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

The Sunset Motel

The sun drags a string of rusty cans along the horizon & the onshore breeze rides in thru the cypress like Venus on a half-shell huffing airplane glue on the road to Xanadu. The bluish silver-green haze tied w/a pink ribbon & my hesitation to bail on the scene drifting like smoke rings under water, but it wouldn't hurt to read the footnotes. The supplication & the statistical anomalies dissolving in the mist of former expectations. I wasn't listening but I heard every word. The sky bends into flickering neon. The tuning fork lays down a weary doo-wop. The Coppertone girl rides a mule into a field of poppies.

Letters of Transit

DISCOUNT KARMA STORE
"You get what you pay for"

Strumming the Tide
The octopus has three hearts that
leak out thru its manifold
& set fire to the seaweed

"THE POEMS"
I own "The Poems"

The Sheik of Araby
1. Digging the breezes as they go
2. Counting horses on bingo night
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
variations on a theme
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Let's don't & say we did

15 Seconds of Fame
All the little chosen ones
Google yr name

Never One to Drop the Dime

Beyond the heavy crash of waves
assume only the possibility

            brilliant blue gray silver fog
                               pages turning
                                          Mexican rock & roll

Memory of waking up beneath the Venice pier
it is as it was
            by reason, shame & reverence
                                           A Test of Poetry

Walking Tiptoe Thru the Ruins of Western Civilization (w/Headphones On)

The rolling dark rocking
deep green turquoise steel
& corrugated foam

which from here resembles the warped
pages of a water-damaged book
the inscription illegible
a map of veins that have burst within
a bouquet of suicide morning glories

but taking it an octave higher than
any dog-eared hymnal would ever recommend

like a black pajama death wish
on the slow train to the Hollywood Laundromat

Buried in Whispers

These streets belong to another place, another time, set on fire in the yellow tree as the story goes. One step in any direction & you're somewhere else entirely. The deciduous architecture is noted for windows that catch the light & toss it back, as well as for the lack of doorways. The sidewalks & alleyways are always dark, even at high noon on the longest day of summer. Foot traffic is sparse, passersby are mere shadows. I wouldn't even know that you were walking beside me now if not for your ritual string of pearls which seem to glow w/a pulse of muted neon, like the bioluminescence generated by creatures that live in the deepest, most remote parts of the sea.

Stalling for Depth

It is Palm Sunday, a Tuesday, in September
& you're in La Jolla
a suburb of St. Paul, the Assassin

The fortune palms murmur
Sappho whispering to Homer
what being means
as an unspecified amount of rain falls
deflected by the windshield's aura of confidence

The sky sort of breathing
a jungle of details
eucalyptic

couldn't tell if I was feeling exalted or exhausted
the giant agave over-run w/second & third thoughts

dancing in parentheses

Septremble, Octember. Nowonder

A single word read sideways could be your
ticket to "The Poems"

Satin & lace
Seaweed & foam

No one ever said it would be easy but it was
lessons I've learned at last forgotten
where in other sentences if Truth is Beauty
it is again but who will be there when the bell rings?

I don't know I'm asking

As I made my slightly unsteady morning rounds I found a delicate, perfect spider web shimmering in the sunlight, so fine, precise, like a transparent LP, like the diaphanous ghost of an LP, suspended in the air above the mint & ragweed

Chet Baker's solo on "Summertime"

(Yeah, fuck the liner notes, Jimmy)

Not to be otherwise
here where I am & you
are
an instant felt but endlessly in the mind
as it flutters

A million dollar show w/a million dollar cast
in the musical extravaganza of the century

& you'll be there like water beneath the sea
like a shadow in the shade
like a word
whispered into the wind