Bending Like a Spoon to the Flame

On an empty beach
just me & the
bitter angels of my nature

it could have been anywhere
after sunset

but w/pale neon blinking in the mist
so that it was like Chinatown 
under water . . .

         I have stood on the street there w/my
         chow mein & notebook
         as the weather swept up the coast
         from the south
                                driven it would seem
                                by sea creatures
                                         who resemble devatas
                                                     from an ancient sandstone carving
but w/seaweed in their hair
                                         & wearing damp sunglasses
to hide their incendiary eyes
                                         from those like me who would
like to know

Saturday Matinee

It's springtime now that it's almost summer
not like but is
as a family of trolls
tumbling out of a dirty green Dodge van
folded into the sound of traffic on Mission Street
rush hour

The bright sunlight takes me somewhere else entirely
goatfoot tapdance across the sand gravel path lined with
native grasses, lupin, young thistle

                               to think that the roots bite down
in this hard & rocky soil
                                               & outrageous blossoms burst
forth

               the birds & bees & cigarette trees

                               harmonic diversions

Leaf & petal slice a corner off the sky
                                               a small blue corner
pick it up & take it home
                              another piece of the puzzle

Some Assembly Required

The music was piped in on a
ship-to-shore set-up
bouncing off a satellite east of Arcturus
sending ripples across the estuary
w/sea mist & pearls dipped in sunset
blue yellow red green & turquoise
w/chrome inlay
repeated in the windswept cypress & wet sand
when the tide is almost full

& as if to resume the distances
the weight of California leans on Mexico
just a shade past suspicion
downloading the Dance of the Mollusk & other
psychic disorders on a scale of 1 to 10
last seen carrying a slingshot & a blanket

skip the gutter / shoot the breeze

A voice from on high
but not high enough