Grasshopper                             

                  for Erika

Lately I fear I’ll die, suddenly, at a critical time
In my career, outside of history

And she will know

I’ve always loved her
blighted palms, coral ruins

Blood-shapely artifacts, lightning
Pasted on black sky, high-rise hotels

   Teeth in salt-worn jaw
   clamped on a planetary skyline

Tragic city!

You love everyone but can’t live with yourself

Dozing under clouded weight of a gray storm
Hammers pummel concrete
into limestone graves

There goes the ghost
of the man who was my doctor

Bouquets scream with summer’s melting petals

                                                            Miami
                                                            July16, 1997

Creative Nihilism                    

                                                                       for Hal

Defocus. Hollywood-- 7/9/93

David Hockney paints swimming pool bottom
Tyrannosaurus palm, blue-addered agapanthus, orange lantana

Happy to be on vacation. Video Venus in red bikini lingers
by hot tub. All my lovers are apparitions

Roosevelt Hotel-- 8:47 am           

                        *

They're ready to go to the house of worship

Prepared with supplications
They look to be punished, rescued for justice

Sunday matinee
Violent love-making, excellent reviews, buttered popcorn

I sit at the patio. Persistent samba wails
from four corners of cabana courtyard

Ancient Mariner crosses seven seas of chlorine,
backstroke, freestyle

                        *

Hot tub baptismal jets
Is this banana leaf oasis divine revelation?

Her black sunglasses. I can't even see her eyes
I haven't got a prayer, admiring her tan

Date palms
Water drawn from steaming abyss

Barefoot starlet

                        *

I wish I had a million dollars
Comfort is difficult to embrace

Lotions, goggles, umbrellas, accoutrements,
(horses with earphones). Leisure

                        *

The price we pay for loneliness
I couldn't come up with anything

                        *

Is everything okay?
Desert Hot Springs

Joshua Tree, cholla, saguaro, ocotillo

He wants to buy a hat, "Keep the melon cool"
Then we never get going

                        *

Silent hearse on I –10

                      *

A Tylenol Day

Depending upon his point of view at the time

You can never tell what he's gonna do
He might just have a temper tantrum

                        *

Jim Bob
or Joe or Jimmy Joe
One of those Collins boys
I don't know
what one thing has to do
with the other

                        *

 Glorification of erection
"The moment of absolute certainty never arrives"

                        *

Rose rock spires, mesas of Sedona
Hodge-podge vision of Arcosanti

Mint blooms by theater door at Talieson

                        *

Furies of Motherhood, Sisterhood, and Satanica

The Temptress

who taught the sirens to sing,
            who created the mirage,
            who races before this rickety Volvo,
            encourages me toward
            victory over my enemies,
            visits me in my sleep,
            holds me against my nightmares

                        *

"You tend to like things you grow up with.” Hal says
Phoenix was hot,” Hal says

     (This could be my last vision quest)

 I'm the kind of guy who likes to run around
             I'm never in one place/never in one town
             I'm a wanderer/Yea, yea a wanderer
            I roam around, around, around, around, around. . .

                        *

Going to Nashville. Old Route 66
Jackalope. Real Indians. Navajo fried bread
Drinking Calistoga bottled water, for god's sake

On this sojourney—
Hal Bohner riding shotgun
Would anyone care if I asked for a blow job?

King David was a poet
Why do you blur the edges?
Defocus

Pilgrims look for the fountain of youth
Thanksgiving turkey
Other pilgrims look for deliverance

from hands of infidels
Before that there was Rhode Island
which included New York

Before that April in Pacifica
It keeps going on like waves
Semis. Prairie dust lava

Heat waves of ambition drench me
“Tell it to the librarian"
Will Hal return with corn chips

and a half-pint of scotch?
Should that man go sojourney-ing alone
at night in Gallup, New Mexico

looking for a drink?
There's a Depression in these parts
In other parts it's notorious ostentation

                        *

Sex: It doesn't have to be great as long as it feels good
              But if it’s great should we settle for good?

My dogs are tired  

"No pets. No barefeet"

                        *

Sedona

Red rock mesa spires
Some kind of pine, sage, prickly pear

250 million years ago beneath the sea
Celestial vortex

As he crosses Painted Desert
he declares himself a child of god

                        *

"Look where you're watching, sir!"
                  The Plaza, Santa Fe

                        *

More tourists
That's what we are, state to state
The grass always greener

Popcorn, marshmallows, rice crispies

I run my tongue over raw meat, salt
How would you describe the taste of blood?

Life as it quivers over the panhandle

Sour cream on the sheets
Chicken enchiladas

                        *

Movie: Tronic tagometer sizzled rayon I-40

Pick up speed two-hundred miles outside of Oklahoma City
Lyle Lovett sings, "with an old friend by my side"

Rabbits race north to escape Houston
Bugs bonk the windshield

                        *

       "I've got these tears from a long time ago."

Pull her out of your chest
Put her on a shelf 

Silage. Big hay bales. Feed lots
Shadows under trestles  

Feverish barefeet
Pulse rate of barns

In Clinton we stop at Best Western
Make phone calls

Hal has steak. I order broiled chicken
Frozen yogurt cones at Braums

Like a Saturday Night in high school 

                        *

Arkansas for the first time
Home of President Bill Clinton
"The Natural State"
No tolerance exceeding limit

Thirty miles out of Little Rock
Aux Arcs. Recreation
Mayflower-7 miles
Inspection Station: Closed

                        *

Hazy blue plasma envelopes
Green cultivated waves

Crucified by stretches of lumpy highway
Too late to turn back

Washboard roads tremble in my belly
Slow down, Cop!

*

Between Little Rock and a hard place

Catfish & hushpuppies
"We keep the whiskers in a bucket out back."

Liquor store closed on Sunday

Ready to put my feet down in Nashville
Long and hot for a song

                        *

  Nashville skyline burning bush
Sitting under Bo Tree on Music Row

"What's your sign?"

   Yield

   Slow

   End Construction.

                                                7/19/93