Immersion

Gutted stones, weeds
“the city, in haze, the sea” (R. Creeley)
given the time, the space & the money
shadows at the far end
ever returning
something like that could
                              bend the tide
of what might if any repeated
“Adios” (that echoing
              needs a meaning
w/laced shadow (the eyes remembered
                              mix of sea & sky
              just slips from your mind as time
                                                can’t measure the cost

Steel Guitar w/Seaweed Strings

She turned around three times
& spit.   As an afterthought of everything
that had yet to occur.   Drinking from
the bottle without a parachute.   Even the
drugstore got drunk.   She started
doing the Raindog Twist.   A soft blossom
the color of hepatitis.   Twentynine
reasons to skid past the offramp.
I always thought that she had albacore-
colored eyes.   I said I appreciate all that you
haven’t yet received.   Just a rock toss from
the medieval drug lords of Tijuana.   The
dreamlike edge of La Cruz.   In the cradle of
a day between this one & the next.
The way she grinds her hips as though it’s
the last time.

99 Degrees

The seagreen pilot light
illuminates a Byzantine icon face

slow waves talking
muffled by the sand & wind

responsible to
self-conscious palm trees
Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles
Bodhidharma
& Cortez the Killer

This is a message to all you potential
grave robbers— it’s alright,
take what you want
there’ll never be enough

(scanning the scene behind dark glasses darker
seascapes, empty windows, suicide clouds

even when I toss the I Ching coins they
come up snake eyes

Pig Iron Swag

We warm ourselves
in the moonlight

When it’s over there’s
still a flicker of
wine-colored silk

& the late late show
konked out halfway there

Invisible Horse

Swimming home I hit every
puddle in town
              beneath the spinning
                              test pattern in yr eyes
& my barefoot apologies

like sunset in an empty glass
a firing squad in braille
                              a beer can w/a fuse in it
              windtunnel hymnals

poems I know by heart
                              embalmed in lipstick

Need a bulldozer to reconcile
              every dark corner
& her delicate tsunami cigarette glowing
                              at the end of the line
              when we get there
                                                drumming on the
                              wet sand & tambourine glitter
              drenched in gasoline
                                                bottled at the source

Walk Like an Egyptian

Something is in the air
              (disembodied freeway overpasses
                                                palace steps
                              pterodactyl egrets

like pieces of seashell clouds
in the mumbling cokebottle green latitudes
cutting thru yr brain like a dorsal fin
in the water just outside the reef

At Las Palmas you can score a taco plate for $5.95
              just the thing as you memorize the footnotes
                                                in The Book of the Dead
                              while the air spins around you
                                                                full of telepathic plum
                                                blossoms & empty beer cans

at the edge of something anyway
(OCEAN) diamond-cut emerald-feathered plumes
the sawtooth shoreline
& the long way home

Aquaculture

Looking thru your reflection
              in a puddle that dried up 3 days ago
was the name of that song
                                                Call this one
              Tequila Mockingbird
& stagger the rhyme out along the cement jetty

The Martian sunset drops into the sea
like a murder weapon

we’ve yet to ditch the shady side of the 19th century

The Sunset Flip

An echo leaks thru
Ne Plus Minus Edge
where the Pacific begins
or ends
strung out along the sand
MAS CERVEZAS POR FAVOR
Ink on paper
Abalone tideflats
Harmonica concerto

Tilted back or upsidedown
peering thru the transparent pavement
(gears, wheels, pipes, cables, hydraulics,
intricate machinery at work down there
factory steam whistle levers & chain driven
pumps)

The Checklist:
1) Backwards down east out west
2) Sunburned neon
3) Air bubbles
4) Torpedo moonwalk encantada
      steeped in b-side vinyl

Half Pipe

We were busy studying alternate
routes to nowhere.   Just a shade past the
Doppler Twist
laid out flat along the dotted line.

Somewhere at the back of my mind
glass windchimes & waterproof matches
brick tile stairwells
nobody’s face I know.   To prove the
scar in the rearview mirror.

We only just got here maybe 50 thousand
years ago today.   Let’s go downtown
& rob a bank.   I’ll wear a wetsuit & shades
& you can sport a garland of seaweed
in your hair.