PLEASE HELP BLUE PRESS STAY AFLOAT

Friday, April 4, 2008

Poem to be Spoken into a Hawaiian Payphone

Inclement fog / wind / mist / “night air”
at noon

                              (start over)

say whatever time or light
              waiting for the other shoe (death)

What you hear’s an echo
              windy nada
                              folded concrete seacliff lament
the wraparound road sewn shut
(repeat after me)
              which implies the blank stare
              (what I want)
                              to scope & gauge the tides
along that blurry line between
              what they told you was real
                              & what they told you was not

the conglomerating silence
                              the heat of heaven
a latin beat
              or the beat of a palm tree
                              sidewalks sloping down to the sea

the vacant lot rattles with pigeons

              snaps back into some kind of shape
as you pass
                              on your way