DISENTITLED

I was not made to live anywhere but paradise
such, simply, was my inadaptation.
Enclosed within shifting degrees of angular walls
dyed green and yellow, adorned with simulated cityscapes
and skeletons of forgotten animals.
I find solace in simple images reflecting outside lands:
your hair of twisted hemp heaped lazily
lassoing paisley pillows, a thickly woven canopy
above a pale and snowy prairie, pierced
dunes diving into swift currents coursing
through soft valleys before plunging into
Bataille's impossible abyss, riding waves of
long thighs to climb a column of bone
to claw a clavicles curve
to be lost, hopelessly.

I see the shape of space in smoke rings
in unpossessable lunar landscapes and lakes of
spilled wine staining these wooden floors from which
inchoate desires spring from long dormant wells
demanding sacrifices like some
obsolete god tyrant
raining down torrents of acid whiskey
through the haze of exhaust seething beyond
every window.

THE HORIZON OF MEMORY

Consider the

on average

seventeen hundred friends you have made

twenty one hundred books you have read

fifty eight holidays you have taken

thousand times as many films you have watched

millions of recorded cells so crowd your brain

you learn to write

if only to keep track of these lists.

As children the

elusive sense of self is sucked

into every mirror, replaced

with fabricated memories

biographical accounts of someone else

wound with threads of

our own history

so of course we write things down

repeat them

to know where we are at in time

our place

silhouettes outlined against a stark

and bare wall

fading after the flash bulb's pop.

Whether through an imaginary history or

memories of the future our

minds travel, our bodies trapped

in the present but unable to lose

the past,

snip the cellular connection,

so when we remember

everything flows like floods

rapids rivers trickles,

brains shrink

memories fold

and our blood is fouled.

Forget the future, he mumbles

through stiff lips

standing still is a slow death

unable to make decisions

the outlook is bleak

released in a silent unseen collapse.

LOS CALLES DE BARCELONA

we often feel as if we
are under seige
watching waiting walking
the streets with the elderly
couples in tweed jackets
woolen sweaters
hair the color of spilt table wine
below skies of frozen smoke
still as the closed gated shops
all the same on every street
bars and bocadillos
tobacco and tapas
flowing crowds on sidewalks
abruptly plummeting in
frenzied construction but
nothing is changing
occupied buildings are still demolished in favor
of emptied lots
instead we occupy spring
paella in dirt parks surrounded by
yapping pups and laughing children upside
down hanging from boughs
and arms, loving ballast
the stars are few, but similar,
dimmed beyond our reach
pinpricks in the sky above canopies
of flapping fluttering fabric
between wrought iron railing steel
grates clinging to stories of
brick aged in centuries
salt sprinkled days pouring
through narrow alleys, darkening
tinting, mellowed,
cooled below rafters behind
quartered walls like thin hardened steps
into thick clouds
hanging palls
returning every day to
supervise shifts of control
sometimes narrowly edged out by
wind swept sun saturated streams
whose currents pull us
under painted trees,
but not glass or blood
just shade and song
fruit and beer
and tomorrow, stained

DESERT CAMPING IN CALIFORNIA
for Richard Brautigan

The sun rises above the steep cliffs
staring down with an intensity usually reserved
for stern judges or bullshit salesmen
but the desert doesn't care about
past transgressions or future desires
its only responsibility is to the hares
scattering through dry brown shrubs
over hard-packed sands and the
tiny grey lizards leaving tiny dark prints
around our sleeping bags.

We wake from a short sweaty daze
scattering for refuge in cool  dark
womb-like caves hidden within steep mud peaks
and lay where trickling streams once traveled
gathering bits of dirt and rock as souvenirs
while sticky sweat dries in a thin film on our skin
and beyond the tunnel's threshold
skies shimmer and dance in a lazy forgetful haze.

Later we climb to the top of the hills
as the sun turned pink and heavy
sinking into rocks like fossilized cocks, remains of
ancient mysterious mountain mating habits and
saw a thousand feet below us our cars and tents which
might have belonged instead to packs of roaming lizards who
like us and the pieces of rock or shells
discovered you can't go home again.

ODE TO A SNAIL

subtle whispers of movement:
eyes atop their stalks
sway with the heavy breath
of exhaust
and moonlight

seductively spiraled and
striped with imprints
of earth
and sky
and the leaden burden
of self sufficient
survival

surreptitious surges
through filth and
up stairs
stretching
sallow skin
and the stain
of passage

the soft scent
of spring
signals
the end
of sleep

AS SUMMER BECOMES WINTER

Remember when we thought

time was so vast

and attainable, we would hold it

in our cupped hands and

let it gradually slip out

to follow the traces leading

from today to

tomorrow when the clear yellow-white June sun

would reflect off the ocean

in thousands of breathless crystal shards

and we would turn our heads, squinting

and laughing as shallow streams

sprung from our eyes

cutting through dirt caked on our cheeks

churning down the swift rapids of your lips

to fall

so gracefully

down your neck and chest

and whorl and collect between your breasts

in deep pools of merlot?

I made that well the center of my home

and remained by it even after you were gone,

but the city outside expanded

and the space each had

diminished

and small steel houses blanketed the horizon

in various shades of rust

haphazardly built from one another

like an endless row of dominoes

circling my old handmade shelter,

gradually suffocated by ash

and forgotten.