Any Number Can Play

The water was cold & gave me a headache
in my left eye & my ears were filled with
bubble sounds like
a starfish playing ping-pong w/the eyes of a drowned
Phoenician sailor
 
            Those are pearls that catch the light & hold it there
 
                                    la luz…la luz es como el agua
 
& it is afternoon       all lit up & trembling
            maybe you’ve been there   sunlight
                        filtered through ocean haze
the light descending
            quick tide                  a ghost thing like love
a ringing stillness at the center of it surging
            & I’m thinking about the windswept articulation of sand
                                    drifting across the pavement
 
…el agua…          …la luz…
 
                                    I’ll let you decide although
we both know it doesn’t matter
 
We’ll make our way south by swimming across every
parking lot that ripples in the sun
from Bolinas Lagoon to the temple at Teotihuacán

Another sad case of literate sunbathing

Seaflowers bend like assassins to their task
& in dreams I never hesitate
but I stop long enough to have my palm
read by a chainsmoking Ethiopian woman
wearing a hair net
 
She describes a darker shade of morning glory
 
It wasn’t like walking barefoot on broken glass
although the waves were rich in foam
& jagged pieces of sunlight
 
You glide between that which is given
& that which is taken away
 
Never mind the sparrow’s song nor the choir of
asthmatic gulls
                               there is a music that's best kept
somewhere deep inside  
somewhere you can go when you need to
 
& that’s where I am right now
 
hunkered down inside the sound a seashell makes
sliding across the strings of a dulcimer

On the Use of Symbolism in 18th Century French Romantic Poetry

Whistling past the wrecking yard
watching the sun rise through
a beaded curtain
 
wave pattern carved in stone
 
septic shock
 
Spilling coffee on my way
back following the damp foot-
prints of some sea nymph or dakini

"She who walks in the sky"
 
Assuming you recognized her
from the centerfold in the
King James Bible
which is about as close
as you’re likely to get
 
The seagreen lipstick a dead giveaway
not to mention the porcelain eyes
 
Whether you fell or were pushed it’s
the same difference
 
The first law of gravity is
heavier than the 2nd
–is there a 3rd?
 
She was a day crossed off the Mayan calendar
& I was staggering across the wet sand
shedding fish scales that
glittered like silver coins in the mist

Guided by Voices

Early morning mid-tide pebbled glass
 
a kind of call & response scenario
& who isn’t when you’re
trying so hard to lose your balance
 
strumming the sand like Lou Reed
          on a Dick Dale & the Deltones
                   Greatest Hits album
 
The needle in the groove
& eucalyptus gargling the seabreeze
 
I’ll let you do the math
 
There are perhaps other
more expedient methodologies
if you can but I never could
 
& worth its weight in greasy blonde platitudes
making the pavement sing

At Risk Behavior

The sky brushed by wings
as ocean music is
sweeping in across the coast
highway
 
I would narrow but not limit the focus
boil enough water for a single
cup of coffee mid-
morning an exception
 
 L i b r e t t o
One voice describes
another voice checks the references
& a third voice sings harmony
 
Time passes & pelicans explain the
weight of the sky leaning pretty heavily
on the cypress right now
 
doesn’t necessarily ring a bell
anywhere but here

Whatever you want it to be

for Pamela
 
Horses lift their heads like sea
creatures emerging from a darkwater
tide
         easily translated in the mythology
of your eyes
                    but I’m thinking about your
dark hair splashed across the
pillow as you sleep
                             & the faint whisper
of your dreams
                    rippling in what’s left of the
moonlight as it spills in through
the window
          & your breath like the soft
seabreeze that made the petals of some rare
orchid tremble
                    in the dark
                              just before dawn     
the day you were born

Dealer's Choice

You had to tunnel thru the sand
to get there
 
dragging a surfboard
& a case of Mexican beer
 
In those days Odysseus was rarely
seen without his sunglasses on
 
no matter what time of day
or night
 
& little John the Conqueroo lit a pipe
like Lopez at the Waimea
 
on a re-direct from aliens who were
handing out cough syrup
 
as sunlight filtered down thru the sweet
summer smog

For the Marriage of Odysseus & the Coppertone Girl

Pier Pressure
The moon sends a message
only the tide can read
          You draw the lines
                   connect the rattling in yr head
to the rush of foam across
the sand
          emerald & chrome
& raw strands of burnt
                   kelp methadone inside your
underwater ballet as if it was
me tapping on the glass

Kicking the Tires
How’d you
wrap yr head around a
theory of reverence like that

Did you test the water first or
just dive in beneath the

What’s your mother’s
& why scan the zodiac of
tears on the sleeve of a god
you never met

Never wanted to
spent that kind of coin

What made yr eye that dark
yr blood lit up & souls out of Erebus

Why pearls and the signature
neon when ocean haze
crawls out of eucalyptus

Was it silver caught the sun
glare squinting

some of us would like to know

Soaked in Bleach
Nobody walks here

we are all driven

that is to say we drove here
with expired plates & a leaky fuel pump

empty beer cans rolling around under the seats

just the right kind of music for those who prefer to
sleep behind the wheel while
standing on their heads

Black and blonde sand blown across the highway
Pismo to Mussel Shoals burning beach tar on a
roadside voodoo shrine as the wind bends

Why would I tell you where it is

damp petals unfolding

The name of the ocean sky

Clorox (a love poem)

Olson said something about the "shape of light"

You can hold your breath like a handgrenade
while walking a line that’s drawn in
smeared lipstick

just the thing when you’re
trying to lose your balance
half-way thru a rain dance
in the rain

& I turn to her & I say
“You are voluptuous”

because “voluptuous” is such a beautiful word

as in “bleeding voluptuously
all down the front of your shirt”

making my poor heart moan

The needle’s in the bag
as she said it would be

along w/a nickle’s worth of something
dyed the color of nature’s plan