Once, while sitting
On a tide-surrounded
Piece of Sunset Cliffs,
I smelled boyhood,
A summer scent:
Warm sand, blue cool ocean,
Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax;
Coconut tanning oil
SPF 15.
The silence of waves before they break,
Bodyboard rash and sunburns,
The sharp asphault places in the parking lots,
Kicking sand on the backs of your calves
When wearing flip flops.
Bonfires and beer drinking,
Big Olaf’s waffle cones;
Smoke and fireworks and Frisbees,
Barbeques, volleyball leather, and Cokes.
The wet, towel-covered vinyl seats
In the Monte Carlo,
All in one accurate slap
Of a wave and the wind
Gracing my face.
Archive for April, 1995
Big Olaf
Posted: April 23, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beer, Blue, Boy, Monte Carlo, Ocean, Sand, Sunset Cliffs, Wind
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Pine Tree
Posted: April 3, 1995 in PoetryTags: Ant, Boy, Cat, Child, Clouds, Crow, Fly, Life, Monkey, Mother, Sky, Storm, Tree, Wind
I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older –
Hey, I thought it might have grown smaller
Like my free time, but
I’ll bet the wind still waves
The top of that tree back and forth
Enough to make a mother faint.
It seemed like yards, side to side,
The crow’s nest on a stormy ship
Clinging to the sparse branches,
Inadvertently gluing myself to the trunk
With pine sap and a boy’s luck,
Feeling the tickle of the ever-curious ants
That make freeways in the channels
Of such an old tree’s bark.
I think climbing tall things
Is conquering the world to a child.
I remember my parent’s roof,
Paved with pink pumice,
Once all stones,
Then weather beaten gravel,
Looking like a picnic blanket –
Something you could almost fall into
And just sink in,
Like a cat for a headrest.
From that altitude, the clouds were nearby:
I was pretty much one with the sky.
I wondered if I believed enough
On the way down,
Could I fly?
The Pier
Posted: April 2, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beach, Beast, Bed, Breast, Clouds, Fish, Pier, Seagull, Sleep, Water, White, Wind
The pier is flung out past the surf
Into the deep water
Like a sleeper’s unconscious arm
Idly hanging over the edge of the bed.
Sunlight scuba dives for the flickers
Of schools of little fish
And warms the top of the waters –
Where the seaweed loosely hangs
Like bead curtains or piles of laundry. –
Frosting on the cake of the beach.
And the seagulls! Clouds wheeling,
Settling, screeching insults at each other
In the dingy parking lot
At the foot of the pier,
Lone white-breasted panhandlers
Eyeing the people fishing from the deck
From a safe distance.
The swirl of wind-borne sand
By the land-bound pilings,
The whorls of water around its sea legs,
Troughs of wave swells
On their way to the board-straddling surfers
Flash the wealth of sea life
Clinging to the stilled beast.
I leapt off the pier once,
Disobeying one of two white-stenciled laws
That decorate the fading grey-green railings:
One: no jumping or diving;
Two: no overhead casting.
I lost all my air on impact;
Between the shock of wallop and water,
It was all I could do to swim in.
The pier teaches endurance in many ways.
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