mahiwaga

I'm not really all that mysterious

exile

unfinished
unending

part 1

even
in this city
there are trains
ultra-modern
sleek and silent
thrumming at 60 hertz
the sound of stoppered lightning
of magnetic fields
and electron winds
meandering above the arroyo
and the freeway below
swollen with chrome and rubber

or utilitarian, work-a-day
rumbling beside
the Way of the King
El Camino Real
still smelling that stench of sulfur
amidst the burning coal
the tracks and ties laid down in
those by-gone days
that ancien regime
the empire that was, will be
myth layered upon geology, geography
slapdash palimpest, decoupage
of history, scams, and dreams

the surf splashing up against the shore
my eyes gaze into that infinite distance
where the sky and sea bind one another

and home
the glowing, glimmering tower
in sunset, and in twilight’s actinic glow
the fiery fragrance of the Santa Anas
rolling in through the canyons and passes

for want of a better name
home
and still I feel exiled
furtive, hidden
lost


part 2

home:
why I cannot let this impossibility go
this unfulfillable ache that rends and tears
that gnaws and rasps at my insides
leaving me gasping
I cannot draw breath to scream

home:
your eyes glowing with the future unfolding
(where I am some vagrant interloper,
some scoundrel hitch-hiking down the road)
and even in this dream where I have no place
I am warm
I am welcome

an eager spectator to the tale of your happiness
even though I watch through the window
face pressed up against the glass
feeling nothing of the heat of that hearth

home

I carry this in my mind
like a flask filled with cordial
savor it one drop at a time

part 3

memory fades
bled of color
muted and silent
and all I know is the cold
seeping into my soul
enveloping me

it wasn’t so much the cold, though
but the futile cycles
of thawing and freezing
of endless sunlight
and endless darkness
of summers that never seemed to come
and winters that would not relent

in this time-slice of a future that could not be
somehow saved from the trash heap
of unforgiving history
though lovely be thine skin
and shapely still thou dost appear
mine heart you never had
a future long-past where I did not belong

(in even in these quiet moments,
I remember a scarce blessing or two or three
and my faint-hearted wandering
amidst the maze that mirrored my soul.)

part 4

exile
so close to home
that it grew alien
and I never learned to separate
the past from the present
the present from the future
locked in this never-ending time warp
this enraptured Groundhog’s Day
whirling me around in existential dread

in a thousand different ways
my innocence was forever shattered
all illusion of purity and virtue lost
leaving the ugly entrails of vile humanity
writhing in the open wind
for all the world to see

this paradise that is poison
this land of opportunity like a fly trap
a honey pot

I’ve never met so many low-lifes and thieves
so many people sick of dreaming
calling their pedestrian vision “reality”
devoid of any hope or sanity
their brains scrambled beyond salvage
beyond reason
dreaming to get dismembered, disintegrated
for a boy who would be king
turning this place into a savage country
pitiless, arid, worthless
that even General Santa Anna would willingly cede


part 5

lost wanderer
soul billowing in the wind
uselessly, like a flag on the mast
at full gale force

home:
my soul orbits that singularity
where you tunnel through space-time
well beyond my reach
I am still chasing starlight
flying farther and faster away from me

my maps all lead me awry
my compass needle spins wild
even the stars are all wrong
I doubt that in this lifetime
I will reach you
but I have no where else to go

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