In Shades

Cold winds cutting in off the churning wash of waves
with St. Cadillac the
patron of Western roads
              The Sand Beneath the Pavement
                                                The Outrigger
                              Kon Tiki of the Broken Night
              Mysto Reef, Boneyard, Steel Pier, The Pipe
Medieval cathedral bells
in the predawn stillness that is
more like a ship at sea
than anything else I can
think of right now

A day & night of reckoning
                              banjos in the eucalyptus
                                                this side of a leadpipe morning fog
              & darkness the texture of naugahyde

Rosy dawn at the door to the Pacific’s what I’m thinking
                              & not Odyssean but ukuleles
              & steel guitars with guttural twang
                                                in seeming deep waves returning