Broken Waves
...one day looks just like another--
In a hall of mirrors I escape through the space of glass;
The magic Nature of time conjures me...
tricks me, fools me, disappears me...

To the Clouds! Let me disrobe you
Let me undress the tall trees and the leaves of grass

Na, Na...na...na...na...
Naked to your heart
Nature, I listen
I dance to the rhythm of the night
Feel the pulse of shining stars
I am at one with the roar of our rivers,
the turns of our shallow creeks
the stillness of our moonlit waters

I run with the wildness of our wolves
I uphold my arms along the wings of our great eagles
I make peace with our deltas, and travel in togetherness with this newness

I dream of our nature---
In sadness the day awakens me...one just like another
But in the hall of visions I see the great eagles swoop
I am led by the pulsing stars, and know the rhythm of the night
In spirit I run to the wildness of wolves

Oh nature, in sleep I wanted to undress you, but you repaired me with the song of  breaking waves...never do they come ashore the same...
Yes, you have awakened me with our wonder and our new visions...

Samba Pa Ti
I stood at a Gambler's Fire.
I watched its orange flames
I watched its floating ashes under the cold desert sky.
I heard the crackling of its burning heat.

Beads of sweat fell along the Gambler's smoky skin.
He grasped his lost returns:
The old photos of a woman he once loved.
Like rolling dice he offered them to the burning flames.

"Yesterday, I searched the internet for a woman I knew. She wanted my love. But I bet on the wealth of aloneness. I wagered on the perfect whir of neon lights.  Twenty years ago I saw her last. Twenty years ago I held her at a concert in Mexico. That night I escaped along a mission wall. Now after all this time I won the elusiveness of a Senorita, but the story said she died. Cancer took her this week. I did not know."

The Gambler held onto the desert stars...then wandered into the space of the Sonoran night. He wagered on midnight snakes; the rattlers of death. I could have called his name. Stopped him. But I too had turned the pictures of old lovers into flames. Watched the allure of their mortal ashes burn. Now I would draw from the poison of those snakes. Twenty years ago I said good-bye. Samba Pa Ti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE

Alhambra
I walk the length of a Spanish Square and see visions of Renata
I am scared
I don't understand
You died when we were young

I saw the last light of your eyes
Touched the thinness of your lips
Saw you draw a last breath
Felt our dying hearts
Your mother wept in my arms

I remember we'd walk through wild woods
Run through tall leaves of grass
Leave our clothes under an evening sky
Swim and laugh in a cool stream

Then your heart grew weak
Your lungs filled with fluid
You died without the beauty of a long life

Under the hot Spanish sky a black bird circles with giant wings
I hear it laugh
I decide to have some fun
Will you dance with me, Renata?
Ghost lover, I'll hold your young hand

"Agua, Agua,"An old innkeeper cries.
"Come, come," he says. As he directs his wave towards me.

I drink water from his glass bottle.

"Senior, the Spanish sun is hot at mid-day. It fools your head. Time to take a siesta."

He shows me to my room. The door faces the square. I sit on an old wooden chair and take off my dusty desert boots. Then I place my clothes on the edge of my bed. Under a cool shower my head begins to clear. The water on my skin evaporates quickly as I dry myself with a large towel.

I stand naked under a ceiling fan and feel as cool as a mountain stream.

Tomorrow I will take a train to Granada, where gypsies still live in caves. The Moors built a castle there. They say when you see the Alhambra, you never forget its stature. Its tall Arabesque doorways.  Its beautiful water fountains.

I lay in bed and hope sleep comes soon. But outside my window there is the shadow of a giant bird. I hear its awakened humor against the mildness of my  heart.

Does it also know madness under a Spanish sun? Does it not take shelter in tall leaves of grass--or find peace in wild woods? Or await love in an evening sky? Or does it mock me with its crying laughter?

The Beat
By the heat of night I walk with a computer in hand.
Its web pages stripped of hate.
Oh mercy,
I have a picture of a man
Taken with a camera I shot years ago,
It shines in a black and white with film made no more
Oh pity us all,
He was old; sat sideways in a chair;
his beard was white, his hair long and disheveled
a pet snake circled round his neck;
it was thick and tropical with a
tongue that slithered, like web pages of hate
Oh help me and you,
I scanned his image; uploaded it to my hand
This night I am infected by a snake's slithering tongue
Thru the night I warn of his devil tail:
Oh help us all, 
Is this the poison in our veins?
Most turn away,
What is the secret message in their heart?
Do they have the rhythm of love, or a rattler's fate?

Home 
The sun beams hot, brightness to the blue sky
It reflects off mirrored glass; held by steel shaped by tall men
The sun reflects off concrete sidewalks,
It blinds me

I got too much light in my eyes
The piercing sound of sirens, shifting waves go by
I can't hear
I got too much sound in my ears

Where is home?
I'm a man, but like a lost boy I can't see my way
Like a lost boy, I can't hear my mother's voice

The sun blinds my eyes
The sound of sirens, shifting waves go by
I wonder whose mother is crying
I wonder whose boy is dying

Pick up the sick
Pick up the wounded
Take them home?
Take them to a steel tower to die
Too much light in their eyes

The passing of years
I am blind
I am deaf
I try to grab my mother's hand
Take me home,
but I suffocate in the urban air
I imagine life expanding my lungs
I breath like a lasting stream
The shade of tall trees cooling me
I see my vision mother in Angel wings
She says you are somewhere
Home is the place you want to be

When night falls I go home,
I draw a bath and imagine that is where I am


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9gK2fOq4MY

Slow Hands
"Hey, hey...my young friend!"

I made up my life as I went along...
Like free verse from page to page,
Like free jazz from a different age...

I made up my life as I went along...
To you, my young friend, do as you please...
If you want, Howl as a Beat poet under a winter's moon
Listen to Coltrane, close your eyes and transend his Crescent sound,
You'll feel free. But trust me, freedom without love is no freedom at all.
Love a life you can make up as you go along
You are young, you think you got time
But time fool's you, like fake gold in a desert mountain
Like slow hands on a clock,
Long time seduces you...
one decade drifts to another,
till forever sleep steals your eyes, swipes your last breath
Don't follow a plan,
Don't map out your life,
Sometimes you'll walk in blindness
Sometimes you'll listen in silence
There are days like a pale colour,
You'll want to give up,
But when you cool your feet in a clear stream,
you'll watch small fish touch your skin,
you'll curl your toes, nudge a smooth rock,
watch the muddy floor rise in a cloud and settle peaceful to the ground
You'll see once more
You'll hear again
Then you'll know you made up a life as you went along!!
Oh, rise up to yourself!!
No reason to fear that forever sleep; nor your last breath
See, you are like me, we made up a life as we went along...
Howl to that moon, my young friend!!

Shape and Colour
I've got a closet filled with old clothes.
And a leather suitcase stuffed with letters from women I met at sea.
Once I was a handsome sailor. I'd cross deep waters and land in wanting ports. A girl would love me, would plead to come aboard forever, for all our tomorrows together.
At night under the ocean's moon, alone I would sail away.
The Northern Cross was always my friend.
The Southern Cross was stormy weather.
I am old, a landlubber who only dreams the sea.
Years ago I could kiss their Spanish lips.
Now my short breath burns from rolled cigarettes.
My dry thirst whetted by cheap whiskey.
Like an ancient mariner, I got tales to tell, but the smiling senoritas can't hear.
I don't believe in no mystic.
I don't feel any muse can hear me.
I look in the mirror. The old clothes don't fit so well. They no longer have shape and colour, the style is long gone. And paper yellows over time.
Sail away' together to the Southern Cross in stormy weather.
I write a story:
Then I drink and weep for lost ships and women who wait no more for an old sailor's love.