52

Elegant chill of April,
patrician chill of April.
Restrained hesitance,
adolescence, poignant, unrepeatable –
or repetitious – stillness.

Can’t control the mind, mind
leads to God – or Devil.
Truck mind – let’s explore.
Tired mind. Heat. Stillness. Chill.

Heavy machinery. I lift, forklift.
ILife, I dude, I write, I still.
Shovel, rake, hoe, clippers.
Landscape.

embrace every particle of ground
with mucus foot
asphalt unpleasant

don’t look up
don’t look for sky effects reflected
in the glint of puddled earth

don’t ask about the blue
just love the rain
its intimate ticking on my car shell roof

impenetrable secrets
rapacious birds
grass everywhere

first flush
tea green

is it gringo? is it local?
is it tainted? is it poisoned?
is it a photograph? a portrait? a container?
is it a town, a road? is it a hotel, a place to stay, a ranch, a desert?
is it wilderness or is it populated?
small mammals, do they drink the dew?

to not care
watch the ice shelf fall
see the earth productive
until the sun dies or
the sun dies from my eyes
whichever comes first

not in the blood or Present Moment
weaving on a paper loom
that’s naught but warp (or weft?)
when I’m done
nothing’s left
voices trail away

re-erect the scaffold of my word life
less words than rhythm of my privacy

like calling a spring “water”
like calling a sky “air”

relaxation drains from prancing limbs
forms a pool on the stone floor

stone sink in the plaza watering
your sins with relaxation

hardly paradise –
you don’t hunt except surprise

blue room
metallic surf with pelicans
magnificent frigates sail then shimmy shake and plunge
kleptoparasitic
essentially of air

Raimundo sings while working
pigs in the neighborhood
tame ones
wild ones
plumeria blossoms lit with passing light

pang remembered horse
in dusty twilight
prance limbs backlit
rider whom
I thought was in command

men with machetes hack a hole in it
straw drinks the water out
sharp scrapers filet fish flesh into a plastic bag
then doctored with weird condiments
* limes (a special squeezer)
* red sauce (apricot and chili)
almost nauseatingly strange
eating coco frio’s slippery bites
I left some in the rental car

the vacationer’s fear of writing
the vacationer’s fear of being pulled back in
the vacationer’s desire to stay unknown
the unknown traveler wanting to be cool
the gregarious adventurer wanting to retreat

smart aleck surf alert
smog alarm smoke ahem

speaking – the traveler’s fear of March

work – woke up in one world

still trying to still
still trying to still
the murderous heart
now folded back between
its boney wings
admiring sirens
and enamored of disaster
it can’t be cured of
wanting to quicken
quicken quicken
quack quack
every vein

now I’m trying to end it
pace being too fast
and heartbeat too relentless

Moving forward heart aggressive

springs out of my chest
shoves aside my breasts
bursts the bounds of bra (or busts)
lies there hardening raw in air
texture of dried beef (it’s jerky)

dark blood color, failed,
an awkward stone, organic and obscure

we are no different from the plants in our avidity

Poetry: my daughter
a purchase, something changes hands
blue, green, bronze

Poetry: my children saved me
split shifts, nine or ten more days
the sleeping garden

Poetry: long correspondence
postcard, Quiet Mind
a force of isolation,
to swim underwater mostly

Poetry: headache
constant snow
the optic nerve

Poetry: the dog with you

Looking for focus, but focus is not there,
due to a disorder of the optic nerve.
Looks like rows of flags hung off a yacht.
Sometimes the floors are level, sometimes not.

There are trains. You can get on one.
There are absolutes, hug them, clutch them.
Can you sit through this?

Straw, bricks, gold. Do I have contact
with these things? Yes, mulch
in the garden, red bricks edge
the garden path, gold design around
the edge of plates. Truly brilliant,
flawed.

I have questions. I am inquisitive,
but frightened. Spontaneity walled.
I am already in a foreign country,
staying a long time.