My tendency to trespass vs the neon palette of sunset

Leafy elegance light & shadow late afternoon still warm & shimmering
low frequency windy music

If anything exists outside of this I wonder what it could be

Monarch butterflies hooked on milkweed & fog & Fats Navarro records

Cement clouds hoisted above the beach

(a complex system of cables, wires & pulleys hard at work behind the scene)

Tufts of dry yellow grass, dead thistle, cracked pavement
& a gathering of monastic eucalyptus trees speaking in tongues
alongside the sand gravel path that leads to the beach below

Feeling Moonlit

Water, sand, foam
where that sparkle lives
I wouldn't say it was obvious
altho it was & is

guarded secrets & lug wrenches
take up a good deal of our time here
gargling the seven seas plus one other

O oceans of earth & sky
under the influence of a subtropical depression
& the flowering darkness that sleeps inside
stones cobbled along the shore
2
This must be the place where St. Francis tamed the
wolves she said            & now the rushing whisper of
seashells is all that remains
3
Time bending space
bent palm
trees in their infinite
wisdom never
made a sound

              October 20 - birthday of both Arthur Rimbaud
              & Philip Whalen

Some Might Say

I like how you turn your head away
when I say I love the way the light
leans against your cheek
Kabuki-style in the parking lot at Taqueria Las Palmas

blue sky zooming in low w/neon highlights

F L I C K E R I N G

Nasturtium leaves moist, dew-laden, be-jeweled
tremble in that kind of light

Eucalyptus whispers in the looming mist of fog that
rides in with the evening tide
& I'm doing my Wild Man of Borneo routine
the pavement turning to sand beneath my feet

Sometimes you're like a balcony I can leap from

other times you're like a glass of water I'm diving into
from an impossible height

A History of Violence

The amateur hunchback at Clyde's Richfield U-Haul

corner of Venice & Lincoln

& the out-of-work hairdresser

w/the Jack of Hearts hidden in her kimono sleeve

raking the church parking lot w/eyes like stolen flashlights

begging to be seen & forgotten

Music piped in from Arcturus pre-recorded for broadcast

at a predetermined time no matter how the light bends

A single word read sideways

yr ticket to "Da Poemz"

& the next thing you know you're walking tiptoe

thru the ruins of Western Civilization

with headphones on

Let Me Know When You Get There

A sense of balance thrown off-kilter         a vector inversion

Gathering up all of the holes in your alibi takes time
& the time it takes is GOLDEN

which is to say
askew         lopsided         crooked         & perfect

You were all decked out in silk brocade & egret feathers
a dozen long-stemmed geraniums cradled in your arms

         It was either sunrise or sunset
                  ocean the color of an abalone shell
        & the blonde sand plunging into a hush of foam made it all
         easy to forget

One could possibly learn to be translucent in that type of light
so if you were to say "I'm looking through you" it could be taken literally

We were riding the same karmic thermal
drifting from one side of the beach to the other

one grain of sand at a time

It's Not Rocket Surgery

Transparent reflections on the window glass
are reminders of the illusory nature of existence

A dusting of clouds in the beach sky

No one notices how the color changes but it does

Try to remember the sound of a leaf
blown skittering across the pavement

Other colors are playing mah jong & chainsmoking Newports

going to El Segundo, metaphorically

All of it explained, extrapolated & expanded upon in dreams
LET US HAVE THOSE (blinking off & on
behind the eyes

Water & Power

Where was I then?  What was I listening to?  Oh, myself, no doubt, alone & humming a tune I can't remember.  Did you say something?  Of course you did. I understood every word I pretended to hear.  Low end torque & rumble of mid-tide surf wrapping in around the point, foam washing up across the sand, late afternoon blue haze of sky gone gold around the edges.  Your eyes were like damp footprints evaporating on the sidewalk & I was feeling like a flashlight on a moonless night the power gone & the rain sweeping in from the south.  I've seen dusty palm trees genuflect in barefoot alleyways leading down to the beach.  It can be like that sometimes.  The sky melting like a box of crayons in the Painted Desert riding in on the shattered chrome drainage of the rising tide.

No Shoes No Shirt No Service

The wind kicks up late 
"stirring the eucalyptus kool-aid"
is one way to say it
though my head is bent on the rhyme implied
which is sure to change someone's tune

not necessarily set to music because what
is music? other than the measure of syllables or breath
vibrating molecules of air & at what frequency
in the mind when words are not read aloud
still renders a tone & rhythm & shape
as much in image as sound or whatever claims that
resonance

          As for me I'm convinced it all has to do with the
                    bubbles in Mexican glass
                              fucking with the way perspective
                                        grinds against the grain of perception
                    but it only makes me thirsty

Digging the breezes as they go
          steeped flowers & devastation
                    "slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea"

                              I seem to be practicing reverse meditation
                              not even to see the way the mist hollows out
                              strumming the drumroll sand

You could ask who's voice it is this time
& remember how the guitar came in a step behind

& you're counting horses on bingo night
just around the corner from the end of civilization as we know it

& yes it does matter how you say it more than perhaps you know

Casual Mythology

Exculpatory Evidence
Can anyone ever really give or receive a "blessing"?
Confessing my tattoo
Fuchsia, nasturtium, cypress & eucalyptus
Show me the way to go home

Low Tide Low Life
That was me then as now
tunneling to the beach by way of China
singing I Shall Be Released
& checking to see how much is left

No matter what you say or how you say it
Wind rippling thru the Venetian blinds
rhymes w/the potted palms imitating Samoa
tossing shadows like spare change across the
sidewalk outside the Kung Fu Taqueria