Impervious to fugues of fantasy
in quasi famished states
I cut hungrily into crisp,
succulent leaves of palish green,
cold and sweating, iceberg lettuce-cups
snapping moist against my dry, silent lips
hard, sinewy, orange-pink, yellow-green, striated, unripened tomatoes
from northern, southern nurseries
imported express for inauspicious occasions, like an ordinary lunch
by luminescent lapping shores
extraordinary! ensalada verde
en Caña Gorda, al mar

Bobbing at the base
of its vinegary
saliferous, peppered stew
two small, raw
white concentric rings of onion
almost perfectly-sized
for graceful young women
to wear gently
around long, slender, flowing fingers
I bit in.
its steady-stinging, watery flesh
squirted
flooding my nostrils
with acrid sweet

In one fantastic
fleeting flash,
a firebolt of memory…

A time more hopeful
and innocent with fun,
a foreign concept, the pangs of loss
my mother and I lie
wriggling on our bellies
on fresh-cut, sweet-green-grass
crossed at the ankles, legs flailing in the air
chortling with laughter

My eyes squint to see.

Her loving,
exuberant young face
beaming…
eclipsing
the early afternoon sun,
one surviving, conspicuous
glowingly chirping-yellow buttercup
brushes boldly
against my cheek
in the park across the street
eating home-grown
Bazik spuckies with tuna,
soupy mayonnaise
dripping down my snickering
dolphin’s grin
and onions and pickles and potato chips, on our tickled breaths
she plucked the lone-surviving
persistent, cheery intruder
pressed it toward my chin
imploring playfully
she said:
“make a wish!.

A tear fell
sluggishly,
splashing with aplomb,
onto my plain
white
porcelain
china plate
of a saltier, now
ensalada verde
en Caña Gorda, al mar

extraordinary day for Epiphanies
when ideas clabber together
like jello ingredients
molding to a form
as if otherwise meant
to diffuse into eternity
as morning stars melt
into a dawning summer sun
random realizations about a past
present, about a future
pend passively, arrival
as casual as cartoon bubble captions
popping mischievously
from comic strip minds,
and I realize I’ve been right
and I realize I’ve been wrong
in almost perfectly
symmetrical contradiction
to the merry and not-so
moments,
all the way along

Snow
Snow
Snow
Snow
Let it ?
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Ultimately,
it boils down
all
to the love
we share
in this infinitesimally
tiny pocket of time
together…

(High pitched screeeeeeeeeeching
scratchy halt…of black vinyl 45 RPM,
and
hallmark alert!)

But what about the hate and the fear? The confusion and the pain, the frustration, desperation, hopelessness and boredom? The pessimism, the envy, the cold indifference, petty jealousies and those rayless retaliations that seem surely to ensue? The over-stimulation, the heartache of betrayal, the disappointment for the dreams, despite the best of efforts, that simply don’t come true?

It seems not
so matter-of-factly,
to boil down
to any one particular thing at all
but rather,
to a simmering
Gemeinschaft,
of myriad universal opportunities
to learn, about ourselves
in the mirror of common human ground,
like a good hearty chicken,
rice and vegetable soup,
made with heaps and gobs of…

hmmmmm…?

Let’s suppose,
that it may, even likely
after all,
just be…
the simple sentimental truth,
that all of this…
living,
does somehow, miraculously
reduce
to the undeniable
bonding energy, of love

Short of twenty
precious looming minutes
before the glowing, molten
orange daylight
bursts
upon a silvery twilit horizon,
beaming brilliant, sunny
mischievous morning cheer,
piercingly, raucously
pushing past
blackout shades and thick
burgundy velvet winter drapes,
onto this sacred, private moment
of lying
in the dark, in the silence
– breathing,
just breathing
before the peal of opening bells
and crushing pressure
to reach…
for starry fascinations of this busiest of minds
a slave, to checked boxes

Accomplishment
its own merciless trap,
pressure to produce
as though breathing the clean, crisp
autumn air
not nearly enough
to nourish this,
God’s masterpiece creation:
one man

Doing
and doing without pause
– uniquely American a cause,
of unchecked compulsion and capitalistic a sense of national duty

Kick! the bucket list far…
and out…
into the interstellar space of tranquility
beyond the moon
beyond the sun
beyond the Milky Way

To sit in solitude,
in peace,
without the merciless, imposing
squeeze of needing…
to experience everything
that strikes a mind’s fancy

Time for a vacation!

chandlers
Beware!
of witty,
rapid-fire repartee
and self-satisfied, cheeky
cheshire grins and guff,
during negotiations of any ilk.
They serve but wittingly
to befuddle…
amused
incognizant sycophants.

Without knowing
the simple
puressence
of our being
we just might spend
an entire
addled lifetime,
believing
in a psychologicself,
– in the current
and changing
weather conditions:
partly cloudy,
with a likely chance of thunderstorms,
the one
who’s been trained …
– to react
bewildered,
by childhood events
the world’s conditioning,
by biochemistry’s
bumbling
flights of folly

The surest way
to know
the easy unrestraint
of purescent nature,
our perennially present
and essential
climatic constitution:
clear, 72 degrees
with bright, blue skies,
& a constant
of contentedness

is in silence…

in the meditative state
of communion
with things
otherwise,

unknowable