Like a Giant Microwave

All that dark turquoise spilling over
& the beach bent out of shape on the other side of the
jetty plus or minus the sharkskin wetsuit
              just as the shadow of a wrecking ball reflected
in mirror shades demolishes your lo & behold
stranded somewhere in the middle of a three day
nocturne like a light burning in the refrigerator
                                                even when the door is shut
the way steep parables in the blood
                              assume the pitch of desire
at the cobble of beachbreak foams
              & the risk implied as the dropping tide helps
speed things up like a black tar reckoning
on the pier at high noon

Abba Zabba

orchid     rust     bell     splash     dark     under     haze
ocean     concrete     drift     shadow     seaweed     rain
acetylene     reprieve     rippling     altar     switchfoot
tulip     star     cloud     fiberglass     Topanga     drainage
Coppertone     silk     amber     Mexico     blossom
wire     smoke     apocryphal     ringtone     blade     sunset
gasoline     sand     phantom     thunder     engine     twist
Martian     tequila     flames     rocking     mirror     transport
cutback     whomp     drizzle     iron     breath     Santa Cruz
taco     vapor     guitar     haiku     needle     buzz     clutch
submerged     damp     silver     watusi     tidepool
turquoise     motel     bubble     fever     thrust     tears
neon     detour     stomp     rattle     blood     fuck

Street Legal

Something swims out of the diluted plasma
of the western sky, (pink
is the new blue), the answer to the question “Why not?”
on the tip of my tongue, 96 Tears,
THE LONG GOODBYE, a skatewheel, a
pelican, the silhouette of a smile
                              in the backseat of a murdered-out Chevy Malibu
& the rusty nail that makes my heart jump when you
slide into a barefoot tango that carries you smack into the vanishing point
& beyond
                        where you sleep standing on your head, counting the
              money you don’t have
                                      w/a picture of what drowning really looks like
tattooed on your instep

I Wanna See You Bellydance

Velocity is absolute the
various & the abbreviated
shattering like church windows
just before it rains

the surf like a slow train strumming
diesel strings bent across the spine

as if there was a chance for escape but that’s
another tape measure shot on a scale of one to ten
the way sunlight slaps the wet sand

I want to see it turn the same color as Ensenada
tied to a kicthen chair beneath a
                                                single bare low-watt
lightbulb

                              that has a happy face painted on it

& you’re eaten up by shadows so it’s hard to tell if
you’re there at all
                                                humming softly to yourself
              combing out your eyes
& getting all emotional about the crease in your bourbon

Strange how easy it is & yet you still manage to sweat it out
I mean fold up like the corner of a velvet painting
in a cheap motel

Snake Eyes

Latin Jazz
All the Mexicans were speaking Italian
but the coastal haze kept my eyes blue
                              just a fogdrift slide-step from here
              perched at the water’s edge
                                                w/a slow death compass blade
                              & a one-track mind

Sign Language
The silverplated drizzle pawning your unavoidable
trophies while the knot of your heart
disappoints the witnesses threatening twang & climax
when the money’s gone
& the neon residue beneath your fingernails
lights up every hopeless caress

Late night double feature
A Fist Full of Dollars, and
For A Few Dollars More

Fuel Injection

My heart rattles like a sick whore
& my head’s nothing more than
a pebble skipping on the surface
& it’s all surface

The deep dark is everywhere in
varying degrees
like a trampoline in the buffer zone
                              the arch of whatever
              littered with dark white Modelo cans
                                                falling thru the lemon
                                                                              jello sky

                                                gone gone gone

              It’s as the man said
              there’s nothing left to die

& back on the silver side of your creepy rebirth
all the precious little chosen ones google your name

I never thought I’d become a bitter old man
but then I never thought I’d feel like I was going to pass out
in the supermarket checkout line either

I’ve got $3.98 in my pocket

The Church of the Open Sky

With day-glo highlights
like those
ancient psychedelic images
that bent your eyes
a handful of dead brain cells ago

out of the blue & into the damp

“True Prophesy” in metallic blue paint
on the side of a dirty white Ford pick-up

Rosecrucians? Hare Krishnas?

whoever they were they had a long way to go

& Our Lady of Easy Virtue boils water on the beach
as you clutch yr one-way ticket
& the wind conducts a symphonic interlude for circular violin
& ukulele banjo

klaxon horn

ambulance siren

& a choir of ballpeen hammers

The Ride of the Valkyries

I’ve got this green
baseball cap
w/a Yater
Santa Barbara Surf Shop
insignia sewn on the
front & on the
back along the bottom edge
is embroidered
“Charlie Don’t Surf”
which is a nice touch for
them what knows
but the real kicker is that today I
looked at the label
inside the hat
& it read
“Made in Vietnam”

Found A Reason

I got lost in the surfonic
angel of mercy sounds
(you had to be there)
eyes like cheap wine on windy tincup streetcorners
                              Pacific & Windward
              Venice & Lincoln
                                                Ocean & Wipeout
It took a long time to learn how to swan dive into a
spoonful of rust
                              & Mexican rock & roll kept the sidewalk crooked
all the way to the beach & back
              lifting a pale blue eyelid to the suicide drumroll
carrying a dinged-up waterlogged surfboard
                              past the head shop on Pico
w/bongo windchimes knocking in the late afternoon seabreeze
              buried in the sweet summer smog

The Man w/Two Left Hands

Reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards
in Samoan or
sweating out the final chapter of what turned out to be your life
when nothing simmers on the lid of
the fog & the long paddle out
undone by those wet kisses
& your heart
wired to the ping-pong ball that bounces on the horizon

“borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God”

not to mention the barefoot parking lot

The skeletons of beer cans the
tears on velvet set alongside your last dollar
                              in the dark (but not dark enough)
              where blossoms unwind like serial killers
& I rob the shadow of a liquor store w/a squirt gun

Dance Like a Robot

You pretend you’re available but then
you are so precise
& as perfectly timed as a spilled drink

or those letters you write so
carefully that no one can read them

& the long arm of suicide reaches in
at 3 in the morning laying down impossible odds
but I just don’t know...

put a dollar sign on something when I die

fading into the night of another day
a stomp-down Book of Dreams starring
              Jimmy Reed, Tsongkapa, William Carlos Williams
& the Lighthouse All-Stars

Paradise goes thud
topped with garnished wages
& black silk bourbon
taking a bite out of the porcelain

like an African blonde wading thru the seaweed

& the wind kicks up off the water
slurring like a wrecked gull

No Place Special

Working my way down to absolute zero
is a full time job
plus the weight of a couple fluttering
eyelashes

sort thru whatever’s left

on the perimeter

lit by the torch that nobody carries

television test pattern tape delay
“the name of God”

It’s kinda late for an early grave

slip a cake of Sex Wax in my pocket
embalm me with seawater

but since seawater is probably already running
in my veins

better make it tequila

Pissing on the Sidewalk

One night you remember the sink full of ice cubes
& the screendoor chiaroscuro sectioning every loose molecule
of moonlight
              & the Tibetan Book of the Dead stencil kit
                                                spread out across the bed
the way chopsticks circle eternity on the map of her hips
& a seagull swims thru this poem at the wrong time
                              but it all happens so fast you
forget to load your stun gun
sweating on a circumstantial street corner in Santa Monica California
like an orchid with a bloody nose

              It might hurt but it’s awful pretty she said

                              20,000 leagues beneath the parking lot

                                                where the shadows of palm trees sway
                                                behind my sunglasses

& like a shipwreck in a bottle the sky caves in & the tide rolls out
& the horizon sharp as a curved blade held to the throat of sunset
shimmers like a thin line of bluegreen neon lip gloss

while everything else looks as though it’s reflected in a hubcap
at 200 miles per hour

Closing Theme w/Residual Twang

The sky was all bleached out
there was glass in my sneakers
I had to walk all the way back

The power of one
plus one more
              like a volleyball full of sand rolling across
the ocean floor
                              I was looking for my harmonica
at the time
you can take it as far as you want
                                                Tierra del Fuego
                                                                anywhere
launching a boomerang into the Bermuda Triangle
& her cigarette like a torch when she laid back on the prayer rug

1001-plus dark nights of the soul
bought & paid for
                              a tangle of seaweed
                                                complicated dreams

                              a 30 page haiku
                              w/a limited slip differential

& a vision of the Pacific Coast Highway
like a wall of water
w/a door in it

Translucent

Some late & early morning
fog on stilts & the
backstage pinwheel orchestra
pounding out the 445th chorus
of Heartbreaker
& if you consider how life here has
become like a polished chrome
quaalude at the bottom of a swimming pool
then you’d hike your skirt up for me
when the sun drops like a shot bird
pulling the mist over your eyes
which are still the color of bourbon
in a shot glass
held up to the very last ray
of pale gold sunlight