Eight-oh-eight in Encinitas surfers hold their place like knots in a net the chipped tooth moon the boldness of Jupiter night comes humid and velvet and matte the ocean all and always the ocean even upstairs in the small corner room with its small open window even in this heat already half asleep as the train rankles cicadas and the coming dark
Clearer up North still these birch trees abandon symmetry to grasp at the sun water in the canyon quick with runoff winter’s remainder and that same low angle of sun that makes a forest live but later now these hours stretch open like a safety net
heart of the city cracked asphalt like fire’s detritus it had to be hotter than they said it was feeling the heat even now late the air crackles against faceless glass infinite expansion manifest destiny new construction no heart no love in the man-made canyon voiceless only noise a bottle crushed under tires a snapping metal wire until a man speaks from his rooftop only five stories up leans over and says this this is […]
Last night finding Jupiter with the telescope its variable moons like hesitations, state a thing and the assumption is it is just what was said– No. What else is behind the bright bold object? Quails in the tall grass a plume of dust when they alight late heat and altocumulus the changing of hours kicks up a breeze two hawks pass high in a straight line did the sky move or did I? Question the […]
Arcturus again nights in the city a bus sighs, idling, sounds of passage, low tide traffic and the distant warmth of disembodied lights from a great enough distance things become clear a deserted rooftop everything coursing below and it isn’t lonely at all, somehow
Preamble, indictment, denunciation– grievance is our provenance civic incivility nobody better take it easy because it never has been
spooked by a shadow the sun came out slowly low voices speaking behind a closed door cautiously, sequestered, measured– oh look at the hour it stays light out so late now you forget how late it really is
the grass outside the federal detention center dry and sharp and hollow as a hypodermic needle doctors in lab coats cloud-bright under overcast skies carrying placards two uniforms on the roof watchful, but less like eyes than the windows below narrow opaque the wall’s blank face and those behind it– On the metro, each stop, more, compressing into the car held soley in place by curved backs and bellies and angular shoulders one large body […]
today’s word is unhinged no smooth swing the door is open or blocked but that’s not what they meant meaning a tacit agreement apparently implication impermeability cast the first stone and ripple effect impermenance I said once fallacy stet a half-truth is true partially check the partiality formulate the response and reach back hurl at plate glass fourth wall and fourth estate land a blow and deflect blowback not a defect by design blood thicker […]
eerie tinge to this sunset cold and diluted a misplaced day say six pm in mid October it was summer a chill sets in the lights go off and on in the office tower golden bands the crane’s open elevator making one last run up the construction site even from here it’s clearly not tethered
OPTIONAL POETRY 