I live at the top of a hill
way above sea level
close to the beach
and some evenings
the sunsets stun me
as gold jewels melt
into red ribbons
and pulsating purple waves
sink into silver milk
and the kaleidoscope changes
with such miraculous precision
I just sit on my humble porch
gasping mesmerized.

Down at the shore
big 5-star resorts
poach on sand
like giant spaceships
and people come
from all over the world
just to sit on expensive balconies
to langour in the sun.

When they see the sunsets
they’re transfixed too
making foreign sounds
to describe the same colors
and I can hear them
like music they chant
and we make an orchestra
as the colors sway and gleam.

We are all blinded
by the effulgence
of nature’s light show
and we wonder
why does this spectacularness
so wild, bold and brief
always end
just as we wait
for it to get better?

But we all know the truth
everything arises
then passes away
and arises again
so we are reminded
our lives sometimes
shine gloriously
then go dark
then shine again
and the miracle is
if we pay attention
we notice our beauty
is never the same twice.

1. What in the world
         possessed you
to do that!?@#$%^
My god . . . that was so stupid and careless!

#2. Why? . . .
I trusted my intuition.
My heart believed,
emotional logic compelled me.
Fluid, spontaneous from the gut.

#1. You’re crazy.
I would never
put myself at risk like that.

#2. What risk?
Getting harrassed
by the mind police?
They don't own me.

#1. But they punished you.

#2. No, just a little
        desperate flaggelation.

#2. But look at yourself
all boxed up,
stigmatized and branded.

#1. You mean the labels?
Those words they use
to define me?

#2. Yes, you’re a bad person.

#1. No, I’m not.

#2. Yes, you are.

... and they argued til dawn
neither knowing
nature does not declare winners
but admires innovation....

like when Magellan sailed off no edges
when Einstein confounded everyone by sailing in his head
when the Wright Brothers lifted off
when Tesla moved electrons
when Christ embraced the centurions
when Gautama just sat down
when the librarian refused to take Catcher in the Rye off the shelf
when Lenny Bruce swore on stage
when Leary and Alpert left Harvard
when Joan of Arc refused to recant
when Gandhi and friends burned their English wool
when Jung declared a spiritual psyche
when the UFC earned a huge Neilsen

so be your own guru
take kava kava instead of Prozac
barter with your hair stylist
and when someone says
you are wrong
ask them why
there are no dinosaurs
in the Bible.

You said I did something wrong
so I have to stay in your box
can’t go to Trader Joe’s to buy bananas.

I guess you see a world
of good and bad boxes
and everyone has to be in one or the other.

I will explore your box
cut holes in all six sides
let the light of freedom in
and when I’m done
there won’t be much of your box left,
just more holes and light
than cardboard and tape.

That’s all your box ever was
just a bivouac
that grew soggy
when the first rain fell
and the directions you wrote
on the outside of the box
started to fade and run
down the sides
in ribbons of color
that made a nice pattern
in the shape of a bunch of bananas.

Zeus had plastic surgery,
his fingertips shaved off
so he would not leave prints
when he committed
his archetypal crimes.

He changed his name to Saturn
then to Cronos
then to Albatross Von Mariner,
all this subterfuge
just to disquise the fact
that he goes borderline ballistic
when he doesn't get his way.

He pulled Icarus out of the sky,
wounded Prometheus’ side,
left Sisyphus on a steep lonely mountain,
dared Demeter to save her daughter,
yet these souls persist
in mnemonic literary defiance
of a single fact…

No god is greater than you,
the karma jury has come in
and Zeus is sentenced
to five years of community service
on Interstate Highway 5.

He will wear a yellow clown suit
with a red rubber nose
and floppy green shoes
with a fast food tray hanging from his neck
and he will walk in traffic snarls
stopping at every car
to clean the windows
to sell hotdogs
with purple relish and black mustard
wrapped in grey buns
as unappetizing and pathetic
as the lies
he has told us about ourselves
for so long.

My mind was pulsing
with endless subtly shaded descriptors
and shockwave verbs,
when a pop-up alert flashed
red and yellow and blue…

YOU HAVE ONLY 9 WORDS LEFT !
ACT NOW !!!

YOUR LIFETIME ALLOTMENT IS 20,000,000,010 WRITTEN WORDS,
AND.........YOU HAVE USED 20,000,000,001.

ACT NOW OR LOSE YOUR RIGHT TO WRITE FOREVER!

BUT WAIT !!!!!!
  
COMPLETE THE SIMPLE FORM BELOW IN THE NEXT 60 SECONDS
AND WE’LL DOUBLE YOU TO 40 BILLION MORE.
IMAGINE ALL THE SHIMMERING ADJECTIVES, THICK NOUNS,
CLEVER ADVERBS AND PITHY PRONOUNS YOU WILL HAVE!!!!!!!!!

Panicking, I clicked on the form
and furiously typed …

William Shakespeare
10 Henley Street Village South
Statford Upon . . . . . .

Google someone
on the Good Internet
it could make you smile.

Like your shy neighbor
the one who doesn’t talk much
not a lot of eye contact
at the mailbox
the one who practices his violin
at the oddest hours.
Google him and you discover

he has a glass eye
result of his heroism
in the Na Trang Valley Massacre in Nam

he has an M.A. degree in divinity

his wife and children died in a housefire
when he was away on a business trip
some years ago

and all you can do
in your shameful paranoid way
is google him
to find the dirt

but there isn’t any
and you wish
there was something
sweet about you
on the Good internet.

You see what glitters
can’t keep your hands off it
feels so soft
tastes so good

By the time you’re in high school
it’s already too late
to get enough of it

but you try anyway
like a responsible adult
despite marital ennui
despite collapsing financial machines
despite leveled forests
despite legal hypocrisy

so reality conflicts
with your childhood dreams
and you go numb
despite the glitter
you’ve piled up
in your desperate garage

then as a senior citizen
you grow scared of ending
you pretend all the craving and striving
meant something

even though you never believed in God
never prayed or meditated
never read sacred literature

and insisted
who needs the Bhagavad Gita
when you have a portfolio
who needs the Maharishi
when you have CNN

eventually age wins
you ache
you get wider
you are too tired

you stop counting
what’s in the garage
doesn’t matter now

all you need is room
for one more thing
about the size of a camp stove

it all stops
when you carry the generator upstairs
close the windows
put towels under the door
and pull the starter cable

the literature says
“Quiet….. runs all night.”
which comforts you
like the glittery things of your youth