se, vocation.
What is not a longing'? Craving?
Itch before the scratch?

XIV
The last, inner spike of saintly sanity
snapping to "calling", that siren
song persuasion Lorelei made
vision.
So watch their faces--lips set,
eyes aglow giving us all "an offer
we cannot refuse".
Silver or lead, red hot poker
up the innards in the name of
Self-Determination.
Columbian drug-lord, hat off
cleaning her glasses after
The Hit.

There is no substitute for victory.
Conviction has its price.
Its a funny, old world if only
Maggie Thatcher knew.

MIDPOINT

The thin, feathery blue
egg-shell curtains gently tossing,
the tin smile
of the roof armada
its metal armour flashing
to inch their shingle way
into escalade-escadrille formation
and leathery sky.

TWINKLING OF AN EYE

On twin tails of a comet
penguin men polka dot
the night------
waddle white suits
past pale the white Empress Night,
flickering graveyard stars
---a pitcher of inky black
upended in a choir and manger

II.
Lowing of the clouds
lowering overhead like bombardiers
rifling the Firmament,
black braying back.

III.
Millpond, satin and creamy,
then buttercup crush of waves

SERENADE

A green flotilla,
verdant armada
stone hand encased
in an arm of ocean
off blue-grotto bay.

Something avuncular where land
meets sea
--underdog, whipped cur,
adult "son" posturing to the elder,
pontificating man.

Melaque after dark
or was it Aguascalientes'?
Monterrey at sunset
prior to "the" pop festival
or Morelia, on eve
of feasts to that native patriot'?

Vera Cruz, 1915, at the height of
American occupation
with Pershing tailing the hirsute Pancho
Villa in Sinaloa
outdated rock & gunboat diplomacy
--no longer exotic fare
plate of frivoles,
fried banana
Mahi-Mahi.

On the palette,
dreams are fickle,
subject to "drunk
and disorderly resisting
arrest," outmoded and
fuzzy with age.

Policeman of the Olmec intellect,
you dance late on feather boas
this Mariachis of the soul
with glittering purse and yellow,
travelling nectar Tequila.

HIDDEN AGENDA

Mariachis, almost a Spanish temperament within those stars,
--a screen peppered to black,
pebbles as pinholes bright in the night air.

Winged bats, moist velvet foot-pads
that spring from i