#40

The small houses, stucco molars
rise from the Burbank streets
in the purple gut of dusk.

In a noodle house off the main drag,
you sit, twirling udon
in a third-generation beige bowl.

The sound from the tables melts
into a hum, low buzz of an obese bee
to harmonize with the neon's harmony.

You can see behind the counter,
where an infant runs in circles
until ramming his head into the wall.

You swallow hot broth, and the thought:
we do not become more enlightened
with each life at all.

Instead, we begin fearless,
internally like a slow-dissolving roman candle,
and with each repeating life...

The front window is painted slick black,
or night has come to the valley,
while you imagine your bones turning to shaking neon.

#39a

The doctor's kid plays air guitar to the emergency
broadcast system's one-note melody,
striking an arena stance in the medical center's
white, gauzy fortress.

*
A prescription to be sent up the hills,
above the highway's police helicopters,
scanning the shoulders for an escaped prisoner
carrying two bags of who-knows-what.

*

The doctor's kid has given up silent music,
and is scribbling on the back of an old Newsweek,
a picture of a giant scattering sugar across a skyline,
people turned to peppermints in the windows.

*

The prescription reaching the 80's rock star
who hasn't left his mansion in 20 years, convinced
that if he sets foot on pure earth,
the world will end.

*
Taking the first pill, he runs his thin hands
along his smooth head, leans forward, then back
and watches the room separate, stand tall
in the thick columns of a rainbow test pattern.

#39

The doctor's kid plays air guitar to the emergency
broadcast system's one-note melody,
striking an arena stance in the medical center's
white, gauzy fortress.

Under the high-pitch lull of ceiling lights,
the doctor writes the final prescriptions
for the night, for the errand boy at the desk
waiting to bring a slip of paper to his boss.

The doctor's kid has given up silent music,
and is scribbling on the back of an old Newsweek,
a picture of a giant scattering sugar across a skyline,
people turned to peppermints in the windows.

The errand boy drives the prescription
to be filled, followed along the highway
by police helicopters, scanning the shoulders
for an escaped prisoner carrying two bags of who-knows-what.

The doctor's kid takes his father's hand,
leaving the office with the TV still on,
the magazine flipped over, a suprise
for the next patient waiting and twitching a knee.

The errand boy drops off the prescription
to the 80's rock star who hasn't left his mansion
in 20 years, convinced that if he sets foot
on pure earth, the world will end.

Taking the first pill, he runs his thin hands
along his smooth head, leans forward, then back
and watches the room separate, stand tall
in the thick columns of a rainbow test pattern.

Image #5