M'sieur Tarzan Buys a Record Player

Wrecked on telepathic feedback
behind the wheel of an awkward silence
leaving skid marks on the needle
whenever you drift past your
favorite tune

but bent listening to
those jungle drums
& sawed-off guitars

a real toe-tapper that
lit up the hit parade
ten thousand years ago

& the consolation prize...
wind in the eucalyptus & other voices
versus the exhaust note of a '56 Chevy
rattling the sunset windows of
los kahunas

Me Too Neither

You re still testifying at the Trial of the Century
one hand on the Manchurian Surf Almanac the other
describing an arabesque

& so the sky tips back into the redolent haze
a powder blue upholstered barcolounger

I tune in to a concerto for cypress tree & fence wire
a virtuoso of the plastic saxophone
the dented fender (blue w/rust)
steel drums            DIMINISHED CHORDS
a mandolin could be mistaken for a cement culvert

An early morning windchime sonata
w/clouds drifting in on a river of Liquid Drano
measured in intervals like beach tar
but only when the heart drops like a pelican

Parenthetically (I said)
you are the needle in my wing
& like a broken string on the 
fortune teller's banjo

but there's a place we can go
bypassing the relays
a place just outside your comfort zone
where the last black lagoon under the sea turns blue
& the fog echoes in silver

This day is beginning to look like Oscar Wilde in a bunny suit
The windows are halfway open
I'm reading a book about the Opium Wars

The rust-colored sun dips into the turquoise sea
& the ancillary bikini dolls confirms
Love's transcendence as well as the bitter after
taste in the classic sense

& like trying to parallel park a backhoe
out on the mainline at rush hour
(which should have a certain metaphoric appeal to
anyone w/an extended playlist)
her tiptoe tango sets fires in the kelp grave

CUSTOM SHAPES

A short set of 12 new poems published by Repo Press.
Buy Now via PayPal.

Love is Not a Dream Returning

Allegory as Evidence
Metaphor - not a brick wall but as a transparency like
window glass & can you sometimes see a refection?
R  E  C  O  G  N  I  T  I  O  N
"The Poems"
light & shadow distributed among undersea flowers
at dawn or a little after
(Rimbaud at Malibu)
that articulation
a genetic predisposition to vowel sounds
vs lead-based grammar
but the music intrinsic
valves, gears, & hinges as rhyme could be Memory
of phrase or Image & where/how it turns
is that
but say it like you mean it
a spillover from the Higher Mysteries
Her eyes are the color of bourbon
in a glass
w/the light streaming thru it

Mexican Hat Trick

A choir of seagulls vs the shattered
vocabulary of April
revealing a heart that resembles a bus wreck
just outside Truth or Consequences, NM
where I could be carrying a specimen jar containing
a butterfly, some broken seashells, & 6 bottlecaps
mementos of X-ville Beach
& all of it boiling down to a
3-day nocturne vs a lost weekend
with The Pentecostal Blues playing nonstop
on subliminal radio
but you're not there to push the buttons . . .
Come Wednesday I'll have tears in my eyes
so I'll drive blindfolded & miss seeing the 
palm trees genuflect
as the sun skids along the edge of the ocean haze
like wind in the cypress vs pushing a tractor through
quicksand I said it's a catchy tune but
can you dance to it?

HIGH NOON by Noel Black

In these new poems from the author of Uselysses, the code of the west gets the rewrite it so sorely needed, but probably never wanted. The streets are deserted except for the rodeo clown driving by in a beat-up Honda Civic singing "Do not forsake me oh my darling," and all you can do is sing along.

Order your copy of HIGH NOON now.

Drama in the Safeway Check-Out Line

As if one could discuss the
deconstruction
of clouds
& score any points
with the rank & file...

Watching TV with the sound off seems like a
good idea right now

DIVERSIONARY TACTICS
(A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect?)

Seashell
Torch aloe
Pipe wrench

& a tangle of nasturtiums
cascading over the seawall

"I would have died there if I knew where I was"
The irrevocable left unspoken as contrast

Shall we dance?

Silver Orchids

for Pamela

Waking in the night
I can hear you
breathing
& it's a warm breeze
returning
like the 7 sleepers of Ephesus
an offshore breeze
bending sea-green eucalyptus
& my heart
decked out w/palm branches
& wind chimes
muscle memories
& orchids
rare orchids
shining like silver
hit w/sunlight
but only when you let me see them
in your eyes

                                      2.14.18

Fake Blonde in Red

A wind opens the door
the beach at Topanga
Mount Tamalpais drifting in the fog
the road to Dakar

It's the cool wind
coming in off the ocean
at dusk
the hills are on fire
I'm thirsty
this is an interpretive dance

O by the silvery light of tide pools
I often think of the
tear-stained pavement
of Todos Santos
         Hawaiian Mythology
                  & all the names that are
                           crossed out in your address book

                                    whoever you are this time

& so tumbling down the Odessa steps
           filmed in black & white
your pearls, your Mexican silver, your troubled past
assuming a pale shade of
                                variegated turquoise

but like alleyways 
         near the beach
                  held in the grip of
                           a sunset aura

the burgundy nail polish
was a dead giveaway