Naked in the Wind

 —Poetry by Michael Dwayne Smith,
Apple Valley, CA
—Public Photos Courtesy of Joe Nolan,
Stockton, CA

 

 

THE FALL APPROACHES

He pressed his feet solid against the ground, alone,
a man, he thought, in the making. Present is best,

it’s best to stay there, burrowed in “I exist,” as the
empty thunders and rains wash the fiery roses and

sun strokes boil it down to malady. There’s a rare
place of tonics to be found: moon over shoreline,

campfire, arms raised to blue-violet heavens, and
barber shops, dive bars, parking lots as big as lakes.

Who now from his grandfather’s time. From what
barn or office building. Who will save his neck.

Who will chalk the cue, clear the table, and re-rack.
Whether bonding or shooting: Ideas of God. Needs

to embody a path, walk upright, walk righteous,
his father at the kitchen table with a bottle, his

mother in a car racing away. Summer tense, sharp,
iridescent, wholly ignorant of its imminent death.

 

 

 

 

NIGHT WHISPERS

I’ve been hidden way the hell out here,
a hundred-plus miles northeast of Los Angeles,
in a breathtaking stupor among the locals,
everyone with sand in their hair
and in their scuffed leather boots.
It’s a beautiful summer night in the Mojave,

though no one is listening to the low lecture
of the hills and the river— humming
a warm breeze, interspersed with
the burble of nighthawks. What does it matter?
Circa 1875, everyone in the City of Angels
knew one another, or at least their families.

There were no such class distinctions
as we have today. Now, it’s midnight
in early August and everybody in that flat
city is alone. Out here, the stars
flirt with me, and I’ll pour an iced tea, slide
the flesh of a fresh lemon wedge onto the lip

of my glass, make a call to a friend
and talk about my tumor, as the old
adobe cools among moonlit Joshua Trees.
This desert by day tells so many lies you
have to write them down to keep them straight.
Night whispers terrible truths about spring.

 

 

 

 

BILLIONS NAKED IN THE WIND

October is here & on the TV a serious woman says,
We don’t know if we have the courage to forgive
them.
October, yes & at the local open mic a sad man
reads,
I have to tell you about another shooting & of the
children
dead. The dying again & again condemned. The
clubs
& the markets & the gun stores open all night.
October
in climate change & it’s a hundred + three while
on TV
Helene floods five hundred miles of end-times
destiny.
I sleep & wake with grief lapping at my feet twenty-
four
hours a New York, Chicago, & L.A. day. A song
can
hardly have the words. The crowds can barely
contain
a self. Our bodies are dressed in the morning & then
dressed for the coffin in the dead of night. If we
steal
rainbows from God, then good. He doesn’t know
what
to do with them. If your course is overrun with
wolves
screwing up your game, then good. It’s time you
stopped
playing with your little balls. Supper is ready.
The beef
is burned. The wine has soured. It’s us to be
devoured.

 

 

 

MIDNIGHT MOJAVE DATE,
FIRE SEASON, 2024

She says, “Grimes makes me feel like I’m 15 again,
crying in an American Apparel dressing room.”

She says she used to slump in her car before work,
listen to Oblivion, and gradually accept her fate.

Hey, Lexie, if you didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be
telling me this. I was drunk yesterday

but somehow managed to online order two hoodies
and a 15th anniversary Blu-ray edition

of Buffalo ’66. I ask her, Do celebrities have to be
famous on weekends? I’m thinking yes.

Let’s give each other fat lips and hickeys.
Let’s outgrow our appetite for mirrors and noise.

Tonight, in a September surrounded by three wild
fires and a desert, it’s a supermoon so bright

the fenceposts can see their own loneliness. So get
ready to have your mind blown

by someone tired of always being so goddam right.
Energy, syzygy— you don’t have to choose,

Lexie, because that’s the way
we’re doing things now: gas station bathroom
selfies.

 

 

 

 

CHARON’S REGRET

The ferryman of souls watched Styx and Acheron die.
It was real slow, the water changing color, becoming

more and more viscous, fishes bobbing to the surface,
their eyes empty sacs, bodies bloated. Charon said

nothing. He has one job and he does it, though he’s
never been sure who, in the end, is his supervisor—

underworld or over? It’s just back and forth and back
and forth, never any questions or explanations, just

collect the stupid tax: so many coins, so nowhere to
spend them, not to mention time— the ferryman of

souls has none to himself. The dead die ceaselessly.
And the rivers, well, he never expected them to retch

with this toxic sludge. He’s had to work harder and
harder to row his oars on this skiff in the mud. He’s

beginning to feel like a stick in the mud himself. No
call-off days, no vacations, no chance to start a family

or a hobby or a diary, even. All these souls, all those
tales to tell. If he’d taken the time, hell, he could have

heard a shitload of great stories over many millennia,
could have maybe written and sold a script or two.

He could be lounging by a Palm Springs pool right
now, next to a sexy soul, slurping Mojitos in the sun.

 

 

 

 

I’LL ASK TO WALK HER HOME

Mona Lisa’s debut was actually a drag. Matisse
arrived
from the future, on horseback, and fell right to sleep,

scissors in hand. The police brought Pete Rose up
close.
He was in handcuffs, nose nearly pressed against
her,

but soon he too was snoring, as the future tends to
feature
better lighting and sound effects. Me, I went to
school,

and there they told me her smile was everything
about
western civilization captured in one slight, wry
crease.

Her face will not, does not illuminate. And she
cannot
play piano, as it hasn’t yet been invented, which
annoys

Ludwig Van to no end. I’ll be whatever you want,
she says.
I can hear her— though Jesus and the Phoenix seem
deaf.

Traffic signals are always yellow at the intersections
in my neighborhood, and I see her visage hanging
in cool

morning colors. She says, I left Leonardo behind
a long
time ago. I lay daises in the crosswalk. Want to
drive her

in my ’87 F-150 to the Sacramento River, sit and
watch
a sunset. Want to build her an adobe house in the
Mojave

Desert, far away from Joshua Tree, and walk her
home.
I want to be the cure. Whatever she wants, I’ll be
that.

 

 

 

 

I ORDER ONE LAST CLUB SANDWICH
AT DENNY’S

We pretend, when the rain comes, not to listen
to its drumming against the roof. We know

too much, sit in the worn gossip of our booth.
People stream in and out of the diner, prattle

about this or that, order their usuals, oblivious
to our graceless presence, with the plate glass

misting around them. We’ve gone underground.
The windows to past and future have shut.

Like us, the dingy shopping center outside made
promises it couldn’t keep. Last summer, the road

was hot, and we offered ourselves to each other
at a deep discount. The weather neither saves

nor spoils us. Our eyes meet and we talk softly
about other people in our lives, the concrete

pathways they tread, the homes and buildings
they fill in cities we can’t inhabit. I remember

a treelined highway from a road trip years ago,
before we met, after I’d decided to run away

from an old life. The waitress brings my club
sandwich with fries. You hold your tea in both

hands to sip. Now we hear the rain, the familiar
blue patter. What was it I was saying, I ask.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.

—Ella Maillart

____________________

—Medusa, with welcome back to Michael Dwayne Smith, and thanks for his fine poetry today! (And thanks to Joe Nolan for photos to go with it.)

 

 

 

 —Cartoon Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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