Decalibration

Alone all this time, this

thought was there:

sun on leaves,

water pooled together.

One heartbeat later

it washes away.

The sea at night

is the way

you are in my memory:

motionless and yet ever-

moving, very much alive,

very unnerving and

so soothing.

All calm this morning

the full moon set

in the west.  There

I am, so unlike you,

who goes nameless.

Be in the shadows.

Under the dripping honeydew

form and relax.

Crease by day

and by night and

melt into the earth.

Simultaneity

The light in your eyes

will shine in these canyons

for a million years;

the sun is in them,

when once it beat

its wings in you.

And this landscape

will learn to speak,

just as you have.

The longest shadow of

a rock, cast by evening,

will tell everything

to whatever’s listening

then.  You

are and it is

forever.

vida, amor, felicidad

how you amaze me,

with these oh-so-simple stories-

like a skip of stone here,

a bend in the road there-

that easy?

An easy answer’s

yes, you’d say,

no distractions, no leaf-counting

this day-

just nothingness evaporating away

in the dusk of citystorms.

Behind the transparent moments alone

or out-loud rhythms at home,

that sometimes shout out

the words

only pictures can tell,

that fingers fold and crinkle,

wonder, when it sets in,

is a marvelous harmony we

well up inside of us, a story

we start to tell

early, in the

dusk of easy dreaming.

Being Born

Summer days are too long

to bear,

their hurt lying in the

deep bedrock built-up from

a year’s sediment.

Get that sense of

immense, dull life ahead and

at the same time

these days too are just

a collection of shallow moments.

But moments that

ache in the quiet afternoon, and

half remember dark nights

yet to come.

The vast, unwatered stillness leads to

a sense of dread

rising up at every thought;

being born feels like dying.

Rise up, rise up and go out.

Hope

There comes a quiet passage

of time on a train,

it arrives about 4 a.m.,

the sky lit like ash,

when the night journey is

halfway through and

halfway begun.

Every dark station and spreading tree

passed by assumes

a fleeting fragility

and stillness.

I dreamed last night

I nearly died and then

awoke today, at the

end of the line,

to rain and

faintly heard birds.

It’s hard to have hope

in such a dark room

where light merely filters in;

barely, haphazardly.

This is my moment,

and I am 5 years old again.

Sunday Afternoon

I

Afternoon darkens

and my camera is

quiet in my palm.

I wanted to shoot

faces, but...

there are only

dead leaves here and

house roofs beyond which

the sun has just sunk,

quiet in my eyes.

I wanted to know faces

and drown in the sun.

II

Afternoon turns

toward evening, I

sense it’s all over.

But dark and gray

before me are our

wind chimes;

flattened spoons

whose swinging

in the pastel light,

the still air,

is memory,

singing.

Celery stalks

The twirl of a

pinprick-

anchored penny

spins alone,

raisins mingle

that the dew day

dawns,

or that honey

tastes.

The splash of

a pool.

Outlasts is a

term I never

use.  And

never say ever,

or never

never danger,

or hold alone

a line I know

I last.

swirulous soldier

morning flurry

kept spun

in the air

la Humedad nueva

I see that

the sea intoxicates-

Everything sways-

with pendulous motion

the pulse of which

beats uninterrupted and

all night long with

swaying palms.

Giraffes and antelopes

throughout the balmy night.

Who can turn

night magic

into day magic?

I can turn

night magic

into day magic.

I can turn

them both together

in the cup of

my palms

and, drinking,

erupt gold and silver

while the sway

of our time

expands effortlessly.

 

Stormed

lightning at my fingertips,

which fills my whole body

as an urn

is filled with ash or water.

then spread me out-

give me to the

wind- empty my mouth

of this useless language

and hang my clothes to the side.

big ocean-

youve grown so old doing nothing

but the same old rolling,

being a tide sometimes,

being cold killers other times. 

Winter Sky

made of mashed-up clouds

of gray,

the blue sky drained away,

the winter sky hung

in folds and shreds

over the grass of my lawn

i spied through the bedroom

window, lifting a blind

to watch a woman jog

past,

with her dog alongside.

Rays of sun in my imagination

shone brightly on the car windows,

reflecting brilliantly

and the green of the leaves. 

Lotus

The mountains

that keep you

were hidden-

entangled in

the skies, in the earth,

in warm sways of currents

atop foaming

wave crests and clouds;

in gummy envelopes

of moss that

merged into the mountains’

deepest pores and

sought the water stored

at the bottom of

their long arms.

The evening always

seemed a mystery,

its edges faded to

purple tatters

after the sun sank.

Then the summer seas

roiled.  And

all the storms,

reflected on

the brightness

of the ocean’s face,

coalesced into a

fantastic night-

breeze, a midnight hurricane

that dreamed up all the islands;

that dreamed of volcanic eruptions

in the landscape among the stars.

From the pacing of the

islands’ graceful rounds

around the mountains

the morning streaked the

sky with yellow and orange-

while the far-off sea

waved in time to their pulse.

Just one more story

underneath the streetlight,

in the bark of the night

im hearing sighing, maybe crying.

my windows seem

to reflect the sounds in

my own soul,

I say to myself,

Listen

to me

and ill listen to You. 

Fierce Love

Etched in the eyes

recorded in their voices

memories, time and moments

Parsed into words,

the grammar of fierce love

remains coded and impermeable

Devotion, care and depth

Amber night lives in

that thought, this second:

an ageless instance,

waterworn, unfettered and

windblown.

Eyes of Artemis

The mystery is 


in the darkness 


in your hunter's gaze.


The islands your eyes 


shy in the ocean breeze.


The tides your feet


skip in the pulse of night,


the sun’s rays scan the 


waves for light,


the stars string themselves


out, and 


your rhythm

keeps them 
in place.

You’re the summerstorm

in my heart,

that the last leaf of autumn

never touches.  You,

time and droplet

bring to one ending,

one place called home.

One river runs

deep as the earth,

as long as the night.

One song becomes the only moment.

Delicioso

Sitting by a chair

absorbed in nothing

comes everything

now your way;

and at every moment

stop-

to the sound that

loves you.

New Place

Now I have seen

the brilliant spread-

the flush, full places,

(coming from a quiet

hall of fluorescent

light).

When that last gap

gave way to my first glimpse,

I gave my last gasp

in the stale, hot air.

Here the inactive light

is reflected in the eyes

of people caught in the

new breath

of their spastic flailing.

Now I have seen it

and suddenly feel

far removed from the harsh,

unspoken words of the last place.