A Brief History of Rock & Roll

I read your story in the depending hyacinths
or nasturtiums
                              spilling over the seawall
beneath the spectral cypress
              & intervals of rusting eucalyptus
                              gargling the seabreeze like a flooded carburetor
& just offshore less than a mile from here
              the blood of sacrifice by moonlight
at high noon
                              but in the sand gravel parking lot
where the pavement gleams wetly out of the past
              seems set like a jewel in the last stretch of land before
the heaving Pacific
                              swept in red sunset turquoise
drizzled in the milk of alleyways purpled w/blood or mist
              swamped in a brown corner by Rembrandt
with simple manifestations of allegorical contingencies
                              trembling like a drop of dew in anticipation
maybe Golgothas & la luz de Oriente
              flying in off the lip of the Pacific
night & day crashing the sunburned sidewalk
                              outside no-name hamburger stands
w/surfboards nailed to the walls
              & I was waiting for the tide to wrap in around the jetty
the sky rocking back on its heels
                              drifting           half your life at least
the half you can still remember
              for a minute there I didn’t know if I was in Salinas
or Bolinas—as it turns out I was on the PCH
                              somewhere between Oxnard and Zuma
which is a kind of synthesis of both those places I guess
              if you’re standing on your head & haven’t eaten for a week
The setting sun was like a pelican’s wing soaked in gasoline
                              & all I had to do was light a match