Telephone Call to a Hospital in Pasadena

for Lewis MacAdams

Nothing happens just off stage
we both keep an eye on it
just in case the light rumbles down

& whether it's fate or karma or dumb luck
you wake up to find a nurse taking care of you

"What the matter? Couldn't the nurse take care of herself?"

"You bet she could but I found that out too late"

ODE, or I Can Drizzle & Quake with the Best of Them

The morning awash in winter sunlight
I can already hear the beach traffic backing up on Ocean Street
9:45 am

Backyard's muddy
fallen leaves (plum & apricot)
grass & weeds all overgrown
flourishing in neglect

The dog sniffs curiously at a praying mantis perched on the back steps

A Buddhist insect
(it bows to the four directions
before taking flight,

2.
Sorting out the terminology of poetic sediment
sifting through mountains of the stuff
there's no excuse & no apology forthcoming

All of it returning me to this endless tidal swamp
my native stomping ground here among
sea urchins, rusted batteries, star fish, anemones,
beer cans encrusted w/barnacles,

3.
It would seem you have motel neon running thru yr veins
along w/seawater, gasoline & a thousand postcard sunsets
shuffled & dealt in the parking lot of yr choice

A tangle of weeds
the grass is still wet
paw prints in the mud
destined for Pakistan
or the temple of Teotihuacan

Winter on the coast has its own kind of light
thrives on neglect
scraps of clouds adorn the edges of the sky

            Was the Feathered Serpent originally a praying mantis?

            If you run the numbers you could probably make it work

                                        Wind jewel talisman
                                        sliced conch shell

QUETZALCOATL

the dragon in the waves

Out to Lunch

I can still hear my father saying
"Time & tide wait for no man"

         I had no idea what he meant
         I thought maybe it was some kind of riddle

it left me feeling like an octopus peering thru a telescope

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THE LAW OF GRAVITY:
"A falling object gathers no moss"

         Makes no difference whether you fell or were pushed
         all that matters is that you stick the landing

                                                              never so tenderly

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Pain, Suffering & the Sickness Unto Death
(a romantic comedy)

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I woke up to a parade of ill-mannered dwarves
entering & exiting thru the bedroom window
carrying sledgehammers, axes, harpoons, Frank Sinatra albums, etc

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Please point me in the wrong direction
& I'll take it from there

Tarantella Two-Step Tango

Shattered sunlight sparkling on the surface of the water
stretching all the way to the horizon

                              just a hop, skip & a leap
                                                                       from here

& I thought the sky looked kind of Hawaiian 
although it's much too cold out to conjure the right type of ambience
to support that notion

                                          palm tree rustling like a grass skirt
in a refrigerator

Should we instead assume alligator huaraches
dark as the smoke that rises from the chimneys of Tierra del Fuego?

The streets are the wrong color for this time of year

old chrome set alongside day-glo sunset neon
& a deeper shade of bleached blonde concrete
rising up to meet every step you take

Considering the Heart as a Flotation Device

for Joanne Elizabeth Kyger

Dragonfly pauses to rest a moment on a strand of barbed wire

            its iridescent green & blue body
            its double set of transparent wings

                        Bright cold winter sunlight is also blue

                                    Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo

The undulating gaze
when the smoke clears & you have been
absolved in the crumbling light moist w/tears that are neither yours
nor mine
                        just gleamingly wet
                                                                  while the drama waits
somewhere
                         w/a short list of places to go
                                                                                 things to do
but it's all up to you

& the torch aloe (arborescences) is just about ready to bloom

Sand, Glass, Air & the Briny Deep

(a concerto for electric guitar & pavement saw)

In the vacant lot back of the gas station taqueria
giant agave, prickly pear cactus, salt grass, seaweed & all the lesser
demons & dakinis in the Upanishads
form a vast interactive mosaic

You were there but you might have missed it

Try to remember

Where exactly was the sky?


                                                  for Alison on her birthday
                                                  9 Nov 15

Reeling with the Feeling

Sample the rolling dark
deep green steel turquoise
& variegated foam

wet sand

oyster music

butterfly fate

Several other worlds intersect or overlap this one
each with its own catalog of greasy regrets
& like a desperate attempt at setting the world's record in
heavy breathing maybe the best question is the one that is
never asked?

The rolling dark rocking
deep green turquoise steel
& corrugated foam

a dance for Boney Maroney, Mustang Sally & Peggy Sue

My tendency to trespass vs the neon palette of sunset

Leafy elegance light & shadow late afternoon still warm & shimmering
low frequency windy music

If anything exists outside of this I wonder what it could be

Monarch butterflies hooked on milkweed & fog & Fats Navarro records

Cement clouds hoisted above the beach

(a complex system of cables, wires & pulleys hard at work behind the scene)

Tufts of dry yellow grass, dead thistle, cracked pavement
& a gathering of monastic eucalyptus trees speaking in tongues
alongside the sand gravel path that leads to the beach below

Feeling Moonlit

Water, sand, foam
where that sparkle lives
I wouldn't say it was obvious
altho it was & is

guarded secrets & lug wrenches
take up a good deal of our time here
gargling the seven seas plus one other

O oceans of earth & sky
under the influence of a subtropical depression
& the flowering darkness that sleeps inside
stones cobbled along the shore
2
This must be the place where St. Francis tamed the
wolves she said            & now the rushing whisper of
seashells is all that remains
3
Time bending space
bent palm
trees in their infinite
wisdom never
made a sound

              October 20 - birthday of both Arthur Rimbaud
              & Philip Whalen