Los Angeles, CA

first, god and the soil
play Go with circle farms
on a board of New Mexico.

west, the hills
turn from chalk to pencil lines
all drowning in peach and gray-pink.

from thirty-two thousand feet
we follow the sun to Los Angeles.
but the haze disappears and the day ends.

evening hits like a dark marriage
of halogen and mercury vapor,
full of non-repeating beauty and quiet light.

second, my sister finds me in Burbank,
gives me water, and takes me home.
to be a foreigner and to be found!

our Orange Line city bus offers me
a five-dollar haven of rattled peace and pulls
the weary through palms and pawnbrokers.

family of the summer with
new life coming in September,
I had forgotten we stretched this far.

A haiku for yesterday

The park, the lake, and
the air hot with you nearby.
I can't read a page.

A haiku for travel

I hadn't ever
kissed a boarding pass until
I flew home stand-by.

A haiku for exercise

My treacherous lungs
wheeze, stab at me like Brutus!
Caesar, at least, died.

Dallas, TX

Here, I saw a jump-cut ballet of green skyscraper
dance across a Cadillac, scatter into a haze
and escape through a false night sky.

So I gave up faith in Orion's Belt, kissed Ursa Major
goodnight for summer, and found my home on Loop 12.
Moving tore me open, but now the architecture heals.

On the museum lawn, jazz wrapped the red, sprawling
sculpture and brought 75 to their feet to slide across the bricks.
Then, a black woman smacked my hip and said, "Smile, boy!"

So I smiled at the horse race in its colors of royalty
and beasts of speed.  I smiled at my place of rest,
my home for the Summer.

New York, NY

Here I pushed through the dirty thicket of all Manhattan
in breathless insomnia, a Van Gogh of lost lucidity
with the colors of madness, and the half-genius of delirium.

But in sewer's steam, in the humidity of industry, Williamsburg
brought me rest and distance. I stepped on soft grass
and sat near the water.

The Navy in white cotton rode for Staten Island,
and spent the ferry searching for company.
The air was cold mist and the city swelled into our wake.

Above Central Park, I heard the chords of a dense, hidden hymn
emanate from the MET, matching history with chaos,
where a green quilt is the lifeblood of this neighborhood. 

On each block, I found the constant chemical reaction
of hot life.  In each park, I found the holiness of empty space.
And in the street, I found a home.

in memory, my mom's father

in memory, my mom's father
faces his recliner towards the corner
of a brown, paneled living room.
this is how my subconscious built the memory–faceless.

and it's my only one of him.  but his Jaeger-LeCoultre
wristwatch for five years of service with Tulsair
teaches me history.
and the family lore of persistence.

the crystal is chipped from the inside,
four layers of unreachable dust coat the face,
and a forest of rust has grown over the hands
into the white inlay.

in the decay is new-found freedom
of forgoing formality, of wearing your sunday best
to change the oil, and of a wholehearted
lack of delicacy.

today, a gold watch from Reasor's for my five years.
and I'll scratch the glass, neglect the band
and break it in
in family tradition.

Easter groceries

Mystic

Under daylight, a mystic learns science,
with music, history learns manners,
and for a second, the choir takes a breath.

the weather comes to us!

a thunderstorm grew above the interstate,
so we followed the funnel clouds east of Ardmore
in the now hail-littered countryside
and we drove over the fresh green leaves
laid at our feet like palm leaves leading to Jerusalem.

a family stood out on their porch
to capture the purple and gray growing mountains
and the radio reminded us every two minutes
take cover, find a bathtub!

we had box seats for the devastation, where
our adrenaline grew the lifting storm. where
the people who lived so long
in window boxes stretching out for sunlight
now had the weather come to them.

to the children of automobiles

to the children of automobiles, 
to the servants of technology:
live reality as it erupts in front of you.  
come to tears with me in the morning
when the frost forms and we hold out our arms
to soak solar radiation.

I have tried so long to find closeness
in the hot swarm of cheap communication,
in a blue glow, but I want to start anew. 
this will be my confession.

oh, women, I haven't seen you look as rich 
as the Americas, you didn't swim after me
when the hills opened up to swallow me alive,
when I went to take apart the university brick by brick. 
but I tore it down nevertheless!

at the Yellow Brick Road, it was two beers, 
two games of pool, "I hear it's a lesbian bar!" 
and "what can I getcha darling?"
my soul longed for this
dark world of comfort and darts.

my soul and I have earned this richness.  
I paid it forward with cheap PBRs,
black coffee, and water-water-water. 
my parents paid it forward in a old suburb
built by a dirty river, 
where the interstates come, cross, and carry
air-conditioned families on through to the west.

when Tulsa was the oil capital of the world,
it built a Gold Driller, but sure enough,
Moses came down the mountain and dried it up.  
so in desperation we moved further south, 
we made the streets wider and the driveways taller.
forgive us, downtown.

let me admit, I spent my savings 
on french fries and tacos,
I gave away my good fortune 
to fly airplanes, and I turned in my
Badge for Good Ole Boys
Who Can Still Make Their Mommas Proud.
careful who you deputize, mom.

an early morning airport
keeps my conscience at bay,
faltering for a passport in his saggy pockets.  
every night that I shot full of lead,
every girl that I dipped in copper, 
and every piece of silver moonlight
that I tarnished green 
won't make it though the metal detector.
I'm almost to the gate. 

what the world is coming to today

"what is the world coming to? are we being too loud?"
I like the idea our planet is finding a destination out in space
and our voices won't be holed up in a mute apartment
or folded in the trunk of a lincoln towncar
while we try to kick the taillights out.

"everyone else is whispering here, should we keep talking?"
yes, and we'll be in an opera's balcony for our inheritance:
a planet speed-delivered to almostthisplaceagaininayear,
but hopeful, because the earth has one life too.
Don't convince yourself that you are an unclaimed suitcase
on the baggage carousel, you'll be found
when a businessman is done buying a pretzel.

"if I walk too far in the wind, will it carry me off?"
yes, and good morning you entrepreneur of emotion,
all of you is orbiting right next to me!  something like
a merry-go-round and the flaking horses are worth the wait--
look there's my mom...blurrrrrrrrrr...and there she is again!
go bowling with your gold globe, because you know
these neighborhoods, these roads by heart.