Nyah, Nyah El Niño

Santa Anas
California again
Wild winter winds
Clear blue sky
Quite trite words
Flags fully furled
Flying garbage bags
Impaled on the grill of a
Speeding ‘67 Camaro
Flapping and screaming in only
A gruff plastic voice
Coursing to be let free
At the next light
One lonely cloud
Moving!
High desert winds
The sun a golden glow
The painterly angle
Inviting environs
A landscape tableau
Walkways alive with the flow
Of the mountains’ detritus
Urban jetsam
Flotsam too
Alive and moving
Glowing edges
Sky and crud
Birds struggling against invisible wings
Just to get home
Dirt swirls
Streaked palms
Fronds horizontal
Hair all mussed and agog
Clothes flapping open
Frumpled and askew
Whipping to an invisible tormentor
The full horizon
Everything sways
Glistening in the crisp wind
Wild, wonderful
Alive

Toejam Football

I’m crudding out
Diamphomous layours of lower extremity collectives
Dark black / inner fourth toe
Smelly tar-like snot
Touch a glob of this toxic mess and you’re like gone, man
Lethal sport

Abe’s Last Drink

I’m thinkin
Thinkin bout Abraham Lincoln
And what he might have been drinkin
During the intermission before he got shot

Haiku-rama

Hazy Fujiyama, white crane resting one-legged in the pond
Haiku rake, zen garden serenity
Bullet train, walkman, tamagotchi
“Yes, we are most Dodger fan”
The dutiful geisha wife slips on her kimono while watching MTV
She slides the shoji panel open as her husband loosens his Nike’s
They celebrate their parents’ tea ceremony, with tequila

there’s
all these things
I can do
find the time
no can do

I had the lines
the words
the rhythm
the beat
the dancestep
but I forgot ‘em.

planes buzz, arcs leading where?
dogs bark a high lonesome wailing
late reminisces, half life
waves distant crashing
moon diving into its reflection
sinuous rasping of a battery clock keeping steady pace
cacophony of motors’ industrialized cycles
mixing like a swoosh of audible light
alto grinding of the porcelain cup finding the saucer’s recessed center
before the brown liquid languidly flows in Hopper’s nighthawks diner
real time whooshes and grinds
late night drunks expounding on the efficacies
hot sidewalk lovemaking under a street light
oh yes, oh yes…
the whispering fade as tires kidnap the macadam

there’s that
rat-a-tat-tat
helicopter flatulence
that hovers nearby, then
recedes, then
attacking again repeatedly
like an angry loud insect
repeatedly
automically repeating repeatedly
beyond human endurance
repeating repeatedly beyond all reason and
control, then suddenly
nothing

the sky is blue
the horizon brown
at 2 o’clock it’s white.
long cool women
in brown bikinis
dash next to traffic.
the phone is in the
window
95 for a week.

I drink wine / my tongue stays dry
I smoke pot / I can’t get high
what’s my problem? / am I so inundated
my residue is saturated?
I’ve learned lots / enough to progress
and realize / it’s shallowness
should I strive? / that higher reality
hello, immortality?

old roofs of baseball
gone forever
your green mantels
your steel post rivets
the blocked view
mitts left afield
photographers right there
baggy uniforms
flannel numerals
serendipity
angst
valor
gamesmanship
rivalry

What did you see me do?
A half-gaynor in the parking lot on the black ice
O’er the terminal moraine
Or lick the jello out of your navel
And replace it with a diamond
No more furtive glances
No more sucking pert breasts
No thrilling newness
Spontaneity’s slashed and sputtered
The battlements drawn high
Same old luxury suite
Big book-walled trophy rooms
Thick leathered chairs
Snoozing mastodons
Legs serving martinis
Fresh
Cleavage fragrance

hot peach electric gold
the sky, a baby-powdered cerulean backdrop
to the tainted puffs of crescent light
departing to purple shadows, wisps of movement
a lonely bird sings in grandeur
the hues intensify… and erase
silhouettes filigree - all life dims
ornithic responses in elated rapture
“the colors of the sky they’re going now…”
“yes i know, ain’t it great?”
“it’s great yeah… it’s great yeah… it’s great yeah…”
“me too… me too… me too… me too…”
just quite revelatory
yep… yep… yep… yep… yep
the show has faded, one lonely voice remains
“so what’s happening
don’t leave me here
ok? ok? ok?”
not pastel tonight.
still chirp, chirp, chirp…

47 chevy fleetline
black round curvaceous gleaming
deco triple-ridge chrome trim
faux pontiac hood airfoil
alabaster wheel gripped loosely
adjustable roof visor
hanging exterior mirror
wide white walls
no skirts
those petite taillights
the stale air of time riding in the plump back seat
high and majestic
round round
with miles to go

cataclysm and doom
rapturous folly
trash and clothes unexpectedly littering main streets
commuters swerve, stinking piles
gulls picking for scraps
what’s happening?
end of the world prevarication?
so,
where’s all my money?
water, gas @ $1.23/gl, candles
got enough batt ries?
better be good, I say
just hours and counting
18.5 even less hours still waiting
backgrounds to celebrations
still nothing yet good news bad news
hype baby hype
everything’s gonna be ok
just sit back, watch and enjoy
even dick’ll do his regular rockin countdown
then sneak away for a burger’n 2 beers
just like usual
welded sewer covers
end of the world and it’s raining
can you believe it?
dark clouds obliterate the schoonhaven mural skies
still…quiet
apocalypse earthquake weather
noisemakers and glitter hats
bursting champagne
quick feels and loose libidos
bonfires beckoning the end
a cold shiver as darkness prevails
tense anticipation
gotta pee?
the plumbing’s backed up, the heat is gone
all our matches are wet
the tv’s failing, what’s next?
look, something’s breaking down our back fence
what’s happening, more rioting at costco?
flooding, foundations cracking, pestilence
further tumultuous times
military reactor snafus
major phone congestion in asia
icbm’s floundering randomly through the stratosphere
a run on vodka, even
giraffes foraging the boulevards
the century’s ending, and
nothing’s staying the same
they’re dancing on the beach in kiribati
the first ones to go
entire sydney harbor aflame, instantly aglow
an opera altar in beijing
eiffel’s magnificent eyeful
london’s river of fire
2 million times, square wackos
poor, lame l.a., is that it?
and seattle’s snoozefest poop-out
yet, never too safe
all singing ancient ceremonial songs
the world, burning, as one
the sun is out
just another day
time, what time?
only the cosmos can say