Free Verse Poetry
By Mike Garofalo
1.
((((JOLT)])}}]]..........
((((The Jolt)))) Awakened
God, Earthquake!
((((HARD!!!!BAD]]]]
(Shattering Glass!) No nO No NO
Exploding World!
No nO No NO[][][][][] OOOOhhhh No no no NO
Buckling Walls ROAR!! ALLAH!
(((((Heaving!!!!! SHIVA!! Black]]]]
Oh, No!!!!! ((((((((JOLT)))))))
(((((ROAR!!!)))) GOD!! JESUS ((((((((JOLT)))))))
Screaming......... ROAR!!! !!screaming!!
[[[[[^¥^¥^¥^¥^¥^¥^¥^¥)))]]]]
(((((((.................................................)))))))
Tohoku, Japan. 3/11/2011
[[Jolt, Tsunami, Nuclear Disaster]]
Islamabad, Pakistan. 10/18/2005
(((((ROLLING ROAR)))))
Indian Ocean, Tsunami, 12/26/2004
((((((((((COMING))))))))))
((((((((((230,000 Dead!!!!!!!!......
[9.2 Richter High]
Gujarat, India, 1/26/2001
(((((JOLT)))))
Central Taiwan, 9/20/1999
(((((ROAR)))))
Izmit, Turkey, 8/17/1999
(((((JOLT)))))
Afghanistan, 5/30/1998
(((((ROAR))))
Kobe, Japan, 1/17/1995
(((((JOLT)))))
Mexico City, 9/17/1985
((RUMBLING))
Tangshan, China, 7/28/1976
(((((((((((((((((((SMASHING))))))))))))))))))))
Retching Earth Vomits Up Death
(((((ROAR))))
((((Skull Crushing, Back Breaking, Gut Squishing))))
Collapsing their Futures
screaming thud after thud
into seconds of terror
moaning groaning screaming crying
silence
ruin
destruction
dust
Merciless Gaia, wimp Gods, Devil Rocks
2.
I woke at 2am
uneasy brain
working overtime
slippery unaligned
a busy butterfly
sucking up ideas
flowers in the sky
tossed and washed
unclean memories
rottem memes festering
worries gathering
nightmares pestering
messy whims eating
tasteless hours of my mind.
3.
My great grandfather,
Herbert B. Willits,
lived in a small trailer
in a backyard summer green
behind his daughter’s house,
my mom’s aunt Alice,
in north Downey, ELA.
My grandmother Mabel,
Grandma Blaize to me,
watched us weekends
when my parents pleasured
in 1954 in Las Vegas, NV.
We visited Great Grandpa Willits,
slow, and old, and gray,
hobbling-wobbling on his cane,
dressed in a suit,
rocking in his rocking chair
most of his final hours and days.
Once, my brothers and I,
playing in his Downey back yard,
were asked by Great Grandpa
to show him our strength.
We flexed our boyish biceps,
did push ups, sit ups,
ran back and forth,
tossed a ball to catch,
acted rowdy in horse play.
He told us “Be strong,
be brave, be tough, be a Man.”
We listened,
absorbed his advice.
Decades later,
a Grandpa now myself;
I looked at picture
of Grandpa Robert Ast.
Amazed, I look exactly like him
in our Germanic faces and frames.
Uncanny resemblance: genetic strains.
Hopefully, I was adequately
strong, tough, and brave
most of my 65 years
as a Man every day.
Characters in this Family Tree:
Herbert Benjamin Willits (1870-1954)
Robert Dewey Ast (1894-1924)
Mabel Amelia
Willits
Ast Blaize (1898-1974)
Michael James Garofalo (1/10/1916-4/2/1997)
Bertha June Ast Garofalo (4/3/1921-2/12/1994)
Michael Peter Garofalo (1946-)
4.
3am: Roaring surf surrounds incessantly
and swallow’s all my morning sleep;
hungry for the sand and cliff
eating them away
bit by bit. A drone and moan,
incessant groan, burdens of sand,
rubbing cold waves kissing land;
a noise to others, or a solemn tune,
or a burden to nocturnal ears.
I was alone, warm, and dry
in a yurt, by slow silent Joe Creek,
listening to the steady thunder
day and night of waves of energy
plowing, smashing, relentless rush
sculpting the shore incessantly.
Shaping me inside out, round about
dawn and daylight to shout the day
the Sun Rules the Surf
four times each day, each day,
bulging the earth
sounding the Tuba of Gravity.
Reminds me of a busy freeway,
rumbling cars cutting the wind,
roaring like an airports din,
trees trashing in the winds,
open car windows on a freeway.
ambient backgrounds...
5.
Seawall rocks salted daily
resist the high tide’s relentless crash,
keep it at bay.
Where the Joe River sinks
readily into the foaming rich
flowing hair of waves.
The old worn wood homes at Pacific Beach,
or rusting mobile homes in Copalis or Moclips,
or the planned fancy upscale Seabrook Village,
or new condos and mansions at Ocean Shores;
All, everyday assaulted by angry mists,
thick as rice pudding, rain as thick,
claws of Fogs dripping mossy green blood.
Rainstorms draped on the shoulders of
the Humptulip’s hills and river.
King Tides run amok,
washing roads away, felling firs;
harbingers of Nature’s cruelty to come?
The roaring surf rides on driftwood roads
barkless remnants of cut dried pines
dull dark sandy moving shorelines
wood for art mobiles hung on a string.
Indeed, did this reveal something?
A park map, a picture of geography,
obviously not real actuality in spades,
but intimate enough
to accurately guide my walks today.
Is the Territory Mapped Accurately?
That’s the essential message,
the real meaningful question;
not Identity.
A few RVs and trailers settled here
temporarily, like all things, temporary.
Braving a March storm,
rattling aluminum roofs and siding
combined with the surf’s clamors:
campers huddled quietly indoors.
The tongue of the Sun sipped
from the clear creeks rocky run;
the moon ran away from the Sun,
disappeared in brilliance dipped.
Tidepools filled with colored beings
clinging to their fertile homes
stuck tight and right to stones!
My mind’s a mirror to what I see.
Stepping carefully near Grays Harbor
over a gentle flowing Steelhead creek.
Stunning Queets and Quinault Rainforest
Rivers too fast, too wide, too deep.
Joe’s Creek at Pacific Beach
a crawling drizzle of a stream,
Mirroring the fog draped Sun
saying something, trying to teach.
I beachcombed daily near Joe’s Creek!
Found the stones and sea-carved driftwood
that Northwest beachcombers eagerly seek.
Sat on twisted driftwood roots,
scribbled in the damp brown sand,
wrestled with unproductive impulses.
Exploring eyes, listening ears,
ruminating, talking hands.
Men digging razor clams
from Shows in the sand
pushing and pulling tools
sucking up golden bivalves.
Quinault and Copalis rivers
flowing with dirt and branches
covering roads with slick puddled chances
piling up driftwood at Taholah shore door.
Outside, the rain fed the forest of firs,
driftwood piled high on the Quinault spit
where a colorful Thunderbird totem pole sits
and cannery workers nearby put on no airs.
the surf brought driftwood piled on the
6.
Soul Mates Extraordinaire
I never
grasped emptiness
or hiked around Mt. Sumeru,
patted Chao-chou's dog
or teased Nansen's cat,
blocked the Bodhidharma's uppercut
or slept in Han Shan's dirty hut,
borrowed Wendy Johnson's garden rake
or rode the Ox through the Gateless Gate.
I never, ever
suffered the Great Doubt
or solved any of Rinzai's riddles,
looked for sticks in Yun-men's crapper
or broke Tassajara bread with Shunryu Suzuki,
minded the flapping flag for Hui-neng the sage
or heard Jiyu-Kennett move her whisk
in Mt. Shasta's shade,
chanted on Mt. Tamalpais
with Whalen, Ginsberg and Snyder
or saw Dogen's True Eye open just a little bit wider.
I never did.
Nope, never!
Not in 79 lifetimes.
Yet, it seems like I did.
Yep, dayinanddayout,
appearances notwithstanding,
Reality appeared just So.
This I know:
their heritage is in my heart,
their myths mine,
these dear Friends of the Buddha Mind.
7.
People of the Dirt: K'witzqu
The Native People living along the Quinault and Queets Rivers in Washington State share a similiar creation legend. "The Great Changer Kwate and the Great Spirit Transformer S'qitu once came to the mouth of the Queets River. After fording that very cold river they rubbed their legs to warm and restore themselves. Small rolls of dirt formed under their hands. They threw the dirt balls into the river, and from them a man and a woman came forth; who became the ancestors of the Queets people. S'quitu told them they would remain on the river and would be known as K'witzqu because of the dirt from which their human skin was made."
Glaciers slowly melting
rain ever falling
rivers every flowing
S'quitu intentionally
or unintentionally
made human beings
from K'witzqu dirt
and Queets floods
and magical arts
and the K'witzqu People lived
in Taholah huts
praying to S'quitu
8.
John Berryman, Sylvia Plath,
Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane,
Anne Sexton, Hunter Thompson,
Virginia Woolf, Gerared de Nerval,
Arthur Koestler, Yukio Mishima,
Sara Teasdale, Vladimur Mayakovsky,
Sergei Yesenin, Randall Jarret,
Vachel Lindsay, Paul Celan, Freud,
John Davidson, John Gould Fletcher,
Lew Welch ...
It took some guts to pull the trigger
and blow out your brains,
to shake and gasp as you hang,
to jump of a bridge
and drown in the bay,
to swallow the poison
and face dying today.
Yes, it took courage, and focus
and for some
a deep dissatisfaction with
life's willy-nilly unfair
irrational ways.
Enough living facing a future
of the same old dull games, troubles,
dying slowly, unrelenting guilt, pain,
uncertainties, poverty, war,
depression and insane shame.
Yes, some like to dramatize,
act out a role like Yukio,
toss conventions to the ground,
be a meteor fast flying by,
and get others attentions
by their "suicide."
9.
Mike Garofalo lives in Vancouver, Washington.
He worked for 50 years in city and county
public
libraries, and in elementary
schools.
He graduated with
degrees in
philosophy,
library science, and education. He has been
a web publisher since 1998.
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on March 18, 2025.