Tag: Ocean
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Cold Reading
“Yr lines, sunny boy,
bingy, not calm,
head busy jabots,”read Madame Fraus,
by the tide that rips
rocks thru yr palms.“Saline swim,
bit sweet lit life,
palms stage aligned,neck aflame, hair
shorn horizon
frizzled smile.Silverfish whitecaps
aquiline wings smack
& bay across draft brow.Paddle out, palms
cupped, plod, slog,
moil, & no sloom.”No sleep, steep crag
to pine green palms,
in line for clay water.Around another point,
the persuasive ocean
spreads open palms.“I’ll see you next week,”
Madame Fraus said.
“Leave the door open.”
-
El Porto, 1969
Santa Monica Bay, water like lead
ladled from a plumber’s melting pot.
Fog spills oily blue
foam fills with air, pulls some green under.
Close in, swells steam and foam, a salty dough of seaweed.
Waterers wax boards, paddle out north end at 45th Street, first smoky light, shadows of refinery plant, dunes still in shade, covered in olive drab.
The surfers paddle out, into the surf.
They work the waves like fishermen,
air full of flush, gush, white hissing bass horns,
trembling treble flourish finish.Silence
falls
like a whale sounding, in a long lull, water like coffee with milk and honey where the waves churn the sandy bottom.A surfer trio returns to the beach, short paddle from small waves now high tide,
rolled waves rope caulked and cold chisel hammered.
The surfers lift their boards into a truck, laughing in wet trunks, salted muscle, and tussled hair. The surfers never grow weary of waves, dancing drones under a lemon yellow flower. The waves open blue, break lime green, fall white
in simple declarative sentences
of plumbed gist, of easy escape.“The strand and the waves exist no more,
the summer is dead,” Samuel Beckett said.
Los Angeles, South Santa Monica Bay, beach city surf, Strand cruise Hermosa to El Porto, royal blue bicycle paddling along, waves closed out bass lines, high spring tide, full moon.
Angel’s eyes perpetually open,
losing particles of neon green light,
Mister Jama quick walking Chaplinesque,
black dressed for snow, Silence caged in his palms.Swells slumber under mounds of silver paint,
disheveled waves chiseled from lead cakes,
grunion running in surf fanning the beach
full of lustrous flickers in the moon glow.The surfer girls come and go, come and go,
singing of clothes in forget-me-not lingo,
walking the beach in blue and gold.At night they tape their hair to their cheeks
to hold the curl, the surfer boys
long to know, long to know.The Strand bars net the last generation, inside, drinking beer, surfboards against the wall, bleached parasols, a few surf waves still, but figuratively, as if one finds waves in some oceanic dictionary, listening for the mermaid’s music in books.
The surfer hears the buzz of his own skeg humming
across the pages, heavy sets, far out.
Turning right on the corona’s shoulder
the surfer grows a little older, the water somewhat colder.Flour soup brushes up the dusty beach after the sun falls.
First light the beach dustless after all night off shore blow,
the water glassed off, air clear to Malibu north,
Palos Verdes south.A bloom of waves spills and flows over the beach,
foaming across the bleached sand as the tide rises,
smooth after the offshore wind blowing all night long,
the morning water crystal, waves flapping like sheets,
an airy fuss slapping movement then a quick flip,
and the rush of fish smell mixed with wax and salt and hair and skin.
Surfers like a swarm of dragonflies crowd the waves,
empty at first light, then three California pelicans
swooping low in a line over the edge of the break,
blessing surfers believing in waves,
sitting on their boards just outside the break.
One takes off on a gray-blue glossy pearl,
but this surfer should be somewhere else,
sees an expressionless ocean, does not believe in waves, upside-down in the surf, carving and cutting too hard, this surfer rides this wave like it’s not the wave he wants, so he throws it away,a discarded piece of waste paper.
He bolts the wave to chalk flounces about, his board flotsam. This surfer flouts about and scorns the sea.
He does not truly believe in the ocean.
He does not flower with the waves,
and a dark brack rises
and takes him away.
And the Summer dies.
“The strand and waves exist no more,
the summer is dead,”
Samuel Beckett said,
and the surfer believed him.
The dead sun did not matter.
He lost his surfboard, lost the path to the beach, what waves there far beyond his reach. Wave peepers came and pushed him away. He slept in ditches. They even took his bicycle. No technology could save him anyway.
He sat at an intersection,
with a cardboard sign that read,
“Won’t you please help
a surfer with no wave?”A woman stopped, rolled down her window,
and blew him a kiss that fizzed like a wave,
and to thank her, he wrote this:- Nothing makes sense
- in a waveless universe,
- where surfers ride beams of light
- on virtual surfboards.
Many anecdotes followed.
This one’s about a surfer who stuck with it, tried glass and glue but tossed all that, painted houses in the afternoons, surfed mornings and evenings. This surfer had a feel for boards, loved the way the resin and glass felt watery smooth and clean, bright surf shop stickers buried beneath wax. This surfer believed in waves, was a generous local, too,
didn’t want to fight, was easily satisfied with a simple sea, lived a slow life, long days, in the bowl of Santa Monica Bay, loved the sun, water, salt beaches, the surf songs The Waves sang.
The Waves were a beach band, paddled out brittle surf songs on metallico Teles and Jazzmaster bass, drums the speed of breaking waves.
That’s it, not much more.
The surfer got drafted,
went away to war
came back, went into Insurance,said he would never forget
the last wave he ever surfed,
after which he felt he’d never grow old,
then he left the beach for the rain and cold.
“Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar,” Wallace Stevens said.The surfer placed a board in Los Angeles,
and long it was, upon a wave,
it made the disheveled surf
array in dressed lines.The surf surrounded him,
the board glassed upon the wave
like a poem,
like Apollinaire.It seemed all cool but absurd,
breathless, and dead,
not like a bird or a fish,
like nothing else in Los Angeles.Then he added something more,
a man upon the board,
and filled the waves with bicycles,
perpendicular.The waves grew somber, the beach cold,
the surfboard a splinter in the wave’s skin.
The surfer fell, it was Fall after all,
and found himself alone at the end of a pier.He was free to swim to shore,
yet felt a curious fatigue engulf him,
a surfer’s anxiety,
for from the beach the waves lacked this intensity.He paddled toward shore,
but a riptide pulled him away and away.
He treaded water, drifting.
He lost sight of land.The sun fell, and no moon rose.
The waves met the night.
They broke in the sky
and rained down a dark salt.The surfer clung to his board,
flotsam and jetsam floated by,
old rusted bicycle parts,
useless in the waves.There were no fish, no birds,
no beach, no palms.
The surfer drifted in the inky night sea
below a blue black salt lick night sky.He thought he saw a light, the light rose,
rose or fell, he was not sure,
if he floated in water or in air.
His surfboard disappeared.Storm surf flushed chaos across the beach.
I waited for the surfer to return,
I went to work shaping and glassing a new surfboard.
Every evening, I walk down to the waterand watch the waves for his dancing legs,
his leaning stretch, his tumbling shadow,
his crouch, his ocean filled gills. -
Retro Surf Trip
At their usual spot,
the point at Refugio,
the surf was flat,
so they boogied down
in the cove,the fronds of the palms
fat and glassy green,
the rocks at the edge
smooth with rust moss hair,
the nose of his boardthrust up and curling
and curling in the blue
air of smiling swells,
but still the waves
would not breakinto hysterical laughter:
“There are no trees
on the sea,” she said,
holding a cream white
pink mophead hydrangea.“You look for shade
under the cool curl,”
he said, recalling their first
time – as soon as he stood
he wiped out,his board pushed in
with the soupy surf,
he wore no leash,
paddled out again,
and she lotioned in the sand.
-
Seaweed Cabbage
What was that she said about the skin
on his hands and forearms,
seaweed cabbage
boiling on stove, “That looks bad.”Blue dark wet orange oil damp oars drift awake
dawn dress coffee smoke brown falls upon brown
slow walk down curved sandy path to the water
empty nets sea grass tired boats in fresh tide wait.Surf sound spooning shingling
smooth rocks growing on his arms
that opposite real rocks grow larger
with each receding tide.He thinks about love water
work moon sleepy fog
legislated blather laughter
unrequited smiles.He’s not an especially proud man
unless provoked unnecessarily.
He has a few books on a shelf
in the kitchen he touches evenings.He thinks severity and frequency
as all men do capacity purpose
of hymns folk songs and surf music
and silence at the end of the path.He’s no interests but cars and guitars
stars in her eyes sand on her skin salt hair
gloss on her fingernails white
daisies between her wiggling toes.Wave after wave forgotten fishes
swim past her hands sleeved
sheathed knives
embraced recorded let go.At the cannery he never did learn
to stand still that fisherman’s value
he no longer wanted his friend
who now fished a desk in Admin.The smell of tar and turpentine as he cleaned her feet
shampoo that smelled like bubble gum
steel shavings and lead chips the plumber left behind
carob seeds rotting on fog wet boardwalk.Ocean fish air and orange crabs on ice at wood wharf stalls
after shave and Brylcreem Saturday Night adjectives
bingo sock hop carnies and a new noun in town
cool morning breeze on an angel’s moonburned skin. -
Seachange
Blue neon pales the alley and nothing
calms the woeful sea if won’t come she
to the window.No, too drouged to hear.
Her golden green hair billows across
the Motel Fregata bed, and deep her
foghorn bellows mute in pillowed sleep.So solo out off the beam down to the coaly beach,
flip flop in shallow cool pools, lured by a small moon coin.Up the beach a fire spits, a bottle breaks, and a guitar flashes.
Over the wooden trestle, a harmonica passes.
The surf hisses yeses as from the rocks a wiggly piss-take.
Boon a mist sleeks in, so tack-back to the warm room.Seaweed wrapped around orange plastic curlers,
with foam jelled fingers that collect flotsam and jetsam
and want some. Curls taped to cheeks and brow.She was a beachcomber scavenging in kaleidoscope
curly cuffed bell bottoms, passing
across blond sand dunes
where she learned to stretch and yaw,
surfing loose blousy waves off breezy reaches,
coasting through town down to the beach
on a one speed lazy bicycle, surf mat under arm,
red-orange towel slapping behind, salted hair curling,
tangling kite wagtails, waves gushing the beach,
curling around sandcastles where sand crabs
and children bubble and fizzle in the foam drizzle,
no wonder of the surfer’s troubled faith in waves.Wet and salty wind full in our wrinkled faces,
we swim out, hold hands through curling waves,
dive, burbling breathless under waves,
fall and turn and spin with the waves,
hear the waxy epizeuxis of waves.By the coyest hairs we argue, liking to talk
while we surf, something about a tiger shark and riptides,
an illuminated jellyfish, a juicy green sea anemone,
and a Brobdingnagian turtle as old as the ocean.We lock fingers in curls and pull to the curling top,
your oily fisheyes turned to my qualmy cockeyes.A swell rises to a wave of oyesses,
we kick and touch and tussle for air,
and the wave breaks into foam and washes us in,
prone in repose in the rushing foam.
-
300 Lines from a Walk on the Beach
300 This our endus now loops our open
299 Fall far below, leap over, gambol
298 Careful of grinning Grendels
297 Trolling erasures, elite elides, slow spindles
296 Check under bed and closet before sleep
295 Fear not these claw dark deep
294 Divertissements that ballet
293 Like games of crooked croquet
292 Changing rules as quickly as played
291 Which wicked witch of them
290 Twisted the meme of please
289 Sordid sorcerers in putrid pits
288 Filling upside-down mouths with salt
287 Redacted and redressed in uniform
286 Theatre ushers marching down aisles
285 Espousing enhanced punctum bias
284 Punctuated torts by loco pilot ghost lamp
283 Misfortune’s cunning smile
282 Chained he was to a thorny bush
281 A fire which would not burn
280 In a land of milk and honey tubas and butter
279 Stirred with dollar tallboys
278 Who did a good job revising until all
277 Edited for good PR
276 Like Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor
275 Asking greedy questions no answers satisfy
274 An open hand flat smacks a desk
273 With a question
272 Yes of course it’s why we’re all here
271 About these numbers
270 Each line coded
269 Beginning with 300
268 Moving backwards down to 1
267 To make suspect the lines trouble
266 Can be read up or down vertically
265 Top to bottom or upside-down
264 Or begin on any line in touch
263 Lag a coin upon a line
262 Hopscotch up and down
261 Any pause-positional phrase
260 Allows tracking and trending
259 Where each line presents
258 Measured headway phrenological proof
257 Human nature has not improved
256 In spite of pills and e-gizmo devices
255 Echoing down our hours
254 Speaking of numbers and rhymes
253 He said he was not a party to wit
252 He’d seen better times
251 He danced he sang he twisted
250 In bed pan pain
249 He’ll tell you another thing
248 About this throb and swing
247 How machines must go on clicking
246 Up or down
245 Just so no one falls too fast
244 Goes with subjects trending
243 Each line then fixed
242 In time by dovetail coordinate
241 Number rhyme logos pathos and ethos
240 So readers can shuttle and bounce
239 In and out of these digressions
238 Where we were when were we
237 Oh, yes, Line 275, Q&A
236 About to address
235 Rebuttals, opposing viewpoints
234 Handles in the hold of winter argument
233 Sick of scald cold move quick to summer
232 Surf seen from silence of dunes
231 Where two true blue lovers walk
230 The ice plant garden full
229 Soft flutters, breeze of roses
228 Red petals dropping into sea
227 With flop swish white waves wash
226 Through the quiet blue dunes
225 Where plum flowers float in the air
224 Drizzle down aswoon in color
223 Brimming on curly burled branches
222 Wilting immortally
221 Into plum flower dew
220 Booming shore pound in the distance
219 While in the backyard chess games play
218 And Gnip gnop, gnip gnop, gnip gnop and
217 Baseball, sitting quietly talking
216 The father, Cactus, poking
215 The mother, Twisted Cypress Shadow,
214 Alone on a hill in sensational California
213 The sun cooling off behind them
212 Tendril circles grape the overgrown yard
211 Where kids run to tatters
210 Breezes sprinkle Muscat dust
209 Arms and legs
208 Light up like firecrackers
207 Off they go! Off they go! Off they go!
206 Around and then and than this and that
205 When they stop no one will know
204 The kids dance until the moon glow
203 Soothes their sunburned toes
202 Sleep beneath scrubby oak trees
201 Across the sandy tan foothills inland
200 Near Meone, Jockson, Cutter Creek
199 Wettown below the melted mine
198 The yellow hills of old rust rush country
197 An orange must buries cast aside graves
196 Panning for nuggets off the cliffs of Meone
195 Outside the tavern
194 Where four women sit talking, patiently waiting
193 Wreathed with lavender and rosemary sprigs
192 Vitis californica
191 Four men come forth from the bar
190 Little prairie oysters swelling
189 Following one another out the pub
187 Need ride can’t drive you reading then ready for what
186 Like sheep and shamed they all were too
185 A few pints and darts at the bloody pub
184 A red hot game they all thinking go now for a goal
183 Tupping and that one was naked shorn head
182 Coat he forgot in the cab the little lost lamb
181 A couple of pinks and he would think himself lucky
180 She would if her Leo came home growling
179 Grabbing at her nape punch his lights out
178 And what when he’s not drinking he’s napping
177 Comes licking and purring he does
176 But he knows she means business
175 Imagine that poundage going at you forty times a day
174 Him scaring the bejeezus out of the little ones
173 With his botched teeth horrid breath and moody books
172 Bloody ignorant tongue drooling from his mouth
171 How much did he drink as if he could remember
170 Walking on his knuckles hunkered all thick brow lost eyes
169 You’ll catch your death of pneumonia
168 She told him he was actually in the gutter
167 Oh my god yes in the muddy scummy gutter the snipe
166 Scooted by his sweatshirt covered in cake she jumped
165 Moving slowly toward his prey the domesticated cat
164 His huge orange head lunging his lion ears
163 Accruing all that sounds like dust
162 The one with the long tooth stood on his hind legs wobbling
161 Warbling and pounding his chest falling into a deep fit
160 Coughing and choking and falling all over her
159 Hog boring slipping and suckling into the mud
158 Root for what for a cold carrot or radish she took
157 Some muck to dip it in jay suds they ought to
156 Shut that place down for the good it does anyone
155 Four housemen of the cover-up
154 The bum with his rhetorical situation
153 Punctuated equilibrium audience
152 Faces in the occupying crowd
151 A hem for a hat, a this for a that
150 Trade and barter, deceive and trick
149 For a bite for a ride
148 Take all of it all the wave the foam
147 Rye knot kneaded loaf laze and loll
146 A penny a line for a true one, half price otherwise
145 Who thought to make copies
144 Some greedy scholarly degreed griot
143 A self word-made bard
142 The verdure wort
141 In the rise of the root
140 She’s getting ahead of herself
139 Nowhere near the start or finish
138 Some swelling by the wayside
137 Some rappelling down on the face of it
136 Some scaling mixing a podium
135 In each line a toehold though explicating
134 Some hanging, still, resting on their exegeses
133 Reading solo rock climbing
132 Into the pleasant roped pipes
131 Don’t look so absurdly cold
130 Pour hot lead, drink salt water
129 Ale’s gone sour, grass dried frizzy
128 One man’s ears another’s kazoos
127 She hates it when people do her like that
126 Not too much around here mama don’t allow
125 Eating pig’s knuckles with sauerkraut and malt
124 The air clear and a rich flourish of waves foaming
123 Over beakers, the sand berms brushed smooth
122 Nightlong offshore blow, calm now
121 The wave surface rigid glass
120 The whole scene as clean as an experiment
119 The thunder of the closed out barrels
118 At the end of the pier past the break over the swells
117 A rush of fish smell mixing with surge and smoke
116 Bunsen burner to keep the fisher warm
115 The clock above the bait shop points up and down
114 Below the pier the swells emerge from deep water
113 A hooded wine the swell’s slow purr
112 An outlier swell appears bullish reaches
111 A clapping point and a seagull flaps off
110 Spontaneous symmetry breaking
109 Flying up to the pier alights atop the clock
108 One surfer predicts another and at sunrise
107 More surfers appear and at noon
106 Flocking to the south side of the pier
105 There are more surfers than can be accurately counted
104 Entering the waves random wanton
103 They disappear under the rushing foam of the inside
102 Breaking waves and emerge laughing and paddling
101 To reach the swells outside the break
100 One waves to another, they look up and wave at the fisher
99 Who waves back, entangled in the waves
98 Of nothing missed passing between them
97 The pier trail fails ahead
96 Across an ocean of chaos
95 A test which will not be measured
94 A failed word wrongful malediction
93 Only in so far as language goes
92 The wave performation syntax repeats
91 With a constant rote result, and that’s something
90 At the end of the pier there appear two solutions possible
89 Combining polymorphously into a molecule of nonsense
88 The ocean empties of meaning permitting accidents
87 Smoking and drinking joints
86 Below the jetty on the south side
85 Sea wrack and brine gulls down
84 Broken sand dollars
83 A beachcomber for miles
82 Pockets full of shells and small rocks
81 At the end of the pier at the end of the roundabout
80 A plank, in the shape of an h
79 The fisher walks out with gaffe
78 To aid in landing an unusually large catch
77 A halibut, a barracuda
76 Bait bucket alive with bubbles
75 The waves split around the pilings
74 The fisher walks out onto the h plank
73 Something jumps in a rush to the water
72 Disappearing into the slushy grey soup
71 Waxing waves scouring the beach
70 Leaving the pier to its sleepy creepy decay
69 While the ocean supreme creams
68 Barnacle covered pilings
67 All that muscled beach
66 At the end of the railway crossing
65 Old men wizened as raisins stuck on the strand
64 The wiriest of them fingerpicks a guitar
63 The only other sound the wheeze
62 The tavern door spins
61 As to the tap they go
60 The women rocking to and fro
59 As if on a boat putting out to sea
58 And then went down to the pub in shifts
57 Factories now running night and day
56 Knitting and crocheting
55 An assortment of needles and pins
54 It’s an old yarn an old man’s tale
53 The homonym got the best of him
52 His reflection in the salt water
51 As he fell to pay his visit
50 The year the waves broke over the pier
49 Surely an end was near
48 400 blows and the sea divested
47 The year of the great flood
46 The land sinking easily away from the sailor
45 40 worried days and 40 sleepless nights
44 Wood filled would the old tug hold
43 The oxpecker kept watch while the rhinoceros slept
42 The old books would serve as ballast
41 On the deck he built an altar
40 Which worried his wife
39 Later in life
38 Fish appear in her sea
37 Little wheels of fog reeling out of the water
36 A bead of sweat on his brow
35 Somewhere during the rosary
34 The rummy one
33 Sticks out his tongue
32 Ad libitum
31 Ad lib scat
30 Noise
29 Into silence
28 All this sand, ashes
27 Out of the moonlit water
26 Comes a procession up the beach
25 Rings and in vestments weary
24 Music, erratic mutable jazz
23 Haloes his balding plate
22 A host the size of a deluxe
21 Where the surfers eat and drink
20 Fish burritos and beer at Serena’s Seafood
19 It’s too late now to stop
18 They keep after these questions
17 He knows the answer but waits
16 Waves closing in closing out
15 Leaks reveal nothing
14 Later he’ll call the plumber
13 Taps pipes lightly with ball-ping hammer
12 The night sinks stink
11 Reveille revelry diesel bus starts up
10 Still dark draft out of the water
9 Bags the grounds for the morning
8 Barista in a long green beard
7 Two cappuccinos with foamy angel wings
6 Dodge into a coffee house dive
5 A couple of horned larks warbling across Eden
4 Blinding flashes in camera obscura
3 Paparazzi at the Gates of Paradise
2 One was never enough
1 In the beginning was the wand and wave -
At the Beach with Peepa and Moopa
Meet Peepa ‘ and Moopa ‘`
They like to play on the beach
The waves are pipes made from sea foam ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The lifeguard looks like
?{ Alfred Hitchcock with a pipe ~{
Peepa jumps off the end of El Porto pipe pier ‘~~~
—|—|—|—|—‘`~~~ Moopa jumps kilter and akimbo
|’——–~~~ Peepa runs and dives |——–‘~~~
\~~~~~~’~~~’`~~~ They swim back to shore
In the evening when the sun goes down ~~~,~~~
they sleep on the beach and dream of waves
‘` ‘ \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~’~ sleepy wave eyes ~’`~
Peepa walks alone down to the water ‘ \ ~~~
Moopa awakes and cries ‘` Peepa, where are you?
Peepa comes running back to Moopa ‘` ‘ \~~~
-
Lenten Surf Season
Work morning and Luke up early helping his dad load plumbing tools,
wrenches and chisels, elbows and nipples, the ladle and the lead pot
full of soft lead that looks like frozen surf.
Luke now taller than his dad.“Give Dan a call,” Luke said. “He’s drivin’ now.
We’re headin’ inland to work,”
and he ran his rough hand meanly over Jack’s salt matted hair.
“I’m afraid my surfin’ days are near over, kid,” Luke said.Dan lived with his grandma back in the alley
behind Roman’s, off Devil’s Path.
He was working on an old Chevy beater.
He was a cross between a surfer and a hodad.“You turnin’ into a hodad,” Jack said,
but it was a question, and Dan laughed.
“All you think about is surfing, kid,” Dan said.
“I have to give Grandma a ride to mass.Give me a quarter for some gas, go to mass with us,
then we’ll drive down and check out some waves.
You hear Gary got shot? Not coming home, though.
Sent him up to Japan for some R and R.”“I love the mass,” Danny’s grandma said.
She sat in the middle of the bench seat,
smelling like toilet water and wax.
“I love the quiet, the peace.I love the back of the church dark,
the hard polished oaken pews,
the altar lit like a halo, the smell
of the candles, the incense,the smell of Father Dayly’s hands
when he puts the host between my lips
and sets it down softly onto my tongue.”
“I know you do, Grandma.”“No, you don’t. You boys can’t know
nothin’ about it, how I love the sudden bells.
I love the mass so much,” Danny’s grandma said,
“I’m giving it up for Lent.”They turned to look at the old woman,
Jack rolled his window down,
and Danny’s grandma saw the salt water in Jack’s eyes.
“But,” she said, spitting it out, and paused.“Yes, Grandma?” Danny said.
“You go to mass without me during Lent.
You give up surfing for Lent.”
Jack could hear the waves laughing at him.Rising from the beach and curling over the dunes,
a breeze hisses like a glass blower’s torch.
The spring swell peals across the bay,
the waves a glass cavalry menagerie.
The Coming of the Toads 