3 of us.
one at one end of the bar,
the other at the opposite corner,
me in the middle.
we are the ones that
didn't learn from past mistakes.

store clerk, janitor, fortune teller,
Insomniac, lost soul,
who knows.
truth is found in the silence
of minding your own business.

we didn't come here to talk to one another.

the bottle or glass
held with fingers too tightly.
the bottle or glass has a kind heart
understands
this is sanctuary
from memories stitched to bone
like shadows scattering....

(a flash of lightning, a splintering boom)

and then she walks in.
a rift in the barrier of worlds.

she bends the light, deepens the silence.

she spoke with a voice like the morning dove
with a melody that forgets your name.

she glides. each step deliberate, unhurried.

we turn, and bone shadows in a hush
whisper,
" beautiful"

and she knows it
too well.

the dream walker
lifts the veils of moonlit memory
and time unthreads
into the first shiver of love
that lures men to madness.             

and now done, suddenly
she turns around,

and walks out the door
(a flash of lightning, a roll of thunder).

the blinding white light
our hollow sky in disarray....

..."bartender, get me another double, and one,
for my 2 friends.

Charlie was in the hospital dying,
unconscious, and he says,
I'll have a margarita."

"hey, I knew Charlie."

"me, too." and then he says,
"my stock broker..."

undisturbed by light they sharpen the intelligence
of networks to the point of the sublime
they pierce their consciousness with awe
the mystery of mysteries envisioned,  
a jouissance beyond words in a silicon child

however, the thing is 
the mythical map of light keeps its tracks hidden
as on the face of a pre Columbian god

a fresh god is ramping up our poetical mind
it chews surrogates of photons, it fears only the solar winds
my right eye sees beauty my left eye sees fake
as in the remake of a mimetic lesson
a falsetto voice reclaims the original sin

we are trapped in the structure of a vision without windows
a bionic arm displaces the soul of the skin
meanwhile we are thermodynamic fields fading
diluted waters, double edged refrains
although our skin still glows from the outside in
clouds without shadow are narrowing the rivers

we forget to take our body temperature,
the result of millions trials in the chemistry of time
who can escape the rythm of dying, who can escape the real
and not yet real. the pretence falsifies algorithms to loose its face
we are walking into the artificial light with wifi speed

pain, fear, joy make us real, all the imperfections and hyped hours

light dissects this body of binary beings
digital space consumes our sight blink by blink but we consume the time of dying  souls get amassed into digits
the delirium of crowds, small or large, rules the salinity of tears
something has already happenned
we bled,  went mad, have loved, we lost fights, faiths and teeth
now an invisible poet knits the dots with supremacy
it uses the tests for saliva and oxytocin cravings

who's gonna train our neural networks in deep learning inconclusive. what if time is tightening its loops, is
squashing every halleluja of  bipolar fingers

trees will just have to grow taller to comprehend
the mystical breeze what if
we'll never grow as tall as them

Mortgage-bruised pilgrims
linger along Silver Strand,
pop caps against plywood boarding,
edges furred with salt-rust flakes
from storms that chewed the pier.

Seabee retirees
swap tide updates on porch steps;
third-generation surfers
stitch wax into their palms
and still call this south jetty 'church'.

Here my son and I rinsed sand
from our ankles with a garden hose,
him shrieking, laughing, shivering
when cold bit his feet.

I once yelled at him, raging
for dropping keys into surf,
as if that mattered more
than a day of chasing, wrestling in the tide.
He doesn’t remember.
I can’t forget.

Now, he’s taller than me,
vanishing downshore.

I stand outside, voices rise
in the salt-hard wind.
Barbecue smoke drifts
from driveways, tailgates,
settles into dusk-lit lawn chairs.

Boarded bungalows peel to raw board,
splintering porch rails;
nails weep orange along the grain.

A bike frame, chainless,
reddens into memory beside dune grass
still gripping sand.

There is grace in forgetting:
a tide lowers its voice,
sand swallows what was said.

I carry your hands like waves breaking on the skin
your eyes get flammable like capsicum on innocent tongue
I have long conversations with this boiling sea
the sea bears the roundness of the moon
the moon reveals its wounds
the wounds shed their skins to feed
an undiscovered earth

Who could ask for more?
than to sit beside the river
on it's perpetual,headlong journey,
in the green and verdant valley of the Wye.
Where the ever changing seasons
in their rich and timeless harmony
bring a new delight to please the eye.
Where meadows,rich and fertile,
reach up to meet the woodland
standing proud and green against the sky.
See the salmon catch the sunlight,
hear the constant conversations
of the bird life as they swoop and soar so high.
Smell the sweet scent of the leaf mould
catch the spirit of the moment
who could ask for more?
Not I.

i follow pain everywhere she wants to take me
she reveals a cosmos in a tear,
the layers of time kept together by the vitality of light.
silences rest in between our dreams
the clouds are enough for the wind
branches enough for the birds
love is holding its antonyms with gentleness
i follow pain into the camera obscura of hope
wars are trapped in the flash of words without flesh.
the lament in the loops of time, so much

my skin is listening: this
edge of a breath that engulfs us
the hours reclaim their elements
earth, water, air, fire
we don't banish ether from our eyes
with you an apple is a riddle
answers are not separated from questions
some mantras deepen the circle of
what I would say without words

when I closed my eyes I saw her,
the woman traversing his dreams
like the verticality of forests
the one breaking into many
she knits the storms in his fingers
keeps the poems of dawn composed
like the sea keeps the horizon folded into itself
she wears different densities of perfume or none at all
the intensity a mirror, the warmth tangible
and unsure like a velvet smile
her bodies a road map into the serenity of clouds
she is hot like the sand - it is always wild in the light
she fills his skin with her everything again
blackness collapses into wonder
she keeps piercing the name of pain
the semiotic self is rippling into the clarity
of clay

when I close my eyes I saw him
the man traversing her dreams
the one breaking into many
echoes fractals aches &
the vitality of blues