yosemite apples

the apple orchard at Curry Village,

at shuttle bus stop 14 –is a parking lot.

the trees were planted and blossomed

before Lincoln gave Yosemite to California,

and Sherman burned a swath

through Georgia.

some call them ugly, invaders,

unpruned and knobby 

but……..the trees still bear fruit

which has to be harvested before

the black bears come to feast

when the season is ripe,

and yogi urges boo boo

to climb the gnarled trunks

and grab a snoutful  of Northern Spy,

Winesap.

or Gravenstein.

and the valley swarms

with hikers and cyclers, toyotas and fords.

shuttles and trailers and babies in strollers.

the mule's ears bloom pink in the meadows,

with nectar and pollen galore

for turquoise-striped bees

who plaster their underground hives

with a coat of apian polyester.

a forested city of bugs and people,

where bears wear tags on their ears

and the merced washes the rocks and the roots

and the bones of a deer, drowned in a flood

protrude from a sandbar.

bright-colored specks of climbers,

cling to the face of the cliffs

that watch over the hubbub below.

and the walls of the canyon seem to have wept

mascara'd black streaks at the changes

they've witnessed. but that's just

anthropocentric projection.............however,

the canyon does hear, beneath the sound

of the cars and the busses, the voices

of children in joy. and the tongues

of the world speak in awe

to the ears of the world

and they say………………

bus stop

pasty grub-white boys talking about how kills

in level three turn to ash and blow away

hustler says he's got ten or fifteen phones

he needs to sell because every time he needs shoes

it costs two hundred bucks,

but they ain't much to boast about

he tries to hook up

with the woman sitting up against the cyclone fence

at the back of  the sidewalk:

-your program locks you up at night?

-nah, we just have to be back in by eleven.

-but they lock you in?

-no. we got house monitors.

-im coming over tonight.

-no you're not, i'm getting married next week

-yeah, that's why i'm comin' over.

-unh-unh. i don't do nothing' without my man

i been a good girl for six months.

i'm a good girl. i'm a good girl.

she hasn't taken her eyes off her phone

during this entire conversation, her

semi-mohawk afro haircut with a blonde crest,

is bent over her phone. buds sprouting from her ears,

her metallic green-nailed thumbs tapping

and caressing the screen.

then a woman with a little boy in a stroller

wheels by and the huslter barks,

-stop!  get him out of that thing.

the boy begins to cry, he doesn't want to get out .

he's afraid of daddy.

the young man bends down growls in the boys face.

-why you trying to scare my baby? his young mother says.

-cause it's fake, daddy bully says.

she walks on and he turns back to woman tapping on her phone.

-are those your engagement rings?

-yeah.

-both of them?

-yeah, they from the same place.

the bus pulls up and the people shuffle up to the doors.

the lumbering pale video game enthusiasts,

the sikh, the two middle-aged latinas engaged in animated conversation.

the skinny chinese boys laughing at a private joke.

the bottle blonde lady with the frightened eyes.

daddy bully goes to the back of the bus

mother and boy in stroller stay up front

afro mohawk woman grabs one of the three single seats,

prized by those who are picky about their seatmates.

like the guy who looks like he's been sleeping rough

for twenty years with the bloodshot eyes and straggly

whiteman dreadlocks halfway to his waist.

he stares out the window like he's seeing nothing.

another woman with a stroller gets on the bus

one of those ghostly bleached out utah mormon-looking types

except she's got faded tattooed words on her neck.

the baby is quite young, no more than a year old,

snoozing in that bottomless baby slumber.

does it come in olive drab or urban black?

scratching for a godlike view,

and disappointed when the expected cliche

failed to hatch from the golden egg,

the swoon he swore would soon

have her trembling at his feet, panting,

was nothing more than the vapor

of a boiling stew of wishes,

hormones, and too many views

of the swaggering men

of books and movies.

he wondered, does it come in olive drab?

desert camouflage or urban black?

what script shall i play out, the scholar or

the scoundrel?

and the fool, saw wisps of splendor

rendered solid in the vapors

lit by footlights, a trick that required

his participation. and a story big enough

to satisfy his lust and ignorance.

or shall i be kind, and attribute it to naivete?

well as the children say: whatever.

suffice it to………….

stipulate, it was a kind of replacement

for the missing parts,

the love that stewed in a weedy pond

inhabited by snakes and frogs,

and wriggly stuff squirming in the muck.

he opted for olive drab and black schemes.

which felt much less appealing when

he found a woman who said she'd

teach him how to fuck.

-for fifty bucks an hour.

the world looked a little brighter then,

more disney than peckinpah,

and he looked at his bunk and the locker,

the trucks and the guns, 

the bunkers and missiles.

and guys with collections of ears.

and said: this isn't hollywood toto.

so when the olive drab came off

for the final time and the khaki landed

in the trash can in the airport rest room,

and especially those wretched hard black shoes,

he was ready for art and costume,

exuberance, and frisky frisco girls.

a camera…….art school……..

he wore yellow crushed velour hot pants,

went prancing and dancing at the discos,

drinking gold cadillacs and tequila sunrises,

and found a frisky frisco girl, eventually.

in the land of cherry pie

in the land of no regrets, with lots of cherry pie,

where the angels never cry or fall,

beyond the reach of telescopes,

it only takes an eye to see

beneath the scars and skin,

the burns and sins, to the fringe

of experience, savored or not,

flavored like oranges or reeking of steel.

i was swimming, one moonless light

and the air felt the same as the water,

tiny fishes nibbling on my toes.

the vast scent of the world

filled me from nose to spine to testicles

all the names of her i've known or wanted to, 

tumbled and worn, a fabric relaxed

to a softness unknown by days at a desk

or nights on a stool grinning at strangers

and hoping by closing that i'd pass the test,

win a ticket to morning and yawning at dawn,

pressing lips to the shoulder of the beauty i'd met.

it's a place i've never visited outside this head

played out on the back of my eyelids in a solitary bed

while crossing the border into the territory of dreams

beyond the reach of telescopes

in the land of no regrets, with lots of cherry pie,

where the angels never cry or fall

and the words spill like drops of water

from a beard of moss below a spring

glistening, cold and sweet, to cling

for a moment to the fossilized skull

of a mastodon, where a century has carved

a tiny basin, brimming, clear, and doomed

to measure out the physics of force and time

drop by sparkling drop, the rock-paper-scissors game

from which nothing material ever escapes.

it's the ethereal which lasts,

immune to the daily mundane,

the tasks and trivial pass,

like pollen dusted on a stream.

this dream persists in a place

i've never been, but felt sometimes,

for a moment of imperfect bliss.

the spell

we watch the sky for miracles and purple kisses,

this universe that hides by day and winks by night

the home of drones and geese, honeymooners

on the fly to coral beaches, and killers far from home.

it's easier that way but less convenient

than the falcon that just flashed across my window

a black and tawny blur that sped in chase of squab

hey, sweet meat, want to be my treat?

a slim and fully ripened woman in a ragged cotton dress,

lit by stars and a candle sheltered in a scavenged

tin can with the top snipped off at an angle

sidled up to me in that poor nameless village.

no cuddling in a nest of thorns, she promised

and whispered something about angry plates

or tumbled toys, circumstance or location?

a catalog of frivolous invention and mad fixations,

spittle-flecked and glittering. later,

with her thighs hugged tight around my waist,

she muttered -i've heard them down there, slowly killing.

it sounds like a puppy being eaten alive.

you see that stain on the wall over there? it's an ear.

spying on my dreams, inserting phantom time,

corrupting the very density and thingness of the action.

in the morning she was gone, one dark hair left on the pillow

and a pale smear on the sheets, where tears

and seed had met before we slept,

each entwined in dreams that never met.

hers were lost in a swirl of bees and wasps,

mine a storm of pollen in a cloud of soot

eclipsing memories of snapdragons and hay lofts.

I stood naked at the window gazing,

is that a trace? where the grass is kinda different?

a barefoot trail that bent the tender blades

where fog had kissed the lawn?

the garden gate agape, sagging on it's hinges.

I'll wait, I thought, perhaps she's only gone to fetch

some bakery treats or coffee, this town's unknown to me.

her shack is bare, unused to a lover's company

just the skinny cat, that rubbed and begged

for the kibble that she dribbled into a pie plate

the night before. was this beast her familiar,

and she herself, a succubus who lured me to her lair?

my back began to itch, high up where I could not see the spot.

had her clever midnight fingers scratched a claim

upon my spirit to spawn a clutch of demon children?

I turned toward the rumpled bed on the floor against the wall

and caught a dusty reflection in a cancerous mirror

beside the window, a rough and reddened pentagram

etched between my shoulder blades, that faded as I stared.

did I imagine it, in this morning's groggy haze?

her clasp had felt like passion in the hunger of my daze,

a purple-headed stupor, the perpetual gush and spew,

until the dues demanded by that tyrant of the flesh

passed down from frogs and mice was spent.

on the floor beside the humped and dented mattress,

the burnt down stubs of five black candles sat

in a pool of congealed wax studded with the delicate bones

of some small creature. had we dined on baby birds

roasted over the flames? I could not remember but

I hoped it wasn't bats. I heard soft singing coming up the path

and turned back to window and saw her strolling through the grass,

a tattered plastic shopping bag dangling from one hand.

the glow of apples showed dimly through the sack

as it swung gently, keeping time with her soft song

in a tongue I did not understand. she saw me at the window

and flashed her dazzling teeth, a knowing sparkle in her eyes.

something slithered off into the brambles

as she reached the door.

good morning, sweet man, she breathed. did you sleep well?

I've brought you some apples to break your fast.

I'll bet you're hungry. I like a man with appetite.

in fact my stomach growled in answer and

she tossed her silvery laugh up at the rafters overhead.

my naked condition could not conceal the embers

once more enflamed by that enchanted sound.

-perhaps you'd like to wait a while to eat, she purred

and slid up close to me, dropping the apples

to roll and rumble across the slanted floor.

with a warm strategic hand she led me to the tousled bed.

you know, I said, this is embarrassing,

but I don't remember your name. -really? she snickered,

I'm surprised, you moaned it often enough last night,

so I guess I better make sure you don't forget it

for the rest of your life, she softly growled

as her threadbare dress fell from her shoulders

and puddled around her feet.

she leaned close to my ear and whispered,

her forked tongue, snakelike, lightly brushing,

flickering and teasing,

it's Lilith, my dear, remember?