have you heard the wind
the trees rustle
the wings fly by
the sea roar
watched the mountain
and wonder
sink down
on your knees
knowing this is life
the end the beginning
we are no more
than a bird a mountain a tree a leaf
a wave crash on the shore
a shell
maybe a sunrise
or a moon on the horizon
but nothing more

Eroding brick wall
all that remains
refracted, fading
fishermen shadow
red dawn’s early light

brackish still water
shocked violent green
seeps from the desert
to be subsumed
by an unrelenting sea

restless dreamers rise
muscle sturdy pangas
into the churning tide
seeking quicksilver
at the continental edges

returning boats ride low
the shrinking horizon
race to safe harbor
cold beer on ice
under palm palapas

in the restaurant
a young man
shows off tuna
half as tall as he is
to admiring tourists

like me, seeking
the deep, slow burn
salt, jalapeno, lime
a fitting end to this
unraveling dream

Pueblo Mágico
of “no bad days”
walls of contention
in a fractured land
will never separate us

one margarita, two
another raised in defiance
of those who would try
to confine and define
free-range spirits

the Pacific touches
this contiguous shore
from equator to pole
we could catch
a clockwise current

follow Polaris up North
arrive transformed
magnetically charged
disparate souls fused
together bound

What does happen in the night?,
where restless youths beg for a fight,
where women with all dignity lost, will sell you their services at a cost,

where men will pay for their hunger to sate and tell their wives they're coming home late, where knowing wives are sat at home, waiting by the telephone, hoping he has done what's right, but that's not what happens in the night.

The children cower in their beds, the fear of the night sat in their heads, imagining monsters, causing fright, but that's not what happens in the night.

The children do not know, why mothers eyes are red, why father is not home, tucking them into bed, but father is still searching for that which will excite, for this is what happens, in the absence of light.

You cannot break the broken, you can't live in the past, throw that memory away, you cannot let it stay, oh I wish I had the power to change every wasted hour, to knock down this growing tower under which I fearfully cower, in my ball of self regret.

             
                    I can remember:

                Tears that I have shed.

                 Lies that I have said.

                 Pain I have inflicted.

              Oh how I feel conflicted.


But know now this, for it is true, for all the things I can't undo, I'd never regret loving you.