Any Number Can Play

The water was cold & gave me a headache
in my left eye & my ears were filled with
bubble sounds like
a starfish playing ping-pong w/the eyes of a drowned
Phoenician sailor
 
            Those are pearls that catch the light & hold it there
 
                                    la luz…la luz es como el agua
 
& it is afternoon       all lit up & trembling
            maybe you’ve been there   sunlight
                        filtered through ocean haze
the light descending
            quick tide                  a ghost thing like love
a ringing stillness at the center of it surging
            & I’m thinking about the windswept articulation of sand
                                    drifting across the pavement
 
…el agua…          …la luz…
 
                                    I’ll let you decide although
we both know it doesn’t matter
 
We’ll make our way south by swimming across every
parking lot that ripples in the sun
from Bolinas Lagoon to the temple at Teotihuacán

Another sad case of literate sunbathing

Seaflowers bend like assassins to their task
& in dreams I never hesitate
but I stop long enough to have my palm
read by a chainsmoking Ethiopian woman
wearing a hair net
 
She describes a darker shade of morning glory
 
It wasn’t like walking barefoot on broken glass
although the waves were rich in foam
& jagged pieces of sunlight
 
You glide between that which is given
& that which is taken away
 
Never mind the sparrow’s song nor the choir of
asthmatic gulls
                               there is a music that's best kept
somewhere deep inside  
somewhere you can go when you need to
 
& that’s where I am right now
 
hunkered down inside the sound a seashell makes
sliding across the strings of a dulcimer

On the Use of Symbolism in 18th Century French Romantic Poetry

Whistling past the wrecking yard
watching the sun rise through
a beaded curtain
 
wave pattern carved in stone
 
septic shock
 
Spilling coffee on my way
back following the damp foot-
prints of some sea nymph or dakini

"She who walks in the sky"
 
Assuming you recognized her
from the centerfold in the
King James Bible
which is about as close
as you’re likely to get
 
The seagreen lipstick a dead giveaway
not to mention the porcelain eyes
 
Whether you fell or were pushed it’s
the same difference
 
The first law of gravity is
heavier than the 2nd
–is there a 3rd?
 
She was a day crossed off the Mayan calendar
& I was staggering across the wet sand
shedding fish scales that
glittered like silver coins in the mist

Guided by Voices

Early morning mid-tide pebbled glass
 
a kind of call & response scenario
& who isn’t when you’re
trying so hard to lose your balance
 
strumming the sand like Lou Reed
          on a Dick Dale & the Deltones
                   Greatest Hits album
 
The needle in the groove
& eucalyptus gargling the seabreeze
 
I’ll let you do the math
 
There are perhaps other
more expedient methodologies
if you can but I never could
 
& worth its weight in greasy blonde platitudes
making the pavement sing