Wednesday, May 31, 2017

May Days

1.
On Hopeless Street the purple trees
wave like radar turning

The masters of what should be
will never interfere, in this sun,
with what is — the metal sheen
too clean — the purple trees
too distant  — and the people blind
to the gridlines that hold in orbits
dreams

Indulgences are bartered by old men
in wide straw hats:
dental work, insurance, bonds for bail ...

2.
Shoes clap,
what needs to be understood
is in their sound.
It echoes away.
Too much compassion.

3.
Another world is churning away
I can feel almost its heat
As I imagine I know the words you speak
And you hear the heart I beat.

4.
On Pelican Rock a stillness we can barely dream of
Even the rocks swirl in violent movement
The golds hold such terrible truths
Kelp hung like curtains in dissolving falls

What's released with the wave eludes our capture
Only the crisp frisson crash of white
crowns crushed — eclat  —
Into lines of force that bloom,
like our heartbreaks in endless recursion
Like the danger is play for our unpeeling.

The cliffside castles  — once dream homes  —
now are part of a baroque outcropping
that fills you as far as you can look
with the splendor of the remote,
giving as much as you can yield
to what protects you,
the undisclosed.

On the rock's edge
purple flowers
facing the resolute ocean
without dimension or name,
but speaking to us — all ears —
as to rocks.

5.
The offerings of love — flags
in trees — fall away — late
springtime sadness — as if
the love itself could somehow
die.