Dango

an earth-mad tide

the streets were dirt, shuffled and aromatic, though
conjested with tourists a couple turns would take you
to some trees and a small relaxed table and chairs
an old thai woman, big steel fry pan in hand, noodles
or beef and chiles, any dish, dogs lazing in the heat
the palm studded sway of the tropics,
just a short walk from one of two bays, as if
this island had been doubly blessed by the gods
two hilly rocky mountains joined by this
paradisical spit, everything relaxed as nowhere else
in Thai, no cars, hence the sense of timelessness
and old Thai despite the crowding, here you could
almost forget the downside of third world asia
forgetting the words of the old fishermen
who through generations prized their hillside
houses, wedlocked to solid rock
no flimsy no-code stalls or bungalows
to be swept in a sickening shuffle
by an earth-mad tide.

(for Koh Phi-Phi, in memorium)

paint without numbers

Here I have the chance, yes
of course life is full of precipices,
seeming long jumps off heights
that invariably lead to higher places
if you want them to

Yesterday I had that sinking feeling
so common those years after college,
when I was doing work
beyond laughable, yet serious
taking home my seriously small pay check
and spending it on a burrito or such

the sense that even this small job must be held
onto tight like the slithery tail of a silvery fish
in the milling, cut your throat with an `excuse me bro`
world of beach town, california

how can I explain that feeling,
living 20 meters from the beach
one should not feel such anxiety, should not
be so trapped, but there it was, that black
debilitating anxiety again and again

the girls outside my window jogging,
following the eroded line of the coast
somewhat wealthy neighbors right and left,
leisure folk, most retired
and I with a pounding heart choking
down a kind of bile, that beyond angry
urge to paint it all another color

leaving Santa Cruz

Then I found what I was looking for,
I wasn`t looking very hard I admit,
that`s when I always find something to fill this frame
more than the the same old blues that never fit,
hanging floppy over ears and eyes,
rags that railed and raged
as they fluttered and tangled in the wind
disguising an almost conservative sense of balance
and biding one`s time among the hurly burly
water-wheel beachcombers life of coastal California
where colorful creatures blow this way and that,
some nourished by dreams of love and easy lays
and all that, some by the narcotic rhythm of the road
and the simple joys of transportation

Sometimes it seemed that lost souls crowded
the continent to its brim where instead of falling off
they congregated and dared eachother
to step that one step too far into the deep ocean
from which you can never get back.

marine dream

I have oft recurring dreams of the freedom and the prison
of ships and the sea... freedom, there`s
no one to hassle or know where you are a black speck
on the coast somewhere

prison of waves pounding, locking you in between mountains and sand eroded cliff, there`s really no where to run

the image of a small perfect harbor town, seagull looping town, with one sailors` bar, girls drinking all the night and waiting for their ship

for sailors who came and who promised and who went....

Image of a foggy coast and San Francisco in the 40`s, signing up for a merchant marine the quiet thrill of shipping out for unknown ports, Yokohama, Honolulu, Manila, Guam

miscellaneous books in army green surplus backpack
to tide you through months at sea

a few Esquire pinups for color, the blast of the foghorn
we`re under way.