One More Evil Trifle for Your Deluded Senses

 

A report from the edge of night

A report from the edge of night: Bikini clad girl immerses herself in the waves, the surface looks like silver strands. She adjusts her top and dives under the curling water. Someone methodically breaks down a beach umbrella, clack, clack, noises almost like shells and stones rinsed by the surf. A father holds his son’s hand as the small boy goes round and round and round his father. Now the sand looking like aluminum in the fading light, streaming sheets of water put up by the surf. There is a claw of a cloud that raises up to grasp at the half moon, but it is untouchable.

In the fading light at the beach, it becomes light purple. On the horizon are rain clouds, across this view teenagers run to the surf. They grab each other’s hands and run back up away from the waves screaming. In the fading light a solitary beachgoer doomscrolls, then they put the phone down. They sink into a trance, resting their chin on one hand. They’ve connected with the horizon and the rain on the edge of view with the fading light. More people appear talking and talking … ready to take pictures of themselves, then forgetting in the fading purple light and the smell of the ocean overtakes thoughts, pretense, assumptions, perfume. The half moon overhead, over everyone’s shoulders. It smolders like a white ember in the sky, or possibly it signifies a clock half run to some end. The solitary beachgoer grabs their shoes, and goes.

— -

Cove Beach

we can / wait

we can

wait

whenever

i wear

eddie bauer

everyone 

stares at me

then i see

they are not

staring at 

me

if you die

before me

i will become

a vagabond

in laguna beach

strolling at dusk

homeless/ half way

homeless

bathing in the

ocean caring not

of any social

conventions

that is what

i would do

----

we accuse each other/ of living mediocre lives

we accuse each other
of living mediocre lives

almost posting about it

thinking it could be funny

we are quite content actually

with our heroic hearts

and our unfulfilled fancy dreams

have a sense of fulfillment 

because of so 

but if we are not satisfied

we could still write a poem

with perfect freedom

to see through thus

---

for Deborah 

The wind blows down the riverbed, there’s no water in it now

The wind blows down the riverbed, there’s no water in it now. I've gone over the fence. I sit on the River, on the sand. The wind is the only thing flowing but I know there’s water underneath going to the sea. The sand is rough with hard white flecks in it. You can see where animals pass, birds, coyotes, deer, and the wind blows up the river banks from the sea. The cars going over the bridge here sound like waves, the cars and people in them as unknowing and impartial to the river as waves at the ocean driving suffers and boats or people into the river even into death or revere on a pleasant day like this one. Sirens far away going further. Gold flecks on rocks then silence. The wind blows harder, it is so true, so reassuring. It will always be this way, forever and forever. Even after it has ceased to be.

I wasn’t very good at writing though I thought I could be

I wasn’t very good at writing though I thought I could be, even great, but still I wrote “Ruth” or “Rita” with all my heart until I believed it somehow the same as the truth. More lust and lost ambition than anything, really. I can recognize this without regret, I’ve climbed and climbed to even higher thinner grassy vales. But here you can see the sky turn deep night blue, and not even think because everything is laid out in a great golden swath. Tall and low equal, along with the fearful, the brave and the fools. Then there’s a million million stars below and above. And we are in the stars and they are us.

I get older and I stop believing in anything

I get older and I stop believing in anything. Or believing I can do anything normal. Like I can’t be natural, I can’t go anywhere and be relaxed and not thinking something. Always making up some boring bullshit mental activity. And it is true, yet false. I do think too much, I do wallpaper reality too much with what I think it is — based off by my self thinking. But the moment can get though, and when it does it is sudden like a plate breaking, or a vampire being turned to dust with a single ray of sunlight. What a release!

Before

before you'd have 

nothing to do with me

i thought we were friends 

but some friendships  

fade over time 

just like in the sky 

or in a great tree

culled by time there's

something natural 

in the departing 

even if i wanted 

this to last forever

things come and go

and i don't know

all the answers 

though if i see you

you'll be in my 

grateful heart

never separated

always here 

just like always 

a sky that i can't describe

 

a sky that i can't describe
so let me try to put it
into words 
this evening 
no i can't

i spoke to an empty room

i spoke to an empty room
but it was your phone
but it was an empty room

i did this for many years
as if speaking words to someone
but it was just an empty room 

i hope you are satisfied
with the thought of this 

even one day say
you spoke in vain 
to an empty room

i was not there at all
for all your speaking 

but part of you
was there 

so thank you 

for the room

and may all

our heartfelt 

dreams 

come true

----

SoCAL

8.1.23