Shrine

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2008

An elderly nun sat
Under a shade cloth
Like a shroud
Surrounded by a cage
Of cast-iron bars

Dreaming on her hand
Awaiting requests
Demands or questions
Her companion
In dark habit

Ushered each
Supplicant forward
Into her presence
Holding back a tide
Of queries

Pilgrims crawled
On hands and knees
Up tiny marble steps
Steep and white
Strewn with rose petals
And dry bloodstain
Reminders of previous
Penitential passages

One by one
Into that tiny iron cage
Surrounded by smells
Of rose and old bone
We slowly crawled
Staring longingly
At the saint’s relic
A broken skull

Wanting answers
From the sleeping guardian
A Sister of Pythoness.
That tired face
Wanted sleep and dreams
But I turned away
Request unspoken
To leave her
Floating in sleep
On the scent of roses.

Where Fallen

Where fallen, a pelican
Perfectly displayed in wind drifted sand
Spread wings and feathers,
And spine extended, dies
Headless like a fallen angel
Forgotten and forsaken
By all except the flies.

View

Sitting on Choirbench I
Watched you roll the tribe
With some kind of sculptured toys
Even though you promised
Macking corduroy
Buzz went aggro in the drop
His nose kick tripped up
On a speedbump hidden in the bowl
Then Hatch tried to hang
But every digit missed the rail
And he face planted in a gnarly perl
With his stick going ballistic
On the back swing his pintail
Nearly sent him mystic.

Signal

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2009

There is that alien light again,
Drifting around the port periphery
Floating in the offshore fog.

Waves crawl the quay wall
Channel markers are flashing
Harbor Master consent has gone.

A surfer is chasing down his stoke
A camera gathers scattered light
A heart is pumping blood.

I keep thinkin’ they wants to land
To browse this ‘ere exotic port o’ call
To muck about with rum and riot.

But they are still waiting out there
Now lightless and without signal
Silent as rags on the Dutchman.

A mooring awaits and pinnace
The telegraph marks a welcome
A maiden longs for converse.

Heading to a pineal pier
Or outbound for celestial psyche
The captain seems uncertain.

The tide is high and channel clear
Either way, naught thwarts or bars
But a call of beat to quarters.

Thieves

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2005

There are special kinds of thieves
Not that kind who long
For the solid clink of coin
Or the dry hiss of currency
No those are simple types, ordinary thieves

There is another much grander kind of thief
They do not long for economic power
Or tradeable baubles
Of mineral or metal
Those are easy targets

These are special kinds of thieves
Who enter with hungered looks
Slack-jawed they whisper for time
Once fed they chew furiously and ask for more
With great staring still hungry eyes

Mistress

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2009


San Francisco
My mistress
Told me today
To take off
My sunglasses
And look at her
In full color
She was wearing
That veil of fog
And carrying
A bouquet of flowers

This Little World

Photo: Diego Fernandes 2009

I used to carry pictures each of my siblings in a wallet
And showed them with pride to my fellow travelers
There is the oldest this one is the middle
That one our youngest member of the tribe

I don’t carry a wallet anymore or pictures
Season my Grandmother called those special papers
I discovered early on wallets accumulated stuff
So much became unreadable and indecipherable

And sitting on my siblings just seemed wrong
But sometimes I wonder whether pitching the pics
Destroyed a something in the living maybe
Somehow I threw a something away I shouldn’t have

There is no comfort in comforting my turmoil
Just sit quietly and listen with everything you’ve got
My beautiful intelligent sister still beautiful still intelligent
Lives in an idea world from a land of fantastic otherwhere

Some mind authority told me we could give her drugs
Another said you have a right to be mentally ill
Eyes of the lay just dim with incomprehension
Have you seen anyone they all inquire they all ask

What to do what to do what to do a jazz song sings
On foggy days in foggy old towns all upon a foggy night
You need to pay you need to pray you need to let go
You need a miracle you need god on your side

Sighing and giving a retelling of the tale told and told
Went here went there went here and there again
Talked to Dr.X Dr.Y Dr.Z M.D. PhD. D.D. LL.D MFCC see?
First it was sympathy and roses then U.S. dollars

It was kind of fun to see all those alphabeted people smile
The same kind of knowing well well well grin lean in
With the all-knowledgeable looks gravely visaged
Nodding heads all with deep voiced ‘very sad indeeds’

Then came the international internet research buttons
Looking for a magic pill a magic cure a spell
To wave at my sister up and down bibbity bobbity
A guardian angel winged fairy complete with wand

The mystery in the ruin of minds is mesmeric
Those demon guarded intellects draw weaponless knights
From across immense galactic divides to battle
But for the present those fiendish spirits prevail