View From The Bar Harbor Inn
Gray advances, erasing blue.
Umbrellas pop like mushrooms.
Asphalt shiny with rain.
Smell road? The scent of ghosts.
Storm wind rocks the oaks,
Strips orange off the maples.
Sky a puzzle of leaves and branches.
Wallpaper blooms between windows,
Flowers frozen in mock spring.
Birds avoid singing—
They huddle in empty nests
Dreaming of spring.
Above me, five blades
Are a rotation of wings.
Breeze chills my sheets.
Night turns windows to mirrors.
I appear mannequin
Without blink or heartbeat.
Maine
Bone white cruise ship
Anchored off Porcupine Island
Spurts gray exhaust
Through a blue funnel.
Wind blows the stink of diesel
South to Seal Harbor.
Shore paths closed for repair.
Winter storms shoved
Brick, stone, cinder block
Inland to underwater parking
Or dragged them to the sea.
At the Bar Harbor Inn,
A beard on a cherry picker
Nails fresh siding one floor up.
His picker’s parked
In a nest of scraggly maples.
A few skeleton branches
Sport peanut-sized buds.
The beard begins drilling.
I make eye contact
During a pause in the racket.
I wave big—he pretends
Not to see me.
Downtown visitors
Begging directions
Sometimes confess
My eyes are black as death.
Stingray Beach
Man with red trunks
Enters the ocean.
Waves tumble white.
He wades in penis deep.
Surf disappears the red.
A wife or mother
Joins him in the breakers.
He’s thin. She’s husky.
They chatter like kids—
They are their own children.
Currents shove kelp balls
Onto the strand.
Black bird of prey kite
Circles above the couple.
Rip drags them north
To Stingray Beach.
Face Of Stone
Kid laughter and yelps
Age me a half-century
In my upstairs office.
I hate them for being
Young and immortal.
Bianca conks Jonathan
With a rubber hammer.
Ambrosia zips by on a razor.
I remember young
During Moloka’i summers
Racing big brother
On horseback.
Grandma made us
Crack coconuts
And shovel manure.
We overflowed wheelbarrows
With mare poop.
I pretend suburban hero
In white V-neck and shorts
Washing a polar sportscar
On my broken driveway.
Silver peeks through
Camouflaged hair.
I’ve become invisible
As children run paths
To fame and fortune.
My face in white paint
Turns to stone.
Permanent Damage
My right eye refuses to blink.
It remains open and frozen
As a dead tuna.
Sunglasses keep the retina
From burning on days
Without clouds.
The left eye ignites with life.
It mocks the failed one
By lid-fluttering as fast as
A hummingbird’s wings.
The side of my face
With the bum eye
Droops as if melted.
Don’t snap pictures of me,
Even at Christmas.
No graveyard burial for me.
Fire up the gas
And burn me to ashes.
Headstones
Granite headstones
Behind the chapel
Lean into each other,
Almost touching.
Three inches apart and closing.
Weather-blasted names.
Do graveyard residents
Know their neighbors?
Without visitors,
The bones of the forgotten
Ache for recognition
From those underground.
The buried utter
Truths and exaggerations
That find the ears of birds.
The Merwin Compound, Maui
Here the palms grow tall
Challenging the sun.
Goat droppings perfume
Mosquito grottos.
Bufo croaks
The underbrush alive.
Ferns battle for light.
Earth fouled
By Dole Pineapple
Accepts monsoon rain,
Driving poison into
The netherworld
Ruled by Hawaiians.
Spirits of lost
Piha Kanaka Maoli
Weep in the darkness.
notes:
Bufo: toad
Piha Kanaka Maoli: having pure Hawaiian blood
