Saturday, March 29, 2014


CALOKIE

Where Blackbirds Meet

Thursdays at Santa Anita still free day for seniors
Only day I go now
Shut out since two weeks ago when I won $35 from 
$2 place bet which gave me winning day on one bet
Blackbirds no longer hang around northeast corner
of pavilion where we smoked cigars 
and you fed feathered homies corn chip bits 
after we made our bets

They don’t race on Wednesdays any more
Maybe why I haven’t seen Angel lately
Hope so
He’d be about 85 if he’s still around

I see Cigar Bob from time to time
He’s retired now
Joe just had a surgery but still in his low-eighties 
driving to Santa Anita and that Indian Casino
Talk about perseverance

David moved to Georgia with his Dixie blonde 
I hope he’s near a place
he can buy his daily pan dulce
and enjoy good tamales 
like we ate at cafe near the Mercado
You never know
the way the original people of this continent
are spreading throughout the land 
taken from their ancestors  
Last time I saw David he flew back here for 2012 Breeders cup
Guess what! I ran into Trifecta Bob
Never forget the $600 wager he won 
during David’s birthday bash at Santa Anita’s infield 

Remember Daryl Hannah—
the mermaid movie star who sat in tallest tree 
on South Central farm before pulled from it and arrested 
by those protecting and serving the 1%—
It was sick the way those Mother Earth fuckers bulldozed 
the orchards and crops of over 350 farming families,
wasn’t it?
Anyway she was also arrested in Washington D.C.
protesting the building of carbon time bomb--
the Tar Sands Keystone Pipeline

Some things don’t change, do they?
Republicans 
still against minimum wages
affordable healthcare for all and want to 
privatize social security, medicare, public education, everything 
except our privacy 
Of course, Democrats aren’t so hot on 
last two things themselves,
are they?

You know Saginaw
who we saw at all those pow wows
also acts in movies
I read about him in Native Peoples
He gave the opening prayer during last pow wow I attended 
at the state park near China town
Longest prayer I ever heard outside a Baptist church
Anyway when they invited everybody to join the round dance
I tossed to drumbeat upon sacred ground last 
of your allotted ashes one week after the first was spread
where blackbirds meet 

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