Prior Consent

I found that the aesthetics of the

phoned-in confession

tended to disrupt

the purity of my dreams

Nothing that a fresh coat of

paint wouldn’t cure but

given how relentless the sky can be when you

need a place to hide & the sea-

breeze stepping it up in the ancestral cypress my

preference would be to watch the sun

set rust into rust as the medicine man’s daughter

said You can lead a horse to water but you can’t

make it dance

just as dying of thirst is the

drowning man’s curse a

shake & bake resolve can’t break down the door of

compassion anymore than these tinsel

strands of seawater can hogtie the redolent

haze that

seems to have settled in for the long haul now

That irritable reaching after fact and reason

– What does that poem mean?

– It means what it says.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                                      & so Whalen, 1975,
a reading with Ginsberg at Naropa--

          "Quite often people are so busy trying to figure out
          why I'm saying it, that they don't pay attention to
          what it is I'm saying."

Side Effects

Watching the next tragedy unfold on live TV. 

Happy it wasn’t me.  My dream

a recent coversation between

Amiri Baraka & Ed Dorn in heaven.  Tuesday

started out silver but faded on me.

A day late & a dime short.  Green

scenes straight out of the tide book.

Love could be another way to say it.

Paddling out on a stolen surfboard is the

most common symptom.  Side-effects may include

invincibility, a trick knee, the hully-gully,

& a feeling for leaving.

Love could be another way to say it

Hermosa Beach Blues

Spring…….

Too long…..

Godzilla…..

Bougainvillea, The Killer Elite, a pocket comb

The early morning light igniting the lip of the wave

the color of mermaids

            as in the fresco

                        spray-painted on the seawall

only half-remembered

            & the rippling pavement

                        & the glitter of fishscales

                        in the sun

Thou restless, ungathered

She leaned against me

the way the fog

leans along the shore.

On the Eve of the Year of the Green Wood Horse

Several possibilities come to mind.  Tack them to the Mexican voodoo shrine.  The Year of the Black Tar Horse, for example.  But the blue agave sky, no one voice can encompass or describe.  The rapid lid of the tide extends the thunder of hooves later translated by eucalyptus leaves & shipped by mule to 1211 Venice Blvd.  Estimated delivery date February 4, 1956. 

There was the bottle of tequila, not half empty nor half full, just half there, like the rest of us.  The light was golden & you could fold it up & take it with you when it was time to go.  Broken sea shells, yellow weeds, the rattling dead thistle.  Sun-dazzle.  The seething tide / wave-break foam.  Proteus to Kanaloa. 

The horse might have been an appaloosa but it was hard to tell because we were looking into the sun.  Several possibilities come to mind.  You leave them on the sand for someone else to find. Your heart is a framed portrait of the wind riding in on a southwest swell, I said, & your eyes are windows left open in the rain.  

Amiri Baraka

Quick eyes that afternoon

in Anselm & Jane’s backyard,

Boulder, summer of 2008

A smile is all that’s needed when

caught on a dime I thought

all time is authenticated yet so

thoughtlessly discarded

& so gone now before we

finished that conversation

maybe with a lift from Klook

who would have been 100

the day you went away

            Jan 9 ‘14

Mileage

Birth of the Cool

“Be Stoked” says the Dalai Lama

channeling Lao Tzu & Mickey Dora

but the lady on the roof

with the chain around her neck

has a different agenda entirely

Kind of Blue

Merely forgotten we are gathered here today

to peel your shadow off the sidewalk

& wear it around our shoulders like cape

or a wet suit

beneath the warmth of a winter sun

10 a.m.           blue sky         pelicans on the beach

not necessarily the whale song 8-track

nor the alibi

scratched on the back of a bus ticket

What you were saying

a very long breath

& though there is no language for it

even the most secret wave break

has a name

Bitches Brew

Over and over shifting

sand & water [REPEAT].  There

are several ways to get

there but one will bring you back

again.  A wind

rakes the parking lot over-

look.  Wind on Ocean.  It is

as it was.  All new.

Sketches of Spain

The instant (taken)

half love half

smoke

crossing so many

times an emblem

as in some of this actually happened

Air and water equal chrome

w/a few minor embellishments

picked up along the way

I won’t meet you here

but somewhere a mango sky describes

to anyone who’ll sit still for it

With No Purpose Other Than to Prevail

It was a Tuesday

I had a Guinness for breakfast

& went surfing

my seaside algorithmic getting the best of me

so stoked later I bench-pressed a Cadillac

singing baby please don’t go

back to the monster mask

factory

The tamale lady was parked under a

blue sky that screamed for frijoles & rice

pico de gallo

& all the leaky valve stems

in the Tao Te Ching

Sea Sea Rider

in B-flat

breaking left off the incoming ocean

mist

under the now pink

blue gray orange & white sky

tapping the prehistoric

wah-wah pedal

Sunset is the color of my true love’s love

something better said w/a bouquet of kelp blossoms

but bringing them home to you

with my head full of

Leucothea, Su Tung-p’o, Percy Sledge vs Godzilla,

& all the migrating gray whales

it’s way too easy to get lost

Butterfly on Canvas

Rose-colored goggles

clever water & Chinese

surf music rule the day

A few threads of sleep

Dreams I’ll never remember

The perfect crime…

The astrologer in Ocean Park circa 1975

she said there were wonderful things

waiting for me if I lived long enough

That was then this is considerably later

& there’s not much that has changed

from there to now

Nevertheless it was understood

there would be consequences

which I prefer not to think about

on the eve of the Year of the Green Wood Horse