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Cross winds stretch
the play in the steering.
The heart beats faster.

Four miles outside of Palm Springs
surprised by the empty desert
and these mountains

which look like no other mountains.
Gusts of adrenalin.
The road lies on a lucid bed.

Salt cedars break the wind.
A dark brown woman
passes quickly in a Mercedes-Benz.

The road lies.  The land
rolls with the wind.  And still
the indians have remained, hidden

in the sharp canyons
with their multitude of palms,
or at the relinquished hot springs,

and outside the walls of the motel pools,
outside the freight entrance
to Saks's Fifth Avenue.


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Outside the windows of room 313,
by the door to 319, young palms

are in bloom.  The round
wall thermometer reads

ninety-eight degrees.  Most
of the guests seem quite sure

of what to do.  The middle-aged woman
in the white and blue swimsuit

slips out of her thongs and walks
down the white, glimmering steps

into the pool.  Gold hoop earrings.
Her sunglasses and sun scarf.  Yet

the retired couple can't stop
rubbing lotion into their skin

while a man talks with a woman
on a chaise lounge, and scratches

his chest.  In a white uniform,
stockings, and shoes, the indian maid

stares.  From the third-floor balcony
she stares down at the pool.


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In the early June heat
we came to an area of Joshua trees

that were pensive and beast-like
in the early June heat.

We crossed spiny acres of chollas
on a swift slope into the lower desert,

driving past Pinto Basin on a potholed road,
driving past dust-devils;

we were heading out to the oasis
at Cottonwood Spring.

Surprised to be alone
I killed the engine

and the desert filled with sound.
We followed a trail down into the grove

and found a patch of wet sand
as if someone had spilled a gallon jug.

In their presence I was first to run,
a swarm of bees fell out

from one of the palms.  But then
from the firm safety of the pavement

I saw a condom beside a low bush,
dried like a lizard skin.

And I showed it to Suzy, pointing out
the ring.  It had been used.


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Out of the valley—the evening heat.
Through the Santa Monica Mountains
to the tall, cramped village:

the fast heart of the west side—
brake lights and the bright names
of conglomerates on the night skyline.

Four glasses of the house red:
Chuck's Steak House on Ventura Blvd.
Out of the valley—through the mountains.

Brake lights near the airport, hotels
walling the approach.  Brake lights.
Constriction and interchange.

Sunday night in Sherman Oaks.
Sunday night in Laguna Canyon.
Monday morning in San Clemente.


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Into the pale trumpet of a flower
on the jacaranda beside the balcony

a plump bumble bee squeezes.  It is late
afternoon; soon the tree frogs shall begin

their rainsong in the water canyon below
and the birds will roost in the low trees

as the runoff trickles, as the old couples
head toward the empty beach

down the residential street across the canyon.
A man takes the leash off his dog.  The brush

moves.  The train from San Diego whistles.
Sunlight bounces off the windows

in the condominiums on the hills.
In those open spaces left on the newly

terraced slopes, condominiums are being built
much like a wise and soothing answer

to these barren, coastal hills.  Wood-frame and
roofless, I can see in them to their stairs—

in the distance above the jacaranda,
the pale flowers and the bumble bee.


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The shelling has stopped at Camp Pendleton.
The sign lights up at the Algodon Motel.

After 5pm the county bus passes once
each hour.  Friday evening, blank faces

at the bus stops.  Traffic gradually thins
and it grows dark on the main avenue.

By six, marines with thick necks
fill the counter at the Halfway House Cafe.

They lean against the dark red tiles
at Stan's Liquor.  A small group gathers

while a joint is shared on the sidewalk
between Luigi's Pizza and a palm tree.

The cops pass.  The surfers keep
to their skateboards.  The old men,

the trios of blacks, slip into little bars.
Music drifts from the jukebox.  By nine

there are lines at the Greyhound station.
Pinballs carom off bumpers.  There is time

to be wasted as they wait to use the ticket
and vanish toward a bigger town.


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Sleek, visually unstable
behind the tall bushes,

a blue automobile moves
along the street across the canyon.

It catches the glow
from the streetlamp—

then the glow recedes.
...furtive moonlight.

A slight offshore
and crickets.  A truck growls

over a rise on the freeway.
Again, a light wind

laces the jacaranda; the cat
scrambles into the bushes.

Sitting on the back porch,
patient eyes and ears,

I was trying to catch that
offbeat melody of the tree frogs

when a small red plane
sliced the big moon.


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After an hour and twenty minutes
on the Santa Ana Freeway,

after forty thick and
inefficient minutes of rush hour,

I unpacked pots of cactus from the backseat
and got out my amplifier

and electric guitar—to be restrung,
to be watered and cared for

for the summer.  I gave Beppo
the one instruction and showed him

my new cephalocereus senilis.
I pointed out that the mammalaria

durispina was going to bloom.
In his backyard, under an avocado

growing heavy with fruit,
I watched a string of dumb jets

in their approach path overhead.
One after another, in timely intervals,

hearing their roar when they drifted
beyond the fig and massive avocado

in the yard next door.  There was a lapse
between sound and vision.  Two doves

sitting on the telephone wire, stupid
as doves; and the hollyhocks

were already going to seed.  Old fences;
bougainvillea, bamboo, ornamental plum,

foxglove and peonies—native as me.
I was two stop signs

from the thick
graffiti on Atlantic Boulevard

in Bell, California, just sitting
next to my cacti and his cymbidiums.


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        Her parents' house sits on a lot at the fork of two, small canyons
in the South Carmel Hills.  The side yard faces south and has a broad view
of the west end of the Carmel Valley.  There are two, long, low mountains
(the northern end of the Santa Lucias) sitting on an east-west axis on the
far side of the valley with pockets of redwood and Monterey pine growing on
the ridges.  The Fish Ranch sits on a west knoll overlooking a long, golden
brown meadow; the barn reflects a dull, geometric green at sunset while the
cows are black spots in the meadow.


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Seas palms rocking on the rocks.
White water swells and backswells—

continual agitation.  Two p.m.
and the fog so thick

the cypresses above Headland Cove
have vanished from the sightseers.

Sea lions barking off the coast—
the sound drifts amidst the flux

and reflex.  The sea palms snap.
A pale silhouette of creatures

sits on the rocks off the point:
awkward dogs upset over something.


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From Highway 1 in Monterey
68 splits eastward
and moves inland, twisting

between the rolling hills,
past Laguna Seca raceway,
the live oaks, livestock,

and a new subdivision
of uniform, suburban houses.
It rounds the north end

of the Sierra de Salinas
and spills into the farmland
the grows to the edge of town.

Lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes
appear like rodents on the highway,
spilled from produce trucks

that keep to the fields
and to the railroad yard.
There is a small Sears, an old one

on 68 as it heads uptown.  There is
an F.W. Woolworth's next door
still selling paper doilies.

Inside, at the two-tone
paint line, cardboard advertisements
for French dips, strawberry

sundaes and banana splits,
celebrate the eye-level
of the fountain and grill.

A half a mile downtown passed
the high school and the ice cream stand,
just around the corner from the depot

on a one-way street facing
the armory, the races mix
at Rosita's Armory Cafe.


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The orchards give way
at the base of the hills

to ranches and sweet-eyed cows
and the dry, sandy bed of the arroyo.

The heat finds nowhere to go.
It backs up, waits

at the mouth of the incline.
The semis rock and shift

to a lower gear.  The hills
start rolling and I see

that golden grasses cover them
like a hide with chocolate-brown patches.

And they keep to this rolling
all the way through Pacheco Pass.

Oak trees sprawl on the hillsides
and in the little ravines.

A few bulls rest in the shade.
Nothing else breaks

the beautiful monotony
except insect bodies

striking the windshield
as the road snakes in.


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Multi-color pieces of broken glass
illuminate the shoulders.  Each pass

marks a repeat on US 6:   a cycle.
Jackrabbits flatten on the asphalt.

The glass sparkles neatly in perspective.
Morning grows in the horizon beyond white

sand and red.  Green desert brush and yellow.
Beige foothills.  Burgundy mountains.

Decline to incline, each pass marks
a repeat on US 6.  Open range and

range cattle.  We crossed Nevada in
seven hours.  I only had to brake twice.


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Leaping trout decals adorn
the rear doors on camper shells
—an aquatic, sporting festoon.

On pink sandbars in the Virgin River
women sit on aluminum lawn chairs.
O whiptail snakes and whiptail lizards.

103 in the shade.  104 in the sun.
Night falls only a few paces
down the thermometer.

The sacred Daturas drift around
like guardians the settlers knew
and resisted.  They knew.

We roll around on their cots, sweating,
vaguely restless, humming quiet
little songs to the sympathetic midnight.

When the moon finally lifts over a V ridge
in the canyon walls, I swear
it is a Max Ernst painting.


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After a four mile hike
on a well-beaten path—

tracks from tennis shoes
and horseshoe tracks,

the sudden chatter of
birds and expensive cameras;

down the canyon on Navajo Loop
to Queen Victoria,

Queens Garden,
up the Sunrise Point trail,

dazzled in the maze of pink
or buff spires, rust spires,

white spires of sandstone,
their shapes suggesting

rust or erosion or
that they had been lathed—

later, we sat our lawn chairs
at the edge of a clearing

beside young growths
of manzanita.  Our arms winged,

trunks sunk into the webbing,
we listened to the wind roll

through the tops of the ponderosas,
resting, occupied.  Waiting

for the energy to fix lunch,
we remarked on the huge thunderhead

building off to the west—
how threatening it was,

much more so than the one
sneaking up behind us.


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Her parents said we were
too young.  Our love was

just teenage infatuation
they said.  They said.

They said it but they
were wrong.  Her old man

was dead wrong he was.
No way would he listen.

So rather than live apart
we died together,

on a warm August morning
in Colorado, from Gunnison

Overlook, a thousand feet
from the visitors' center.


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Awoken by raindrops on the canvas,
my exit from the blue and yellow tent

was wet with perspiration and rain.
I saw this sudden coolness as a chance

to scale the Great Sand Dunes in comfort
—which is what we did that afternoon
        in Colorado.

And when we reached the top the rain ceased
as in a fairy tale.  A double-stranded rainbow

rose above the blue-gray Sangre de Christos
as in a fairy tale.  To our quiet astonishment

there was snow on the peaks as the dunes rolled
away behind us like a great, trucked-in sahara.


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Approaching the densely textured,
horizontal strip known as the highway

and sensing the fate of geometrical convergence,
a small herd of pronghorn antelope

splits into immobile panic or the pursued—
frightened by the menace, the slice

of our charging, red Super Beetle.
To this, and the otherwise vacant

and inconsequential morning,
a prairie dog stood

in still witness.  Yes,
there were no fences

until a few miles outside of Alamosa.
On US 285 we passed Rod Steiger

hitchhiking in a southerly direction
and two nuns in a '55 Chevy

with a statuette of Jesus
affixed to the speaker grill.


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In a sweat and angry
I awoke at an ancient gas station

in the midday heat of Mojave.
With a stiff neck and my temple

creased from the window's edge,
I opened my eyes to a familiar

denim-clad blue moon and a small hand
holding a nozzle.  She was adorable

at the self-service pump.
And I knew, at last,

that we had been promised this
many times during the time

we spent as children—as being
the end of that time, as being

the end of that dream
in which I walked next door

passed the faded advertisements
on the brick wall of a liquor store,

and feeling like a recipient,
bought us a couple of root beers.


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1:  Highway 37

Across the mud flats we raced
on a road laid upon brackish waters,
a road too driven for safety and
comfort.  Across the mud flats we went
among the zippy imports and the egrets.


2:  Sand and Foam

I took my daughters by the hand
among the sandpipers and the kelp
and walked along the shoreline.
The seawash wet our pant legs.
The sun changed color and shape.


3:  North Coast Sunset

Dispersed by a low-slung fog bank,
the sun goes down.  The sea turns
a reflective, unsettled gray.
Endless waves.  Idle gulls.

Two young girls sit shoulder
to shoulder on the still-wet shore.
It is most idyllic:  the seals
on the rocks, the pelicans feeding.


4:  Fire

Against that empty and colorless canvas,
the Bishop pines darken to silhouette.
Smoke drifts above our little fire.
I am quickened by your face in the firelight
and the black, black woods beyond.


5:  Eel River Fever

The wind blew.  The wind blew and
then it gusted.  A fever came upon me
as if readied by the wind.
I did sleep a heady sleep
until Mars appeared that night.


6:  Eel River Serenade

And I woke to various infirmities:
I was beleaguered with ache and pain—
but my spirit soon rose when
my daughter sang her songs to me.


7:  Parkland Operetta

Through oak leaves and rubbery madrone
a cooling breeze swept the canyon.
Big trucks rattled on the highway.
A shapeless old man helped his son
to start a car.  The river ran.


8:  Aquatic Life

In the rookery sea lions barked and
seemed clumsy as we must have seemed
groping about on the kelp-slick rocks—
so many tidepool dramas we then found
at the edge of the jade-colored sea.


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 All along the lakeshore—gathering
 jewels of dusk-time light

 from lanterns, from bonfires
 and jockeying headlights—

 the cottonwoods stilled to a black
 intaglio on the sunset, some wind-

 smeared clouds above.  Music drifts
 across the water, ripped and modern.

 The last light sits upon the lake.
 The wind paints it.


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 Ranches banked along the river
 and alfalfa grew.  Horses

 grazed the sandy stubble
 as rainbirds pointed to

 the lonesome existence
 of western life; morning

 chiaroscuro:   cottonwoods
 breaking the basin where

 hard-looking women drove
 sun-worn and tire-bald, old trucks.


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 Rain streaking the view windows,
 the windshield crying rain.

 Stiffly the fir jerks.
 The tattooed aspens rock

 and quake.  Thunder rolls.
 The wind dies for a minute.

 The creek screams with anticipation.
 It calms the wild rose.


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I can see the rain falling
but it does not hit the ground:

low clouds, high peaks and a drunk
wind pushing the clouds around—

traveling the great heights
of eastern Nevada and finding

small, desolate towns holding
an allegiance to some barren thing.

Quick acquaintances in gas stations.
Lured by the dazzling hardship:

I could see the rain falling
but it did not hit the ground.


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Sun setting against my back,
moon lifting above the mesas,

wind, wind and monument, monument and
light.  I am enamored of the brush,

shining, down in the umbra:
how they hold their grace and their

infathomable color—living, alone,
in the desert sands.  I see tourists

strolling down the eroding strands
like gaudy, evening flowers.


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From the bankless San Juan
to the twisted hills behind Mexican Hat,

from Mexican Hat
to the candid geology of the Goosenecks,

from the old Navajo jeweler
to the Valley of the Gods,

when we reached the summit
of strident Mokee Dugway

I did reveal my little prayer
as the engine cooled to this great vista.


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As the afternoon strengthened its brilliant light
the girls walked down to the water's edge,

sun-drunk, heat-shot, and crawled in
the lake's tremulous, sparkling skin.

Color against color, fueled by fierceness,
the far wall of the canyon

rose in a concave jaggedness
and had already gone to a brooding shadow.

Nothing marred the thin line
of shadow and water's edge

except the moored pleasure craft
tucked in shadow above the waterline.

In the white light a bird hovered and was
little more than a speck upon the geology

which rose, incandescent, in bright knots
atop the many-knuckled ridge—an amazement.


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Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.

Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.

Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.

Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.

Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.

Waterpocket fold.
Drip drip.  Drip drip.


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At a picnic table in the pygmy forest
we spread a tablecloth and ate:

cheese from Utah, beer from Mexico,
local beef, lettuce and tomatoes

surely from some other place.
An arid, intermountain feast—

as the dusk grew the rain clouds
deceased, cactus juice kept me warm

and happy in July's promise of plenty:
our every moment the flies' delight.


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When the meadow opened
the meadow was liege.  Trees

wandered down the hillsides
in great mass and density,

sending their children before them;
the firs so straight and narrow,

the spruce were blue, and
the aspens lighter, softening

the conifers' reach—their
saplings, in abundant cheerfulness,
      like tiny dancers.


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We rented a cabin near the edge
for the season.  Shortly thereafter

things careen downhill:   the sky
grew dark every afternoon and rain

courted the night with black sheets.
I drank an endless beer and knew everyone

at the bar.  Played poker in the lodge
with women in vermilion dresses

and wrote poems in a western slang.
I brooded and spat, occasionally

I spat at the kids.  The wife left.
I soon followed, raging with desire.


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Around the parking lot they waddled
and tried to honk.  A woman,

with a video camera, gave
elegant commands in French.

But they couldn't honk.  It was
foolishness:   the wistful gift

of unrestricted, transient display—
in striped shirts and polka dots.

The crowd became embittered, knowing
they were not geese, but simply tourists
      from France.


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Sitting in a pair of limited-duty lawn chairs
I converse with my five-year-old child.

We discuss the life cycle, life, other lives
and gaze across the ancient canyon.

She wonders the age of the trees
and the bushes, and the birds,

the wasps, dragonflies, bees...
I tell her my age, her mother's,

her sister's, and the cats'.  Mindful,
I ponder the sand and the canyon,

her wild, blue eyes—she could
wander off through the jointfir

and the juniper, forget everything
      I've said,
and it would still be easy for her.


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Yellow bunches of desert grass
align the highway.  The desert

offers its barren expanse:
brown hills and flats, low shrubs.

On US 6 & 50 time stands inchoate,
unchanging.  Time and time immemorial,

we reach the flashpoint of our lives
accompanied by dwarf power poles

and a misplaced predilection—
the Siever Lake bed on our left,

the Wah Wahs rising up behind, brown,
desiccant in the mock cloud cover.


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Fifty bucks for a 50s motel room—
painted cinderblock and each door

a sequenced pastel.  But the kids
wanted to swim:   just to swim

so I was feeling like someone's
old man sitting on the pool steps

neck-deep and sipping a beer,
admiring their young exuberance

and wondering just how much
this evening would cost me.


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Even these stymied, powerline poles
can seem like adornments,

inarticulate but sincere,
to these plain and barren hills

with rocky crowns crumbling
on the peaks through these

narrow, breathless passes—the road
running down to dry, white lakes;

empty corrals.  Again and again,
everything is shed toward existence,

simple majesty on rock, simple majesty
on hooves, the unbroken successes.


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As consciousness persuades the industrious toward
mercantile achievement, the mindful ponder

their sourceless unrest.  Their morning starts
in beauty and beauty rubs their chests, rubs

our chests.  A thought is carried from man
to daughter and from son to wife:   dragged along

the temporal exchange, a thought is carried
that rubs our chests.  She can now return

to the ruined site of what was once
her father's grandfather's short-lived life—

but the stones have moved apart, his enterprise
repealed, his reflections scattered, adrift and
	unrevealed.


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As consciousness persuades the strong-of-spirit
toward ranching, alfalfa is irrigated

along the low bluffs above this exceptional river
where cottonwoods crowd the sandy banks—

a shade of green foreign to this country
grows where sage and rabbit brush

have lingered, drifting toward these
yellow foothills content to rise

below white-faced mesas spotted with
dark brush.  The mindful raise up

their hands in praise and wonder, unable
to ponder the odd fiber of this existence.


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As consciousness persuades the penitent
toward industry and virtue and goodness,

the mindful ponder the true self:   if
the world is illusion, then the penitent

are deluded; if the heavens rise above, then
the penitent shall, at some strange point, rise:

if the prophets are deliverers, the mindful
remain bewildered:   there is no peace
      among men.


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This quiet stirs my heart
to rest.  The wind lends a solace

and carries the heat away.
A hunger quickens my senses

as I watch the sand tell me
her recent story:   I too long

for a lovely tail to drag
along my lonely path.


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As consciousness persuades the joyful
to abstain, the mindful get hungry.

We saw Leonard Nimoy at a Pizza Hut
in Leadville, Colorado.  It was a happening

spot, full of tourists, disdainful local folks,
and vociferous cowboys who drank all the way

back to the truck.  We ate, marveled at
the high vistas, and made some genuine merry;

then elected to duck beneath these darkening
damp clouds to return to our glistening car.


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Dizzied by aspen in the cloud-dappled light,
an appraisal is softly encountered
of the loss that could be delivered.

In bark-eye and quaking leaf, in
a white stand of beauty-surreal,
the secret of astral life descends

in coded secret.  Dizzied by aspen
in the aspen-dappled light, I lean back
in this chairlift and opt to rise still higher.


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It is the night that seems most
lucid.  Standing several dark feet
from a Colorado campsite—trying

to gain any small notion of
what the Milky Way might be, when
a star shoots across the starlit sky.

The call is returned as small children
dressing in illumined tents for sleep,
intrepid travelers on the weary channel.


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As consciousness persuades the penitent
to provide morning services, the mindful

ponder what is forbidden, and why—
which is what I find myself doing

as we roll through miles of stony sagebrush
broken only by the distant Rockies.  I wonder:

why am I drawn toward that which deceives,
that which unleashes, that which empowers,

and that which befouls the mind and organs?
Only hours later, overlooking a stunning vista,

I turn to the French tourist beside me.  Brow
furrowed, I exclaim:   "My, isn't that a big duck."


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As the sky fills with anima-shaped clouds
a glorious landscape is emphatically revealed.

In muted colors, in ancient geologies, in
arcane precipitation something falls and rises

through the crumbling sand, stone and dust
as monument to some celestial warrior-kings.

Ponder the architect and his heady plan.
Ponder those who died as builders, the thousand

down-trodden ones:   the afternoon sets them up
as they gather in pilgrimage, rising overhead.


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As consciousness persuades the practical to
go to bed, the mindful find themselves shit-faced

and happy at the Clown Bar.  Eager, hopeful, in service
to lust and carelessness, throwing good money

after bad dice—smoking, drinking to excess,
working toward a cheerful mindlessness; patron

of the slot machine and the hard-way crap dice—
pilgrim of the improbable, the intrinsic, and the
      very, very elusive.


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Desert clinging like patina to these hills,
distant sagebrush more like a hide.  The delicate

features of this great expanse are uneventful.
Range fence rises above the sagebrush; the dwarf

powerlines; the rocky saddle of an exposed ridge—
exchanges are few as the interstate races through:

a raven on the shoulder, the inimitable and
untamed waves of ranges, an occasional road-kill.


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Freight train like a small, banded snake
lying at the foot of a long, crested range.


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Cloud-shrouded and cloud-capped.
Cloud-dressed and cloud-concealed.

Burdened with the idlings of heavy clouds
and absolved by the grace of clouds.

Subjugated by the clouds' presence
and whims; supplicant to nothing—the clouds

drift away.  Their thrilling majesty is
revealed by the wildflowers gathered
      at my wet feet.


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If I could succumb to a notion
that was supplicant and devotional, I would

imagine it should be a loosely-collected thought.
Mountains are the ideal.  And rivers

are the pure essence of stony life,
and life is our stubborn tool

of communication between the ancient
and the astral planes.  I can stand in their umbra,

skip smooth stones across the river, and smile
at my daughters in the sweet evening light.


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Snow still retreating from the fissures in
the Sawtooth Mountains.  Dusk still a long

way off; the beauty immediate.  The Salmon River
issues by and sings to us her long, long song.

July extends its kindness
as cow herds drift on broad, distant pastures.

Rising calm.  Rising transparence, distance
corralled.  An angel lifts a softball past

the outfield fence;  the small crowd cheers.
A stony magic fills the umbra.  How vaporous

my daughters are—a trance magic—
as they drift from our sulphur pool.


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Clouds closing in on the mountain peaks.
Steam rising from the lakes.

The morning light shattered by the river
blinds us and hides the resting swans.

A bison grazes near the river bank
in a fire-ravaged forest of blackened snags.

One angler angling in a river.
One river in a huge, drifting meadow.


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After a long stretch of incorporeal transition
time will release its obligations as I think—

how deftly I have come to this indelible place
where speed becomes relative to the roadside

swallows and even gravity is hard-put to hold
this road down while traveling with cruise control.

Darling, make a note of this wicked landscape
as those mountains remain our hapless and immediate

destination.  Like moths to a porch light we reveal
the weakened nature of our intentions and pursuits.

This land is alluring and its beauty congeals
as a thing we exchange in quick, furtive glances.


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The weary traveler travels with a hope
to find something established or to see a place

and feel assurance in the amenable landscape.
He hopes to disarm that which abrogates

his wanderlust just long enough to rest it.
Rest assignates the weary man who sees

dark clouds ahead and a thick rain
obscuring the afternoon.  Longing is a sign

of another desire he might wish to have
revealed:    what prompted this town, what limits

this valley, what passions carried the trail
through here—whose eminence should we
	address?


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Why is it always the natural case
that when we travel we see faces

of people we met:  ran into Terri Garr
and her young daughter at a Pizza Hut

in Rawlins, Wyoming.  What honey luck;
she was with a gentleman we did not know.

But out of courtesy, out of a true respect
I let her step in front of me

in the short line for the salad bar
and pluck the last, shining, red tomato.

Why is it always the case when we travel?
We see faces of people we never considered
      we'd met.


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Sagebrush spreading beyond our vision.
Impassive mountains rise above our hopes.

The road running ahead with its long string
of sorrows.  We watch and wait, ponder—

consoled by powerlines and these frugal,
hapless plains; the whistling wind.


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Red truck rolling across a great emptiness,
blue coupe following behind, trying

to pass, trying to pass, losing hope.
The Ruby Mountains rising as a backdrop

pretty as a centerfold; the desert light
searching out the late morning shade

like prey:   an honest contender for real life
as we stay giddily close to the yellow line.


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The cocktail waitress kept bringing me cocktails
and while I wasn't losing, I wasn't winning

either, which—likely—was not key to my ambitions.
The dealer was a stone-faced old hag named Marion

who claimed to prefer the night shift and was
formerly a lab assistant to a Reno dentist named Rocky.

She complained bitterly of his nocturnal habits
but I loved the way she thanked me for each small tip

placed appropriately on the felt—it was almost
like having fun.  Then, the three sisters sat down

and things went unconscionably bad so fast, so
completely, I found myself too weakened to leave.


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Stars linger with muted cornets.  Sea birds,
science, milk running down her breast

in white key arpeggios; white chords.  Nine
hooded travelers on a thin, black stem

sitting back to back to back...  Candles, sunrise
minarets; a hybrid jazz rises like the moon

on a lake.  Something gathers at her throat—
her eye teeth swell and sparkle.  Tide drifting in.

Drifting in the moist and alluring blush
the white goes to yellow, the yellow bleeding

magenta bands.  Pale, listless predator, caught
in our headlights.  Her prey stunned, taken

by his own longing—he sees a single pew
of white angels, green dog sleeping at their feet.


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The absorbing faces on the ancient boardwalk
were sun-licked, pierced and sticky as the many
veneers of fun-zone delicacies applied through
the ages of our ageless clumsiness; and through this

and the fog drifting aimlessly as kelp, as lone gulls
or even ourselves, full-chased and frenzied
from the perilous to the peril, again, and again,
and then again—amidst the endless screaming

and the clawing on, young raptors of this world's
hidden promises, revelers in its exhilarations—
the boys are startled by the variety of flesh
exhibited by the other sex--the other sex, astride

the notion of another sex, can keep little secret.
We watch from the undertow, captive, a party to it all
      and helpless.


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Tall grass dying in a small, closing
meadow.  The wind moving through

the grasses' lace flowers.  A quartet
of birds sing their four songs—and

then the wind stills.  Mammoth pines
and mammoth stumps and roots rotting

and opened as burrows.  The handsome fir
group like clans as their young edge

to the meadow.  Sun on the grass; wind
spreading through it.  I feel the wind

caressing my skin with its own song
and the envy of the long-blind dead
      listening to it.


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The open road will remind us of many things
some of which are inessential, or unkind toward

the planned itinerary.  Still, they take their time
and their place:  consider the young couple behind us,

unmarried, with a small child, getting drunk
at 10:30 am across from the fairgrounds

where the carnival rides are unfolding; or rather,
the distant sheep, the sagebrush, the hay

baled in a still-green field across this brown valley
—the stalwart waters and regrettable commerce

of machines, plants and mills all seeming to happen
by the lone emigrant grave in a lessened way.

We struggle with what we allow to bother us
and what does not.  We tip the waitress and move on.


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Made special by that incorporate sheet
on which so much does occur, the river, far,

far upstream, surprises us with its beauty,
grace, and a delicateness which attracts

to its narrow banks other lives of equal delicacy
and grace—light, in late afternoon, warms

and can separate itself to dance upon the water
and shimmer in ways we cannot hope to possess.

We note the river's softened rocks and the grasses
rising between them, the stunning, broad-leafed plants

and weathered cedar roots, dragonflies feeding
on gnats, trout leaping—the indefatigable urge
      to wander down and down and down.


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Trucks and cars and trucks with boats; trees
full of peaches, the Sutter Buttes sitting above

the dwarfed orchard—some red, farm machineries
spiraling up clouds of smoke-colored dust;

distant signs of the river; kiwis, kiwis,
cars and trucks and cars with trailers; plums

and walnuts and distant signs of the distant
past—plums and walnuts, plums and apricots,

trucks and cars and argus motorhomes; tractors
under those ancient oaks and metal sheds,

plums and walnuts and apricots and plums
or prunes and peaches and kiwis, kiwis.


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All I knew was:   it was a day in July, a dutifully
hot afternoon, where I was seeing a water tower

that rose above the plain and its gathering of trees
grow slowly larger.  And it was only this

in consort with the grazing heifers and still windmills
that renewed everything in their simple ways

so that while I drove, each car that passed
or we passed held families much like our own

doing much the same things we too found necessary
to exist:   the wife barefoot and reading

an enormous book, the kids in the backseat
trying anything that might relieve the seamless tedium.


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1:  Drift

The lavenders' lavender sprays like a lawn
being sprinkled.  Wind through the pines.
This June light.  The lavenders' sprays;
the lawn being sprinkled.  A butterfly
swaying on the butterfly iris bud.


2:  Being Eddy

I liked the fertile resonance
my life then possessed—the time
on my hands; the loose change
in my pants pocket; the kind way
the sun brightened the angles
      on your pretty face.


3:  Sand and Foam

Sea palms rocking on the rocks.
White water swells and backswells—
the continual agitation reaching
      for my toes.
I found some seashells on the shore
and a finally cleansing meditation.


4:  At the Lagoon

Ocean spray masking the summer's heat.
The wind keeping everything in motion—
an idle afternoon with children at
the woody lagoon.  Dogs in the side
channels; the children's soap bubbles
      burst by the swaying reeds.


5:  Privilege

I found a condom on the beach.
I found a leg bone.  All morning
I fancied Jesus as a speeding boat.
Choosing a pebble from the water's edge
      I changed its location.


6:  Carmel by the Sea

1st of July, the village swells
with perfunctory anticipation
and fog; those for whom the ocean
is a rare delight gather in clumps
on the main beach and marvel.

The old woman, the local,
whose pleasure it is to jog
the often empty wet shore,
moves quickly through the throng.


7:  Ocean Frolic

Water playing on the rocks, water
prancing; water racing upshore
like boys from their mother—amphibian
dexterity.  A small swell quietly rises,
and with a slap, surprises his brother.


8:  Day at the Beach

Her disarming breasts, a cut foot,
the endless patience of young men
in wet suits; waves.  A day
at the beach—beach light; the pseudo-
munificent gesture of the ocean's
      exquisite offerings.


9:  Soledad

Something growing there on the alluvial
fan; something domestic.  Something
also in the exchange between agriculture
and the left-alone.  Lettuce, cauliflower,
the elusive in neat geometrical planes.


10:  Seen and Not Seen

I found a bird nest by the oak.
I saw a water snake in the creek.
During the hike my mind slowly
emptied.  Only later did I note
the photograph I had just taken.


11:  Shift, Uplift

Hiking now on the knuckled ridge.  Dwarfed
by the jumble and exposed tectonics—
wearied by summer sun, embellished
by the wind, to that ruddy place
where the uplift rises in ribbed cliffs
      succinctly toward something.


12:  American Summer

Stained glass window in the side door
of a lengthy motorhome.  Pin striping,
trout decals, the allure of the open road.
An ancient relative with cigarette and cocktail
bent armed at the dining table, regarding
      the rush hour crawl.


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1:  Road Work

Massive works of generic agribusiness
squeeze the interstate's itinerant length.
August & green—all the stirring way
to these golden, central hills
worn smooth by the summer's haze.


2:  Mirage

Given a chance the land shows
no sign of water—just dying brush,
refuse, dusky tumbleweeds; strings
of pylons running off and
disappearing, finally, in the vaporous
      horizon.


3:  Highway 41

Cattle in the dry creeks
of the cattle-colored hills.
Long, fenceless stretches of open land:
little oaks, outcrops, arroyos,
the wind—old music of the west.


4:  San Marcos Pass (Old California)

Mountains rise in majestic ranges
feathered by the august air,
fronted by crumbling foothills—
rock-scarred, brush-bare, and plain
in deference to the handsome woodland
      there.


5:  US 101 (Old California)

Wood-rail bridges, ancient eucalyptus,
oleander dwelling in the median
where two lanes should be four.
Bougainvillea lacing into the palms;
offramps leading to pale haciendas.


6:  Laguna Niguel

One bright morning I took your photos
alongside your several smiling cousins—
the din of the freeway below you,
Mount Mojeska, behind, rising above
      the visible air.


7:  In a Recess of the Mall

As if someone waited for this,
expected it:  your casual stance
beneath the recessed lighting—plain
youth, beauty, sun-rich skin, garments
waiting to mimic the bank of monitors
      above your head.


8:  Movement Relative to Movement

Gazing down at the stalled freeway,
its continual animation transfixed
by pylons, hawks on the powerlines,
gunships and jetliners overhead; sporadic
trains crossing—I fall back on the bed
      only to feel it move.


9:  Immigrants

Condos and townhomes, townhomes, condos,
the otherwise large dwellings tethered
only by an excess of exotic flora—the articulate
landscaping slowly devours the undeveloped:
opuntia spreading in fleeting clusters
      among the sun-worn chaparral.


10:  High Desert Saturday (Old California)

Miles of sagebrush running off to reach
the alluvial fanning, mountains.  This distance
altered only by little outposts springing up
or dying under a western sky, spilling
      its quintessential clarity.


11:  Mono Basin

Ruddy boulders and sagebrush, outcrops
breaking the skin.  Piñon and aspen.
Aspen dying in bands.  Range upon range;
spiritual giddiness, grace.  Ancient
volcanoes still resting in the airy heights
      above Mono Lake.


12:  Retinal Plunge (Sonora Pass, Old California)

Imagining the shift, feeling the uplift,
the glacial tearing, the pull of gravity,
water's crush.  The sun upon us, the lessened
air.  Its touch gathering at our feet
and entering there.  Immaculate youth,
      hard beauty, augustness.


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1:  JFK

Dissolving now into the time/place delirium
of airports.  Corporate ingenuity, travelers'
kiosks, haze, the multi-cultural repatriation:
"Please, sir, take me there.  I wish to visit
my mother who will not leave the forest."


2:  Sugar Beach

Palm fronds rustle in the evening's trade wind.
Moored sailboats eddy on the little swells.
A silhouette of unzoned power lines runs
past the beach resort and down this spit
      of utter third worldliness.


3:  Portrait of the Artist as Tourist

I found a wallet in the surf.
I found a turtle shell.  All evening
I played out the matrical combinations
of their elective affinities.  It was haughty,
      ambiguous and dense.


4:  Birdsong

The ceiling fan's propeller silhouette
beneath the skylight—brick veranda
open onto the bay.  The first notion
of light, then someone starts his long solo
of commentary, happenstance and commentary.


5:  Distant Thunder

Spotlights on the palm trunks.  Coconuts.
Trade wind rustling the fronds again—a brief
intrinsic pause.  Same stars.  Same desires
and something else, inarticulate,
      flexing, elusive.


6:  Roadtown

The cock crows in the midday heat.
Standing water stands in the deep gutters
and vacant lots—lizards, chickens,
refuse and blossoms.  Heavy musics
move by the lime green shanties
now coral or yellow with violet roof.


7:  The Night

Night tide drumming on the breakwater.
The ceiling fan with it's quiet heartbeat.
A little time to spend awake
      after a brief, morning rain.


8:  A Day at the Beach

Flesh by the pound—tourist flesh—
sailboat white or coral pink
or honey-tanned and well-fed.  Sultry
pageant of beach play and string bikinis
and plain desire smeared across
      this palm-lined apparition.


9:  Old Slavery Days

Thick black faces.  Thick black songs.
Drumbeats only missionaries hear.
Hard labor and separation and fear
whipped into hatred through the long,
      long misery of sugar.


10:  Same Things

Hiking now through jungle forest.
Tree roots tripping our feet.  Loving
this wind and shade—plain, plain things.
I'm thinking back 100 years, 400 years,
4,000 years:  same thing—wind, shade.


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1:  The Alluvial Notion

Fey cottonwoods in abundance,
old and majestic.  Ranches
in the edges of the flaring canyons.
The vast and grand mountains
north northwest of Bishop.


2.  Owens Valley

A vast stretch of sagebrush
equi-spaced in the sand.
Pylons shrinking in perspective.
Black cows.  Sagging powerlines.
Desert mountains rising.


3:  Amargosa

For certain, all that we
knew about Henry Porter
was that his name
was not Henry Porter—
and that he was killed
      by indians.


4:  Hips

Boys & girls bouncing in the hotel
pool.  Horseplay and rough-housing.
Dads with their daughters.  Moms
make their entrance last—the way
the hips sway when they walk.


5:  Sevier River

Juniper and piñon cling
to the hillsides.  A little river
meandering through sagebrush.
White cows.  Cottonwoods.
High-desert mountains (spotted
      with pygmy forest).


6:  Wonder

Sitting on a hotel bed in an old
Mormon town just outside of
nowhere...  a laptop on my lap.
Gravel roads, flies—peace of mind;
running commands on a distant
      server.


7:  Ecotourism

Instructions with regard to used
towel etiquette; chidings on
the untoward spilling of water.
Brown soap.  Mint shampoo.
Young room maids with names
      like Summit, Jasmine, Echo,
      Little Wing.


8:  Desert Interlude

For certain, all that we knew
about Henry Porter
was that his name
was not Henry Porter
and he was bit by a snake
      and later died.


9:  Calf Creek

A black and red banded snake
on a red-dirt trail
beside a yellow ochre rock
vanishes in the languid
greenery near the creek's edge.


10:  Turds on the Trail

The sun sheds its warmth
without charge or favor—
some look for shade,
some laze by the river,
some follow trails, some
      do not.


11:  Capitol Reef


Waterpocket fold. Drip
drip.  Drip drip. Waterpocket
fold.  Drip drip.  Drip drip.
Waterpocket fold. Drip drip.
Drip drip.  Waterpocket fold...


12:  Hiking to It

The sun sheds its warmth
without favor or grace—
ruler supreme over water
and ice, fire and fecundity.
There are those who travel
      and those who don't.


13:  Island in the Sky


Her parents said we were
too young.  Our love was
just teenage infatuation
they said.  They said.

They said it but they
were wrong.  Her old man
was dead wrong he was.
No way would he listen.
So rather than live apart

we died together,
on a warm day in July
in Utah, from the Grand
Overlook—one sweet mile
from our parked car.


14:  Good Prospect

One uncertain thing that
we knew about Henry Porter,
he was a schooled geologist—
his excuse for the mining life.
The man could not walk
      without looking down.


15:  Fourth of July Elsewhere

In a darkened hotel room
sipping a dark micro-brew
as fireworks explode above—
watching moths circle beneath
a star-spangled street light.


16:  Soluble Fish

On the bank of the Virgin River
an annoying French boy exclaims
to his mere:  " Le poussin!  Le poussin!
Le poussin!"  which reminds me
of a book I read long, long ago.


17:  On the Trail

Clearly we knew quite early on
that his name was not Henry Porter—
yet he was seldom hard to locate.
He was a man one could surely detect
      both coming and going.


18:  Las Vegas Boulevard

As soon as the arm recoiled on the slot machine,
the cocktail waitress asked if the gentleman
would like another drink, while quarters
spattered into the coin trough and prayers
rose all about them—oh the precious metals
     that began to fall, to come out of hiding.


19:  Rest In Peace

Racing across the desert while
listening to Bjork wail and
pondering life's imponderables—
recent roadside memorials
on seemingly innocuous straightaways.


20:  Thin Air

For certain, if your path chose
to cross paths with Henry Porter
he would introduce himself as
alias—always as alias.  The man
could vanish into thin air
      as only he could.


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1:  Snake River Pastoral

We find occasional pastures neatly
fenced, neatly untended.  Everywhere else
sagebrush spreading above desert grasses.
We see a field of hay recently cut—
perfect geometry—bales awaiting baling.

2:  Wind Farmers

Where the desert lives, the desert remains
except where the long arm of irrigation
mists a low-growing crop.  In the distance
atop the mesas, wind farms rise into the
oddly-altered landscape—big, burgeoning
      clouds rest above.

3:  Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

A warm sun with a cold, pushy wind
perfectly suits our short hike—a few
moments alone at the lower falls...
Returning, rising, that restrained
intoxication of high country air.

4:  Traveling

In the subtle effort that travel demands
one can find one's self weary
of beautiful places—a new day, a new
destination—cold and winded, climbing
      the overlook stairs.

5:  20

Driving on a road across a barren expanse
or vast fields of excentric agriculture.
Snow-capped mountains ringing the distance.
Driving on a road well engineered and well
maintained—going to where we want to get.

6:  Craters of the Moon (after Gyozan)

Nearing my 62nd year I've encountered
little pain or hardship.  Whether I've gained
much wisdom is another story, I suppose.
This I do know:  earth, 4.54 billion years old;
      Doug, 61.72 and counting.

7:  Drivin' 'round Stanley

Another rainy day in June.  Clouds again
shrouding the Sawtooth range.  Tourists
rafting down the Salmon River and its rapids.
Abundant wildflowers, anglers angling
      in the rain.

8:  Yankee Creek

All we knew was...  his name wasn't
Henry Porter.  He left a wife and four girls
in Brownsville to 'try his hand at prospectin'.'
On his last drunken meandering, he stepped
on the wrong snake and subsequently died.

9:  Summer River Reverie

Birdsong & bird flight, bare-chested men in
a continuous breeze.  Road noise & dog bark
& shouts from the rafters floating...
Birdsong & tirespin & quiet talk drifting.
On the banks, beautiful women, their hair in...

10.  Back Home on the Lower Deck

Icing my elbow to soothe the tendonitis.
A few yards away a doe watches the dog
walker above.  Another bird, a juvenile,
left by my chair.  The sighing windchimes
sometimes tinkle—a hat floating in the Snake
      somewhere in Idaho.


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1:  Power Outage

It was her first hurricane—
if only a Cat 1.  The worst of it
came late that night.  I stood
by the window, thinking
to worry—then blindly reassured,
      somewhat.


2:  La tourista españa

She lit a filter cigarette, then
exhaled and pulled her legs
against her smallish breasts—
beneath a little pink umbrella
bracing against the onshore breeze.


3:  Little Girl in Pink Bathing Suit

At first chance she slips from
her mother's sight and streaks
down the beach.  Engulfed by
the first wavelet, she returns,
sobbing, in her father's arms.


4:  (tall, thin, blonde)
     Woman in Orange Sarong

(breeze)
on a white sand beach— seaweed
remnants at water's edge; the tide's
      reach.

(surfbreak and foam)
swell followed by swell by swell
by Caribbean blue; deep water
a deepened blue; horizon.

(Cozumel)
the cloud burdened sky—above
emptying to a cloudless blue.

She passes from left to right.


5:  Sur la playa

Old Goat comes to the beach
and situates his young wife
in sandy prominence.  Beach
towels are splayed.  A small

umbrella is muscled into sand.
In swimwear Old Goat displays
he still has much to admire—
as he sunscreens her glistening
      buttocks.


6:  The Night

An illumined palm, poolside,
reaching its fronds into the
      evening breeze—
clouds rising above, below
fixed astronomies.  A palm
fans its fronds in a marriage to
      the evening's caress.


7:  38th y la playa

En una calle rica
at the edge of
the third world
small waves break
as children scream
      with delight.


8:  38th & 5th

En una calle rica
at the edge of the third world
along the sidewalk and the hotel's
thick wall—refuse, storm debris,
      spent blossoms.


9:  Happy Hour (WiFi spot)

Relaxing at a beach bar on the
sunny Yucatán, ping pong sounds
repeat behind us—as I peruse
some of my poems from the internet
without so much as a moment's
      pause.


10:  Air Travel

Pondering the odd, mixed geometry
of Texas from 30-some thousand feet,
the happy lives in progress below (unaware)
—thunderheads rising (around us);
smaller clouds affixed below (untethered);
      the soothing turbulence.


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1:  Sacramento

Mexican gardener in the afternoon
heat—hooded sweatshirt, leafblower,
intermittent hum rumble, then none.
The sounds of my grandson—
horseplay in his plastic pool.


2:  Curtis Park

A slight breeze disturbs
a stillness in the sycamores.
Sunday morning leisure—
a park in repose.  The morning
glories electric blue salutations.


3:  Grass Valley (moon shadow)

The evening sheltered by
grandiose pines (black silhouettes,
black silhouettes).  The moon
tangled in an old, spreading oak.
Crickets, stars, dark splendor.


4:  Sacramento

Drifting in the grand munificence
of an August dusk—swigging
a cold beer in the backyard.
Watching the light come on
in various windows, spreading
      the night.


5:  Words Spoken in French

Following the steps of a younger
man with a dark-haired chest
as he slips into the quiet pool
to speak with his beautiful
      daughter.


6:  By the Hotel Pool

Small clouds drifting by
above a plethora of palm
fronds.  An aptly blue sky,
white umbrellas.  Fountain song,
birdsong, bird of paradise.


7:  Version Galore

Lingering at dusk
on a windy beach.
Reggae music drifting
across the Caribbean.
Clearly the coco palms

are dancing above
the empty beach bar
where I stop to consider
stopping to consider.


8:  Soaring

A single frigate drifts beneath
a clouded sky, above
the other birds, above
the palmy shore, above
the many swimmers who
      pay no attention.


9:  Unbuffered Speech

Dusk.  Growing stillness.
Silhouettes of palms against
a darkening cielo.  An older
couple conversing in endless
Spanish in an otherwise empty
      hotel pool.


10:  Mexican Night

Waves lapping the beach.  Ceiling
fan hum and air conditioner drone.
Rodents.  Drunkards.  Raccoons.
Empty beer can placed softly
on smooth stone.  Birds at dawn.


11:  No Clavados

Most of the younger women
have bared much of their buttocks.
Most of the older women have left
their breasts to fend for themselves.
A quiet day at the pool, drinking,
      listening, watching.

Most of the younger men have
swept their skin with tattoos.
Most of the older men have
clearly lived a fine, fat life.
Hair, chest hair, genital pouch,
      the lack thereof.


12:  Dallying at the Bar While
       My Species Destroys the Planet

So much depends upon a young
gregarious bartender.  Not just:
Hola.  Buenos tardés.  Not just:
¿Uno mas cervaza?  No—a black
butterfly lands on the salted lip
      of my shot glass.


13:  Trio (Zika in Tulum)

A trio of frigate birds
soaring in a cloud drift
sky.  Sunset coloring.
Above the palmy shoreline,

above the Mexicans on
the rocks offshore, as I
scratch the mosquito bites
accumulating on my calves.


14:  After Gyozan

Without much pain or hardship
I've reached my 67th year.
Today:  a late summer breeze,
riding my daughter's bike,
another birthday cake.  Avid
      joy.


15:  Epilogue (Donner Lake)

Suddenly the rumble of
a long train struggling
to climb Donner Summit.
The long history of
recent years ever present
on a summer afternoon.

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1:  On Arrival

Mosquitoes are feasting on the plump
sweetness of my thigh meat.  What is
the point of leg hair?  Our room
trembles with the lower end of
beach music.  The vacation begins!


2:  All-Inclusive

Fat woman stands smoking, unable
to placate her ample breasts—
lounged, her husband ablaze
in sunscreen.  Only skinny man
on the beach passes behind her.


3:  Moment of Density

An iguana and a blackbird
in the greenspace beside the road.
Hotel trams pass by as if nothing.
The jungle presses its vast wall
of density to the sidewalk's edge.


4:  Moment of Longing

Those things that make sound
in the night—not cars or trucks
(the highway's roar).  Those
things that sound the night long
for when the world once again
      belongs to them.


5:  Iguana Crawling into Poolside Bar

She was British.  The birdsong
annoyed her.  She said so.  Her
husband worked crosswords and
smoked beside a lovely pool
crowded by inconsiderate jungle.


6:  Moment of Quiet

The bartender speaks in Spanish,
smiles, then English.  The waiter
speaks in Spanish, smiles, then
English.  The reason I come here
(what I enjoy...) I don't understand
        what anyone says.


7:  Destination of Choice

A group of palms I wish
to see each next year as life
continues to dribble past—
water feature sound, birdsong,
beach boom-boom.  Nadadores
      hablando en español.


8:  Promenade

Sunday afternoon on the avenue.
Families en regalia, young couples,
girls with dogs, boys with balls,
mixed groups strolling through

the merchants, the restaurants
and empty bars, tatoo parlors
and smoke shops, convenience
stores—the odd thing is,
      no one falls down.


9:  Self-Portrait as an Old Man
      I Don't Recognize

Bird of Paradise, birds of
paradise—birdsong.
Swaying palms.  Fronds
swaying.  One wonders why
paradise must be so warm.


10:  Moment of Blue and Yellow

What more was there to do
other than bob in Mar Caribe
watching sailboats drift by,
the jetskiers, the very yellow
      outer buoys.


11:  Self-Portrait With a Small Sense of Terror

Happy hour at the bar
we often favor, enjoying
a cocktail no longer on
the menu.  We exchange
details of our distant life

with the bartender—similar
on a limited financial scale.
At a table, three beautiful women
sharing drinks with two,
ugly men.  Big screen futból.



12:  Moment of Earnestness

Happy hour, three women poolside,
discussing what might improve
their lives.  Two women, pool steps,
excited—recent data clearly

improves their worklife.  Various
insects float in the pool.  I long
for the orange/magenta pool toy
there on a nearby balcony.


13:  Self-Portrait as Unrepentant Tourists

A couple lounged beside the pool,
reading—she, a murder mystery.
He, poetry.  Pleasant sounds fall
from the water feature.  Slight

breeze stirring the bird-of-para-
dise—startling flowers.
Startling words on each page.
A couple lying beside the pool,
      reading.


14:  Moment of Nothing

A man and a woman
lounging in the pool
—the other guests
having gone to dinner.

Two empty cocktails
sitting at pool edge.
Some towels, closed
umbrellas, beach boom-boom,
      ardent mosquitoes.


15:  Sex and Wealth

A couple lying by the pool
—he face down, she face up.
He dozing, she reading from
her phone.  She reveals her
crotch.  The rich copter
      overhead.


16:  So Much Nice About Now

Opening the eyes to a torn
palapa—shards of blue.
So much nice about now.
Cloud bank above Cozumel
below a couple parasailing.
      Often, now, not so nice.


17:  Moment of Clarity

The ferry docked.  The diesel
resumes (headrush).  Got into
a line for the stairs.  Squeezed
into merged.  Fled the rising
metal ramp to the pier.
      Joined the crowd.


18:  Self-Portrait as Man with Chest Hair
        From Armpit to Armpit

A quad covered with policía
municipal (flashing teeth
and laughing) races up the beach.
A small man begs to take me

fishing.  A beautiful woman
(beautiful suit) exits the water—
the multi-blue sea her background
above white sand and wavelets
      (white birds).


19:  Moment of Feline Delight

Lounging in the pool with
two drunk girls—happy hour
long gone.  Loud talk.  Pool
lights.  Lit palms.  A family
of feral cats feasting on what
      the girls left behind.


20:  Moment of Wet Wonderment

Raindrops falling on the pool—small
episodes of concentric geometry
—the tiny backsplash.  The guests
have fled to their rooms, or the bar.
My wife's wet head held above
      the waterline.


21:  Self-Portrait as Shit-Faced Dumbfuck
      Scratching His Large Nuts Poolside

What more was there to do...
than consider life's inarticulate
insistence that one moment should
follow another.  And why that
would be so.  And why, that, should
      be so.


22:  Moment of Not Anything

What can you say for the living
that you can't say for the dead?
A smooth flight home admist
much coughing.  Waking this morning

to a dense cold and a harsh voice.
What can you say about the dead
that you can't say about the living
that explains anything?


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0:  —Jisso  1851-1904 *

Fifty-four years I've entered
Horses, donkeys, saving limitless beings.
Now, farewell, farewell!
And don't forget—apply yourselves.


1:  Palm Springs

A condo veranda.  Slim palms
line the walkways, breeze.  Road
noise.  Birds.  Birdsong.  Ice
tinkling in my morning sake.


2:  San Jacinto

A condo veranda.  Palms
rising like anchored birds.
Rising desert mountains
adorned with brown stones.


3:  Dinner at Charlie's

Loco Charlie's Mexican Grill:
our waiter, enormous, frescoed
with tattoo.  As they said good-bye
a large group of burly old men
laughing, hugging, kissing.


4:  Desert Rain **

First there is a mountain
then there is no mountain
then there is.  First there is
a mountain, then there is
no mountain, then there is.


5:  Satori in Produce

He pushing the cart.  He
reading from their list.
Our shared facination:
exotic fruit.  Cherimoya,
rambutan, Buddha's hand.


6:  Desert Wind:1

One woman reading in
a lounge chair.  One
woman relaxing in
the spa.  Only sound—
wind through the palm
      fronds.


7:  White Chrysanthemum

Alone on the veranda.  Only
fronds drift in this morning
sky.  Listless, serene, then...
Someone has placed a new pot
in the sun, near the railing.


8:  Bougainvilla:1

A condo veranda.  A glass
of wine.  A sadly gray power
transformer nestled between
a trio of palms.  Magenta spray.
A hummingbird hovering.


9:  Desert Wind:2

One woman reading in
a lounge chair.  One woman
swimming in the pool.  Wind
dancing on the water.  Wind
fanning through the palms.


10:  Bougainvilla:2

Morning on the veranda.
A glass of rice wine. A yawn.
Mexican laborers wearing
woven hats.  Spanish spoken
sweetly.  Leaf blowers drone.


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*  Kenneth Rexroth:  'One Hundred More Poems
     from the Japanese'

**  veranda memories:  first a Buddhist saying
      by Qingyuan Weixin, more recently a song
      by Donovan Leitch.

1:  The Evening Light Lighting the Aspen

A cooling wind now lessens
the afternoon heat.  Having
slipped into the mountains
for solace—rocking in a chair
on the old, cabin porch.


2:  Brothers

Rocking in a chair on the
cabin porch, musing.  A group
of boys playing on a grassy
sweep, taunting one another.
Dad stands by a picnic table,
      finishing dinner.


3:  Summer Idle

Rocking in a chair on the
cabin porch.  Odd how time
consents to slow now and
then—something has built
a web on an aspen limb.

Something I've never seen.


4:  The Poet Reveals His Source

Rocking in a chair on the
cabin porch, a chipmunk
eyeing me from a stone step.
On a cool gust of summer
breeze, the wisp of a poem
      comes to me.


5:    Summer Morning

What other occasion can
promise as much as a clear
mountain morning.  Cloudless
sky, the aspen stilled.  Insects
hovering in the cabin shade.


6:  Vermillion Cliffs

Beauty stands in wonder
purely by the slow notion.
Beauty abounds so simply.
Trembling in the wind, tiny
white flowers surround
      my feet.


7:  Reprise

Hiking now on a desert trail
in the midday heat.  Over abundant
sun.  I pause to wonder where
my fears stem from as my mind
slowly clears from the cicadas'
      love song.


8:  Desert

Endless mountains devoid
of thought.  Endless pylons.
Endless nothing.  The thought
of endless nothing.  Endless
      romance.


9:  Television Screen

6:26 am in a hotel room.
Light slipping in from under
the curtains.  Staring at the
black rectangle, pondering
how abstract my dreams have
      become.


10:  Listless Solitude

… and then something, some small
thing, brings it to an end.  You rise
from a chair, languid with being,
stretch, run your fingers through
your hair and then go on with living.



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Years went by.  Little changed.
Same painting above the bed.
The tireless ceiling fan.  Summer's
heat.  We aged as if nothing
      happened.

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A man on a horse hoping to
lasso a calf.  Twin elk antler
bed lamps.  Serene indian
pastorals.  TV had no signal.
Everything was real clean, dated.

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       Senator Johnson of Wisconsin, who has in the recent past supported the notion
that President Trump has indeed won an election, is grilling Secretary of State
Blinkon regarding the calamity in Afghanistan.  He becomes frustrated.  He
accuses the Biden Administration of being out of touch with reality.  Apparently
there are no adults in the room who might question the validity of his acuity.
I walk off to get another beer, shaking my head.  Oh woe is we...

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1:  Aloft in Santa Cruz

With a little smoke
and a bottle of rice wine
I approach my 72nd year.
Drifting back into a 4th world

where youths scream
affixed to a roller coaster
while waves dutifully crash
upon the crowded beach.



2:  Ostinado

While lying in bed
in a rented beach house

quietly reading with my wife
—the oddness of being

in a different room.
The pleasantness of being

in a different house.
The silence between waves

pounding against the shore,
then an aquatic ostinato...

The questions that arise
from things being different.



3:  Your Average Family's Summer Vacation

Hoping to escape the valley heat
we rented a beach house

near the boardwalk—old,
but nicely refurbished—and

if you listened beyond
the always crashing waves

and the mid-summer's
thickening sea haze,

like clockwork one could
hear the collected screams

flung from the Giant Dipper
now cresting the first rise.



4:  Aloft in the Night

Harbor seals barking to the night.
Somewhere nearby someone
is listening to 50s jazz.
Stepping outside to listen—
running the length of the pier
      party lights.



5:  The Luminous Beings of Santa Cruz

I was sitting in a sidewalk brewery
enjoying a "There Does Not Exist
Return to Earth Coffee/Vanilla Oatmeal Stout"
watching the luminous beings of Santa Cruz

drift by through the tourists and
aging harlequin downtown residents
and the poets heading to the bookstore
and the well-dressed homeless man

who randomly spat torrid insults
at anyone willing to pass by
and at that moment I felt inclined
to agree with the chalk-marked sign

at the corner of Pacific & Cathcart which
read:  you are exactly where you need to be.



6:  And Now It's Your Turn To Be 60

It now seems it all lead to this:
you drive a utility cart casually
through the little ins and outs
on the boardwalk arcade

with an earpiece in your ear,
a coiled cord leading to
an object affixed to your
left hip.  Generally the topic

is listless chatter, boredom,
until you are directed to quell
a minor issue currently occurring
behind the Tilt-A-Whirl.  And

each little time that little regret
you know as your life, it grows
      a little bigger.



7:  Henry Cowell1 / Henry Cowell2

The sudden wonder of a redwood grove.
Burn scars.  Jagged roots.  Dense silence.
The heavy metal clang of a struggling
steam engine drawing the logs away.
( Henry went to prison over a blowjob. )

1 Henry Cowell State Park (CA)
2 Henry Cowell, American composer


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The usual first-night alterations.
Different bed, small red light
glaring from the flat screen.
Somewhere in the darkness

a bathroom.  Bears lumbering
past our patio in the snowing
dream-fraught quiet.  Nocturne
menaced...



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1:  Seabright

There were special moments
in the cold-wind backyard patio
when the sound of waves crashing
aligned with the screams from
the roller coaster accompanied by

a brief song from the morning grosbeak.


2:  Drifting I

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  A luminous being with
        white hair, thin legs, jogged by.


3:  Drifting II

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  The rich arrived with many
        many bags.


4:  Drifting III

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  Contrails from tiny planes.


5:  Drifting IV

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  A withered old man, like
        myself, walking toward the beach.


6:  Drifting V

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  Listing sailboats traverse
        the bay.


7:  Drifting VI

The sky was layered with long strands
of white clouds—white on blue, drifting,
disappearing to the east, inland.  Across
the street an old house was being
remodeled.  Magazines found in a drawer
        we left last summer.


8:  Pleasanton

Like cars changing lanes on a freeway
among trucks and utility vehicles—
burgers (cows) grazed on steep
hillsides opposite wealthy homes
situated between the hillside oaks.



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Eventually they built mansions along
the lakeshore and christened them
with hyphenated indian names cast
in bronze.  In summer the lake festooned
with speedboats, paddle boarders, skiers
        and the like.


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Sea of grapes straddles the county road.
Occasional farmhouse and windbreaks.
Billboards in Spanish.  Palms line metal
processing sheds.  Darkened roadside
bars, neon windows.  Insistent heat.


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Trade wind nights on the beach,
water lapping.  Open-air bars,
2-story cantinas—tequila, cervaza.
¿Donde esta el baño?  Crowded
street below.  The joy of spending
        a thousand pesos.


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1:  November

A commotion of coots
feeding among the reeds
as they shared the quiet
lagoon with seabirds
and pelicans bathing.


2:  At the Lagoon With Clara

We met a big sweet hound
coupled with a pug.  Saw
a bafflehead feeding—made
sand castles and considered
flying a kite but chose not to.


3:  After Gyozan

With little pain or hardship
I reach my 73rd year.  I'm
losing chunks of my oneness.
Like hair falling out, or my
teeth rotting.  Dimming vision.


4:  The Mission Ranch

We're eating outside beneath
an army of propane heaters.
A woman has taken an infant
away down a dark path.  She
cuddles the child and shakes
        her ass.


5:  Monday, Off Season

I so love the way it feels
to be somewhere else
on a Monday morning.
The quiet.  The routine.
Those few people lingering.


6:  Pizzazz  (After Gyozan)

With little pain or hardship
I reach my 73rd year of this.
The agave outside my window
is sending up a flower spike.
Such a magnificent gesture!


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When I speak the words stumble from
my mouth as if shorn by a lawn mower
removing the audible top end.  At the
empty counter the rental car clerk

is pleasant and somehow exceedingly
slow—all I can recall is to avoid
the HOV lanes.  Transit then presents
itself as quarrelsome at best prior

to the deluge of a sudden curtain-like
squall.  Already I begin to compare this
to the many glorious lives led on a couch.
As we drift along the turnpike, much like

the tender motions of low tide in
the tidepool—wipers in panic as time
         flounders unmoored.


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The night was harsh—my dreams
were not my dreams.  My darkness
was merely frantic.  A commotion
of coots has occupied my heart.


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And what if you found yourself
dead asleep, perhaps dead drunk
at noon in a quiet canal access
as trios of yachts drift by mansions
and palms in the fey fentanyl haze.


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4am—rectangles of diffuse
light.  A commotion has
returned to my heart.  I
slip out onto the balcony
hoping to find listless quiet.


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The semi-equispacing keeps
the flora from crowding.  Little

forests of Joshua trees here
and there for whatever reason.

A low run of pylons at the base
of this gorgeous desert range.

Queer industrial stations with
queer industrial implements,

boxcars adrift.  Failed towns, or
towns failing.  Distant views of little

else.  The larger shrubs anchored
to the roadside or the menaced
        median.


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Two pugs panting in a parking lot
nestled in a stand of stately pines
—aspen crowding the creek bank.


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