Between the pavement & the ocean sky
just steps from where the coast
road cuts its sectioned asphalt bleached
by the sun & fogs & vibroned tire treads
of who knows how many cars and trucks
careening into the mist
we parked & stumbled to find a steep
crooked sandy trail
down from panoramic cliffs
intervals of rusty eucalyptus
gargling the seabreeze
like a flooded carburetor
A neat pile of regurgitated fishbones
in the center of the path
like a nest of crystals in the sun
Another time I lost my sunglasses here
inside mineshafts of raw pacific steel
between the spanking cold & the damp
so that I had to blink to remember my name
& offshore breezes whispered so deciduously into the vast
unobserved platitude of ocean haze
something that was indicated or that could only be read upon the rusted dashboard dials of a derelict Buick
rotting & sunken
decapitated in a ragged seaside vacant lot
adjacent to the tideflat
as in ancient crime scene photographs where detectives stand
& a uniformed patrolman points
the lurid implication of what lies hidden in the weeds
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
the sky rocking back on its heels
between the dancer & the dance
waiting for the tide to wrap in around the jetty
drifting
half your life at least
the half you can still remember
& it was like silk or aluminum out there
at that depth & from the rolling surface tension lifted
shallow roses & a deeper gloom than all your Topangas
shrouded in smoke & mist of Aztec or
Abyssinian origin but with hula girls
tragic on a sand road in the lemon dusk
vacant & inexcusable except for the
way their hips move & the rustling of
grass skirts like the rainy cape of pneumatic
kelp groves rocking underwater to the
swoop & dazzle of ocean tides
counting one-1,000 / two-1,000 / three--
until you get there
the sum total of the ground upon which you stagger
& the bubbling under
