Excerpt
WINDFALL Photos along a soft-centred walllike assorted chocolateswith prized centres,tiny miniatures--full portraitsthe young army major, for one,in battle fatigues come full family regalia.Mounting the staircase(tearing back the chocolate paper)shroud hand on the railing,pressuring the cherry liquidinto oozing burst of memory,the nectarine orange of a summer's day.Swing & garden loom into view,the mind plays thoughtscapes,a tag ensemble, along the wall.Old colours (or lack of them) abound--the antiquated dress & hairdosof grandparents that speak lavishly,into taste buds, across the fallen years.Ivy & ivory fan, kitten on a rocker,cradled baby that amounts to me,the sun coming home to roost on this plaintiff, pleadingwall.Passage of thoughtinto this chocolate box--the lid off stern memoryprying forth a directory ofmouth-watering choice,or so the advertisers' claim.Yet do we ever thoughtover what we taut (in our heads)we are? My dad in Kenya (a time and agefrom this perspective like the peanut brittle)or grandfather, about eight, from the dreamy,dark cream & nougat reaches of layered black spacethat speaks the aeons ago--his manner and distance a smoky hazefrom the twilight "special occasion"Black Magic chocolate box.
TURNCOAT Sitting in the spendthrift darklilting pennies away,deciphering fate ... .The bed, a warm reach pastthe pillowlike personal mortality in theincest breath of life.Warm stuff of dreams--the calender with its days mesh &march like soldiersdearly departed(cindered and bludgeoned)or the old sea-faring chestwhere all men are sailorspast light's corner.Sturdy trudgeons,clock bursts thru the roommindful of time and aching,decaying things.Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains--a remembered Rembrandt,self-portrait of the old manstanding alone in a clammy room,idling the seconds, with drabbrowns and grays;that sea-faring chest, again, speakingof depleted journeys.Mystic and occult moods,worlds caught in a single glanceoff the wall paper standing abreastthe lampand the mirror, back fromthe pace of a single thought.
GANGLAND A sailor, "tatoo you,"the cigarette Playerswith tape-deck playinga jaundiced "Yellow Bird",Cerveza, Dos Equiis, thetwo horses, in red flame,across the label.Trolling in a deep sea-trench(spinners and chubb),the dark nighta religious procession,acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind.Across the channela Party Boat--the words almost demand capitalswith actions so diminutive--creased laughter "to go" cross the wavesflicker of lights, siren callthen a lemon shark strikes the baiton anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jackperhaps borrowing the namefrom the Outback--think pantomime, enter Wahooand the aesthetic of fearcrazed fish jack-knifing the boat.Someone produces a cheese tray,warm winethe small shark caught in arole reversal lies bludgeonedunder the seat, even therea halo glow surrounds the eye andcobalt snout, but it is the grinthat takes the edge off anticsof the Party Boatsome bedraggled hundred yards awaythis Death's Head cocktail,"What's your poison" leerteeth like naked light bulbsagainst tenement stairsprotean hoodlum a millenia away....