Watching
Looking out plate glass they seemed to race
Shifting weight around a red buoy
Sailing dreams in calm heat
As I ordered my plate of salmon and a margarita
Having two actually in a silent lunch.
A lady in a wheelchair sat by the bathroom, I visited twice
Eating her food alone watching these sailing kites
Fly through the waters, she was immobile but motorized.
The juxtaposition of those two whispered me and my life.
The waiter said thank you over and over again
Thanked you for your choices, he said thank you the way
You would if so grateful to get it over with,
"Thank you for ordering calamari appetizers and that crab cake
Thank you for the clam chowder and thank you for stopping by,"
As I sat on the wharf and watched the sails
Round the buoy, "Let's thank them too."
" Maybe you would like some dessert?"
Something about the water, it reflected the light, it
Was as invisible as the panes I looked beyond
To see this day passing, while we ate watching the waterdance
For signs that we could do this, together, thank you.
Mate
Flying the flag of the pirate Black Pete
They tossed one back and sang yo ho, it's part of the trip.
It cost you a fair high price to get aboard this grand
Ship for the tour. That probably was the real piracy
Of the experience, but we looked to see if you got a parrot
And some cussing, drink, wenches or treasure trinkets.
It looked to be a rather maidenly voyage of
The glass bottom tours. No boarding, gouging
Swords or stem to stern stuff. O eye patches
Do you think in hundreds of years
Around some bay will be boats flying the flags
of the gangs or terrorists or groups of our times, our happy criminals?
That sent to my mind not the Jolly Roger but the
Corporate Raiders under banner of the dollar bill flying. On BMW's.
Glass bottom boat under flag of the pirate
Turns into the luxury sedan or Hummer limo touring
Urban decay to see the way it used to be.
At Moby Dick's the Language of the Menu
Strawberry margarita, Red Lady special, (hit twice blender in a glass)
Calamari, yeah, the Tentacles gone just breaded hunks of rubber
with tartar, a house specialty, chewy.
Water, soda, not diet, lemonade, Hefazizen, no glass
We appreciate a bit of bread as you can see, Butter basket
I'll order last, he wants a plate of clams and fries, Diggers
She have the halibut and bowl of chowder, White
Another round of waters too and bring
Us both another glass of this to drink, see red again,
She wants a rare steak , ok, walking, or maybe crab cakes
He'll have the sandwich with the fish, yeah the one that says Top Fin
and I'll just get the salmon grilled with nothing on it, Naked? Sure
Do we need to say the Mighty Dick and the Boiler's special
the Fisherman's delight and Thar She Blows because if we do
We can't complete the order.
Can't talk like that anymore for laughing.
Yes I said he's getting the Mermaid under grass but hold the bed of
Seaweed because he hates it. Just spread an extra layer of
Mayo over her toasty digs and they'll both be happy
It'll slide down easier.
I need a bib and some shore leave after we dock.
See told you, ordering like this makes me seasick.
Someone
Someone here just lost their heart
To a person that left them
Alone to sit on a shore
Someone here needs enough money
To pay some bills
That overwhelm them with worry
Someone here has never seen their
Uses in life, not had enough hugs
Not felt friendships
Someone here bounces with the joy
Of feeling the sand in their toes
And hearing the seagulls looks to a picture taker
Someone here is running the shore
As the trim themselves
Into their body a beauty is being built
Someone here argues for belief
While they sit with a vibration
Who sees them a fool for needing a way.
Someone here has offered their care and time
To a day that held the possible
While waves washed it away
Someone here was lost on this day
Capturing the moment no one
Cared to freeze, of someone nowhere but here.
No Railings
We reached a section
Down the pier walking, open
There with no railings.
It Once
This is not the wood
That burned, see this pier ablaze
In memory of
Having Pistachio
Sweet shops with Salt Water
Taffy , ordering ice creams
Waffle cones, French silk.
Shells
Clam held by rubber bands
A cowrie, abalone
Sea snail bought today.
Click
My daughter said no
To capturing her there on
The pier but I lied.
They Turned Around
The days went with such
Swift speed that the goods
Bought were blown through time
As just laughing bits
Of memories lost to my photographs
They turned their heads and
Days were gone of childhood
Toys gotten and knees skinned
Places seen, walking
Into the now they looked
Hoping to find it was there
In the markets, an us again,
Trying to revisit the shopping
Done as little ones, lost homes gone by
Stocked with once we
They turned their heads
When upon a time they smiled
And took a photo
Having now outgrown the thrill of capture
In a mom's camera.
Casbah
Hot saffron burning sun
Tents billow in the souk of Moroccan wares
Patterns swirl, tassels on cushions for our den
The one we built in Marrakesh
Salaam A Ley kum, A Ley Kum Salaam
Rock the Casbah.
Commerce
Older than the spices
That wrapped man around a planet
And laid the paths
In Silken pursuits
The market stood.
The whore and saviors there
Faced into her routes
As the stream of rivers to the seas
She built the system
Capable of moving through the multitudes
Decades of man's destinies
His unfolded wants sit on her tables.
Looking at her wares
They buy.
Gold exchanged in the blaze of color.
Under tents in silent
Bargaining over veiled eyes
The ardor of a deal
Mysterious
Capable of knowing no one
As valued above his coin.
Aging timelessly,
Watching young girl grow to dust
Measuring on balances
Weighing 300 year floods, plagues of locusts
And the famine
That is man's footprint.
Infidels and faceless men
Moved her goods
The faithful bought alongside the
Hordes of unclean
Trade passing through them
Goods moved in the blink of their eye.
Exotic things
Stacked by her
Greedy and her resigned men,
Her carpets walked
By artisans and craft
Lover and tyrant
The Casbahs of need and want.
In the late afternoons
As market turns cold
Emptying her commodities
The souls drifting to
Commune.
Empty this market
Exhaling the humanity from
The reddening skies that watch
Closing now her tired
Seeing eyes to
Begin a watch of
Blind weeping.
Ruby
Tangerine, opal, aubergine, olives.
These float
Inhale the winds
Of trade
Tents of madras,
Inks washing geometrics
Amaryllis,
Jasmine, saffron amber, indigo
Tied with golden threads.
My Roommates' Closet
Nothing could be separated out from the rest
To put on the counter and buy on Monday
We were walking through the time
Of our children, out strolling through the
Shopping to try to find normal pleasure with them again.
They were tense feeling held by our guilt laden bonding
In these times of trepidation, reinventing selves in flux of change
As we too become someone else, that copes now with children that grow
Into roommates closets and know Hawkings in a morning out
Strolling their school. Within his mind unfolds
The universe, within this day of calm observation
Unfolded the limits of these children held still by our hands.
Green Elephants
The orange met the indigo with triangles on the frame
That collapsed into an umbrella of green elephants
Facing one another in shows of territory and strength, protection.
Designed onto fabrics that shade us from knowing the burning of sky.
A lotus framed the center as a harmony in this form.
It is Lord Ganesha, rider of the mouse.
He blesses this market, first asked for favor at the start of the day
Sought for help with the endeavors of life.
Ganesha rides the rat of our ignorance.
With ears to hear and a call to activation
The green elephant calls to us to stand and act on the truth,
This parasol my heart sought out, we were meant today to walk in her cool wake.
In Ganapati the universe lies held
By his gigantic belly in her body this elephant divines truth
That the mind is mighty and hears the words we tell as lies
My umbrella shielded me from harm, designed to say my secrets are safe.
Under the orange and indigo patterns
A green elephant was listening to the world passing and chatting
She held the light around her darkness, while breezes blew through her
She held the universe I have not known, she absorbed the strength of her sun.
urine that's the way it smelled
nooking into the shop to look at things
that are called antiques
at one time, another place, these things were cast off
i wore once the old mans pants and vests
being a version of keyton styling
a girl i knew, secretary in the office
of the president of the university,
said she admired my willingness to wear "anything"
greeting me this betty boop with the biggest head
in my looking through the junk that clutters
it induces a claustrophobic zen
joan, mom in law, liked betty boop, she used her to
decorate her apartment before she died
and her things returned to these kinds of shelves after
I feel like I'm looking in a tomb in egypt
in these shops like a massive dig unveiling the culture
staring anthropologically, collected for needs, their afterlife
smelling of the pee and the dust
being sold and stolen, grave robbed, to the markets
by the living into new nowheres with no way to know them
history and thing lost, story untold, it holds secreted
betty there, who once was caressed by the laughter of
a russian dancer that had a room for her memories
and these ruby plates served cakes that were made
by a dedicated wife of a professor, she mourned his passing
for 37 years alone until she no longer recalled how to cook
there was a picture of a fat ugly breasted drooping nude
monster woman my spouse said looked
hideous, but it was a self portrait looking like me now
in this back space in a place of simpson dolls and around some
rusty lunch boxes was something remarkable
a piece of a letter written on a postcard
it said that there's was a true love that
never would die, it spoke of the
hearts that were forever linked, written by man signed your joe
that card I took to ask the price
printed on a scene from a city awhile past, the thirties,
would anyone know this now as their family
it cost ten dollars, really rather outrageous to me
and i didn't have that in my purse
like everything there it was out of time and place, expensive
no way back home, the barges burnt,
betty boop greeting the next set of wandering wallets
smelling their way into the jumbled past, i left
Shark dressed Hawaiian serving you a beer
Wrapped by a lei says Paul Newman to me with
A bit of Cat on the Hot Tin and Big Daddy's
Maybe Dean might pass this by in a movie
We forget the scene but the bad boy
Walks in looking for a night of taming his shark
In the beauty of an Elizabeth or Eva Marie.
Finding this Chanel wrapped American slip draped piece of pie
To swallow through the mediums of celluloid projection
Into rooms of tables of rolling balls across pool tables, shots
Smokes, long cool ones gulped by our throats in vicarious
Libidinous voyeurism, he evokes the mako, and these places
Of a sultry slipping into a scene of danger and desire.
Magically Delicious
He babbled something about a leprechaun, gold, repaying a coin
lucky charm
On a page written to be found and wondered about
as a piece of this trail into his being, I could read it,
wandering there again today it trailed back to writing on the end of his love
There is a lot in these pages he wrote about lost love, betrayals, desires fading
the way it goes, knowing "the end"
Lots of writing about this as if it was
spun from the myths and stories of a magical place with the spiritual
knowing of a being that reflects to us all the time that's known, his doubts so great
Mirror man in lucky shamrock was wandering was on a beach
building a castle to lock up this or that
intent on writing to us. To me. Hurting.
And so I read it all when lead there by hand to find it
In a terrible terrible time so much was failing me, my eyes especially
He cannot trust passion or my spirit
Doesn't believe in lasting love, loses interest waxes and wanes
Misleads, disappears, worries and struggles
cannot hold on even for a moment or two through the winds of
discovering a flawed being
Is the devaluing and the reality flooding
I guess this is something you have practice doing, you said as much
right from the first day you sought the last.
giving me the impression you did function within the biblical limits
you so disdain.
The greatest story ever told is written about inevitable conclusions ,
it's downhill from here...yeah yeah okay....it blows
Write of change, inevitable disappointment and
Give up on someone who cares but don't shame me with your mirror i wasn't looking
In to get out. Not trying for luck this time.
That was your coin. You can find the music
and play on but I'm singing to us both
A song I wrote myself, it's unique
Quiet, no one has evr heard it but the two of us
It plays for free, it is lucky enough, it is enchanting enough. One day you'll hear it.
Christ, Baby Boomers working out their dad stuff in public,
(with apologies to a doctor who can barely take the narcissism of it)
That porch of yours isn't one everyone can sit on
Full of values of the working pop
Those that put in a 9 to 5 and chugged and kept on going.
They were a special breed I'm pretty sure
I was born at the end of the boom
To a country bred vet that forgot that you can't hit the baby
Or terrorize her either, or do a lot of things 45 years
Kept plastered in her shut mouth.
But you know better chili pepper
You know me to be a billowing skirted 60's indulgent
Hipping thing with all about me, swilling my Perrier now
And seeking enlightenment facing a crystal
Looking in the mirror and blaming the ole man
For all that wasn't just right. That chafs.
Years of saying just give me another chance
I had a hard time of it, you wouldn't believe it.
But porch dweller, I never spoke of my family, not in the 45
Years of trying to keep them from shooting someone
From calling the FBI, from going to stay
On the 8th floor, a euphemism for the psyche ward.
I signed away my life to try to keep it together.
I worked. I got no calls, my dad
wasn't steeped in values of the hard worker, but he worked hard.
And he manipulated to destroy us.
The correct response to hot sauce is apparently
To sit and let it burn you, die with these secrets
Recall I talked here as you did not talk to me.
No one asked about it.
This wasn't sung out from the Malibu canyon.
But the generation did sit with that to chant about it.
Silently, go internally, accepting the fact
Behind the windows there is nothing
That if you told someone you were once so hurt
That if you bared it out to the world or in this case a friend
It would be so that you were marked
Their ungrateful goat, derided for it.
Would you like to change places, porches?
Try out the life you think you have analyzed
And found to be the tapestries
of wrapping self in that hunt for the love
That will last, so sophomoric.
And far away? If it is my porch you'll sit upon
Know you'll be unsafe from birth, abused, hit, intimidated,
Frightened, left to be sexually hurt,
Used as a way to survive by those you want to love you
Expected to be silent, publicly announced to be a waste,
And then so scared come upon someone who in their
Limitless knowledge of what you need to do
prescribes a cure they'd never try
Permanent silences, facelessness and
Saying what a great guy.
Yep the pop to look up to.
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