much cofee I guess and that road is whoreible at night endless endless endless flat perfection (after you leave the mountains) tempting you to fall asleep and drive off into oblivion beside the black skid streaks going off the side and the remnants of blownout tires where things kept going bump in the dark and jumping out from behind bushes in the corners of my eyes and when I looked there weren't even any bushes there, no.  Eeeeesh too late too late too late I almost ran out of gas twice mmmmm that road sux, my friend, yes, you probably have heard it before toooooo perfect no.

I drove alone the whole way alone not wanting to caravan behind my brother in his rented little truck but I met him each night.  I drove his minivan, their minivan, him and his wife's minivan that my/our Mom bought them yes it was fulllllll of stuffffff besides the rabbit, two cats and two hamsters yes.  Three bicycles hung from the back rack I put on grumbling WHY ARE YOU HAULING ALL THIS TRASH BACK AND FORTH IT'S NOT jUsT YOu who is hauling it now I am it's you AND me and you are using me to enable your addiction you and your wife's packrat shopaholic addition to mountains of trash

MY GAWD you have THREE storage units now and your kitchen was full of bags of unopened stuff you and she bought and your pantry with five empty quaker oats boxes and seven empty cereal boxes and six bags of halloweeen candy hidden away and and and and

MY Gaaad little empty chicken pot pie tins scrubbed clean and stored with your cabinets fulllll of burping empty tupperware

you cannot even throw empty things away??!!!  Such mountains of trash will give you nothing but slavery to worthless things instead of freedom to devote yourself to your family and self hmmmm where have we seen this behavior before I mean just look at the HUGE pile of files stored all over this website oh yes oh yes I AM the pot calling the kettle black well IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE and I know you now, yes this is the second time I have helped you move and I must tell you my beloved brother and sister you have abandonment issues in your denial and endless buying stuff and never throwing anything away or giving anything away go ahead laugh at me laugh at your neurosis it IS Your Business, after all, yes, but NOW YOU ARE USING me to Enable Your Addictions both of you like me we are ALL OBESE CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS heh?  Eh?  Don't even bother to deny it.

But I resisted the temptation to tell her this when I saw her shoehorned into her mother's house with all their animals and the sister who has survived fifteen years with massive brain stem injuries screaming at the rabbit WE DON'T LIVE IN A BARN

Jeeeezzzus but then my brother

my sister

I imagined all those days packing I imagined how it was going to be, lecturing L and B in a separate room, door closed, just the three of us, only a table and chairs in my imagination.  But the reality of L's mom's house in Riverside is something utterly different.  Cluttered cluttered and even more cluttered now with everyone there.  And of course by then I had decided they didn't need nor want me kvetching and batching at them, too.  Enough already, Dano Dani dammit.  But later after unloading the minivan at their storage unit (yes, another one), my brother invited me to a famous name brand hamburger joint and there, like in my imagination all clean lines and simple tables and no clutter, he said

I hope it hasn't been too hard for you, Daniel...

And it all poured out............ especially the rusted old bicycle with tires hanging loose right off the rims that he hauled north four years ago and now had me haul south again heh heh heh heh EFG sound of mad, cackling laughter...... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

from my notebook this morning before the bus from Perris to San Diego

PERRIS CA


In the shadow of
               snow-crowned peaks

Jacinto, Gorgonio,

our fringes
of megalopolis
               reach
               for
the desert .

Empty fields from the ancient regime
               agriculture

transform millennial
industrial edges
               tract houses
mini-mall stores
               and
maximal
parking        lots .

Separate freeway threads
altogether tie us
               all together .

In a hidden 
corner,        the
               railroad museum
kisses
its blessed touch
of bygone      nostalgia .

On Sunday there will still be
a picnic       after church .








              But I am only learning to forgive
              and be         forgiven .

Tijuana Gringo

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