A Different Dynamic

11 heads
2 arms
1 head
1000 arms                   & a mustache
1 head
8 arms
                                                     - Philip Whalen

LIMITED SLIP DIFFERENTIAL by Kevin Oxydol
         "We need something to replace the old gods"
                  she said & I suggested a package of Gauloises

CLASSICAL RHETORIC FOR THE MODERN STUDENT 
by Kevin Obstacle
         Her faraway eyes haunt my tidewater reckoning

HUBCAP DIAMOND STAR HALO by Kevin Oxidados
         I was burying sunlight in the wet sand
                  while she performed a suicide tango
                           swaying like a palm tree in the wind

Tell Tale Signs

MOOD INDIGO (somewhere between
blue & violet
in the visible spectrum
as orchestrated by Duke Ellington)

         Correspondence.  Light & shadow.
         Amalgamated blonde on blonde ambience.

That slight tremor in your hands may mean that you've
had more than your share

         It all depends on who the poet is talking to

Sunlight drifts down thru the Merovingian cloud cover
& an onshore breeze that tastes like sea water
worries the dusty palm trees on Beach Street

         This is springtime on the coast
                  spilling shadows across the pavement

                           Darker when seen from the inside

& I'm following the radiant energy 
         where it goes as the sky shifts from smoked
                  glass to morning glory
                           & the streets plunge into the sea

2
Descending the broken
         concrete steps I could see drift-
wood & seaweed all tangled in
                  clumps, sand streaked with 
tar & the shorebreak churning
dirty white foam
         as in a lost Homeric hymn
                  found again at low tide
                           & with a drizzle of misdirection
                                    paddling out into the
                                             lo & behold
bending light into colors
         blue, green, orange, red,
                  chrome & turquoise

but with a menthol filter

         streaming neural movies
         that were a hit
         back in the Pleistocene

3,000 Crooked Miles to Honolulu

Invoking the pink & green
gods responsible for this pale
sunlight I could envision a future where
spilling the ritual Santeria beads & talking
trash with a Peruvian beauty
queen who teaches Esperanto
would be my ticket to the wisdom, detachment &
compassion that would come to define my later years

I used to think so

& remember the way the late afternoon light falls thru the
eucalyptus trees on the bluff above the beach
& those pragmatic butterflies

I keep retracing the steps I should have taken
my saltwater credentials tripping the ghost
carefully placing puddles of sand 
in place of memory my rose-colored binoculars wet with rain
& every tree fern seashell morning glory (conspicuously)
from here to the Himalayan orchid you never saw but
once in a dream

“In Elementary Music the Relation of Earth to the Sphere of Water is 4 to 3”

Okeanos
O.ke.a.'nos
Oceanus

Toshiro Mifune

way out at the drop edge of ocean stream (Okeanos Potamos)
Dance of the Boneless Chicken
& a couple of old shape shifters out for a stroll

       THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
       MEETS THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

                     Los Oxidados awash in ocean haze

Some of us will ride that demon all the way to the end of the line
as it was given us to do
driving blindfolded on St. Samurai's Day

       Forgiveness wasn't in the cards although
       any road that crowded with shadows
       had to be good for something

murky & indistinct all decked out in dayglo neon

so tell me one more time
what's my name