Through the door

for Ainsworth

It wasn’t long before
I saw her again her
hesitation
invites you to share in the limitations
of its desire
forged signatures
suicide tickets with the usual
consequence & valerian scripture
something you never learned to hide
a heaving rack of surrender
but deliberate like the parable
written in braille
on the darkside of her thigh

Vaporized

The rustling shadow palm
meant nothing to you
the numb strands of light
left to fade on the monsoon balcony
patiently waiting for your reply

Beach pavement stained with the
blood of fuchsias
petition the tattooed letters on your wrist

neon aquarium tremble weed & drizzle
waist-deep in the sand
explain less than these random calculations
set to winged reflection

1. Lair of the white powder

2. A feather of concrete crumbling into the sea

& even if you can’t remember later
the meaning of its silence
seeds the passion of your denial

Vapor Lock

waterstained, light

where fingers briefly
touched (pages

floodlit Mexican parking lots
sequestered

seacolored eyes
I carried to the liquor store
& back

(another time the same
amped eyeshadow & disregard
beckoning from the meth house
across the street

like a submerged
flamingo orchid
set on fire

Vapor Trail

It’s a property of the autumnal
haze that erases the sky above
pockmarked, hollow-eyed surfers
pondering The Lotus Sutra
w/redwood stringers glassed-in
& diesel sand driven beneath the foam

Some way to reply in the dialect of anemones
True Hollywood Fiction
places to go
things to do
the stems & wings of distraction
at the Karmic Swap Meet

Sunlight absorbed in iridescent
reverberation
every step you take
sinking deep into the underwater pavement
a ripple trail of maybe neon fading

like Godzilla rising from the waves

to bench press the tide

Upon further review

In the black & white noonday streetcorner alleyway slanting down to the beach…you saw, although you may have misremembered, (excuse me, thought), perhaps the harsh sunlit splash, (sunlit something or other) flattened the scene so that in silhouette says I “These indestructible subtelties” ― “Seeming subtle & indestructible” ― as was Robert Mitchum’s upper lip in Out of the Past.   The future scratched into a dented fender of sky above the sea & without the benefit of the Dalai Lama’s advice, you are resigned to sit by the swampwater swimming pool expecting something better, while a sea swamp veneer accentuates the screendoor chiaroscuro the tattooed hula doll has learned to ignore.

Goodbye, Dirty Machine (part 92)

…and guffawed to the winds “It’s 2000 in the middle of the world!”…I thought of my prayers to God in my early years…there were none.   So I begged the Gods of pick-pocketing to see that I would be safe later in the slut hunt of four art-forgers, given how high I was at this moment…I re-read the friendly letter I had memorized since birth and set to work finishing my food in record time…David, however, was too quick for me, with food running down his chin laughing and slurping and finished six bites in front….

“C’mon man, let’s go find those cherry blossoms and get ready to ride into Mejico…” I said, “No shit, and with some good luck we might slay some land speed records with our flamed Monet Carlo with Jacked Ghetto top and furry dash”   Such revelations were beginning to elevate my dirty inner selve and David too it all with his contagious laugh…”ahhhh, shit mike, yer fucked up man…fucking miiiiiiiike, man…”

“Ah, Daaaaaveeeed, I am a so-so chemist but take me to Mexico and I can charm my way up vaginas with qualitative analysis, centrifuges, and forcepts…”   That one floated like skunkweed smoke right over David’s head…and right into Jon and Oscar, who had a trail of bridesmaids three long when they showed up…they said “Spanish spanish creole, Spanish creole creole”

“Ah, huh, Spanish Spanish creole English slang creole Spanish…”   I of course did not understand a word, but the girls and David loved it, as they were sparkling and smoothing to their every utterance…butter and jargon…

“C’mon guys, lets get to Mexico before dark so we can see our feet in front of us…” “Yeah hermanos, vamanos pinche jotos!”   I chimed in with cursed espanol…“Okey Dokey, let’s go then” said Oscar, leading the way to the Carlo as if it was the Princess of Prussia…I stopped and did my compulsory military service, taking in the great big fiesta, and Jon yelled at me to hurry it up and get my ass in the car…me vengo me vengo…

- Michael Price

All my friends are lowriders

The deep rain returns
in the lift & sway of palm trees
rocked by waves of nightshade turquoise
sustained by the vanity of shadows
that don’t register on the pavement

& like the warning label I never read
tipping the beach gate grillwork of sea mist & stone
to approximate the tone buried in murmurs
against a forsaken neon-lit watusi stomp
giving all that has been taken
shatters the glass pages of a narcotic hymnal
you thought you knew by heart

Medicine Show

I woke up just as the silver airship was
landing on the water

A seaspun gypsy disembarked
swimming ashore
her pale breasts & burnt pink nipples exposed

Her lips painted a rusty
green kelp methadone color

There was a crystal rosary tied around her wrists

She had been here before had
actually never left

When she speaks her voice makes me think
of a saxophone piercing the tide
the bell & the reed
but the signal kept breaking up & I couldn’t
understand exactly what she was saying

She handed me a Mexican guitar
its twelve strings still vibrating
like the tears that creased every face
she had ever worn

Threaded w/blades of sunlight

They would have you close your eyes your
hesitations dragging stunned wings through
a sky of crushed glass & you
if you’re there
not turning the wheel of outrageous fortune
but sold into sleep like a random hate crime

Such precision succumbs to overwhelming
caution then as the piercing cry hoisted
like an ambulance lingers long after it has gone
echoes in the trembling hum of a fish-bone tuning fork

so that your lips betray a pale intent excluding
hoof prints in the wet sand & tide pool silhouettes

as I can see the both of us in a not-too-distant
prospect sidestep reels of smoke at the iron gates
doing the old limitations of mortality waltz
right off the end of the pier