Crysta's Apartment

 An alto saxophone calls
like a sonorous sea bird
somewhere above the ocean
at Santa Monica.
The evening waters shine
like darkening red liquor and roll
out satin to the brain’s feel,
as I begin to slowly reel
in Crysta’s apartment.
From her computer,
Southern California harmonies
rise in twilight architectures,
while Rickie Lee Jones moans cooly
over the jazz changes of the sea.

Northwest overcast seeps
August light through the windows
of her brick building –
casting Flemish shadows.

We talk and laugh between
intermittent veils of smoke,
as we survey her paintings
ringing the pallid walls.
I find my eye stopping
on one of Harvey Goldner in black
like a Munch bohemian
with December in his vision
and ice upon his lips.
In the next picture,
he’s outlined in skeletal white
suffused in a death blue cloud –
his hat lowered over his sight
watching an invisible light.

Northwest overcast seeps
August light through the windows
of her brick building –
casting Flemish shadows.

2007