Gulls dive

For the earth’s curve

Nothing less discerned

Than the spine

Of a broken shell

At low tide, begging

For more sun

To extend its

Final fragment;

And past selves

Blow down the bluff

In paper form—

You can no longer

Read them, but laugh

The gulls are back up

On their post, one

With a scrap—

A French fry or

A gum wrapper—the world

In bits like these

And pieces, says

“Come find me, live

And put me back

Together, if

You can…”

Maybe you’re after

Something that doesn’t

Exist, per se—

Horse shadows behind

The Rodeo Grounds

An outcropping shaped

Like an animal, undefined

Climbing the red hill

(Red because of sun

Not actual soil)

And yet it can all

Seem so real—

As in wind patterns

On the ocean at Topanga

Which resemble desert dunes

If it were not for

The brutal blue

Or birds in a flock

As if in bank lines

But birds don’t need money

It’s an absurd thought

Like seeing that man

In black, camped

By the PCH

And thinking “without

A doubt” he must be

A prophet or some

Undiscovered saint.

Generalizations about morning

The twigs on the deck

Those doves left

Of the unfinished nest;

Nothing is ever finished

If nothing ever began—

Can I awaken

To another day of such questions

Or are they

The same ones that face

Every other man?

Yesterday, the doves came back

Maybe, imagining spring

And making their plans—

Looked at me

From the dark corners

Of their eyes

In fear and suspicion

(Best I could tell)

Or was I also wrong

About that?

Generalizations about morning…
It is now noon

And the day has

Been halved;

The doves make me think

Of togetherness

And mortality

Or at least

How much time

We have left.

Between the rain

There is no between

Only waiting

And I remember

What you said

Like laundry

Hanging to dry

That’s still damp

Not wet;

You are never sure

It’s going to fit again

But there is always

That promise—

Between the rain

There is no rain

Only waiting.

Pour the water in slowly

And awaken the tea leaves, first;

She said, because

A year of gathering

Should not go wasted

And some of those trees

Are over 500 years old;

On the hill, there

Overlooking the valley meadow…

She walks through

The terraced fields alone

Like she’s waiting for her lover

But there is only the wind

That persistent wind and what

Her mother said about

“Not rushing in…take time”

There will be time

To sip from the tea leaves

As they unfold, and in

The golden green liquid

You may see a face

Telling you that you’ve

Done everything right

With your life–but

Then again, you may not

And you will once more

Be alone—with tea leaves

And wind and the long

Walk across the meadow

Home.

A squirrel leaps

The fence—could Da Vinci

Have drawn the scene

Better than I imagine it

As an abstraction?

A dark, wavering dash

On a dangerous, pale

Color field—the morning

A museum full

Of masterpieces

But I have to wait

And look hard

To see them;

The Spanish gardener

Like a Greek statue

With his leaf blower

Like a scepter;

The coffee barista

Like a siren in Homer’s Odyssey

Drawing me closer

To the edge of some

Imagined disaster

The dogs on leashes

Outside the bakery

Are straining for bits

Of muffin

And may have pulled chariots

In another era

To the blood thirsty delight

Of Coliseum goers…

The squirrel has reached

His perch in an oak

By the park, looking down

Curiously on this

Modern mélange—just as

His ancestors did

From the walls of Roman villas

In all the ancient gardens.

A sip of morning tea

Reminds me of a hike

We took in the late 60’s

My father, brother and I

To a remote, prehistoric

Arizona cliff dwelling;

Twigs and dried leaves

In desert air–

Old tree beams

Holding up the adobe bricks

For centuries—smell

Of ash and cinder, the spice

Of pinefires; a sky

As blue as a found

Pottery fragment—shards

Of the day with each sip

I take; the trips and portals

Opening on each taste—

The Geneva fountain towering

With its lakewater; a flakey

Butter croissant in Paris once

By the Seine—London’s

Dank smell in the fog

By the Thames, a fragrant

Oxnard carnation stand in May—

I’ve got to go back in

To the Coffee Bean

And tell them how good

Their tea is.

There you are,

Angry brother

Back against the wall

Like a retired soldier

Waiting for another war;

Memories of past battles

Popping with each bubble

That you blow—

The pink gum balloons

Like miniature suns

In a universe

You control

Inflate, obscure your face

And explode

Not mattering to you

That people are stung

By the obnoxious punctuation—

It reminds you a little

Of gunfire

Sudden, unexpected

But, then—in the battlefield

You know it’s coming

When you put yourself

In the crossfire, like

You always do.

Cleaning up hair

From the floor;

Legions of hair

Bastions of hair

Echelons of hair

Empires of hair;

Its messengers, lone wolves

Intellectual actors

In solo performances

Or wordless monologues;

Alive on white linoleum stages

Between dust and smudge marks—

Saying nothing, but appearing

To know some truth

Of begrudging existence—

Hair like battalions

Or lost platoons

The individuals, the many

Swept, herded and guided

By a wadded paper towel

At the command

Of a testy general

Into some middle

Like an assembled flock—

Picked up and tossed out

Twice, three times

In an hour, four…

But I am just

A struggling resident–

Forever picking up

New hair, determined

Towards cleanliness

In a world

That won’t have it;

Hair like the inevitability

Of Life and Death itself–

A job that will never

Be finished, unless

I stop growing hair.

There’s a man

Who walks briskly

Around Malibu

Up and down the PCH

I don’t believe

He has anywhere to live

But it always looks

Like he’s going somewhere

In a hurry; busy

With lots on his mind

And a bag

Of something collected

By his side

I relate to his brisk pace

And sense of purpose–

His seemingly

Brutal focus

Even though, most often

I’m not going anywhere

Special, either

In all my

Imagined busyness.