I wasn’t talking to her
I was talking to the
avenging angel
tattooed on her ankle
STEEPED IN RUIN & CANDLELIGHT
I said I’d prefer a milkfed steel
tidewater canto
at sunset
& an unobstructed view
REALITY DISTORTION FIELD
It was more like snorting meth
w/Jacques Cousteau
than reciting Sailing to Byzantium
backwards
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
The Tibetan monk you resembled
in profile only
had a crowbar up his sleeve
which is just the thing when your
eyes snap like a rubber band
& the shadow of your heart
wrapped in tinfoil
discovers a new use for gravity
Los Lavalamps
Reinventing the light as it would
seaward reflect
the walls of a tidepool clock
HIGH SEAS DRIFTER
Explanations are
almost always a disappointment
LONG TRIP OUT
You occupy a shadow
the rain gathering above the beach
That you were there at all
should have been enough
A BEND IN THE HAZE
Dreamed of Joanne & Donald
walking in Oaxaca
beneath a sky scorched by
turquoise flames
DARKER THAN YOU
The light is endless but it doesn’t have anything
to do with us
wherever we walk
holding up our end of Eternity
“Not to be sold east of the San Andreas Fault”
AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
Walking back across the sand
leaving no footprints or trace
that I’d ever been there at all
Sultans of Swing
Whatever drowned indulgence resigns
the threat of remembering
obvious intentions
the beach road humming like a wire
exhausted all lingering regret
I can only return to the
wavy depths that I never
left in the first place
while those I used to know
& whose company I carried
concede the rhyme
in some other world
too far from
mine
with words I might have heard
some other time
