| Part gray-pink subliminal cumulus, part palm tree | |||||||||
There’s this sense |
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of decadence as spring |
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staggers into summer the |
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squawking plaintive holler |
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of seagulls that forego the waves |
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for overflowing dumpsters |
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behind FOODLAND |
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as another subsequent obligatory sun |
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bleeds dawn onto pavements |
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& comatose palm trees (the sum |
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of unlimited vibratory communiqués |
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that are instant ungraspable & already gone) |
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though pinpoint glittering brown-lit exceptions |
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are reflected in the |
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childlike metabolism of rainpuddles |
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Black shirt black t-shirt dark sun glasses |
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| “a disease of the spine” | |||||||||
beneath a sky the color of bloody water |
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with occasional drifts of dirty graywhite cloud |
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torn from the ragged edge of some fogbank |
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in China |
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& nothing to do but fade |
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as God would have you believe |
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The sun is burning ethanol this morning I’m sure of it |
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pigeons falling off of lightposts in a dead faint |
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& frying right there on the pavement I watch all this from inside a time warp with subsidiary embarcaderos of gold or like golden & perhaps you drift like a tractor above the red earth on your way to a Samoan luau stained with tears & perspiration |
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these my thoughts & circumstance |
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& now I detect the remnants of something which equals empty air as treetops probe the sky & suffering was never much more than a slow-motion replay There is a tiny dark cloud parked in the vicinity of my semi- conscious & heartfelt recalcitrance |
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“I was going to radio you from a steam ship in the Maldives to ask if you still hated me & why” |
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rusty barbwire tinsel in the eyes of sunset shimmering on the edge of the sea eyes . . . I guess because I’m just staring into a reflection that seems slightly out of sync like a manual on the care & feeding of a sardonic smile & even the traffic on El Camino seems to pause to consider the possible long term effects |
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