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I Found You

I lost track of family when I was nineteen
My sisters were drifters and old magazines
My brother took in by an Anglican priest
In Amador County, but he’s since deceased
I never would know him, ‘cause he changed his name
And moved to San Pedro, and rode out the rain
I tried being a con man until 24
My marks had been lonely and looking to score
But it was slow going, and felt like a curse
So I started to sell if they needed it worse
I never intended to take what I won
With my old Triumph Tiger, I rode out the sun, singing
Oh I found you, oh I found you
After the last ride was through
Oh I found you, oh I found you
After the last life was through
I met a mechanic up near the state line
He knew I knew motors and paid me just fine
I couriered engines all over the state
And settled near Shasta surrounded by lakes
The beds have gone drier but I do what I can
To keep away fire from my plot of land
It rips through the Coulter and Tamarack pines
And it thickens the air til you’d think you’d gone blind
Some night in September it’ll take me by storm
While I’m still dreaming about when I was born
It’ll eat through my cabin and all my propane
My windows will shatter and my roof will rain
Over my head til I’m buried and gone
They’d put up a sign but it wouldn’t last long, sayin
Until it’s all over, I’ll be where I’ve been
Hauling these engines from Redding to Bend
I’d stop on occasion and see some old friends
But I’ve run like a clock since I needed these ends
To meet like two strangers on opposite trains
Locking their eyes as they’re pulling away, sayin
Oh I found you, oh I found you
After the last nick of time
Oh I found you, oh I found you
After I ran out of time

Jesusita

The day that we came to the camp in the foothills
I found I could finally breathe
The guards were unarmed, and the food that they served us
Was filling and warm in reprieve
We’d all tried to get there, but I was successful
Through dumb luck, and cunning, and pride
We fought Jesusita with chainsaws and axes
Just grateful to feel alive
I’d been doing time for breaking and entering
Unoccupied houses alone
I thought of my brother; he must have been worried
But I couldn’t stay in that home
When they caught up to me, I was an expert
At taking precautions, but still
Each time you wake up to an empty cupboard
And sunlight on the window sill
I took off my name like a piece of old clothing
Thinking the trail was gone
But they found me anyway; prison was taxing
I tried to stay quiet, but strong
While I did time for breaking and entering
Unoccupied houses alone
I thought of my brother; he must have been worried
But I couldn’t stay in that home
I met an old inmate that they called John Leonard
And he scared the hell out of me
I only found out what he’d done some years after
I managed to get myself free
But I recall just how he stared at the desert
Like something that failed to burn
He told me what I could do on good behavior
And all the work hours I’d earn
That’s how I ended up at Jesusita
Severing fire from fuel
We sweat through our fireproof uniforms quickly
Losing the grip on our tools
I think about John peering out at the desert
And whether or not he’s insane
I dream of when I’ll get back down to the ocean
Surfing alone in the rain

Firewatcher

My day begins and ends in twilight, high above the treeline
Static on the radio cuts out between the callsigns
North Wawona, Raymond Mountain, Mariposa Grove
I have been at Henness Ridge since I got out of danger
FBI informants wouldn’t look here for a ranger
They tapped my phone and threatened me with things I can’t recall
Now half my friends are crazy and the rest are at the bottom of a glass
And here I am, suspended with the sun careening off Tioga Pass
Calling helicopters retrofitted from their tours in Vietnam
Switching out the napalm and the agent orange for flame retardant bombs
Someday soon I’d like to reemerge from where I’m hiding
Pick up all the threads I left back where I was residing
Let the dean of my department know I’m still alive
I occupy my mind with memorizing constellations
Pretending I’m a sailor doing ancient navigation
The sky coming in early, interrupting my charade
It’s not like I don’t like it here, but no one knows me by my real name
And watching for the fires, I am losing sight of the eternal flame
Spectating destruction wrought by empire that I swore I’d try to end
My very own horizon and a forest floor that I agreed to tend
But who am I to be more than a witness
To everything that has yet to transpire?
And why do I think I deserve some power
Over anything more tangible than fire?

Temple Bar

I miss all my friends at the Temple Bar
The ones who walked just half a block, and the ones who traveled far
A family like a lost and found
Blessed by Niles Canyon, and the water from the ground
Charlie was from Tracy, and he made all his money on pool
Hiding out from the Children of God, he’d run out the clock on school
But one summer he just disappeared, and I heard that he’d driven up north
Sometimes you never see someone again but you know just what they’re looking for
Roger was a scholar of capital
Paranoid but justified, slept in a sailboat hull
Showed up late one night in a dressing gown
Called us all his jailers, and the country a company town
And you’ll all crack up too, he said
It’s all just a matter of time
Last I heard he was a forester
And he’d shut up all the demons in his mind
Lena was a painter, and my first love
Not that she’d admit as much, sighing like a mourning dove
Last I heard, she’d made it in Monterey
Selling beachfront properties, flying in a private plane
Leonard hasn’t left at all but I rarely ever see him around
I might catch a glimpse at the grocery store
Or picking up some dinner in town
The one time I caught a look straight in his eyes
There was no recognition at all
Like two old fish in an aquarium
Seeing their reflections in the wall
I miss all my friends at the Temple Bar
The ones who never moved away and the ones who traveled far
A family like a lost and found
Then the Angels took it over, and it burned right to the ground

Delta Breeze

The delta breeze comes through at night
The AQI falls back to red
So I walk west on the San Joaquin
While my mind heads east instead
It’s 1 AM in Silver Spring
Air as clear as fresh cut glass
Senators asleep at home
Lobbyists awake with staff
But right now I can see for miles
The plumes emerge north of Merced
Silhouetted by the moon
And hovering above my head
Tomorrow I’ll go back to work
At the labs in Livermore
Calculating missiles paths
As they’ll arc from Vandenberg
There was a time that I believed in mutual assurance
As a way to keep inferno well in hand
But now the track runs parallel, without any deterrence
And the traces of betrayal over land
The delta breeze comes through at night
Lowering the AQI
So I walk along the San Joaquin
And travel east along my mind

Red Crossed Star

On a California ridge, many million years old
Carved out of the earth by glacial desire
Just two paths eaten at the edges hold
The rest swept away by the breath of fire
Ancient hunters in the snow-topped light
The last of the deer til the warm months come
Then the Spanish soldiers, and missionary wine
And American houses, all glass and sun
Grass and water, and open sky
Fading memories of genocide
Distant mountains, receding sand
Mass conversion, and stolen land
We’re born into a world that’s already half gone
No matter the year or the flags they fly
And all we can do is spend the time that we’re on
And hope that we love enough before we die
But here come the flames, and the flooding plains
Blowback from ghosts and the papers they signed
A chain of events so hard to explain
Even with blood and the myths combined
Rotting leaves on the dampened ground
Smelling sweeter than the last time round
A spark will never travel half as far
From California and a red crossed star

Bardo or Heaven?

Sometimes I think I died half a decade ago
And the rest of my life is some kind of bardo or heaven
The smoke that rises from the fires in the west
As it settles higher, is it some kind of test from oblivion?
If I would get the answers wrong
Would this all still be mercifully long
Or nothing, or nothing?
Or is this all real in the physical sense, not just synapses reeling
Off an endless past tense in the morning?
Like a moment flashing in the black of my eye
When I catch it staring into the mirror longer than it’s supposed to
And I stare back into it?
The smoke reaching over from a week ago
Like a postcard sent by a devil passing through in Modesto
It’s something that we see but barely understand
All the shipping lanes from Route 99, and up through the heartland
And what a misnomer that has always been, just a series of arteries
Hardening into a bypass
Mass migration of a conscious dream
The way things are finally becoming the way that they seem
The way that things are
The sunlight here’s different than it used to be
It’s taken on a shade that you rarely see before sunset
Layers of violet, and amber too
Signifying tertiary violence that I feel no kin to
But everyone is culpable now
That’s the way the con pans out
Or nothing, or nothing
Or is this all real in the physical sense, not just synapses reeling
Off an endless past tense in the morning?
Like a moment flashing in the black of my eye
When I catch it staring into the mirror longer than it’s supposed to
And I stare back into it?

Higher and Drier

I used to be an artist, or I thought I could have been
Mixing up vermillion from titanium and red
Shouting down on Telegraph with Mario and Phil
Painting in the evenings before crawling into bed
Sometime in the 70’s the scales fell away
Dwindling attendance, inspiration running thin
Keeping up the payments on the place in Morro Bay
The moneylenders on me in the Santa Ana wind
I was higher and drier
Higher and drier
Higher and drier
Than I’d ever been before
I got into the business just before I got divorced
I found a knack for selling things as long as they weren’t mine
The houses on the coastline almost gave themselves away
The ones up in the mountains took a bit more of my time
But when the bubble burst, manmade lakes turned into sand
Savings built on real estate in smoke before their eyes
Families moving inland, subprime mortgages in hand
Gambling their fortunes on the Sacramento skies
They were higher and drier
Higher and drier
Higher and drier
Than they’d ever been before
Meet me at the bottom of the driveway on the hill
I’ve got the combination to the lockbox on the door
It’s a bungalow with three beds on an acre and a half
There’s an unimpeded view of Clear Lake from the second floor
It’s been for sale by owner but it’s foreclosed on now
No doubt you’ve read about the recent drought that’s made it hard
I have no obligation to tell you why and how
But I see your plates from Michigan, so here are all the cards
This place might still be standing here in 20 years or more
Or it could be ashes full of pieces of your lives
They’ll sell you quite a policy, but premiums have soared
And if you go without, you’ll be left more than high and dry
You’ll be higher and drier
Higher and drier
Higher and drier
Than you’ve ever been before

Centinela

Centinela, I’ll be here waiting when the big on descends
Centinela, I’ll be here lifting while the old era ends
And I’ll die here with my freedom
Baptized by the lives that I’ve broken
In the courtyard getting sunburned
Counseling two cellmates as they hash out disagreements
And become friends with nothing but time
Centinela, three whole lifetimes that they gave me to you
Centinela, every night dreaming in the flames running through
The arson just a phantom limb, an itch that I can’t scratch at anymore
My rivalry with nature cut up into precincts
And delayed by laws established only by men
When I was a god
Centinela, you’ve made me into a mere martyr for fire
Centinela, all the points of origin are moving up higher
The desert’s getting bigger, crowding out the tinder of my mind
I peer out at the twilight, nothing waiting for me but the red on the horizon
And then we end, and we return

Slab City

Your mom was working at the UPS
Up in Adelanto, north of Victorville
I got her number, she got my address
The next thing I knew, she was stealing my checks
I was kind of flattered more than anything
I’d been going crazy living on my own
She’d tell me stories, sometimes she would sing
A common starling off of methadone
And the stars hang like the string of charms
Around her neck back then
As we played with fire, drunk on desire
Looking for that good dead end
I met your father at the Kern County Jail
A string of arsons out of Bakersfield
They’d called me in once the judge had set bail
You can look it up, but the records are sealed
He told me stories I just couldn’t believe
Some guy named Jolly and the CIA
They’d corner him, feed him LSD
He’d given up on keeping track of his days
And the smoke hangs like his memory
And how it failed back then
When he played with fire, blind with desire
Looking for that good dead end
You’ve always got a place with date palm trees
It isn’t much but there’s plenty of room
It’s 20 minutes to the Salton Sea
You’ve never seen such an algae bloom
Here in Slab City they don’t care where you’re from
You can be crawling out a deep ravine
Or you can rise with the setting sun
Like Lilith living up with Augustine
But the sun will beat down upon us
Just how it did back then
When I was a liar, drunk on desire
Looking for that good dead end
I heard you met him when you did your bid
He was too far gone for you to have known
A schizophrenic and a wayward kid
Starving in the desert for some kind of home
I’ve sought out paradise, and I’ve seen hell
I’ve been out living on the borderline
Where devils go to where the angels dwell
Where they can be each other’s valentines
But nothing lasts forever, like how it felt back then
Now we play with fire, blind with desire
Headed for that good dead end