Check to See How Much is Left

Each Day Spills into the Next
Heaven’s Ghostly Refrain

behind a pair of mirrored aviator shades

– Is that bad feng shui?

End of Summer Sale

Chalk it up to nerves & a feeling for

dark corners where there aren’t any.

I’m assuming it was systemic

as it lead to all kinds of fancy slide-step action

while wearing a lucha libre mask.

The hot wind from inland was dry & scented w/ozone

like an old library copy of Pliny.

4 Wipeouts & a Funeral

The Colonel told me that I had eyes crazed from

a thousand years of killing whales.  I took it as a

compliment & put on my sunglasses.

Remember the Shadows

The Chumash were one of the

few native nations to

bury their dead in a prone position

underground.

A single grave would be used for

more than one body

over the years.

The bodies were separated by

layers of whale bone.

Ed Ruscha Said They Called Her Styrene

Damp ash-gray days strung out like pearls

         a pre-existing condition

                  bubbling up from the cracked pavement

 

No one ever said it would be easy but it was

 

         & the implication these remnants betray

                  relegated to the depraved indifference you so

                           carefully cultivate along with

                                 revoked apparencies as here the tail always

                                 wags the dog

 

but when the drink hits the fan

         in the middle of your

                  underwater ballet lesson

         the resonance is as derivative a consequence

                           as a ransom note

                                    written in seagreen lipstick

¿Como se dice?

Turning back while looking dead ahead
The daily dalliance that often seems so crucial
Say it one more time as the drizzling truth of the matter tends to
stall out on the transfer
                                            The phrasing of the late afternoon ocean
breeze
              & whatever money you've got in your pocket right now

MERGING TRAFFIC

                          "Where did
                                                      that
                          missing
                                             shade
                                  of blue
                                                 come from?"

Neon highlights to an otherwise dreary tale of redemption

like whatever’s left burning on the altar…

 

Summertime is knocking at the door

Black palm fronds (plumes) a tangle of nasturtiums

 

Fall asleep reading Death on the Installment Plan

 

Peruvian lilies

quite by accident

Small Fortune

1971

Kicking thru the weeds in a tin can vacant lot

listening to Mr. Soul on somebody’s transistor

Evidently a Design Flaw

I concentrated on my footwork which

she insisted on referring to as an “exit strategy”

but I wasn’t so sure of the rhyme scheme

in the third stanza

24 Hours to Kill

“If you are expecting poetry to

tell you something you can use, you better

reconsider the wings on the poet’s sandals

and the rules of the game Elegua plays.”

                        ―Duncan McNaughton

Live from the Forbidden Planet

The distribution of the

divine graces plus seven

sacraments & the over-

whelming realization that

you can’t run from a gorilla

Christ dragging his cross thru yr flesh like a plow

She had that “Let’s get

hammered” look in her eyes

& I said that I would meet her

halfway there