Driver's licenses, Thelonious, and rebels of the neon god
In a lobby around midnight
Thelonious in accompaniment
Door swings open, Identify Yourself!
Over and over. Then again
Door swings open, Identify Yourself!
I can see where they’ve been and where they’re going.
They’re eager couples, stoned daydreamers, gentle loners
Turquoise eyed and hairy legged, brilliant and slow, empty and horny
They pace through this lobby like rebels of the neon god
Telling the stories of their lives
I can see where they’ve been and where they’re going.
Thelonious and I
Inebriated words lecture us on the prograde rotation of planet earth
Victims of heartbreak sob their anguish into milestones
Others float wordlessly about
I can see where they’ve been and where––me?
I’m a limousine branch
Down the river’s drift
I call the tune of this current but
Whitewater obscures my reflection
Asymmetry marks my animation
Night and Day people pass through me,
Disappearing apparitions singing “je m’en vais”
Each second lived is raised to the power of my anxiety
Moment after moment with no premonition of what it’ll all amount to.
But you hear it, don’t you,
Thelonious did too;
There’s life in our songs our sobs our moans our silence
Relentlessly tethering the Now to Then
Reverberating right this instant
In a lobby past midnight
(2024)
The Long Goodbye
Barraza would oft speak of the “Between,”
And I’d search for Steinbeck’s hour of the pearl,
When nightfall knocks on doors like scheming teens,
And day bids the long goodbye to my girl.
Cherry blossoms enchant most in transit,
Pink petals held in space among stars’ zest,
Fated to float softly down the visit
you laid your visage to my beating chest.
Iceberg ahead! We leap for twofold piers
Suspended in air, your eyes lock with mine
Our pact is signed, we’re wise beyond our years
Yet I fear blind mirages in our minds
And the ache of never knowing whether
We were truly doomed to now untether
(2024)
On a Muni Bus
Rattle rattle
Rush Geary Street
Past Union Square
Is where we meet
Your little cold act
Yet tickles my feet
Laguna heights where,
Our minds’ ends meet
Thrashing turbulence
That flailing guise
Won’t pierce this glass
Just green-gold eyes
My soul, my freedom
My records and lies
If grace with you
Is writ in our mise.
(2024)
Hakata summons me to amble
Along ancient roads reeking of diesel
Along canals slinking through the feet of skyscrapers
Concealing rusty harbor, open ocean
But mentaiko fish-eggs in your mouth and the sea washes over you
Memories in rain, each pop-pop-pop as flavorful and bitter as the last
Because we’re bygone inventions on faded paths
Well-tended plum gardens circling the ruins of Fukuoka Castle
The smell of pork broth clinging onto yesterday’s shirt
(2024)