Something Joanne Told Me

"There are 4 voices in your poems
            but there should be at least 8
                        & one of them should be mine"

from GOD NEVER DIES by Joanne Kyger

Little shrine to JEK

Bring Your Jungle Along by Joanne Kyger

Joanne Elizabeth Kyger

November 19, 1934 - March 22, 2017

Drinking From Puddles

Riding on the promise of a rusty hinge
in the pale gray light

the lark & seagull sky
falling between shadows
on the pavement

but if like me you're water damaged it's
all a blur

One foot in a tide pool the other
                                         in The Forbidden City
where one might peruse the take-out menu
               if only to search for secret messages that
tend to drift in on the brilliant
                                                         blue gray silver fog

(If you were asked what color it was you'd
have to say "dark"

& situated in that uncertain area between tides
she wanted to know the preliminary
parts of whatever
empty rules of heaven

clang.  wiggle.  crash.  blink.
The Art of the Fugue

Mariachi Night on Squid Row

She steps out of the skintight laundromat
but like Bo Diddley
behind stained-glass Ray-Bans
strumming tombstones in the rain

& I said "You furnish the
delicata & the ocean of pain
I'll handle the employees"

It was a case of what you believe versus
what you set fire to in the backyard

& wading through the knee-high beach grass
nothing adds up but it doesn't matter

x equals delirium which is what it felt like
down at the Discount Karma Store

"You get what you pay for"

at the corner of Easy Street & Kamikaze Blvd