A few poems to sample
In college I co-hosted a poetry reading at a coffee house in San Diego. Below are poems from that era.
Pomegranate
She sprints past hedgerows
Splintered power poles
Shadowing lines on asphalt
Impressing concrete to bare feet
She observes the fruit
Blushed and leathery to touch
Spherical like an ornament
Weighty like a melon
She rolls it across her cheek
Deferring iridescent delicacies
Warm and cooling October
Dawning anticipation like wishes
She cracks it against a curb
Once, twice, thrice
Liberating Phoenician ambrosia
Bleeding Adonis nectar
She pries apart the rubicund
Peeling layers of arils
Mining garnet clusters
Consuming myth and curiosities
Sweet Loneliness
alone again
my dark and faithful friend
how you linger
like souring decay
slay my spirit
stir my sorrows
fill my nullity
regret and loneliness
why must you toil?
why must you meddle?
my faithful friend
always with me
light the darkness
heavy within
drain my essence
tug my afflictions
from the shallow dim
dare lift my fallow spirit
my dark and faithful friend
Travelers of Arcadia
Point to the edge
Head for home
From end
From beginning
Where line upon line
Of shadow reflections
Caress lucid terrains of old
Travelers of Arcadia
Sweeping young pilots
Glide the breath of time
Exalt in rapture
Repose in solitude
For you have arrived
You have finally arrived
The Crazy Horse Saloon
Inside the Crazy Horse Saloon
The air smells of earth
Gleaming strips of black plastic
Ripped and torn bar stools
Mahogany runner
She wears a black velvet hat
Loose brown slacks
Red plaid shirt
Dusty boots
Renaissance smirk
Occulting the mischievous
Behind frames of clarity
He orders a dirty vodka martini
Watches her mount the stage
Cloves sweetening lips
A red pimento falls from an olive
Rests on the bottom of a stemmed glass
Drawing attention
She plugs into an amplifier
The percussionist pops his snare
A cadence of notes reels him in
A chord suspends in air
Like a haze of purple before the rain
The guitar gushes audible hors d'oeuvres
Laced with whiskey, cream, and savory sweat
She recites verses of rhythmic restitution
Igniting a chromatic descent into a blue abyss
Ascending on a string of nickel and brass wings
Above the wood and brick atmosphere
Cigarettes glow in the chill of darkness
Pimentos and blissful delirium are devoured
In the the dim
Technicolor
Liquid runs wild in this forest of deception
Until the impending drought comes and dehydrates the vision
The blow of shadowed reality
Centered mostly on a thread of meaning
Cuts loose skepticism
Dangling from the dot of a question mark
The initiation begins
A colorless dart impales the soft pink spot
It plunges forward into the budding flower
Transcending from black and white
Into magnified technicolor
Noticing the clouds
The oxygen is wet today
Thick
Dripping of technicolor
It drains from window sills
Dribbling euphonious tones
A multitude of soft impacts
Distorted views from the vessel
Surround the pitter-patter
A dull torturous flutter
A lamp post bends
From the weight of groping sentinels
Perched above the green
On stained granite ledges
They patiently listen and watch
Not realizing the constant
They are precariously mounted
Barnacles form
Over time they remain motionless
Swoosh!
A beast moves through the glistening forest
A serpent
Slithering and silent
Coming for me
For someone
I move from architrave to sill
I'm below the blue
Above the gray and brown
Undulating and prancing
An overture of technicolor
Although I'm still
I still rotate
Passionate flutters
Amorphously
The beast glides past
Liquid cleaning its path
Maddening black spots on green appear
Dancing upon the hardness
Skirting the molding in clashing dissonance
I catch and release it unscathed
To the green and brown whose webs are open
Within a quivering portrait
Faint voices submerge
Overlap the damp serenity
Layers of flapping pages
I feel the paradigm shifting
An irate energy lashes out
Beyond the multitude of causerie performances
Colors hide and lunge outward
Clawing the audience
My identity melts
Into fluids of diluted technicolor
The beast is silent but near
It creeps along the tattered flesh
Its brittle presence dehydrates my vision
Its emaciated shriek crackles like fire
I hear the droning of its heart
Smell the odor of its slither
The hollow is dry once more
Spasms of tasteful pandemonium
Salting old wounds
Until the impending drought comes and dehydrates the vision
The blow of shadowed reality
Centered mostly on a thread of meaning
Cuts loose skepticism
Dangling from the dot of a question mark
The initiation begins
A colorless dart impales the soft pink spot
It plunges forward into the budding flower
Transcending from black and white
Into magnified technicolor
Noticing the clouds
The oxygen is wet today
Thick
Dripping of technicolor
It drains from window sills
Dribbling euphonious tones
A multitude of soft impacts
Distorted views from the vessel
Surround the pitter-patter
A dull torturous flutter
A lamp post bends
From the weight of groping sentinels
Perched above the green
On stained granite ledges
They patiently listen and watch
Not realizing the constant
They are precariously mounted
Barnacles form
Over time they remain motionless
Swoosh!
A beast moves through the glistening forest
A serpent
Slithering and silent
Coming for me
For someone
I move from architrave to sill
I'm below the blue
Above the gray and brown
Undulating and prancing
An overture of technicolor
Although I'm still
I still rotate
Passionate flutters
Amorphously
The beast glides past
Liquid cleaning its path
Maddening black spots on green appear
Dancing upon the hardness
Skirting the molding in clashing dissonance
I catch and release it unscathed
To the green and brown whose webs are open
Within a quivering portrait
Faint voices submerge
Overlap the damp serenity
Layers of flapping pages
I feel the paradigm shifting
An irate energy lashes out
Beyond the multitude of causerie performances
Colors hide and lunge outward
Clawing the audience
My identity melts
Into fluids of diluted technicolor
The beast is silent but near
It creeps along the tattered flesh
Its brittle presence dehydrates my vision
Its emaciated shriek crackles like fire
I hear the droning of its heart
Smell the odor of its slither
The hollow is dry once more
Spasms of tasteful pandemonium
Salting old wounds