TICKE MY FANCY

Hoppes number nine Pure joy of a boy in love With holding a gun Forged black steel Cranks with an exactness Wakeful life demands The fly’s life is short Under the smack of a hand. Who could’ve said why? Brooks Brothers on me Looks dull beside the horseman In the Grand Hyatt The dog licks my tongue, Sex oozes from azure Tones intangible Could I just lie down, Feel the ants on my toes, See a last sunset? Drive deep into this Dark jungle affair with my Imagination

     “You see that building over there?”      A large dome emerged under a hazy skyline orange under the sinking sun.      The taxi driver turned back toward me, a mischievous glint in his eye, stubble glistening with sweat; it was easily ninety in the early evening.      I was glad to be enjoying a McFlurry with M & M’s.      He eyed me from the rearview, a small banner of the Saudi flag swinging beneath it, almost in tune with the Yanni track droning in high treble from some cheap speakers behind my doilied headrest.      “Mosque. Next to that, that’s where they have the beheadings.”      I didn’t reply but stared off toward the domed building that was now just off to the left of us, nestled between nondescript brownish buildings, which I later learned were government buildings.      To drive the point home, he elaborated. “The public executions. That’s where they do it. In the square.”      He cracked a bright gold-toothed grin. He was proud of this place, or at least it amuse

Cedars like statues Basking in the sun, away From these ambitions Swords of light dart through Pines. Squirrels hoist lost morsels. Coffee and sea air. Boiled cotton heat But hands sweat for what’s to come As a rare white man Humid shore sprawling. Free my way by Ian Brown Lifts me into life Center of the storm It seems, this growing city Where rich men are free Breeze on the corniche Stirred by Arab Ferraris. Is this the future? Twenty dollar drink Goes slow in a place where the Goal is luxury

Wouldn’t taste this good Without the smell of the sea In my dripping hair We were together A part of something bigger None of these worries Colored labyrinth Family like the fire Licking glazed rabbit Pear Blossom Highway On the 10 freeway tonight Phil sings me to sleep A bridge between two Worlds. Metallic graves shine Above the road west We dance in circles These skyscrapers and this bar Where I drink the past My world waits be’ ‘side her nest. Afraid to fly Before she wakes

Everywhere I’ve ever lived I’ve sought out one particular thing among others. Whether it was Riverside, California, Ukraine, Mission Viejo, New Orleans, or Sacramento, always this one particular thing. Always it is a quiet place in nature. A quiet place where I can be alone. I had many spots in Riverside. Most were established in childhood, some in adulthood, and all were some place quiet and far removed, often somewhere with some altitude, a sort of perch overlooking the din of the city. In Ukraine it was the forests and the banks of the river Protoka that cut through my small village or the great parks of Kyiv. In Mission Viejo, it was the empty early morning beach at Salt Creek or the Oso Creek trail that wound up through sunny green lawns and empty driveways. In New Orleans, I would amble around the busy and enticing streets of Uptown or the Irish Channel, Audobon Park, or The Fly overlooking the Mississippi River. I had a few remote spots to bark at the moon in City Park, with its