sleep deprived five dozen hours  
I am on a desert highway, without a nickel
my thumb begging for a ride which wouldn’t come
until dawn    

but I don’t know all that dark is ahead;
I only know the night is moonless, the cedars
the pinyons on the far mesas are moving like mournful buffalo,
long gone except in my waking dream  

on the road two eyes are all I see
green, sparkling as prisms of light in all that black,  
electrified ***** of mushy matter, glowing in sockets
in a canine skull    

I fear strange dogs
and other fanged beasts--I pray to a god
I do not know is there, imploring empty space
and dark matter for salvation    

it comes when the lights of a diesel  
birth, rear, and shrink the shadow of me  
and allow my vexed eyes to see, an asphalt stream
with nary a scary creature but I

spending time with you is like
being cast eternally as a character in
a Terrence Malick film, a narrator dictating
our every move, our scripts unfolding
in slow, mesmerizing motion

someone always has to die in these tales
and question the almighty's purpose, if there
be one, beyond birth and return to the earth;
the time between being swallowed
by our eyes, undigested

I am ****** in as well, slowly, by the lungs
of our creator, whose exhalations come as oceans of light,
though high tides recede to reveal dark shores,
our inevitable demise, before painful,
interminable resurrections

we took turns toking,
holding the tent pole up
while the rain battered
the canvas

dawn crawled
over the great rocks;
a synovial silence
after the storm

still ******
we finally succumbed  
to sleep, for an eternal
minute  

until awakened by Huns
on horses, hoof beats ricocheting  
off the hard stones, echoing
in the canyons

worse than that thunder,
the eerie emanations riding
the backs of the staccato waves
from the beasts’ shod feet    

words flung from the riders’ tongues
slapping our ears, bedeviling our weary wits,
these time traveling tricksters, transporting    
us to a world at war

Hueco Tanks, Texas, July, 1969

the gray grasses sang sweet songs,
without even a breeze to move them
the coyote howls were marrow yellow,
crimson, as their sour colors sifted
into the night

lightning streaked my charcoal
sky, and I could taste it, a salted butter
that tickled the throat on the way down,
the sonic booms it hatched smelled of baked bread,
and I hungered for more  

then a white owl spoke to me,
but I did not hear it call my name
no, not mine--though its hoots formed ice,
chunks which pummeled me, froze me
to the bone

I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime

a dad, two kids  
the latter running for the shade and shelter
of the picnic table--dad strolling behind,
with pizza and crazy bread  

one family of a dozen there
in 75 degree Texas sunshine  
mid winter, as russet leaves
and calendar attest        

now I recall my only picnic
a half century past, where I discovered
peanut butter could be made magical  
with marshmallow cream  

from this same walking
and waking dream, I see a star
hanging  between two oaks, and a sea  
of hip hippies dancing, rocking to
mystic chants of their own device  

for the music died
long ago, electric and eternal
though we thought it was  

today, in a sun drenched park,
it is calm breeze I hear, the sibilant sizzling songs
of my past are long lost in space, but the wickedly wonderful
white goop on that sandwich, I yet taste
with transcendent  joy

3900 light years from earth
a mere 1.2 billion miles across,
makes me wonder who your master is
and what magic it takes to fill
your feeding bowl

I wish I could ****
the kiloparsecs keeping us apart
and see you, unleashed, maybe chasing
Frisbees left by the barking big bang

I hope you don't bite

I couldn’t manage a lotus position,
so I tried you, my bare feet reaching
for the stained ceiling of my apartment  
sitar music and stale **** smoke  
there with me  

like the dwellings
of a million mid-century bohemians  
who tried transcendence long
enough to get hungry    

when I now try you,  
Salamba Sarvangasana,  
I get a bit dizzy--spinning
a reaping reminder I have passed
nearly sixty-four years  

looking up, at cleaner plaster  
I no longer hear the music; the grass is gone,
replaced  by fumes perhaps more beguiling  

then I fall  
never able to pronounce your name  
ever aware my feet could not remain
airborne forever

first flight: your talons
in the grim grip of a teenager
belly filled with berries

dumped fast
in the back of an SUV,
long enough to find
a red brick nest

your guts quickly spilled
and you tossed in a black hole
for a long night with other avian creatures
black, big as pigs, smelly as well

at sunrise the hole rolled
but only long enough for it to be clutched
by a moaning monster, toppled upside down
the pigs sliding into its guts

but the wind rescued you!
gave you recycled flight, a full day
and night, until my wiper blade snagged
your white wings at 70 MPH

I could have dumped you
in the bin at the next rest stop
but you had a different vision
of redemption

instead, I dropped you on the road                        
where you would wait, without protest,  
for another gust

tufts of grass stand in the yard  
hairy green patches of tenacity
in a field of neglect

half a screen guards
a **** stained door where
someone painted, 214

the pit bull sits behind it
waiting to be fed, and to be
chained again to the stake

where, like any beast bound
by gravity and the grave, he will
make ceaseless circles  

smaller  e a c h  day,  
unwitting sentry to those
two legged creatures
inside

who, with or without
the pit, lie prostrate, in dreamless
bug rich beds    

when they fall
from sleep, they too make circles
bound by stakes and chains…
invisible    

though their pull is felt
and their infernal rattle heard
no matter how far from home
the prisoners of Tulip roam

In your arms
Just two days ago but the feeling’s already leaving
I was bent out of shape
I was dry heaving
on my own stupid emotions so
I wasn’t able
to burn the vision of you in my mind
so hot that it stuck
stuck into me like a point in a *****, turning the turbine
and molding the muck
of my reality, in my conscious so clear it
separates from this one from the great spasm called space and time created by…
I don't know why, but, life sometimes separates the score from the assist.
and now i can’t resist
to list
the ball from the bat
the land from the sea
the you from the……
too corny.
I hope that I don’t seem too pathetic, I’m just too empathetic,
and I need to put this to rest:
to me,
I'm afraid we might be
like that bird who had flown from
The nest, and had his body broken by the nets
seizing the life from his chest.
aHH and now how I seem to sling
with a piece of string
a metaphor
back around to tie the knot
around that bird who got caught cuz
Metaphors and me are a package deal.
they allow me to feel.
And in my sweaty palms.
I felt the life leave
after having expected that it would, yet still also hoping that it might not.
But it did.
And everything should be ok but it’s not. And I should feel relived but I don’t. And I should be excited for what’s next but
I just feel sad.