Strange Blondes

Even if the dance goes sideways
we know the spirit moves,
has moved, is moving
though not perhaps as we had at first imagined

The rain has cleared (for now) & the inexorable
light filtering down lends a blessing of sorts
but only if you can see it at a 45 degree angle

There has to be an element of risk in everything we do
or else why bother?
 

                                    The moss grows on the north

                        side so you should keep the

                                                ocean on your right

                                    & a switchblade within reach. 

 

    Cypress. Eucalyptus. Coyote brush. Lupine.

    Nasturtiums clinging to beach pavement. 

    Mexican fan palms splashing shadows across the

    Manchurian Surf Almanac.

    It’s all wrong but that’s the way it’s

    supposed to be.  A thin pale shadow (with wings)

    in the dark blonde sky.

Bikini Collision Course

The wind & then the sea.

Or was it the other way

round?  Doesn’t matter.  It still

sounds like a great white

shark chewing on a late

model Buick.  All night.  Wind

in the treetops, water

beneath the ocean

for the sea urchin, for the abalone

for the suicide’s bath.

Just Say When

A grip of dreamless blonde sand

& all the indulgences

            wrecked on adrenalin & perfume

                        lit from the inside

                                    like a Japanese movie

As one might summon bare puddles

collapsing into their own reflections

if only to reclaim the relics of a failure you could

never surrender to fevered lips

            stung by salt spray  

                        lifted from the marathon tide

            You need not fear the eskimos

                                    drinking vietnamese coffee

            nor the waterlogged legions

                        of the dead leaving their damp

            footprints on the concrete

            indelible        like the Roman alphabet

                                                tossed like an empty

                                                            from the railing

Not unlike shattered glass

Accelerated klezmer twang floating thru w/

sonic swamp percussion

& I’m right back where I started

            My tendency to trespass vs. the neon palette

                        of another Pacific sunset

& I’m slamming back the methanol

like a one man carnival

            no longer recognizing the face that

                        stares back at me from the bathroom mirror

but that’s okay

            it’s clear that whoever he is

                        he doesn’t recognize me either

            though we’re both wearing the same Yater t-shirt

                        w/the blood stain on the left shoulder

                                    as in the Palatine Anthology

& there’s a seabreeze strumming a one-string banjo

in the arthritic  

eucalyptus        & the hazy blue sky leans back

            in yr eyes       a minute        or so

                        just long enough for you to shift gears

                                    dropping to your knees

                                                to pick up the loose change

            although as every beggar knows

                        if you can hear it hit the ground

                                    it can’t be worth much

In the Wind (a recording from the lost & found department)

Some years back a couple of NYC bands, one named Whip, 
& the other, I Feel Tractor, got together and recorded 
their version of my poem “In the Wind.”  I just re-discovered 
the MP3, which has been hiding in my computer for many moons.  
Here it is, direct from the lost & found department, 
"In the Wind" . . .  

Powered by mp3soup.com

Chinese Take-Out

Clouds in the mix…

somebody’s neat idea

so that later we get rain

& abalone shell ear-rings

(mother of pearl)

& chop suey w/a Spanish accent

            Joanne told me, “You have 4 voices,

                        but you should have at least 8,

                                    & one of them should be mine.”

 “That out of three sounds be frame, not a fourth sound, but a star”

                                                                              ― Robert Browning

(A damsel in distress drifts past, unseen, 
her sad tattoos & pedicure,

3:45 p.m., back of Taqueria Vallarta, knowing every step

including the slide & pivot & exactly where that might take you)

                        “From the beach take Ocean Street & turn

                        right on Wipeout Avenue

                        we’re halfway down the block on the right”

ventriloquism, Elvis the Revelator, & Bolinas gas money

―these things still have to be sorted out somehow but

the day just got away from me…

            Voices in the palm leaves

                        crooked sunlight

                                    bending in through the rain

Leaning into it

I took the easy way out

one step forward, three steps back.

My heart on a shelf in the discount aisle

the late afternoon wind

revising the weather map.

Changed the bandages in the rest

room of a Shell Station.

Kept my shades on in the Ebb Tide.

“Poured we libations unto each the dead.”

A glass of beer & a shot of bourbon.

Blind graybeard black dude

Tiresias Theban.

The fading blue

sky my only reference point.

A Chevelle Super Sport burning oil

in the parking lot.

Eddie said “You should always take

four of anything.”  There were only three

to choose from—in the name of the father,

& of the son, & Zuma

Beach.  I had a one-way ticket.

Hiding my tattoos behind a forged

prescription at the pharmacy.  It is

always summertime

somewhere.  

I still have the photograph & the scars & the silkscreened cover art in full color (even black & white)

Catch myself wondering what’s real

the guitar or the music

& the sun was

chrome-plated though fading slightly

Who shall I say?

human speech        violet flames        remnants

of the Farallon Oceanic Plate

                                    seaweed salad & oysters

I had to change the oil & adjust the clutch

in the Ranchero

                        a baseball bat & a machete under the seat

(variations on a theme)

                       

Meanwhile I rely upon the Red Monk Commentaries

& other submersibles

                        William Blake’s wetsuit & the gnostic

                                    comic book version of

                                                the life of  Simon Magus, for example

                        counting horses on bingo night

                                    as the fog strums the barbed wire

& rust has claimed the shoreline once again

Under the Influence

      “Pearl, great sphere, and hollow,

Mist over lake, full of sunlight” (Ezra Pound, Canto XXIX)

………………………………………………………….

sidewalks blessed by drizzle & a fistful of damp sand

            All that copper & steel bending in the waves

                        a southwest swell I knew was on its way by the

                                    ache in my knees

How exactly would you bargain w/these chronicles of mist?

So many days spent plunging through

and against the drift

            your silver ring

                        pearl pendant and the light

                                    jade or turquoise or amber

………………………………………………………….

“The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl

Almost translucent with the light divine

Of her within” (PB Shelley, The Revolt of Islam)

………………………………………………………….

A high-speed low-pressure system

defining both the sky

& you             

            your empty pearls my tidewater shades

the beach all broken

                        the sky sliding along silver wires

wherever we were going as good a place as any

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

The feathered air at sea-level

swamped at high tide

& Beauty,

                  I was so taken with the sky I forgot to

compliment you on your shoulders

            & your breatss, so raw

                        the cartoon light can’t touch them

            nor your African mask

            as you sip a mailbomb cocktail

                        the stage set for Eternity

                                    something we don’t understand

                                    & only half believe

although you would probably dance to it if given

half a chance

            As for me I’m convinced it all has to do with the

            bubbles in Mexican glass

                        fucking with the way perspective

                                    grinds against the grain of perception

            but it only makes me thirsty

& your heart bends like a palm tree

in the wind