Poetry
Town and Country is now available.
Order online from Amazon or by mail by sending (includes taxes and shipping) to:
Josef Aukee
PO Box 191586
San Francisco CA 94119-1586.
Also available online at abebooks.com, Alibris and BooksinPrint.
Photo: Kurt Fashimpaur, Northstar Productions
Book design: theengineroom.cc
Order online from Amazon or by mail by sending (includes taxes and shipping) to:
Josef Aukee
PO Box 191586
San Francisco CA 94119-1586.
Also available online at abebooks.com, Alibris and BooksinPrint.
Photo: Kurt Fashimpaur, Northstar Productions
Book design: theengineroom.cc
McClures Beach
I am black and blue
This spectacular place subdues
Waves immense and powerful
Thrash tumultuous surf
Withdraw into silence
A sparsely populated beach
Castle rocks to the left
Fist of water leaping up against them
Iridescent in the white light
Of an October afternoon sun
One gull waits with me near enough
But at a safe distance
In recognition of our proximity to one another–
The natural world of guarded space
Move to plant a renewal flag
This is a tide of mobbing precipices
Found the bounty where I –
The pheromones are stirred
Music, food and sex
Who alone can compose the onslaught of the heart and soul?
Nostalgia can only trigger the romanticized drama of the facts
Of the frantic formations of the sea
In the complications – the shifted wind—
Logic rerouted midday—focus of the morning’s clarity foams
In the undercurrents—
Fervent arc of the surf
Fallen wave rendered less perfect
Knowing photography
The mysteries of the inconceivable and misunderstood notions
Polish the buzz—enliven the senses
The internment of discovery
There on the shiftless shore
The wear on the rocks
The risks of landing
Positions of retreat, of reduction,
Underscore the platitudes of contempt
A spectacular place to see the sea
A chance to play pioneer, explorer
Arbiter, incubator, painter, immigrant
Imbedded within the cold desire of nature
A time for immersion—
a day filled with the plain sense of the exteriors
At once chosen
In the raw
Fortunes brought by the pull-push
Spectacles are used
The order of arrivals
Inquisitions are even
Spare Parts
We are fond of the images of will
The innovations of steel and petroleum
Pressed into appliances, frames and beams.
Contemporary forks and knives
Lifted, carted, stored, shipped by biceps and 18-wheelers
From illustrations drawn into showrooms
We are grounded in skyward creations
Towers of financial maneuvers to display
The power of transactions
In wheat, water, concrete, rivets, gasoline
These are the unflappable regimes
Guarded by fences that map oligopolistic dreams
There is pride in those soaring overpasses and dams
Debacles of tunnels and mineral digs
An unending thirst for tractors and assembly lines
Manufactured demands and mechanisms of resolve
Measuring our lives in the number of housing starts
Who is willing to forfeit the fan belt supplier?
Somewhere, someone must toil preparing the spare parts
The new urban condo owners shriek at the thunder and squeals
From inside their neighbors corrugated metal walls
Machines of their existence
As if the rails they’ve ridden arrive discreetly
From a land inhibited by only them
As does asphalt, jets, elevators, trains, bridges and piers
Come from where?
Yes, here and there, not only
Van Nuys, Allentown, Milwaukee, Richmond, Buffalo, Pontiac
I Love Carmel-by-the-Sea
Not because Clint Eastwood shot “Play Misty for Me” along the shore or
Even for the majestic cliffs that usher in Big Sur
Nor for the gift that is the Lone Cypress on the impeccable 17-mile Drive
Not because it is the new American frontier preserved
In words of nearby Monterey and Salinas
Sustained in the scribbling of Steinbeck and Jeffers
The romance of rural living and hard-working families
The richness of the fertile soil and poetics of hawks and rocks drawn by the sea
Rather, I love the calamari appetizers,
Dense shopping filled with imitations of impressionists, clogs,
Scarves and heirloom jewelry minted in the East or excavated from northern Europe.
I love the quiet hush of the cobblestone walkways leading to quaint
Opportunities for poached salmon among local beans and artichokes
Brushed with Salinas and Carmel Valley chardonnay.
I love the raucous play of Tzetzu and retrievers at dusk along the precious white sand beach
where lovers of a certain age quiver on chilled half-foggy nights.
I love the miles of serene golf fairways with the Tommy Bahama-clad aspirants
Chugging boutique beer and the latest vodka at the clubhouse.
I love the wisps of clouds that grab the reds, oranges and purples from the setting sun
while rolling a joint and dropping acid waiting for the summer of love festival to return.
I love the debates for three million dollar real estate and the fact that Ross, Applebee’s and Payless Shoes
will never be able to afford to show their logos on Ocean Avenue.
I love my fake rich life here where anyone can always feel younger than everyone else
and writing this plopped at a fashionably rustic cowboy pub is quite enough.
Split in Half
A singed heart left in this town in tatters
All the good people make eye contact
Others push their way without getting the joke and the potency
Scattered pictures of what works and doesn’t
In abandoned sidewalks of ghost subdivisions on country hillsides
The jarring inconsistencies:
Three-deep bars, a lone clerk looking over the edge of a book
Waiting – to see someone walk in and buy something – love the approach –
The price is high – everything is a test balloon
Routine sandwich, bank, newspaper, smoking bench, happy hour, passwords lost,
dropped calls, comfort level tossed, a snicker in an elevator with strangers
Old streets of resistance and knowing smiles haunt like embraces given short shrift
The stoned monkeys running this show
Turn circus magic into jealous violent recriminations
The people walking and talking to themselves unleashed
Thicken the discord
Make ruins of the fortress and love for the minor chords we sang
In this city born on the backs of miners
Ripped by the loss of trains
Reborn by opera and the blues
Taken by the techno maelstrom and tossed into a pinwheel
Sputtered, beaten, refried and recounted
Rocked by the windfall fallen
Lifted by the hope that is
Cornered into what can’t breakout
Within a fundamental storm
We are longing
We are the yellow house and picket fence
We are fighting
We are sending out notes
We are stalwart
We are statues
We are monuments of the movement
We are stone-thrown
We are pulling roots we know should stay
We are timid with pain
We are lifting with our backs behind the wall
We are split in half again
Detroit Free Press
If I were still the paperboy
Could I deliver today’s news?
In warm winter gloves pedaling the misinformation as my gears slip and chain snaps
Would I still break into a 10-year-old smile when the doorbell rings and I shout “collect?”
It’s all about perseverance at 5:30am
In the thrill of a silent bursting morning sky
Orion slipping from view
“Time in a Bottle” on the transistor taped to the handlebars
10cc was number three when Chestnut Street was only crunchy slush
Brightened by the rays on grooved ice and reflection from the chrome fenders
Surrendered to the elements
The noxious ink, the errant dispatcher
Hell, I was only earning a few dollars for Cokes and horseback-riding anyway
Those disciplined hours spent over a year or two or three
At an innocent distance, I made bargains with my best customers for raking leaves, shoveling snow or mowing grass.
But just wait I said, “You’ll see.”
I can win at monopoly.
I memorized the route by doorways not address, names and tips not threatening dogs
Where else better to see my first pierced nose, the wreckage of domestic violence, the
secrets of shut-ins and drunken housewives.
Copyright 2010 Josef Aukee
I am black and blue
This spectacular place subdues
Waves immense and powerful
Thrash tumultuous surf
Withdraw into silence
A sparsely populated beach
Castle rocks to the left
Fist of water leaping up against them
Iridescent in the white light
Of an October afternoon sun
One gull waits with me near enough
But at a safe distance
In recognition of our proximity to one another–
The natural world of guarded space
Move to plant a renewal flag
This is a tide of mobbing precipices
Found the bounty where I –
The pheromones are stirred
Music, food and sex
Who alone can compose the onslaught of the heart and soul?
Nostalgia can only trigger the romanticized drama of the facts
Of the frantic formations of the sea
In the complications – the shifted wind—
Logic rerouted midday—focus of the morning’s clarity foams
In the undercurrents—
Fervent arc of the surf
Fallen wave rendered less perfect
Knowing photography
The mysteries of the inconceivable and misunderstood notions
Polish the buzz—enliven the senses
The internment of discovery
There on the shiftless shore
The wear on the rocks
The risks of landing
Positions of retreat, of reduction,
Underscore the platitudes of contempt
A spectacular place to see the sea
A chance to play pioneer, explorer
Arbiter, incubator, painter, immigrant
Imbedded within the cold desire of nature
A time for immersion—
a day filled with the plain sense of the exteriors
At once chosen
In the raw
Fortunes brought by the pull-push
Spectacles are used
The order of arrivals
Inquisitions are even
Spare Parts
We are fond of the images of will
The innovations of steel and petroleum
Pressed into appliances, frames and beams.
Contemporary forks and knives
Lifted, carted, stored, shipped by biceps and 18-wheelers
From illustrations drawn into showrooms
We are grounded in skyward creations
Towers of financial maneuvers to display
The power of transactions
In wheat, water, concrete, rivets, gasoline
These are the unflappable regimes
Guarded by fences that map oligopolistic dreams
There is pride in those soaring overpasses and dams
Debacles of tunnels and mineral digs
An unending thirst for tractors and assembly lines
Manufactured demands and mechanisms of resolve
Measuring our lives in the number of housing starts
Who is willing to forfeit the fan belt supplier?
Somewhere, someone must toil preparing the spare parts
The new urban condo owners shriek at the thunder and squeals
From inside their neighbors corrugated metal walls
Machines of their existence
As if the rails they’ve ridden arrive discreetly
From a land inhibited by only them
As does asphalt, jets, elevators, trains, bridges and piers
Come from where?
Yes, here and there, not only
Van Nuys, Allentown, Milwaukee, Richmond, Buffalo, Pontiac
I Love Carmel-by-the-Sea
Not because Clint Eastwood shot “Play Misty for Me” along the shore or
Even for the majestic cliffs that usher in Big Sur
Nor for the gift that is the Lone Cypress on the impeccable 17-mile Drive
Not because it is the new American frontier preserved
In words of nearby Monterey and Salinas
Sustained in the scribbling of Steinbeck and Jeffers
The romance of rural living and hard-working families
The richness of the fertile soil and poetics of hawks and rocks drawn by the sea
Rather, I love the calamari appetizers,
Dense shopping filled with imitations of impressionists, clogs,
Scarves and heirloom jewelry minted in the East or excavated from northern Europe.
I love the quiet hush of the cobblestone walkways leading to quaint
Opportunities for poached salmon among local beans and artichokes
Brushed with Salinas and Carmel Valley chardonnay.
I love the raucous play of Tzetzu and retrievers at dusk along the precious white sand beach
where lovers of a certain age quiver on chilled half-foggy nights.
I love the miles of serene golf fairways with the Tommy Bahama-clad aspirants
Chugging boutique beer and the latest vodka at the clubhouse.
I love the wisps of clouds that grab the reds, oranges and purples from the setting sun
while rolling a joint and dropping acid waiting for the summer of love festival to return.
I love the debates for three million dollar real estate and the fact that Ross, Applebee’s and Payless Shoes
will never be able to afford to show their logos on Ocean Avenue.
I love my fake rich life here where anyone can always feel younger than everyone else
and writing this plopped at a fashionably rustic cowboy pub is quite enough.
Split in Half
A singed heart left in this town in tatters
All the good people make eye contact
Others push their way without getting the joke and the potency
Scattered pictures of what works and doesn’t
In abandoned sidewalks of ghost subdivisions on country hillsides
The jarring inconsistencies:
Three-deep bars, a lone clerk looking over the edge of a book
Waiting – to see someone walk in and buy something – love the approach –
The price is high – everything is a test balloon
Routine sandwich, bank, newspaper, smoking bench, happy hour, passwords lost,
dropped calls, comfort level tossed, a snicker in an elevator with strangers
Old streets of resistance and knowing smiles haunt like embraces given short shrift
The stoned monkeys running this show
Turn circus magic into jealous violent recriminations
The people walking and talking to themselves unleashed
Thicken the discord
Make ruins of the fortress and love for the minor chords we sang
In this city born on the backs of miners
Ripped by the loss of trains
Reborn by opera and the blues
Taken by the techno maelstrom and tossed into a pinwheel
Sputtered, beaten, refried and recounted
Rocked by the windfall fallen
Lifted by the hope that is
Cornered into what can’t breakout
Within a fundamental storm
We are longing
We are the yellow house and picket fence
We are fighting
We are sending out notes
We are stalwart
We are statues
We are monuments of the movement
We are stone-thrown
We are pulling roots we know should stay
We are timid with pain
We are lifting with our backs behind the wall
We are split in half again
Detroit Free Press
If I were still the paperboy
Could I deliver today’s news?
In warm winter gloves pedaling the misinformation as my gears slip and chain snaps
Would I still break into a 10-year-old smile when the doorbell rings and I shout “collect?”
It’s all about perseverance at 5:30am
In the thrill of a silent bursting morning sky
Orion slipping from view
“Time in a Bottle” on the transistor taped to the handlebars
10cc was number three when Chestnut Street was only crunchy slush
Brightened by the rays on grooved ice and reflection from the chrome fenders
Surrendered to the elements
The noxious ink, the errant dispatcher
Hell, I was only earning a few dollars for Cokes and horseback-riding anyway
Those disciplined hours spent over a year or two or three
At an innocent distance, I made bargains with my best customers for raking leaves, shoveling snow or mowing grass.
But just wait I said, “You’ll see.”
I can win at monopoly.
I memorized the route by doorways not address, names and tips not threatening dogs
Where else better to see my first pierced nose, the wreckage of domestic violence, the
secrets of shut-ins and drunken housewives.
Copyright 2010 Josef Aukee