Driver

His foot rested lightly but with heavy menace on the pedal beneath the dash
scars hung like war medals and his knuckles were bruised and gashed
she climbed from the back seat in sunlight and barefeet
into his lap
and laughed
curled lips wrapped moistly around a fresh cigarette
the smoke eloping from the open window
the seats covered in stolen cash
he couldn't be sure she was
sane
he couldn't be sure she was
mad
she grabbed the stick and bit his ear
as he crushed his boot onto the gas
heaven ahead of us, honey, and hell behind us fading fast
the world slipped away in a growling flash
she wiggled out of her purple panties and crawled onto his lap
his tight fists gripped the wheel of that octane craft
lashed to rubber and sheet metal
summer thunder and an alloy camshaft
he all but crashed as she sucked the sweat from the tips
of his curled moustache

she didn't have to ask
but pulled his jeans from his hips
and let the engine rip them into the future
of an already fading past.

TA

Nowhere The Island, Nowhere The Sea

The salt flats of Balustrino stand empty today
absent picturesque warm waves of crystals washing in from Pin Yong Bay,
the children's mosque is in ruins
and the children in their blue ribbons no longer come out to play,
misfits make their home in the rubble of the Oliphant Theater
huddled in circles around fires in the muffled tunnels
of the old organ's two hundred meter long loudspeaker,
the drug dens of the 8th century Leotard czars no longer wreak of the smell
of cocaine cooking in mason jars
nor of the sweet heated engine oil of their Primo Lixus high end cars,
the peasant's bridge has fallen and either sits at the bottom of the river Avren
or has been washed over Great Avren Falls where it is all expected
to have collected among the sprawl of boulders
at the base of the Falls
whose tall sheer slanted granite facade
the old order of Hispanic monks once used as a wailing wall,
Chyoro Peak is all that remains
shrouded in the cumulus clouds of mystique like
a father
who hides his face from children who seek,
snowdrifts on his cheeks become tears that turn into swiftly flowing creeks
smoothing stones and uprooting trees
becoming rivers at the old mountain's knees
eventually and endlessly emptying into the starlit sea,
tiny Avrill Ocean, the smallest of eight brothers but a wonder nonetheless,
caresses the warm sand at Bahow Beach blessed to be left behind
in a world rushing towards impossible duress,

but without regrets my toes tempt the clear water
and my clothes have been left where they cannot be bothered
and with a half shrimp at the end of a bobber
and with more than a thousand miles to anything modern
I am absolutely forgotten

like a single grain of pollen,

and right now
under the shade of this coconut bough
I would rather have nothing to which I had more in common.

TA

Remember Me

This dear dear
promised child
held so near in my long ashen arms
country raised and keen eyes
ears
is all it needs to detect alarm
farm sharpened blade
sharpens the tongues of those who pray
those who lay with women twisted
and still in some manner are forgiven
driven to keep promises
made in shag carpet living rooms
push push breathe and push my Max from the black womb of his doom
watch the years burn down in pictures he kept in albums and tombs
exhume the fading memories of my enemy's cruel chivalry
from infancy to the grave
remember me

remember me

absolutely freed of all wild thoughts and deeds
learned notions of poison seed
he kisses me on the ear in my hangdog moment of need
the loyal kiss that rang true
and rang deep
the faithful dismissed to spend the rest of their miserable trip
with the rest of the sheep

this winter-woven child leaping from cliff to crag
where none have climbed
where none have seen
no witness of lover brought to life
no lover lost to misery
she weeps he weeps I weep
as the poet in his sandal-woven satchel speaks
I am the divinity
from here
as some say
to infinity.

TA