Hawaiian Noises

The green lipstick was a dead giveaway

& measured in intervals like beach tar

but only when the heart drops like a pelican

& the haze settles in behind your sunglasses

like something that can only be found in

Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series

though scarred like the underside of a skateboard

I took every possible detour getting here

any number of which could have resulted in

blurred vision or feelings of euphoria

but having mastered the art of walking Spanish

I was uniquely qualified to spill a Bloody Mary into

a Malibu swimming pool shaped like the pale ocean sky…

Such passion is usually reserved for those with some cachet

though peeling rubber in the clinic parking lot

certainly didn’t hurt any

it was kind of like a skin disease nobody wants to talk about

set to the music of a plastic souvenir ukulele

& the pale ocean sky, remember?

it was like a roll of film that had never been processed

Breathing thru yr fingertips

Dropping in on one last mushy floater was

just going to have to be enough

knees slightly bent, arms hanging down, relaxed

Jack Christ on a mule a seabreeze rattling the palm trees

great blue heron heading east like Bodhidharma

signs & wonders or what little Jimmy found

on the tideflats I believe in the supremacy of rust

The Mask of the Redeemer

late summer nights that smell of burned fog

Sat right down in the middle of the street

talking to myself a trick I learned at the halfway house

it was the Feast  of St. Francis

The Blessing of the Animals

a final reckoning a photo opportunity

From the beach you could just make out

a rolling left break w/a bowl section

mas fina off the point shrouded in mist

Seafoam & adrenalin in a mason jar tucked under yr arm

ars poetica made of time & water hecho de tiempo y agua

to be exact following deer tracks in the wet sand

sworn to a sky of turquoise and of silver

iron rebar bleeding rust onto broken concrete

the roach of “whatever”

& the descending of the tide

End of Summer Sale

It felt as though I was reliving the

chord changes of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane

Chalk it up to nerves & a feeling for

            dark corners where there aren’t any

I’m assuming it was systemic

as it lead to all kinds of fancy slide-step action

            while wearing a lucha libre mask

& 4 bald tires & a leaky fuel pump later

            it occurred to me that I may have only been

                        experiencing a flashback

The hot wind from inland was dry & scented w/ozone

like an old library copy of Pliny

Evidently a Design Flaw

Listening to “The Water-Damaged Blues”

a real toe-tapper like

            rusted emeralds spilling against the

                        rocks cobbled along the shore

“Anointed w/seafoam”

I had acquired a very particular set of 

skills over a long & desperate career

last seen copping a couple of blank

            sheets from god’s prescription pad

which resulted in a decidedly Roman Catholic hitch

in my getalong

                                    & as my sense of morality was

roundly criticized I decided to concentrate on my

footwork

which she insisted on referring to as an

“exit strategy”

            but I wasn’t so sure of the rhyme scheme

                        in the third stanza

                                  entitled “It’s only a head wound, Ma”

(nothing that can’t be fixed w/a little nail polish)

& there was nothing left to do but drive

90 miles-an-hour in reverse

back to the beach

                        where I cultivated all the poise & presence

                        of a burned-out movie star