TERMINAL LABOUR
Murderous pipe
Snaking though mountains
Rips the century in two.
Calamity stitches, salt
Rituals, mollifying dances
Distract hippie protesters.
Ransack a few days off.
Sour fists, sweet mouths,
Boner in the rain.
He recalls her glass tears,
Tongue of flint
Silent in the station
Shrewd in the bar.
Dunce fat depleted,
Husk nearly ready
For the casket,
He works with her
To remove obstructions,
Excavate a trench,
Contour the land.
WET RECOVERY
Mangled post tequila,
Estrangement narcotic,
Longing, withdrawal.
Up from the basement
Pretty feet restored
I propel myself
With nothing
But will, grateful for the veil
Of mist, piano notes
Icy raindrops pelting
What’s left
Post hacking
Into,
Hacking away.
Hmph.
He’s not the only martyr
Dragging me down,
Blowing me up.
I will sleep with the river,
Esoteric toads,
A harridan
Sharper than thistle,
Embraced.
Sheltered. Cleansed.
FATAL INTERRUPTION
Pond forsook, shed tippled,
I dodge gusto, the jolly,
Adroitly avoiding east, his
Brilliant mean declarations,
Confabulations,
Sorry offensives,
Our fractured liaison.
The work of forgetting
Stresses, ER expedition
Lacerating Saturday night.
Belligerent patients triaged;
Cosmo shill car crash,
Severed digit,
Cocaine addled troll.
My heart is quitting!
Erection won’t.
Happy to see me.
Stiff you.
X rays, blood work
Revealing nothing
But our deficits.
SINGLE-HANDED
Strays.
Yard rats we
Shared a railroad,
A yearning for
Burning corn,
A penchant for
Leaving one another
The dead
Of night. Tied
To the tracks.
Creosote smeared legs
Stand in a deep cove
Now, manning my boat.
Trip charted,
Lovers never quit
Beckoning, inserting
Keys, truncating
My swagger,
Saving me
From this lonely perch,
This vast wave.
MISSION
Graves looming,
Nasty sequestered,
I hear your hulk
Shading the cliff.
Logic lemming-leapt,
We weave a net of arms,
Invent a shepherd,
Exhaust satiety.
We couple courage,
Shoo dimwits,
Estimate fallout,
You pleading neutrality,
I, soldier brain.
We are not happy
Till the cabin is razed,
Harvest ploughed asunder.
HOOD POINT
Dec. 31, 2012
Lost in stars
Brave as ash
Wrestling shadows,
Giddy with night,
I lure water taxis
To shore.
Light the oven,
Salt the path
So I may reach you
Cliffside,
Burnish your gleam.
Eagle’s nest hums,
Voices fuse.
Nearly content,
Neural bridges manifest.
Last night, last supper.
Blue heron spotting,
Tossing binoculars,
Whooping,
Over.
Lashings, lamb bones,
Bent finger
Pointing,
Steam building, hot
Boxing, fur ball
Hangovers, bellicose
Stroking, novel
Teasing, done.
News wrapped as fish,
Jesus hair obscures horns,
Sunny fog-ferries, flight
From one another
Post twelve days
Balancing hurt percentages.
Out with old, year
Of dreary brinkmanship, no end
To the apocalypse jokes,
Lucky 13 new affirmation.
“O, That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”-Hamlet, Shakespeare
FLESH POT
Born muscle bound
Backboned, map, matrix-
Mother intact,
Into private security firms-
Families, in slums, manors,
Stables, institutions,
To pirates or the pious,
We flourish. Raw teeth, germs,
Clubfeet do not impede us,
Rank and garbled speech fleeting
As tin jeeps, Barbie Doll drama.
Our struggle is tidy, tumult banal,
Pain prosaic, strife fueling ripeness,
Gauntlets passed through swiftly
Until the day we drop. Nominated,
Cornered, required to wither
Under the gun,
Succumb, for we remain
That tender, precious human
Flesh terminators must aim for.
ABBREVIATED GUTS
Sun dogs melt,
Tuna tins expire,
Honey bees purge,
Headless sea lions wash up,
Bloat. Drowning hydrangea.
Retreating squirrels.
Vacant towering fir
Hush the songbirds
With gusts. Ravens squawk.
Telecom tricksters call
And call. And call.
Carbon copied dread
Routed to the periphery,
Mt Galiano a distant lump,
Inviolate taint in the mainstream.
Traveling vast distances
My blood will recede.
Limbs tread water,
Garnering muscle,
Mustering will.
Cranking tunes, I summon
reason, a dollop of pomp,
A glut of valor.
Geronimo!
LOVE HORMONE
Oxytocin starved astronomer
Mimics Orion, hunting lions,
Chasing skirt
Up the wrong leg.
The inability to secrete,
Let down, feel empathy;
Hence the psycho prevails,
Clashes resound.
Squelched desires jangle,
Jilted car commanding astronaut
Double parking
To pepper spray a rival,
While back on earth
Nothing blows up well
For the demolitionist,
Neither concrete monstrosity
Nor the ugliest obstacle.
Assaulted with meat,
Sun wooden, anger builds
Resolutely as prison tatts claiming flesh.
This is likely my last summer on the island. I must move, and not by choice. I’ve been swept up by a tsunami of circumstance. Naturally, I am feeling nostalgic. I know that the only constant in life is change but I resist. I love the place, first wound up here in 1993 after fleeing post-riot Los Angeles, part of the white exodus. I had survived that annus horribilus, my mother dying after a long ordeal, my marriage and our recording studio business both disintegrating. I wasn’t cognizant of my dire need for recovery, in the midst of tumult, trying to flee an abusive relationship and an awful situation. Or two. But I found sanctuary here. Friends, one of whom died suddenly last month. I strolled past his cottage yesterday, now vacant but filled with memories. R provided so many of us refuge, countless parties, meals. Love. I didn’t realize how much until after he was gone. How sad is that? Ah, the proverbial lessons of adversity, the ongoing saga of loss and transcendence; what would we do without them? How would we gain perspective?
TORRENT
August’s bloom barren foxglove
Sway, last island summer
Set ablaze. Bolted from.
Sloppy spy mission complete.
Deadheads snag my crossing.
Buffers hinder streaming
But ruin is fluid,
Handily lifting my kayak,
Absconding with the ice.
Linen skin burned, I swim
the swollen moat, finding no salve
Nor catharsis on its far bank.