POEM FOR A FRIEND WHO TOLD ME I NEED TO STOP DWELLING ON THE PAST
A friend of mine tells me
I need to stop dwelling on the past
He says nostalgia is an anchor
Destined to drag me down
Angels have traded in their wings
For a ticket to my dreams
The phantom of the opera
Has a front-row seat in my nightmares
Carnivorous poems eat my thoughts
Pit tomorrow against yesterday
Master to no one servant to many
Old lovers juggle Molotov cocktails
Runaway with my photo albums
There is no place to flee no place to hide
No church to grant me a sanctuary
I spend the morning reading a newspaper
Tomorrow this same newspaper will be history
Should I pretend it never existed?
Two years into a drought
Not a drop of rain in sight
A leftover winter with her cold claws
Forces her way into the attic of my mind
If she were of human flesh
She would crack open my memory vault
Find miles of the past that flow
Like Li Po poems down a river old as time
Should I ignore her
Tell her to come back next winter
That now is not the right time?
I have written one too many memorial poems
For friends who have passed away
Should I shut them out of my mind
Focus my attention on tomorrow
Build a sheltered path
Leading to the Promised Land?
My emotions are trapped in quicksand
No place to run no place to hide
Endless chatter comes from the 4-walls
Where death hides between the cracks
The past is my lover
She clings to my bones like
A child to its mother’s bosom
She sleeps in my memories like
A phantom bank that accepts only
Deposits refuses withdrawals
I think of her like
I think of San Francisco
The City of my birth
The salt air smell at Ocean Beach
The Marina Greens
North Beach and the Fillmore
All filled with quicksand memories
The past has become my present
The future a gypsy fortuneteller
Hides out in the last ghost town
In America
My existence is a slow-moving train
On a journey to an empty railway yard
Where mad conductors wait
To punch tickets in the hands
Of faceless passengers
© Tim Tomlinson: Mahler by Rodin
ON THE BACK OF THE WIND
Holy men lurk on every street corner
Selling fake myths
Nuns in white robes with virgin toes
And mushroom dreams
Take up residence inside my head
Wannabe poet laureates steal my poems
Plagiarize my biography
Political hacks make robot telephone calls
At all hours of the day and night
I’m being stalked by Dick Tracy
Look-a-likes with flat feet and bug eyes
The wolf’s eerie howl haunts my dreams
Poetry Flash takes out an advertisement
Denies my existence
TV Evangelists pickpocket my empty wallet
The crime scene runs out of yellow tape
The police lineup consists of six pygmies
And a ham sandwich
The grand jury indicts me without hearing
The evidence
God wanders the Universe like a Cyclops
Looking for the lost soul of Judas
Jesus challenges Satan for a duel
At the heart of the Bermuda Triangle
The Holy Ghost confiscates my dreams
Holds me for a ransom I cannot pay
I’ve become a one-legged tightrope walker
Without a safety net
My poems turn into pigeon feathers
Fly away on the back of the wind
DEAD HOURS OF DAWN
Sitting here in my small apartment
winding down the morning hours
the fog blankets the city like
a police dragnet
Shaman poets sing in my ears
under an imaginary bed of stars
brings back images of young women
with dresses that clung to firm thighs
damp dark cavern wet as morning dew
peach fuzz dinner drew me in
devoured me like quicksand
Born premature at home
I survived to walk the jungles of Panama
fed off North Beach Beat Mania
Now alone and eighty-five
I sit at Martha’s Café with
a cup of coffee for company
as visions of the past take root
seek refuge in my memory bank
The wind sharp as a knife
propels me toward my destiny
my boyhood gone like an old jalopy
used-up rusting in an auto junkyard
I head toward the comfort of the now
nailed to the cross of the past
in the language of the present
with no words to light the fire like
a mountain climber weighed down
with a heavy backpack
Vague recollections of my mother
holding me in her arms
the chill of a startled waking
the tongue of dawn cold as dry ice
A dog bars at an imaginary enemy
a cat yawns in boredom
the universe draws new boundary lines
fragile as a newborn baby
The monkey rides his master’s back
fearful police lock and load their guns
black boys moving targets in the night
Voter suppression laws
to keep the power structure intact
southern barbecues with rednecks
hungry for black boy stew
gone the passion of revolution
sell out satisfaction to the status quo
the night hounds of death stumble
into the light of day
the rich roast the poor like
a pig on a spit
The war machine moneymakers
fuel the cash registers of America
with the blood of our youth
The Roman Senate proceeds unabated
turn out gladiators like machinery parts
Endless parades marching bands waving flags
played out like a Disney Land production
Slaves without chains
government without representation
this nation of criminal politicians
The ghost of Custer rises like
a creature from the lagoon
creeps through the night like
a faceless Santa Claus with
a bag of Indian scalps
Allah competes with the Pope
for the rights to the head of Jesus
beheaded by ISIS barbarians
back from a night of slaughter
The congregation stumbles like
a drunk into the future
as I wait for the night hours
try to shut out the demons of insomnia
The all-night carousel runs non-stop
spits out gold rings at the patrons
the ticket-taker caught in the stampede
The holy of the unholy money makers
hide inside their gold temples
pass new laws that feed on the bones
of the poor and dispossessed
A future where animals turn into animal crackers
and wingless birds hop frantically around
the thanksgiving dinner table
knifes stuck in their breasts waiting
to be served as a holiday feast
The angels occupy the box-seats
at Yankee Stadium
God sends down a bolt of lightning
dismayed at the flawed diamond
he created in his image
IN THE TWILIGHT OF INSANITY
in the twilight of my insanity
the sun beats down on me
like the gleam in the eye
of a butcher lowering a hammer
on the head of an unsuspecting cow
being led to the slaughterhouse
the memories circle me like old-time
Indians circling a wagon train
as I walk back into my birth
each new year like a sharpened knife
in the hands of a trembling surgeon
lost in insomnia like a blind man
walking a dark road in the dead of night
waking like a shotgun blast in a killing field
lost in a language I cannot translate
the priest passes the collection plate
rejects my confession
my sins laid out like a sea of stars
in a faraway constellation
the creaking coasters
of my grandfather’s rocking chair
sing in my one good ear
the Holy Ghost devours me like a python
the Pope gets down on his knees
begs for Jesus to come out of hiding
and deliver the long-promised resurrection
BACK THEN
Intelligence never got much further than Saigon
or a short trip to Da Nang
most of us served in the States
far behind enemy lines
victims of the big lie that we were saving
the world from the “commie” hordes
I remember one time
I interviewed a young Marine
a victim of the Tet Offensive
He talked about throwing Cong out of helicopters
after interrogations, claimed the nightmares
left him sleepless
kept seeing all those faces in on between the walls
said buddies of his sent home drugs
concealed inside body bags
but no one believed him
tiny pieces of flesh hitting him in the face
blood between what was left of his chewed off fingernails
and fragging a Lieutenant kept haunting him
Intelligence said he could not be trusted
he was either a Section Eight case
or perhaps just wanted out of the military
so they gave him a three-day pass
just to play it safe and set him up with
an appointment with a V.A. Shrink
A week later they found his body
down by the Beach Chalet
behind a forgotten old W.W. 2 bunker
dead and soon to be forgotten
a product of societal induced guilt
all the traps of a midnight slaughterhouse
of smoking guns from a criminal war machine
of the rich and mighty inside a cancerous womb
rotting like overripe fruit in a ghetto dumpster
(This poem is for Vietnam War Veterans, friends, and family of those who served, and those veterans who came home permanently scarred and those so badly damaged that they committed suicide.)