Rocked by waves of nightshade turquoise

The moist, dislocated air
bought & paid for w/an ounce of
ocean haze

leaning into each wave

explains your eyes filled w/broken mirrors

***************************************
like you had someplace to go
------------------------------------------------------

your heart like a sledgehammer

& the long way back across the sand

And you’ll never hear surf music again

It’s probably summertime on Mars
where the fog settles in & the surf is
more like a smear campaign than red dirt
in your sneakers.
                                      It’s always 1974 in L.A.
the red tide smells like blood
& I’m not old enough to know any better
stepping across dead things on the beach as seagulls
carve up the smog.
                                            I’d rather be conducting my own
private Monsters of Poetry jam session in my head
instead of worrying about money 24/7 but that’s
just how the Grecian urn crumbles these days.
If the halo fits
                                  get yourself a golden crowbar.
Some folks get their kicks reading the clincal assessment
me I 360 off the Tijuana pipe collecting silver spoons
& if they don’t bend I weep.

Psycho Killer

Assuming that a pelican’s wing can tip the sky on end
              as the wind skips
                                                like a broken needle
                              across the rippling pavement
------------------------------------------------------------------
your fingers strum the edge of a blade
************************************************
Beneath the waves
              bajo de las olas
w/a flooded carburetor & a busted tail light
BLASTED HAMMERED LOADED STONED BENT
c   o   r   a   l       g   r   i   e   f
reflected in rain puddles (your eyes)
------------------------------------------------------------------
your eyes

Depending on a thread of smoke

The morning was schooled in logic
              expecting money in the mail
& bleeding all over your prescription
                              printed in invisible ink

I tried translating the inscription but
              my latin is rust & my eyes are blue
& if you read The Cantos backwards
                              they sound more like a harmonica
              than a chainsaw does

Dark sunglasses, blue toenail polish, & a
              string of iron pearls wait for you where
the white sky bends into a turquoise fadeaway
                              an inch or two above the palisades
              which just like you is swept by an epic indifference

& she reads the sutras in braille
              her lips pressed against each syllable as she
counts every bloodred nail in the sunset

Through the Air Vent

The opening act was a Hawaiian ukulele klezmer band
from Tibet
                              the perfect address for a tombstone
              powder blue w/rust discoloration
                                                                a bumper sticker so faded it’s
now the ghost of a message
                                                a leap of bad faith
                              torn paper so much like broken glass
cobwebs & tidepools & rocks that blink when stared at
tenderly collapse
                                                & you sail away on an iron wing
scorching the counterfeit bottle of pills left on a shelf of
sea mist
              a shelf that dissolves at your touch
& like sunlight tuning up inside a drop of water my eyes
ping-pong across the strings
                              destined for harmonies usually reserved for
a punk guitarist with epilepsy

Thrown From A Rooftop Downtown

Like someone dropping a neon ice cube into a
virgin bloody mary
& the streetlights snap on all at the same time
a virgin bloody mary is a bloody shame
I’m offering you 20 miles of empty pavement
Ralph Ellison in camouflage coveralls
a single fin balsawood toothpick surfboard
& my love,
                              for what it’s worth,
              after you take that step
                                                & the next,
                              I mean the one after the last
where you’re still waiting for the rescue mission
that never got the call
              & the sky seizes up the way your heart does

Clean Up On Aisle 9

Words written on a widescreen sheet of paper
                              flickering like my heart
              tying to maintain a kind of equilibrium
                                                when I should just 360 into a freefall
                              running down the molecules
                                                                        like a tropical dust storm
                                                in the middle of the ocean

clouds cut from the same damp cloth
                              spill their guts to a girl named Squeaky
              who folds up the beach
                                                like a piece of aluminum foil

Five Toes Over

Strains of an offshore zydeco riding in on the waves
                                                Not many Cajuns in the line-up
              the jetty painted by autumnal tides & the moon
                                                tracing the brush strokes back to
                              a purpose, a meaning
                                                                          I can only guess at, I guess
& cash in on seven deadly sins plus one that’s really beautiful
                              like driving to Chinatown
                                                                                  for tacos
hypnotized by the pearl you wear around your neck
                              embalmed in sea mist all summer long
              with nothing but a plastic spoon to dig your way out

great music at three in the morning

              palm trees bending to drink from your cupped hands

And then they were upon us

I can feel what’s left of my brain
rattling like small change
in a beggar’s cup
the chill of a dying summer in the air
sea tangle, smoke, maybe wings
twisting in the grip of the tide
dark hollows, salt cold water, waves, plumes
you had that “let’s get hammered” look in your eyes
              a moderate southwest swell
                              turning to glass when the wind shifts
& a skeleton hand reaches in
              offering you a bite-size morsel of concrete
                                                the first one’s free but I’m seeing double
skidding past a blessed yet
                                                                sleazy euphoria
                              whenever you tiptoe through the tidepool
hung up in the middle of the wrong
                                                                              audio mixology
as fog drops the shade on a flawless wave
                              on the way to something humongous

Talking Pipes

A handful of vitamins & a beer for breakfast
              seawater, sand & motor oil for lunch
                                                I don’t remember if I had any dinner
                              I don’t remember how Ezra’s IVth canto ends
but the palm tree still bends beneath the weight
              of all that ocean colored haze as I
hide my eyes behind bloodshot RayBans
                              trying to decide whether I should
crawl beneath a rock or hop in the Ranchero
                                                & floor it all the way back to Venice
                              in reverse
                                                                A last meal on the bottom of a
swimming pool, everything went turquoise, & the next
thing I knew it was Roman Polanski Day
              veering away from your discordant shadow
& the puddle of bourbon pinned to your negligee...
                              300 miles later we bought some tacos
it was Tuesday, or something,
              & I hadn’t eaten in a year

57 Cigarettes

Chrome
I was busy lunging into focus
bending spoons against a wall of rain
& when I turned she was standing there & her
eyes were chrome replicas of the chalice
exempt from the rigors of consecration

Target Practice
That arrow in the heart
wasn't lodged there it
was just passing thru

Love Buzz
The heroine was on heroin
as was the hero
She's wearing her atomic kimono
& he's at ground zero

Dynagroove

That ripple of neon, a tarnished mirror
smeared w/lipstick

a lump of lord have mercy & vapor trails feathering out

damp ocean eyes

a strange case, in black & white,
hitting the beach or what’s the use

damp shadows in the fog

              the Cosmic Burger, the Moby Taco, the
              24 hour drive-thru pharmacy & delicatessen

                              I’ve been here before, I said, but not like this

confusing rabies with rabbis

the buddhist rabbi, the chain-smoking vegan yoga instructor
& her dog,
              the murderer watering his lawn,
                                                the neighbors said he
kept mostly to himself was very quiet & smiled
when he swept the driveway

but you wore the eucalyptus nail polish anyway & the smog
& the pampas
                              w/room for paranoia & glorification
              the next in line & the one after that
a bowl of chili, a cup of coffee & my next tattoo

              The night slips away
                              the day turns to glass

THROUGH THE AIR VENT
a love affair w/opiates

damp ocean eyes

Jesus Wrecked My Stuff

A heaving death slab of water with a door in it
              like something cut away from your heart
& broken wristwatches & gulls
                              running across the cement
at the mercy of spider webs spun with silver thread
              or gold thread carved from Mexican teeth
with dreams of Tahiti in the rain strung across guitars
numb with the relentless details,
                              the bloodred pink flamingos, the crosses for sale,
the coast highway bending like smoke
              beneath bikinis & mudslides
& we’re hollow-eyed lifers wrecked on the steps of
                              an acetylene sunset burning itself out now
              above a spoonful of wet sand

Klepsydra

What is the use of talking and there is no end of talking
There is no end of things in the heart.
                                                                  —Ezra Pound

The sky turning from rose to rust, from rust to glass
the way it is in the blood
              The way it is in the purple blood of a fuchsia
if it was bleeding onto the pavement
A drizzle, a stain, a bruised puddle
                              lit by the torch that nobody carries
The one with wings, & the other
assigned to a darker place
              where crystals grow like chevrolets
& I’m sipping from a bottle of sand reaching for another
                                                                                  seaweed cigarette
like the shadow of a wave that has yet to break
                              as the voice-over in rainy esperanto evaporates
from the iridescent scartissue
of one last kiss