If you can’t skid past the diamond light etched in the sky you could always torch a palm tree

…à toutes les tarentelles des côtes…
–Rimbaud

The light & the dark were perfectly balanced & I staggered through it wearing sunglasses.   It takes a finely threaded stone & a feather of regret to slip the noose aside the pink velvet & tsunami warnings
scanning the dial for the sound of gulls
cemetery shadows
mother of pearl
The Ruins of Time
…all the tarantellas of the coast…
gilded sheetmetal icons with glass eyes & sacrificial beer can huaraches
Han Solo rainwater with a morphine drip
A spoon the color of the sun almost crosses into cool territory
(Tijuana, New Jersey, just south of Zuma)
crippled dreams
bloodshot smile
Egyptian bird head
mythological liquor store clerk
“There wasn’t anything as spooky as those shadows on the pavement”
costa azul
glass beads
raw silk
leaves
“leaving & branching”…

From drownpool carnage to neon inscribed I kept the level gaze intact.   The least silken but reed brown greens of kelp-lit eyes & secret watery extensions were my guide.   What daydrums of cypress parse in sonic platitudes along the gypsy string breeze got snagged in high tension wires before I could ascertain the categorical echo.   Dark passage veering off the reverence.   Revelation still a kind of threat with the light streaming through it. A two-headed pit bull nailed to a prop-driven crucifix drowning in the empty pool of sunset if only to rattle the bones of your heart.   When it’s over there’s still a flicker of wine-colored silk & skatewheel tremors receding in the rearview mirror with dactylic precision.   In another century or three all is forgiven.   From the ruins we’ll watch the fog slip in beneath a subliminal sunset following the zig-zag line that runs from low tide to adios as you anticipate a velvet mirror fadeout with that number 4 expression on your face & those empty swimming pool eyes like six pound shadows.