Here I am at the far shore
Where the gold retreats towards
The ocean called indifference.
I no more exist here than I did there,
But back east there was always the other
To say how there’s no evidence I exist
In a colorful range of drawls ...
There’s no such resistance to non-existence
Here, the desert just concocts mirage oases
Where blond figures stare right through me,
Muscle cars represent what is now only memory,
Wedding-cake white script whispers in neon
“Maybe”, the eternal maybe, the free and always lucent
Possibility …
Such as Crème Tangerine, a vinyl stand in an Airstream;
I’d stalk a DC week through unrelenting heat
To chase down tuneage so celestial
And for weeks it would linger
Like evidence of heaven. Here it passes
Like bikinis on the beach, the daily red
Shoes on the yellow brick road of excess,
Beautifully false, perfectly meaningless,
Just tangible enough to keep away the ghosts,
Tenuous enough to peer right through …
You need to, the dream is too close
When there’s no waking up, when you know
That the dream can’t escape.
No longer the slow afternoon
Thinking how the mind, like a key,
Could one day turn.
