Photographic Evidence: Exhibit 4

Photographic Evidence: Exhibit 3

Photographic Evidence: Exhibits 1 & 2

Phantom 101

A mariachi blanket
& a 4 speed transmission
surrendered to peekaboo silk
tambourines
& chrome nightingales

Two-Lane Cutoff

As if my heart could rhyme with the tide pool
out there on the rock ledge that extends into
the impact zone where even the sky crashes
all silver-green w/rust inlay against the foam

& who knows what other vicarious redemption
holding a rail of saltwater to the floodlit street
that cuts like a wing into the damp night air
repeats the uncut diamond sutra behind yr veil

the intrinsic pale distraction (seeming drenched
in corrugated steel (as I could take you there
& walk away as I have so many times before
looped inside the protocol stepping off the high

wire into what impenetrable silence awaits

Strumming the Silence

for my Dad on this the first anniversary of his death

It’s been a whole year now with you on the
other side but never too far from here
as when I see you looking back at me from the mirror
or recognize in a snap flutter your hands
fitting my own now like a pair of battered gloves

“Fuck Death” I told you once & you just smiled
Yeah, I always knew you loved the misguided
bravado I inherited from you, even when you couldn’t
understand a goddamn word of it

& we still argue but now it’s only in dreams
where you drink from the bottle & look through me
with those pale blue eyes that I look back at you with
out of the years when we never bothered with tears
if only to prove to ourselves that we could

A Chinese Western

We could lean on one another in the neon palm garden or take a stroll through the riptides & spilled drinks of an elegance we never knew.   Stepping between cardboard tombstones we would recite alchemical formulas memorized from a lifetime of TV commercials.   A subliminal guitar riff spikes the shadow of your coffee cup.   Blink & you’ll miss it.   The dust swirls up & the bamboo tumbleweed rolls down to the sea.   The ransom note was in braille, the femme fatale was in a silver fishnet ensemble that fit her like the City of Angels on the flipside of a climatic showdown.   The moon shimmering on the surface reminding us of the friends we left behind & the road ahead.   Plum wine, opium, & chow mein at the saloon & the streets washed in shadows as we rode out into the thunder.   Shifting seven ways through the red silk armor that rustles in the breeze of the Big Aloha closing out now on a gunmetal beach as we head for the border.   You with your carved jade sunglasses & me in my Hong Kong sombrero.

Spilling the Last Glass of Water in California

I'll keep the hazy beachbreak
folded in my fiberglass swamp journal
along with the bruise to prove it
tapped out on the long distance
mardis gras storm surge
or spun on the finger of sky blue nada
before that raincloud jack-knifes into the sea
just to demo the altitude of desire
when karma's a revolving door
in a metallic green '68 Malibu convertible
parked outside Taqueria Las Palmas
locked down in the amber glow
falling from a tearstained mirror
shattered on the pavement of your heart

First & Last

The leap itself isn’t fatal
it’s the sudden stop & the misty pavement
opening up to swallow or absorb the step
like building a scale replica of the Dalai Lama
in a bottle
as if your lips were bait & infinity was a
1, 2, 3 wipeout

I imagine life’s just the skeleton of a comic book
the Iliad & the Odyssey with lots of crash, thud,
ka-booms & dialog balloons stuffed with
those dactylic hexameters that still ring like
stones in the sun

but bleached blonde with liquid eyes
outsourced to California
where the shoreline has a memory that’s
always going to be deeper than
the history book you lost in high school

or that dry dive into the abyss when
no one’s looking