AT MENLO PARK

Meeting Burt and Chas
at Menlo Park
we silently greet to jam
for a brief time of jazz
in this detached place
scratched in my time
with so many memories
moves in the dark
as a fair breeze welcomes us
crowds fill along flagstones
near trees of a shadowy Bay
beneath a sudden downpour
showering on the highway,
as my itinerant poetry
conquers all thoughts
and asks my friends
to remove our small masks
on this free holiday break
as my words pass me by
and we ask why
we all feel lighter this Fall
in our cranberry sweatshirts
sliding over the grass
of Whitman's blade,
we eat spinach croissants
or brie cheese sandwiches
as if we are mendicants
beggars or troubadours
trading in our baguettes
pouring jet shots of whiskey
in green herbal Chinese tea
brought by an attendant
out of doors
on a tall food truck
who himself is barely awake
to serve our condiments,
as the sun welcomes
my talented friends
reaching out into the clover
with our continental luck
wishing for a verbal roust
about our musical lore
as when we had a teen band
called D'amour,
we remember that time
when leaving our home
in late adolescence
to view Leonardo's art at Rome
or with Michelangelo
in his Passion paintings to atone,
going on to exotic Paris
to try out for the French theater
with stoned understudy actors
where we are cast
in embarrassed minor parts,
remembering in DC.'s gallery
"Woman with Parasol"
or Manet in his "Steamboat
leaving Bologne"
we heard lectures on Cezanne
covered on the museum floor,
we talked about fine arts
and my one act plays
my friends as four stars
meeting up with
our San Diego friend Mathias
running away from home
with whom we easily
bonded with at the get go,
and spoke of soccer and sports
those reflections and reactions
of wanting to dine at the Grill
at the late opening
of St. Dennis' doors
with shared past photos
of us to last on the tennis courts,
remembering our lasting thrill
at our sophomoric parts
in all our Sixties happenings,
and when were cast
as freshman into Tamburlaine
into Christopher Marlowe's play,
here as the Bay's coastal rain
trails us on the ground
we speak of the secret wounds
on those lonely sea ventures
as lost sailors sound us out
we sense the hound of heaven
sailing on a parade of floats
from the West Coast
when we were shouting about
a plea to end to all wars
which still engulfs all our hurts
yet willing to get in and out
from a continent of ports
where everyone boasts on boats
when we found out love hurts
in our blue Navy shirts
yet we have our friends support,
trembling as glasses chime
and toast each other
for an assurance to be together
once more as a vanguard of brothers
when rays of the sun fall
we play the music in our time
vowing in our guarded memory
always to be temperamental friends
in a critically effaced feature
whatever life sends our solo way,
as our long day recommends
this memoir of that day
at Menlo Park ends.