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Spoiler Alert
A pale blue sky was penciled in for Wednesday
locked away in a corner of my heart
along with you & the way your colors bleed

The Navigator
Mombasa, Cancun, Papua New Guinea
          (A brief psychedelic cartoon flashback)
Calcutta, Shanghai, Twentynine Palms
          (One size fits all, never needs ironing)
Krakatoa, east of Java
          (Apartment 3B)

Rolling Thunder
As in a biblical remix
her green lipstick & deep
burgundy nail polish

The Miracle of the Rose
We had to take every wrong turn to get here
drenched in radiance & apprehension
both of us doing our best to ensure that the last word
was never spoken

Eye in the Sky

What's evident is
not unknowingly La Providencia
          as the new normal continually falls short of
& the ancillary bikini doll confirms
Love's transcendence as well as the bitter after
taste in the classic sense
                    repeated in the windswept cypress
                    & wet sand when the tide is almost full
although her damp footprints evaporating on the sidewalk
tell a slightly different story
                              & almost translucent
                              in the rusty blue-white haze
is what the Ocean says

How to Steal a Submarine

Beach Street
You hand me a string of pearls
& a Buddhist road map
"I prefer the scenic route"
seaweed cigarettes at dawn
Bela Lugosi in Island of Lost Souls
Morphine Like Swimming
& the cracked pavement of my native land

Preview of Coming Attractions
Later in the morning the rocks north of
the cove will be under water
& a clean right-break will peel in around the point

The Day is Trimmed in Rust & Mexican Turquoise
& a heart-shaped moment later you
lift your head & ask "What did you just say?"

Standing By the Gate That Once Betrayed a
Husk of Roses in the Evening Fog
A poem has many moving parts

Same Difference

Sacred relics that glow in the dark
         adorned w/rust & beach tar
rolling around beneath the seat of a
faded green El Camino
         heading south on the PCH
                  w/pomp & circumstantial evidence

Every time I check under the hood I'm surprised that the
engine is still there
         a marvelous contraption streaked with
         red & green paint,
                  oil & grease,
                           the metal ticking as it cools

The road hums inside a cloak of sea mist that
thins out as the sun climbs into a flat blue sky
as though it was a litmus test gone terribly wrong...

Some folks keep track of the seasons by
watching trees & plants
         I just look at the way the light plays on the
                  surface of the ocean

         listening to seagulls riffing on something
                  Fats Navarro played in 1950
                           recorded a week before he died

& the wind shifts offshore to hollow out the waves
that Spring morning at Playa San Pedrito
as I drained the last of the tequila & w/numb fingers
unlaced my sneakers

Some things are given to you
while other things are taken away

                                                                     Fool's Day 2016