Seabreeze Tango

She may have sifted down
thru the grillwork of heaven
but I’m still paddling thru the quicksand
as her spine recalls
the slight curve in the palm tree
which shapes the wind I suppose
just to say it makes it so
a translucent
Botticellian beauty
with attendant angels, mermaids
really, with enhanced cleavage
& bowling trophies ala de Chirico
stalled out above the
signature waves

Nettelbeck/Opstedal Reading in Santa Cruz, Feb. 8

Nettelbeck & Opstedal will also be featured on The Poetry Show on KUSP 88.9FM, from 9 to 10pm, that same evening.

Doesn't need a reason

Loading up on virtue, poetry or
a 12-pack of silence
              while a herd of gulls
                              flap scatter into empty air

              The Beachbreak Sutra says
                              “Fold up the cloud cover
                                                & carry it away”
              So gently step the other side of the spoon

a slow dance a distant memory a diversion
              all the clutter in shapes of dreams like
                                                aerodynamic submarines
                              drifting upsidedown
              inside the sound
                                                your heart makes

Swamp Knuckles

A fire death surf zombie
taking the mirror’s pulse

at dawn w/a gunmetal eyedropper
occludes the tinsel logic

that rains down between spinning
wheels of sunlight

tapping the lip of the tide pool
or quiet beneath the diesel concrete

running the numbers that fall from the sky
you can’t rely on defeat to snatch you

from the jaws of indifference
anymore than these scrap iron wings

when I bail out

Slashing the Hula

Strip the chrome from your fingers
stoned beyond the pale
desultory moonlit sonata spinning in the parking lot
like a six-way mexican standoff

That’s the synergy of a kind of
chaos theory I refuse to
believe in like an ocean sunset
in a ziplock bag

                              All my heroes are staggering in
                                                the dark somewhere
              it’s all I can do to keep my
                              head in the clouds & my sneakers
                                                somewhere between the boardwalk
                              & eternity

They say drowning is painless

Each beer can a handgrenade
              & the delicate streets like torn paper
skidding past the Earthquake Taqueria
                              in the rain when it isn’t raining

              I’ve got things to do that never get done
                                                but like a diamond footprint
                              on the step or flowers strewn on a watery
grave my past lives have devoured the future
              & I hunker down in the voluptuous shade
                                                w/a dog-eared book of matches
                              & a fiberglass harp
                                                                strung with seaweed

Blood in the Water

The Golden West sorts thru dreams
like sand pebbles at the foot of the
Hollywood sign sinking beneath the weight
of pale pink angels who
talk out the side of their mouths
& carry guitars zipped up in a body bags

You can always trade those thick tears
for a bucket of flashlights
gun the engine & chase down the
starlet who wears crooked shoes

I’ve got a pipe bomb in the tank
& she’s got black silk eyes

Dime Bag

One step, to either side
(who toppled oceans in his
stride but within the disassembled
heaven, hell & the flip-side
(the mere reflection
we turned to look through & past) as one
maintains that distance a face
behind a face kept.   The last of the
last in need of a bed
& a bottle of something dark.
One gets bent by the light & the
stagger waltz hauled across
by diligent tropical fish.
There is a realm, a prospect
the skyline of which melts
like a gumdrop on the windshield of
Paradise the way rust inches along
a strand of barbed wire & you count
the grains of sand between here
& Yokohama.   It is an emblem
of our disintegration then
that draws out the shadow
like a blade.

Pretty Vacant

The wings of a gull like a pair of
machetes & the rain like beads like
arrows falling before the sun that
splits the clouds & levels the pier
so you can feel that gear slip
in your heart & the sky open up
blue dark with turquoise & bleeding
pink along the horizon
& in the waves so the lip of the curl
like Elvis sipping Drāno
beneath the fluoresecnt mask of sunset
becomes a narcoleptic episode for two
out where the pavement meets the sea
as in welcome to nowhere (the
transparent version