Don't You Think

It takes one, & then another
w/reflections in a puddle of breath
left out on the sidewalk
lulls in the atmosphere
I‘d say if it wasn’t for those bent
trees you’d never know
how thirst measures the gleam
spinning in the eyes of some random
yet essential stranger
hypnotized by threads of smoke
& leaning against the refrigerator
as though the wreckage of the night sky might
trip the scaled-down version she
carries like a funeral march
down Kamikaze Blvd

Your Guess

                    for Guidry Ballardeau

When asked about your past
you fill the the blanks w/fictional
cities, streets, tequila hinges
& counterweights
all of which
relegates the weight of breath to
a 40 ounce chalice
lifted to Poseidon, Thetis, Nereus,
Amphitrite
                              various nymphs, mermaids
painted waves for surfzilla
              floating face down
                                                in the acoustic foam
& nowhere apparent
as my own ghosted presence then
taken by such indifferent kindness dealt
spent sands adrift
a brutal lullaby
to shift the doubted pace
that arcs the traces left as relics
under stained glass

Bongo Knock-Off

It may be possible to read the future
in the rocks & sand that close out
the shoreline
but it takes a lifetime to learn
to haunt the beach like a prehistoric seagull
sorting thru tangled strands of seaweed for
that last beer can & scoping the horizon
w/tricked-out eyes as the sky bends away
& the tide slides in beneath it
              a watery page in the Book of Nails
                              an outerwave demo w/oriental guitars
              a twilight flamenco theme still humming
              in the pipes as you zero-out
                                                on the incandescent haze

Hollow Point

A rake of feathered clouds at the
edge of a fibergalss moon
& you wrapped in lace as black as my heart

                but those eyes like damp pavement
                              & the incidental music of your fingers
like El Kabong in the banzai fallout

                              The resignation we slid past w/ritual
                                                disregard & poems scrawled in lipstick
              still a place you can command when

your love has turned to dark silver words
                              & a pale light flickers overhead
against the night

I Feel Turquoise I Said Rehearsing a Kind of Distance

The trees are throwing shadows back
into the white sky where
God has gone to sleep it off

We’re on the edge of a low pressure system
coming in off the Pacific with plenty of whales, sea
otters, great white sharks, polynesian girls & potent
cocktails served in coconuts, etc.

Washed out shadows of winter disguise the sleeping hydraulics
of spring.   Persephone.   Demeter.   Aretha Franklin.

I’m describing everything but explaining nothing
in order to replace your inner resolve with a slab of concrete

I guess we all need to learn something mechanical

like Peruvian gin

& savor someone else’s darkness for a change

Even More Beautiful

She did her Dance of the
Dying Seagull for me.
It was awful.   She was
very strung out.

She said her name was Eileen but
I didn’t believe her.
Her boyfriend was a biker.
He hit her.
They didn’t get along but she said
she loved him.   Then we fucked.

She didn’t want to kiss.   She said there
was something in saliva that was addictive.
If she kissed me she would fall in
love with me, be addicted to me, & she
couldn’t do that because she was in love
with the biker who beat her up.

She had a lean, beautiful body.
Small breasts & long legs.
We smoked cigarettes & caressed
one another.   Then we fucked again.

In the morning I drove her out to the
train station.   She bit my ear & rubbed her
knee against my crotch.

She wrote her phone number
on an empty pack of Marlboros
& gave it to me.

I watched the train pull away.

The sky had tilted into a dull brilliance.

I tossed the empty Marlboro
package into a trash can
& walked back to my car.

In Shades

Cold winds cutting in off the churning wash of waves
with St. Cadillac the
patron of Western roads
              The Sand Beneath the Pavement
                                                The Outrigger
                              Kon Tiki of the Broken Night
              Mysto Reef, Boneyard, Steel Pier, The Pipe
Medieval cathedral bells
in the predawn stillness that is
more like a ship at sea
than anything else I can
think of right now

A day & night of reckoning
                              banjos in the eucalyptus
                                                this side of a leadpipe morning fog
              & darkness the texture of naugahyde

Rosy dawn at the door to the Pacific’s what I’m thinking
                              & not Odyssean but ukuleles
              & steel guitars with guttural twang
                                                in seeming deep waves returning

Monsoon Season

We drove to L.A. from San Diego.
It was late & we three had just given a
poetry reading at a bookstore
in La Jolla.

Miguel was driving.
I rode shotgun.
Dudley was sprawled out
in the back seat.
I think he felt sick.

We had all drank massive
amounts of Pabst Blue
Ribbon which the proprietor
of the bookstore had kindly
provided.

It began to rain.

The ’68 Impala was a beast
held together with duct tape
& coat-hangers.   The
windshield wipers didn’t work.
That is, the switch didn’t work.
If you got out & monkeyed with the
wires under the hood
they’d spring into action.

We drove along & the rain got
heavier.   Miguel couldn’t see.

“Fuck, maybe it’ll stop,” he said.

“This is Southern California,” I told him,
“it ain’t gonna stop.”

Miguel pulled over.

It was uncommonly dark on the
405.   Cars hydroplaned past.   The rain
was pouring down.

I climbed out & popped the hood.
I couldn’t see anything.
I reached my hand in to where I
thought the wires might be.
Shit.
I was drenched with rain.
It was a monsoon.

Miguel jumped out to
share in the misery
& eventually we got the wipers
cranking.

Back in the car Dud was
moaning something about
car crash & a watery death.

“I don’t think he feels so good,”
I said to Miguel,
“he’s mixing metaphors.”

“Ah, he’s fine,” Miguel said,
gunning the Impala out
into the wet
freeway night.

Some give themselves to cold sapphire flames

Listening to the sunset
the color of the wind
immaculate inaccuracy of tidewater eyes
                              strung out beach sleaze
              blood on a surfboard

              Groove cut sand dune
              veins in marble
                              eucalyptus light
              & dark against it

                              a page of haze torn in half
                              & half again