The Myth of the Eternal Return, or You Had to Be There

Orpheus vs the Doppler Effect
The sunset sky rocking
mirror shades
          & the fogmist
                  threaded w/colors
                            blue, green, orange, red,
                                      chrome & turquoise
suggesting the absence of a quorum
as the tides reprise a game of give & take
clobbering the eternal verities
           & just as in the tragic relationship 
                    between flamingo & flamenco
           you could ask whose voice it is this time
           & remember how the guitar came in
           a step behind

Butterfly on Canvas
Changing gears, watching the paint dry,
carving yr name in a wall of jello
                                         The indirect lighting
glimpses & winks
          where the rain slips between
                     but she doesn't have the words
                                 to circle or designate
I would if I had a minute to
think it over
          one minute later than that the
                     sky's a different color & she's not there
You might want to rethink the
spiritual calisthenics at this point
It's 7:32 p.m. & the pier is wearing a silk veil

Mariachi Night on Squid Row
The wings of a gull strumming the breeze
as maybe the whisper of car tires
on the wet pavement of a street that
runs right down thru the
central nervous system of the universe
a one-way street lined w/tattoo parlors
& the occasional roadside shrine
gleaming in the sun like
an empty mirror on the shadow side of the beach
like a silver spoon bending to the flame
like the tinsel light of stars
leaning back into the tuck & roll upholstery
of the evening sky

Suzie Q Does the Zombie Twist

Behind every dark night of the soul there's
a victimless crime w/yr name on it
& babies get tossed like kitchen 
sinks from 8-story windows
only to land w/a thud in the middle of 
yr violin solo

Expecting it all to rattle down into the sand
is one way to say it

clang.  wiggle.  crash.  blink.
The Art of the Fugue

& the band plays & 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

You could always just chug-a-lug a quart of Pennzoil
& go splashing thru puddles on the ocean floor
          listening to seagulls riffing on something
                    Fats Navarro played in 1950
                              recorded a week before he died

& the wind shifts off-shore 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

Launch Angle

The pale green sky tilted in such a way the
hydrogenic haze slides off into
episodes of stained glass

            sun dazzle
            Hesperides
            Madame Butterfly
            drum-thump

                                                    Don't even try

The Garden of Earthly Delights like a bottomless
cup of coffee
looking for the pulse of Punta Baja

                        I'd say keep yr sunglasses on
                                    & lose the accent

Walking in on flames
like Mayakovsky
w/a dog named Snake Eyes