We Had a Shared Medical Condition

What it was held up to a patchwork sky

leaning in on the serpentine coast

darker than that god you used to pray to

at every roadside shrine we passed

I decided that you eyes were

like the pigeons of the Holy Ghost

roosting upon the Temple of Ephesus at dawn

or was it the Ventura pier at sunset?

Either way the rustling of wings

took me back to the palm trees of Venice

& the Egyptian labyrinth of alleyways I trekked

every day on my way to the beach

It never ends until it does like breathing

& to crisscross the furious tropic of dreams

I said Tell me EVERYTHING but

please be ambiguous

& the light fell like dust on the pages of our

sworn testimony as a warm breeze rolled

thru the fortune palms

Today is November 19

Hey, Joanne

Happy Birthday

Deliverance

The bottle was half empty

that’s a fact

perception had nothing to do w/it

I taught myself Spanish

just so I could sing along

Doors opened and shut

The concrete steps that led

down to the beach were covered in

graffiti, blood, and seaweed

The wet sand was the color of your eyes

I was sipping the salt mist

you were sliding past all that

like a shadow on stained glass

The music was great

I did the Shuffle, I did the Stroll, I did the

Quasimodo

Water Music

for Alison

Remnants of summer still

layered in ocean fog

A butterfly, a seashell,

a guided tour thru the

entertainment capitals of the world

There was a time I thought a thesaurus was a kind of dinosaur

Although I was hopelessly distracted by Water Moon Kuan-yin

& some rather naive local shrubbery it was the cloud pattern that

kept me guessing

& like those who know or those who don’t but wish they did

those empty waves at the Lane deliver news

of distant storms that died at sea leaving nothing but a soft

sigh to be picked up by a weather satellite & transmitted to palm trees 
along Beach Street

                        as they present an interesting tableau set against the 
hazy blue upholstery of a late summer sky

                            green entanglements notwithstanding

I had a stolen surfboard & a library copy of Songs & Sonnets 

my hands resembled my father’s & my heart was like a Mars bar

melting on the manifold of a ’56 Chevy