TRAGEDY

It was his absence they desired

and they presumed he would take exile over poison.

He'd been out in the field playing with his junk,

doing his thespian thing.

Things never work out as they should.

Even Dionysus has his bad days.

ON ALERT

You're in a garden cafe.  Let's say 

you're bathed in magnolias and 

sun, enjoying the jacarandas 

and the seared tuna, the pomegranate tea.

In the pastel blue above and everywhere,

black eagles circle on the updraft.  

The family beside you is 

Mediterranean, or "Middle Eastern," 

they explode syllables into their cells,

brag of "shelling" and "Florida."

It's the day after some refugee

set himself aflame like some 

conscientious monk, a jihad botched 

midflight to ecstasy.

The family under the jacaranda

cannot translate their desire, 

they want spinach pie and something

done well and everything on the side.  

Their little girl in pink shoes doesn't speak. 

She sings every word she hears, and dances

in ecstasy, flamingo flamingo flamingo!

The grandfather, gray haired and 

fierce, spies as you write down  these notes.   

You are American.  He doesn't know

that you're writing a poem. He suspects 

you watching him, keeping tabs, and 

you are, but it's the beauty 

that you cannot capture. Your eyes 

meet when you sign the bill.

You keep writing these notes, 

jacaranda, Mediterranean, 

lavender dust, ecstasy,

how the eagles circle lazily,

the honeyed taste of pomegranate

on your lips, the little girl

in pink shoes twirling among 

the patio chairs and singing

flamingo.  When she tumbles, he 

retrieves her from the lavender

flowers he pauses to glare -- is he 

hostile? embarrassed? self-conscious?

You smile at the girl's pink shoes 

and flamingo song, relieved 

to leave this incident, this tableau,

this menacing lexicon, this

delicate beauty.

LAST RESORT

No one speaks English here--it's all

Dutch or Russian or German, some

jibber-jabber gibberish, fat men

in speedos and chains and banana thong

jouncing god knows everywhere!, 

women with dark stones for eyes, 

full breasts swaying like sweet hammocks,

skinny kids sprouting water wings 

and goggles, shivering in the sun

and cute-as-shit chasing mockingbirds 

among the palms.  The poolside music

blares Jamaican, Portuguese jazz, 

Eurotrash and Caribbean punk.

The lady holding court with Bombay gin 

in her cabana explains that the secret 

to her skin is to never be exposed -- 

"I've never had anything done," she chirps, 

repeatedly, like the mockingbirds 

riding the palm fronds, she's 48 

in her turquoise bikini and heels, 

a perfect specimen of a life 

of divorce and co-dependence 

betrayed by her ADD son who 

can't get a job--even the food is 

guttersnipe Cuban and California, 

Mexican esplanade, spicy prawns 

stuck on a cocktail sword, conch shell 

delicacies, tangeray mussels 

and merlot medallions, I'm perched

on the balcony watching the sun

set, drinking cerveza and sucking limes 

while the damned mockingbirds squawk 

and cavort -- there's no oysters or 

crab bisque or lobster rolls with mangoes 

here, it's all room service cheeseburgers 

and french fries, thank you, and my ticket 

out of here, the end of the decade 

as the sun dies and replays its elegy

below lavender and indigo 

blush, jesus!, just in time for the darkness 

and the stars and the cold wind off the gulf.  

ANTEDILUVIAN

Looking out is looking in.

Here in this tabernacle of glass

and pane, a sonata of hijinks

and scuttlebutt floats down the river's

skin, Eurydice's net, an ocelot of 

eyes, bent paint cans, lumber scum,

waterlogged seagulls, bloated

and ostentatious for their survival,

perilous islands where carp

and lovers' reflections from the bridge

drown in tabernacle ecstasy.

Oh!  The joy of unredemptive sun,

our post-modern covenant with

carnal undulations and the wind's

ululations, death and desire,

poached and slipping past

to catch and release, to sigh again.  

PUNTA RASA BAY

                        the dalliance of wind

            in palm trees cool

                                    off Punta Rasa bay

 

 

            we snowbirds

                        stumble out from pancakes

to lay out like sausages

                         sun-desperate savages

 

 

                        the osprey lighthouse

            guardian of the cerulean

                                    circling

circling

 

 

                        circling 

            in his desperation

                                    longing

 

 

            Hurricane Charlies

and cigarette boat wakes

                        lapping shore slapping

 

 

jacaranda and crushed mint

                        the lone swimmer, seal skin

            glistening slow lapping

 

 

                        desire, habit, work

            breaststroke desire

                                    bobbing

 

 

incipience!          insouciance!

            insolent somnambulance

                       

 

                        the dolphin watch insistent

            among the strangers

                                    sweet melons          cabanas

 

 

the soul's languish

            ardor in latitudes, succulent

memories          memory and flesh

 

 

                                    language!

            languid bilabials

                        dispelling rumpled shame

            unfurling in the wind

 

 

                        shoreline tides 

whispering            whispering

            sucking, slurping the passionfruit

                        Aztec heat!

 

 

            worshipping snowbirds

exaltant exultations

                        heed this raucous serenity, this

            sleepwalking significance

 

 

luxuriant disorder

                                    oleander, the jealousy

            wind dalliance

                        in palm tree arousing

eros in sway, a blessing

                        lurid and bootylicious

 

 

            banana thongs poolside

                        it's coming, commingling

abeyance in slatitude

            the swansong surrender              beware!

 

 

                        the surrender!

silky acquiescence

            in the pent penitent              slathering

 

 

                                    abandonment

                        of it all, surrender!         relinquish!

                                                sweet sunblind meditation

 

 

and succulence

                        meditative prurience

            dying in the sun sky

                                    again