Morning Glory, Beach Glass, & the Deep White Blue Haze

Your sins (those
that are secret & those that are less so) are
quite lovely this damp mist-laden morning
 
Transcending the particular
whereby generalities are permission to mediate invention
itself transcendent
 
I’m thinking of Rebelde Radioactivo (1965)
by Los Sinners
as well as the dark silver of the sand this time of day

dark blonde I’d say
 
a dark
greasy
blonde                        streaked w/tar
 
set alongside the heavy green glass of the tide
warmed by small fires buried beneath stones underwater

Tunneling to the Beach

The smoked glass of tidepools on the last day of summer
mirror the midnight sun at noon
 
as in the Palatine Anthology
 
& the light falls it doesn’t fail you can switch it on & off
 
I had an idea about bent crystal altho I guess it’s
only the light that bends
as at the Venice pier at dawn & later
down the Speedway up around Pacific & Windward
grinding the curb
 
Somehow near seems far away
 
Pick it up & set it down
 
Times when the light just seems to crumble
& the day gets away from you
 
whatever you are this time
 
Take a deep breath & let it go
 
& then it’s night & the TV’s on it’s
The Tattooed Stranger (RKO, 1950)
 
In the flickering light I keep reaching for a phantom ashtray
 
the moon gently tapping at the window

Ode to a Buick Skylark

Another drizzling gray summer morning
I wake up to cold pizza and a cup of coffee
“the breakfast of champions”
         & so the daughters of Memory
                  riding in on the pale light
                           perform a little bump & grind
sworn to green scenes right out of the tide book
         w/bubbles & like glistening
                  catalogs of subtropical flowers
                           printed on silk sleeves of fog
 
         If I wasn’t there you’d have to
         dream up someone else to talk to someone
         else who wouldn’t listen because the song the
         wind sings in the eucalyptus is cranked up to
         10 on the voodoo dial & if you had wings
         you’d probably make a similar sound
 
Sometimes my heart races like a vintage Corvette
w/a blown head-gasket
         other times it’s more like a
                  rabid chihuahua
                           chained to a palm tree
                                    in the rain

Limited Engagement

Giotto’s sky versus some kind of oceanic symphony
by Jackson Pollock
 
Tracing patterns that occur deliberately
which is to say completely by chance
 
“He was all the time talking to himself”
“Couldn’t get a word in wedge-wise”
“They said he had a bi-polaroid personality”
 
All you really need are EMERALDS, PEARLS, & aspirin
(325 mg, a bottle of 300 tablets)
 
EXTENDED HOURS
 
peacock feathers
 
When the dime stops spinning we could trade transgressions
 
(I had always thought the denouement was a
call to double down motherfucker)
 
Heartbeat.  Footsteps.  Rain.
The transition from one to the other to the next
Shadows within shadows as in a film
 
I called it Romance with Opiates (A Limited Engagement)
 
Now playing at a theater near you