That sudden slap sound of leather

Carrying around a baseball mitt has become habit. Not that it is some hold over from my little league days, but rather I picked up the practice from playing catch in the alley during breaks from rehearsal with a pop-rock group The Razz, I was in during the late seventies. The garage was just off Pico Boulevard near Twenty-ninth Street on the northeast side of Santa Monica College. During the breaks we would burn fast balls at each other and have to catch them or run the risk of having to fetch a run-away ball as it bounced and spun down the center of the alley along the concrete rain gutter. The activity broke up the repetition of going over song after song and gave us a chance to bullshit.
Mitts were a cinch to fine at yard sales and goodwill stores for fifty cents or a buck. Rawlins, Diamond Masters, Winners Choice, Spaulding, or just about any brand and in relatively good condition. There is something magically enticing about the leather and stitching, the smell and feel of a mitt. I was always puzzled why there are all these phrases written on mitts, like; Professional Model, Full Flex Pad, Griptite Pocket, Flex Action, Full Grain Cowhide, Nylon Stitches, Fingertip Lacing, Snap Action, and Custom Built. I can only imagine some bored player day dreaming reading the inside of his mitt when a line drive beans him on the noggin. There should be a disclaimer or something to the effect that reads, "Keep your eye on the ball."
After the years I have become an enthusiast and keep a pair of gloves in the back seat of the car just incase I get a hankering to throw a ball. My friends think it quite a novelty when I produce the mitts and insist that we pitch a ball back and forth. After a spell we get further apart and the ball is thrown faster and wilder. Before long they’re hooked and every time we get together out come the gloves.
There are the sounds the ball makes when it hits the mitt. A smack of satisfaction. A feel of fluidity. A link to Americana sports. The easy conversation that ensues. A reason to be out under the blue sky. That undercurrent competitiveness that creeps into to the fast ball. I have to keep my index finger untucked and exposed on the outside of the mitt because it starts to throb after awhile.
You can tell allot from the way a person throws a ball and how they catch. I secretly count how many times the ball passes between us without dropping.
The relationship and harmony of keeping the ball in the mitt. I prefer a hard ball. As it zeros in on you. That sudden slap sound of leather.

night tigers

holy light
a trillion candle illuminant
in icy cold clear blackish
conduit diaphanous gown
who is the lonelier
crisscrossing in the sky
on the earth
stepping out of shadows
shadows cast by earthly things
who is watching who
crisscrossing the earth
stepping out to gaze
catching a moon tan
all the eyes that dream at you
all the wishes that reach your valleys
all the love meteors that crash land
all the craters filled with hearts
all the troubadours in voiceless space
all burning burning all
smoking crisscrossing flames
a million cry sparklers in a panic
in a crowded galactic echo
rain down with pain
flaming running to the flaming
burning burning burning
it must be the scent you give off
some designer pheromone
some smell so deeply entrenched
so warm blood
radiantly stabbing
so hauntingly tasteful
resisting is pointless
running to the flame
flaming wings ecstasy flaming
eyes glowing lost forever lost
flaming in all direction lost
all in the fascination canyons
all with the night painted on their face
all holding the flame to their skin
all grinding in the wax
all crisscrossing in the sky
burning burning burning
vision of night tigers
eating each other

in a dosing wait

that secure familiar
water chop sound
rainbirds in a grass dance
morning traffic whizzing by
my porch dog sleeping cockatiel singing
contemplating thirty ways to save on gas
during my window of opportunity to
water the front lawn adhering to the
town water time restrictions
the memorial sky rattles with the
grown of training military jet flights
and red white and blue baying
in the neighborhood
military force is used when
absolutely necessary
so says the president
absolutely necessary for who?
i remember a political science quote
absolute power corrupts absolutely
are there absolutely no other alternatives?
the richest one percent of americans
have a grave responsibility
are they up to it?
are they virtuous?
or is it a case of more money than perspective?
corruption should be relegated to rusty pipes
and not the infrastructure of a society
corruption is cancer
but cancer can be profitable
is it a new philosophy?
something’s are better left not fixed?
are these philosophers running the country?
there are a lot of sleeping dogs
on porches this weekend
hiding from the heat
listening to rainbirds singing
in a dosing wait
for the war to end


Copyright © 2006 Peter Burg

dividing lines

i have surrendered
to love
to peacock feathers
fallen for iridescence
plucked from my skull
dividing lines color in
the empty spaces and what
i don’t know I’m sure of
all my relationships
can be framed
and hung on the wall
and on the back of each one
is a side note written in fear
weird emptiness in my face
bright flag waving
dividing lines in sunshine
in evening rays and quarter moons
in honesty and acceptance
i should change my white flag
and charge instead of surrender
bring color back to my face
not let the blood flow out
dividing lines in the
vagueness of time
bending to the lure of need
arcing for desire
reaching out for perfection
dividing me in half
perception of an ideal
and what magnet i hold
what it will draw towards
dividing the future
into left and right
lines crooked
lines smooth
lines leading to me
to tie lines together
to draw a line
holding a peacock feather
tracing lines in the air

Copyright © 2006Peter Burg

red dots

a legion of ladybugs
tip toeing along the grass stems
crawling helter-skelter
half hearted attempts
to fly from tips
at times all the ends
are punctuated
with red dots
that then descend
in merry-go-round fashion
natives monkeying up coconut trees
white eyes and black periods
on beetle blood colored shells
trotting up the space needle
a momentary surveillance
the lawn is crowded
in ladybug conference
up and down in afternoon dry breeze
up and down in wafting green blades
this season ripe with so many
cycles in weather and insects
so oblivious to memorial day traffic
so intent in their climbing industry
finally a loner launches
into the air
in a run-on sentence
floating out of sight

Copyright © 2006Peter Burg

slow streams of heat

the sky morning is weighed
with oven baked cottonwood fluffs
floating on slow streams of heat
dry enough for brown-purple iris
to finally emerge and nests
of web worms bursting form their
white branch den in motion like some
hand cranked grainy keystone cops
silent movie shooting up bad guy aspen leafs
spent dandelion orbs extending
up from the grass lay in wait
for their prehistoric expulsion from earth
anticipating their union with the cotton fluffs
it is a dry spring
it was a dry winter
it is likely to be a dry summer
colorado front range
the dry grass has a crinkle to it
and everyday the gray clouds
drop dry rain
i wonder what edgar cayce would say about dry rain
dryness has a different life it promotes
promoting thirst craving
and primordial cracks
promoter of shade dwellers
and hammock swingers
dry night people
devotee of water
this dry heat make us get things done
earlier in the day
in the slow streams of heat
overhearing the morning doves

Copyright © 2006Peter Burg

your flower arms

forever i am drawn
to your flower arms
green imprint tranquility
skin so naked hissing
glistening in the night
reflecting like reptile scales
replete in fragrance
and taste of hair
rub of stone solitary
yellow rose pulsating
penetrating crawl from
a crack in the concrete
a pounding tension
tight muscle thirst
for smooth stallion
neon embrace
i have searched about you
traversing orifice
with tongue and eye ball
gazing on bosom
pacified and round
pleasure plethora
and still the war
flood of shy birds
hiding in the bush
poised ready for flight
in the wilderness
of running heartbeats

Copyright © 2006Peter Burg

apocalypse chuckling

heard the thunder sneak
over the steep mountain
in the rustling night clear its throat
cold muttered gargle of the old man
this temper tantrum wind
kicking and screaming on the floor
frustrated prelude of an empty rain
it will remain arid arabian
the sky moisture is in mourning
reaching for burial in clouds
and whip of sunrays
there is nothing but the
ragged current depression
these false storms
do little more than
blow the dirt roads away
huffing and threatening weak leafs
downing electrical lines
and generally agitating
the posturing of a grand madam
nostrils flaring
i am waiting for that torrent
on the down side of the moon
apocalypse chuckling
in the background
i wait for something horrible
it jumps and wriggles
in my taunt muscles
the trouble maker
sinister and opportunist
it lies fathoms
patient grumbling rising
a pocket of bad air
erupting belch
destiny skirting past
on the face of gray cumulous

blues heaven

when all the blood runs out
i want to be bending a wild string of moan
falling on the close cool bed of blues heaven
with the last utterance of broken idiotic song
i will sing at the top of my lungs of hot rod yellow
and smear golden lust on my face in blues heaven
when evening rays beam a final burst of light
while i make love to my screaming empress
i will orgasm high into starry blues heaven
when my body creaks and breaks down in dust clods
my hands will strum the spanish guitar
pose in front of the snorting bull in blues heaven
when agony paints a wicked stroke
across the dew draped morning with gun in hand
i curl blissfully in the arms of blues heaven
when i’m pounding out my best song
to the jungle of voices in the night
there will be no worry knee deep in blues heaven
as breath recedes and turns to black stone
i will run on grunion beaches and fosse fluorescent oceans
splashing in gospel church up blues heaven
in halloween mist as the reaper stops me in my tracks
i will hang from the feet of flying blue heroin
yell down a beautiful verse laughing to blues heaven
treading water out beyond the waves beyond reach
on one summer dawn on a pacific bay
alive alive in the salty current of blues heaven
when the endless torment sleepless night
gives way to dreams that dream of dreams
i will wake and write the words to blues heaven

drizzle

dusk aborts the moon
a drop of oval white
into the night pool
rings push out
ripple star infinity
space ribbons highway
mythology growling future
i shut my eyes
in mothers arms
i hold my breath
and cross the waters
i bask in sun dream
warm behind closed eyes
lids of orange red hot
distant cello
peace of pure moon
dragging over heavens desert
stones skipping over
glassiness and heavy blood
forest of solitary hearts
gnashing teeth
caught in the system
the tide of sheep
puking out cycles of years
bile staining the floorboard
abortion of pale moon
i choke on
i catch love in the drizzle
in the desert
as it evaporates before
i can touch
sometimes i hear
the wind of souls
oval white
in grandfather skin

the only indian

under the singing sky
and winging hawk
the snake the only
indian left hunting silent
prairies legless armless
listening hard to the earth
inherited misrepresented
forked tongue still
hapless and marked
for extermination
by madmen and cars
in the camouflage
of destiny