Picking up the pesos

Wondering what happened
to all of the money
you didn't spend on drugs...
_________________________

          PAGAN RITUALS (the nuns
          used to pass around a can
          collecting coins for the
          "pagan babies")
_________________________

Pitching pennies into the sand
          the shoreline drenched in pale sunlight...

Great cities will grow there over night

                     & just as soon will vanish

Eternal Combustion Engine

Haze of blue light turning white

right there on the foam ledge

flower of Michoacán

reminds me of how warm the pavement could be

at night in Ocean Park the summer of 1975

released on your own recognizance…

“Do you know at the offering of which libation

the waters become endowed with a human voice

and rise and speak?” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)

everything wet, trembling

waiting for you to make the next move

Travels in Abyssinia, the Harar & Santa Cruz

It’s dark down here on the sand

although the sky’s lit up like

Mega-Millions gnawing on a lightbulb

above the pearl-handled tide

& the way your breathing sort of

          ripples thru the mist

makes me want to pull the shade on

a thousand years worth of

                              ocean sunsets

but I’m hooked on whatever happens after

as the streets give up their

trembling denial

                           & the moon hauls out it’s

          black velvet paintings

                          each worth at least a half-

minute of silence

                       

         pacific standard time

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

            Vista Point

            Ornamental pavilions of rust

            consecrate the shoreline

            caught in the glare of fishscale chrome

            as far as the eye can see

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

We get that golden aura off the

late afternoon sun & we’re several bottles past

the trembling blue agave light

as at Playa San Pedrito

previously breathing fire & sea-mist

The initials carved there in the half-light

explaining nothing as I can only remember

the taste of her lips

& the smooth transition

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Angle of Repose

Bending in the rain

like a double-jointed palm tree

as the flashlight batteries give out…

Arcades of black eternity in blue mascara

            out there in the windblown seaweed

the meaning of time like a stolen wristwatch

& you can sing along if you want to

following these damp footprints back to when you

never knew the difference

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

            When asked of their origins

            the Chumash point to the west

            out over the Pacific Ocean

            as being the home of the First People

            a place they call the Land of the Dead

            where the Great Spirit lives

            in a crystal cave

            on the bottom of the sea

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BROKEN SILVERGREEN SENTENCES

SUSTAINED BY THE LYRIC INSTABILITY

OF WET STONES BLINKING IN THE FOAM

She was stapled like a cloud

to a corner of the sky

the color of beach pavement

                                    & I was a wine-stained tombstone cutback

as ominous as a shadow

                                   falling across a bead curtain

                                                                  in another room

The sunset glass made it a perfect setting for

a soul session with the drainpipe crew

& we danced on the string of a tropical memory

                                   as she always preferred something euphoric

a tidepool with a fuse in it

for example

                                    lit & sputtering

as long as it left a scar

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The water was cold

              the waves had a glassed-in purity

that shattered into white foam

                            with plumes of mist flying back

                        (The Dragon in the Waves)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Circling the Drain

like trance music & sun stroke

to float the memory

            sleazy but essential

& no more shipwrecked kimonos

to worship in silhouette

            where we’re the only survivors left

to blink       in the fog

                           & wonder why 

Valvoline

Some say one last kiss could have
made all the difference
 
            but the wet sand isn’t talking & the wind
                        cuts down the alley like Odysseus
                                    crossing off eternity on a pocket calendar
 
& no I don’t believe we breathe the same air
 
2.
Sunset at Tierra del Fuego
A solo for steam-driven guitar
 
3.
            The light returning
            e quel remir
                                        suffused in haze
            silver in shadow
                           la luz de Oriente
                                        in a sharkskin bikini

Any Number Can Play

The water was cold & gave me a headache
in my left eye & my ears were filled with
bubble sounds like
a starfish playing ping-pong w/the eyes of a drowned
Phoenician sailor
 
            Those are pearls that catch the light & hold it there
 
                                    la luz…la luz es como el agua
 
& it is afternoon       all lit up & trembling
            maybe you’ve been there   sunlight
                        filtered through ocean haze
the light descending
            quick tide                  a ghost thing like love
a ringing stillness at the center of it surging
            & I’m thinking about the windswept articulation of sand
                                    drifting across the pavement
 
…el agua…          …la luz…
 
                                    I’ll let you decide although
we both know it doesn’t matter
 
We’ll make our way south by swimming across every
parking lot that ripples in the sun
from Bolinas Lagoon to the temple at Teotihuacán

Another sad case of literate sunbathing

Seaflowers bend like assassins to their task
& in dreams I never hesitate
but I stop long enough to have my palm
read by a chainsmoking Ethiopian woman
wearing a hair net
 
She describes a darker shade of morning glory
 
It wasn’t like walking barefoot on broken glass
although the waves were rich in foam
& jagged pieces of sunlight
 
You glide between that which is given
& that which is taken away
 
Never mind the sparrow’s song nor the choir of
asthmatic gulls
                               there is a music that's best kept
somewhere deep inside  
somewhere you can go when you need to
 
& that’s where I am right now
 
hunkered down inside the sound a seashell makes
sliding across the strings of a dulcimer

On the Use of Symbolism in 18th Century French Romantic Poetry

Whistling past the wrecking yard
watching the sun rise through
a beaded curtain
 
wave pattern carved in stone
 
septic shock
 
Spilling coffee on my way
back following the damp foot-
prints of some sea nymph or dakini

"She who walks in the sky"
 
Assuming you recognized her
from the centerfold in the
King James Bible
which is about as close
as you’re likely to get
 
The seagreen lipstick a dead giveaway
not to mention the porcelain eyes
 
Whether you fell or were pushed it’s
the same difference
 
The first law of gravity is
heavier than the 2nd
–is there a 3rd?
 
She was a day crossed off the Mayan calendar
& I was staggering across the wet sand
shedding fish scales that
glittered like silver coins in the mist

Guided by Voices

Early morning mid-tide pebbled glass
 
a kind of call & response scenario
& who isn’t when you’re
trying so hard to lose your balance
 
strumming the sand like Lou Reed
          on a Dick Dale & the Deltones
                   Greatest Hits album
 
The needle in the groove
& eucalyptus gargling the seabreeze
 
I’ll let you do the math
 
There are perhaps other
more expedient methodologies
if you can but I never could
 
& worth its weight in greasy blonde platitudes
making the pavement sing

At Risk Behavior

The sky brushed by wings
as ocean music is
sweeping in across the coast
highway
 
I would narrow but not limit the focus
boil enough water for a single
cup of coffee mid-
morning an exception
 
 L i b r e t t o
One voice describes
another voice checks the references
& a third voice sings harmony
 
Time passes & pelicans explain the
weight of the sky leaning pretty heavily
on the cypress right now
 
doesn’t necessarily ring a bell
anywhere but here