Red-Eye

Hāpuna sands behind us
we hang on while the earth turns
look! the blue moon
rising free from Mauna Kea!
back on the 7th floor more magic
we watched the sun disappear
twenty miles of silence
your closed eyes my open
in the seedy cellphone parking lot
together we finish a word puzzle

in the loading zone
“See you in ten days”
your fingertips
the small of my back
my fingertips
your elbow
the sound of water
poured on the ground
you’re ready
for the red-eye

I am the shadow - 5-25-23

I am the shadow, following, falling, shape-shifting, in the trees, flickering, on the move, tight against the light, upright and down…go on, turn a corner, turn left at the next doorway, turn out the light, you’ll never lose me. There, at the edge of the bed, a ghost passing in front of the lamp…go ahead, I’ll be waiting, or better yet, on the out-breath, go ahead ahead, count to five, that’s me in the labyrinth, all those doors leading nowhere, all that running, like you’re in water. You think me, me, me, as if you’re it. You’re all persona, as if I didn’t exist. A shadow-ist. You barely give me a second glance. Wake up. There is no glance without me. You act like the world is flat, that you’ll keep going west and fall off the edge. Open your eyes. I don’t even know why I bother. Well, the truth is I’m indentured, although I didn’t sign anything. Just how it feels. I can’t get out of the bond between us. Prometheus had to be chained down, up in the mountain, don’t make me go there, the grisly liver bit…he finally got it. I danced all night in the fire he brought back. Yes! I’m far older than you, so watch it, buddy. Don’t be stepping on me—as if you could! As if you could catch me, or leave me there in the dust. I will never leave you, like it or not. I look forward to the light of the day when you are ready to meet me. And by the way, I’m not out of color in the way you think. I am the absorption, not the absence of light. I am the shadow.

The Light

1
Beginning is such a precipice
morning such a hungry dog
give it a small piece of venison
from your left pocket & it spends
the next minutes at your feet
breathing deeply you confront
the Marzocco its stainless steel
the red cups upside down while
in the background modulations
with young voices declare love pain
what’s the difference she said
I’ll tell you said the morning
blue like the inside of that empty
sake bottle I know someone
named Julia who can name

that color I want that kind of power
it’s not enough for me to know
I survived the night I need the circle
of the table the emptiness of Saturday
the indistinct syllables of revolution
unrest a suspicious look a hand
on the rim of a cup a holding on
the word Mesopotamian out there
in the street still sleepy after a sultry
week problem solving followed by
laughter & trade winds returned
sense unmade like the bed I left
back in the room in the face of it
filling this page filling this slippery
loss for words a fish a line of time
a sinker last night’s leftovers for
bait as if we could catch & fill in
the blank a pronoun more elastic
the mouth of a red balloon stretched
fitted over the downturned brass
faucet in the basement one hand
holding the belly as it swells filling
our small rectangles with political
language the tyrant climbing all
the way up on one dollar bills

filling the quiet mind with no
purpose no direction filling
your boots your left pocket
the send button the long muscles
of morning as she stretches back

testing the chair raging without
a sound killing us with silence
filling us with premonition
something a style a stealth a flower
a pinstripe a purpose under heaven

filling the inner recesses with laughter
white and broken like the shoreline
with its shards of discarded exo-
skeletal guises spilling onto the sands
of morning

2
I live in a place where I rise with the light
retire if I could to bed at sunset my life
being what it is sometimes supper lands
on the table around 7 or so and besides
these one or two hours often find tongues
& much else loosened after a day
winding & tightening coiling like a snake
or more apt a garden hose that needs tidying up
I mean the tensing and tightening
of the broad musculature of the daily
dance on & off the curbstones if any
or one foot on the accelerator wheel
weaving dangerously one hand reaching
grasping digging deep for the dollar or
conducting a conversation when we
arrive at how big it was before it got
away how the light pervades all this
it’s a matter of course on the islands
a seasonal shortening or lengthening
within an interesting span of around
12 hours quite civilized not the best
word since civilization probably
pressed its foot on the accelerator
the day we took Prometheus’ gift
fire, far beyond the dying embers of
the campsite where Snyder read Milton
just as Milton’s failing eyes burned in
candlelight or taper far beyond the primal

burning from its reflections in gold leaf
in the so-called Age of Enlightenment
right through to the glow of the screen
rectangular in the wee hours perhaps

we’re waiting for that text perhaps we
can’t sleep & instead of turning on our
backs & studying geometric connect-the-
dots of a myriad constellations we press
the play button on Audible and hear
Snyder’s voice reading Milton by Firelight
and we’re good with that

3
The light. Here it comes
flooding down main street
pouring no the water analogies
can stop right there it’s an
emanation from the east a
radiance burning through
my self-pity & today’s date
and my To-Do List it’s
illuminating what? everything
every dimension even the
paint jobs on old beat up cars
even the cordia subcordata or kou
debris lying there off the curb
dead from dancing empty &
lifeless after days of wind bright
orange blooms dried ancient seed pods
new-fallen & old there in the dust
if we doubt entropy here it is
all the sins places that cannot be
reached by anyone except wind-
blown dust but hey we’re here
perched on the edge of the dish
dipping our finch tails up & down
sipping the water brought out
by the barista Finn my little dog
who barks at anomalies today it’s
a hitchhiker in black & gray &
red lipstick an orange doo-dad
perched on her head like antennae
one arm clutching the black mass
of a rubbish bag holding her
worldly possessions the other
held high in the time-honored
sign of the supplicant traveler
Finn barks I look up from the page
what was once a distant anomaly
has arrived. The hitchhiker is here.
“Thanks a lot” among other things
she says to anyone and no one
—everyone ignores her—has she
changed her mind about leaving?
The light keeps arriving.

Birthday Poem

After breakfast we walked, skirting a gate and its NO
TRESPASSING sign. Our dogs off-leash, running ahead
—like the way our fingers learn how to see again—
over close-cropped grasses
in an old cane grass trucking corridor;
slowing and swerving wherever a scent
laid down before
speaks to them; pulls
their noses into shadows.
We slowly followed. You started talking about
words that sound the same, but mean the opposite. CLEAVE
In the brief silence between us, I thought either way,
that’s something we’re good at. APART.
Your house toward the ocean. My house
up mountain a few miles. TOGETHER
where all spaces between us fill up with
discovery, wrapped, unwrapped.
We drove away. Your car. My car. Your to-do
list. This poem. Casuarina, Formosan koa, Timor black
bamboo and coconut palm filling my page, swinging,
swaying. Wind. Ocean sounds, rushing, up there
in the trees. How fast, how urgently, clouds
flew past. Where have they been? Where are they
going? I want to cook tagine for you, to remember
the first time you came to my house. This time
beets and oranges. A stew for you. Everything
that was once apart, brought together. A zin
I’ve been saving. We will see the sunset. Together.
Clouds, wind, trees, everything’s on the move, including
my pen, drawing loops and knots of sound closer
to what I want to say to you. I think of the way
property owners’ gates box up the old
by-ways, giving us one day at a time, schedules
revised, no particular destination.
Two human beings. Two dogs. Leaving our scents
wherever we go, into the shadows, into
the sun, over
and over again.