Monday, May 11, 2020

Red Tide Harvest

After Listening to Nietzsche (Jack that is) 

In Naples they have the good grace to hide
Themselves past the age of 30,
When respectability starts to waft
Its inevitable cigar,
To leave the beaches clear for the beautiful
People, pretty as a corpse,
Who know not why they can do no wrong.

They say it's like that here, of course,
But nothing harshes the California cool
Quite like the aging surfer, who
Drinks IPAs to "Let It Bleed" all day,
His locks of hair too gray to carry off
The super-human excitement
Conveyed by the word "rad," which everything is,
As if nothing can ever be new.

His wet suit hangs on the door to dry.
He cackles like underwater sonar,
Old warrior without a parade,
Just a sky-blue Volkswagen van that is
His crispy way of saying
"These colonnades and amphitheaters
I built for you, enduring the surf's
Impossible fury. I made it look
Like the bass line that pulled along the party."