I'm exiting an off ramp
On this cloverleaf;
On a divided highway,
Moving west to east.
Across the ditch
They steer towards
What I did from the east.
If I do a U-Turn now
The predicament's the same;
There's no luck on
This cloverleaf,
It's driving me insane.

-

Why can’t I see past the buildings,
skylines obstructing my view,
collecting on the curb
with doorways and steps
inviting to someone else I suppose

Still I push past,
hugging the shoulder
of a rush hour highway
Staring into windows
as they pass, staring back

Exits signs point at me
but I can’t listen
Their warnings make no difference
in cloverleaf grumblings
and exhaust fume skywriting

One foot in front of the other,
worn converse high tops
gray, the greens are lost
with the sunset that breathes down my neck
reaching for one more moon rise

No rest, still creeping alongside
sleeping 18 wheelers purring
on their asphalt mattresses,
straddling yellow lines
leading to the bathrooms…not a chance

27 miles the sign reads
in reflective lettering calling out to me
It seems like nothing,
compared to what is behind me now…
My life or what it was

But that is no longer my concern,
my future is now 22 miles away
Where your arms are waiting,
holding my future…open, warm
and I begin running faster

Another 10 to go, down main streets
with coffee shops and beauty parlours,
one traffic light and a train station
a kid on a bike delivering newspapers offers me a ride
No need, it’s just around this corner…

On the lawn is a flamingo,
plastic and pink behind a white picket fence
with a gate that creaks and a porch light comes on…
illuminating my dream…as I see you,
it has finally come true

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning**

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are listening
for the master to tell them they are one
with the universe
Eyes smell flowers and become them
There's a deathless hush
on the freeway tonight
as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high
sweeps in
Los Angeles breathes its last gas
and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit
Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska
sinks with it
The sea comes over in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt
Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
buried masts of Amsterdam arise
as the great wave sweeps on Eastward
to wash away over-age Camembert Europe
manhatta steaming in sea-vines
the washed land awakes again to wilderness
the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
a cry of seabirds high over
in empty eternity
as the Hudson retakes its thickets
and Indians reclaim their canoes

dissonant is what it was.

that foreverness of din.
criminal—
  aloft, eluding some captive way
    of emphasis.

  scraps of papers fold
and truth is rarefied. hammered
for its malleability is its common trait.

truth and always its never ever.
the men mumble words as if
  oceans whirl in their palates.
the women hide their thighs
  and think of fornications.
the children learn to pilfer
      stray coins in the keep.

dissonance is what it still is.

there's a slow moon over the aubade
     over the culled garden.
     over the cloverleaf curve
    in Balintawak. over no trove of truce.
  caterwauling noises flailing
      belch of automaton metal. mendaciloquent glower of lampposts
    to die early, abandoning EDSA—
we cannot name figures any longer
    of the same axiom, equation,
    salt, crossovers.

She was this silver moon
alight her seldom seen swing
or virtually then
as time in a bottle

and in this antiquity
on Saturday night
she grew the orchard
by the cloverleaf

when her bridge opened wide
and she felt so granted
that it was her ambiance or garth
near a point then

she went combing a ride
the bus did go that way
and her muggy wantonness
burst inside her chest every moment

found on a freeway
at the tip of clover stem                
heart-shaped clover leaf

This is the magi's pen.
If child Newton sat beside me,
might he think the older knowing mine?

I smile and share a second thought.
I accept reality allows my thoughts out
let fall with luck would let
be the letting, let us make believe.

The joy of a ride in a Tesla, akin
to the thrill of an Oldsmobile 442,
on the completed cloverleaf exchange
southwest of Flagstaff, in fall of '69,
a test drive, for a couple o'vets,
in school on the Gee, I didn't know bill.

I-Forty had not replaced Route 66,
but the interchange was accessible,
by curious joy riders, for about one day.

Remember such days.
Savor surviving and think of thanking
times process for arranging the occasion.

Don't bring up the fact that onces exist.
Being first to do a once is not great glory.

Strange weeps keep me up.
I cannot sleep.
I tried counting sheep,
it didn't help.

"weep"

I'm getting kind of scared
I just want to be asleep.
The strange sound doesn't stop.
I move under my blanket.

"weep"

I gather all my courage.
Slowly moving to the window.
Making a thorough rummage.
I hear the wind softly blow.

Fingers separate the blinds shakily.
Eye looks out throw the crack cautiously.
The fear begins to fade away.
I can see myself living tomorrow's day.

The fuss was all for nothing.
I feel like a fool.
On the windowsill of my room,
sits a magnificent jewel.

Even though it's ***** and wet,
it's eyes, greener than Cloverleaf,
sparkle through the dark night's net.
It's a cat.

In an ideal future,
I’ll have a
House near a river
By the mountains
Of Puerto Rico,
My own cafe
With amazing books
And ever greater
Baked goods,
But the lines
Get blurred
When I think of you.

You,
Angel of the fortunate,
Breathtaking and majestic,
Wearing beautifully woven
Sun kissed robes
That follow you
Like your shadow does,
Only the sweet scent
Of peaches and cream
Shapes you,
Divine as a Greek sculpture,
With a smile that stuns
And gives photographic memory
To whoever has held a
Four cloverleaf before.

I’ll hold your hand,
Walk down the path
Behind what we
Would call our home,
Suddenly the silence
Start to get deafened
By the sound of rushing
Water and leafs that
While dancing with
The breeze crumble
In your admiration.

As we sit on
Moonlight showered
Mossy stones,
I’ll find out,
I can’t seem to
Remember your name.
And while  the water
doesn't touch my feet,
ill get up to keep walking
until my nervous system
gives out and the burning stops
or I find you,
Whoever you are.
To show me how cold the water can be.