An Epithalamium for Joanne & Donald

[A gong is struck offstage, & as the reverberation fades a conch shell trumpets, & then someone rings a bicycle bell.]

CHORUS (comprised of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, sea nymphs, brujas, blacktail deer, a tribe of California quail, & 2 towhees) – Is the paperwork in order?

                        BANG! (backfire from a 1962 Dodge pickup truck)

JOANNE – It took us 35 years to get here.

                        (chanting)

                                                My hand in yours

Your hand in mine

DONALD – Fairest lady, we are as two currents of water thus intertwined.

CHORUS – Harken ye, the gathered

& those that are scattered far & away,

Devas rise up & take flight

like bubbles from champagne!

THE JUDGE ADVOCATE – I declare…

[Violins, harmonicas, and Hawaiian slack-key guitars commence, drowning out THE JUDGE ADVOACTE who continues to speak unheard.]

DONALD – The sun shines upon the foggy glass lake & we shall go hence.

CHORUS (accompanied by a seagull & a chainsaw) -  Lo, they are showered with petals of rose & of nasturtium, all hail!

JOANNE – Well!

Go Ahead & Shoot

A wine-stained tombstone cutback

w/a kamikaze cross-step

however improbable

believes in itself.

Everything I know I learned at the movies

but I didn’t mean it that way.

Darkwater eyes blinking in the sun

as slick waves tumble into foam.

I thought I could taste tequila

& feel the warmth of concrete

radiating up thru my sneakers

at midnight

on a street I didn’t recognize.

Just me & “The Poems”

on the wrong side of the beach

looking for a needle in the sand.

Miracles happen when god makes the impossible

possible.  Breathing is essential,

I suppose, although often impractical.

A day half buried in the sand

half washed away in the tide.

“I didn’t even realize it was happening

& then it was done.”

November 19, 2013.  The mind opens & shuts.

I seem to have lost a day.

Silver Eyes & All

Hung on the wall like an ornament
Impossible hydraulic palm trees

rattling in the night on Beach Street

            their several garlands hoist

                        ensigns of light & proportion

into the star-studded moonless sky

with blonde on blonde enameling

just a few dark syllables from where

moist lips press stained glass

begging if you want me to look

Impossible
“Impossible doesn’t mean very difficult. Very

difficult is winning the Nobel Prize: impossible

is eating the Sun.”    – Lou Reed

Never Apologize: Never Explain
I can’t tell you what I say to the

stars at night because it comes from a

place where there is no language

& no tune to carry it home

Between terror & lust (w/glass in yr sneakers)

I love when you blink my eyes in the chrome sky

it took me years to get that act down

sharpening the edges to a point where they no longer

cast a shadow

                           I was raised on rusted sunsets

& spoonfed sea mist until I learned the proper footwork

from deep green to turquoise

& now every day is Kung Fu Saturday

with psychosomatic swimming pools the size of Nebraska

rearing up on their hind legs when the wind shifts

& it always does

                             just about this time of day

as the haze gives way to

    kool-aid colors

             served on a half-shell

by an out-of-work exotic dancer in a seaweed bikini

who knows my name 

Exit Music

A Feeling for Leaving

Walk in one door & out the other

An explicit ritual

intended to rattle the ice in your drink but

since there’s nothing like it in the phrase book

let’s just say my heart is like a carburetor

flooded w/salt mist

The Long Goodbye

We did the shuffle then

I guess it was predestined

but we played it too close

The wind said what it had to &

sealed each kiss with airplane glue

3-Part Harmony

You say “Aloha”

I say “Adios”

& the mockingbird says

“Sayonara”

Pacific Pipe & Forge Co.

Something doesn’t work, leaky

valve, got bent, blown fuse,

left out in the rain

over-the-counter pain killers not

much good for anything

Hauling water on a shoeless morning in November

takes care of the spiritual calisthenics for the day

No one picked up on the reference to green

nettle tea (Milarepa) so it’ll just have to be

our little secret

We’ll plead the fifth,

as Eddie says, “sometimes

science isn’t good with words”

I had to double-back to make sure it scanned

if only because it was the birthday of John Keats

he would have been 218 years old & most

probably wouldn’t even be able to lift a pen

let alone a flask of laudanum anymore

Keats was born on Halloween

as were two of my 3 sisters

Today is November 2, All Souls Day,

or El Dia de Los Muertos

which along with All Hallows Day &

All Saints Day, as any good Catholic knows,

forms the triduum of Hallowmas

At this time the peek-a-boo veil between the

material world & the spiritual world thins to an

almost transparent layer which is why you may want

to disguise yourself so as not to be recognized

by the dead

Tomorrow the time changes

from Pacific Daylight Time to

Pacific Standard Time

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”

Milarepa may have said that

& if not he should have

We speak a similar language

but no two people ever speak the

same language

Some things are better for being lost

in translation,

    bent, or broken

maybe that’s just the way it’s

supposed to be

In drifts from out

The clouds lay flat against the western

sky like shadows clinging to a brick

wall which from here resembles the warped

pages of a water-

damaged book

the inscription illegible

a map of veins that have burst within the

suicide morning glories

cascading around your shoulders

You gave them away as if anyone could

along w/the signature bump & grind that made the

coastline easy to understand

but difficult to pin down

whispering the way it sometimes does

in the heart’s house

as though it was the first time

& I’m bending like a blade of sand

against the late & early fogmist

w/the steel drum song of El Pacifico

piped in thru the tide

                        darker than yr eyes