Begging your pardon, ma'am this train would do well to leave within the hour and the ferry from Topolobampo Out of persistence to form has never arrived early.

"Piratas ingles" read the mural now I know seedy tropical ports harbour wayfarers like the Marlboro man adjusting his image, (inspiration may well be poetic but the instrument's blunt) bare feet the colour or lanterns, white ducks pressed too much around lean shanks and a visage to trouble Satan

Page 33 Taking a profit, Mozart up in smoke down the tubes water reverses itself, runs counterlockwise impecunious in this juxtaposition of a hemisphere.

Poor Mexico -- far from G.o.d & so near the United States a snippet of history remembered though the Gadsen Purchase seems irrelevant. How a propos & natty too the moon is a hummingbird & painted porcelain flask for you.

Backstreets a la seduction this demimonde, a whole continent as intrigue do twin fists pounding on a door resemble gunfire especially at dawn or is that just the mule so obstinate in you-- the poor creatures pressed into service, litter the landscape bedbugs thrown from cars.

Page 34 At the Ponce de Leon adrenalin with white caps comes up bare as language forced into riot, not a humble metaphor in sight.

the occasional half-witted vowel staggering under the onslaught pirouetted clamouring about the edge -- no easy familiarity here with the English language.

Page 35 PICAROON

Scouting the sun thin clouds threadbare vests barely to cover the horizon.

the heat or the day, canine, a hot tongue's intensily splashing yr face.

The docks are quiet, prawn trawlers unloading gear gar fish at the surface of the water echoing little fins like tiny waves green into the shallows.

Bubbles anchor the lagoon -- changing rivulets into sand stone walls numbered in shards of gla.s.s trade universal currency but, beware, the proprietor cobblestones up to his door, a candle in the window-stoop, a creeking gate opened as an afterthought.

Come the picaroon.

Spanish adventurer lesser known rogue, thief a smile like piano keys huevos sent back.

Page 36 I've seen the parfumerie the snake pit, mongoose burrowing into the hills after serpentine fer-de-lance, want bigger things waves can't splash away, scrawled slogans to turn the human tide.

A bottle sits menacingly on the table -- a universe on its own, imagine her little water droplets the key to unerstanding a woman firm to the grasp bare-shouldered, lips to the moon in twilight.

A coin stepped on in the street perhaps a sou, a centime, centavo a petty return for rusting bells wedding the pavement, a centotaph alluding to sacrifice or toil in the fields to gain one circular disc.

Bring a case of wine those Puerto Rican girls are dying to meet you, the tune belts out and I see a yacht riding emerald waves, think of swimming out to greet her, my skin opening the water like a lizard's tongue,

Page 37 a sheaf of leaves pressed back, a rock pitched to dislodge a noisy cat.

Who tempers desire in the tropics when the air is to eat, sand golden griddles a harvest of warm wealth piled as a miser's h.o.a.rd, green & more green skirting the city, experience my sacred vessel of purity.

Think or cliff vines mucous, little curtains then pathways up to the final alley psychologically taut.

Page 38 THE CABLE CAR

The Haitian effect of stars grinds the blue firmament like a cable car by night.

transfixing energy.

One hears myriad tokens falling into a collection box, then the twitter of bells before the trolley steps round winds near Russian Hill

The night sky is a reservoir, a cistern stored with disturbing elements p.r.i.c.kling the unknown in a man.

To watch as life forms, more intricate than lavender curls, so hushed their tones produce melodies like "Castor and Pollux", "Leo", "the Three Sisters", seizes any boarding pa.s.s along the remaining train of thought.

Page 39 IL GIARDINO

Cloves on the table.

(jardin parfumel are like ladyslippers with the jargon of their sweetmeats preserved in aromatic slabs about a garden wall.

Spanish ivy is the pastrami of this terrace -- thick, white walls, Hispanic style, unite with prim elasticity to quicken Pica.s.so's sunshine like a ukulele strumming the grave.

Page 40 EVERY MAN'S HAND

raised against them hussars, cossacks, zouaves the renegade janizaries and corsairs in for an indeterminale stretch a.s.sorted soldiers of furtune, never-do-wells or just low brows duelling crusts of bread scarce precious little else when for pennies more, (Wellington's phrase) the sc.u.m of the earth enlists for drink.

Too harsh, I think, of imagining the Foreign Legion, kepis of scarlet the near requisite haggard looks moving in waves across the desert pitting date palms with bayonets.

the occasional fellow ravaged by French pox.

Then dunes where water should be -- storms granulating blown particles twice the perimeter of a camel train from whence decent men become driven (as the desert fox) to crouch beside themselves with poor material, loose flintlocks and cartridge belts rotting to the touch,

Page 41 The pitched camp (I see brackish oasis glare) stars big as pebbles in potato white Napoleon before Cairo his soldiery and ragged tents flapping like tongues of pillaging Arabs (or later battlefield carrion wolves) on the run from Allah and sweet date wine, their torpid hooves sound against rock matching wits grown sluggish in still more drifting sand.

Noon and blood purring like a two minute egg over and over the spitting, curses mandatory flies and sweat trickling on sandbags from manured lives little to eat-- C rations a century away, the good populace begrudging meals to vagabonds and trash anyway.

See the last desperation in cla.s.sic terms betrayed by finite trength

Page 42 brisk elements raise the odds a measly temperature climb, a few more driving winds to stir the pot animal suffering dancing like stretched canvas on thin frames.

The leading roustabout unflinching, waves a stony mutineer's salute.

And somehow it always manages dawn and the heat of the day wicked, oblong in an empty stretch forever, it seems, before bullets open graveyards mow the brigand down, take the corpse for its own mummifying with precious hands about the contours of her desert body, and firm cleavage oscillating between curvatures of desiccation, blanket heat.

Page 43 ENDING UP

reads like living down -- a coconut arriving with the tide, bottles perched in sand the blue gla.s.s colour or imprisoned dreams genie of a bottle cap.

Ending up.

the brow or a gondola overturned sees memories squared away -- the window of the envelope an all too foggy membrane.

Turning out like ending up no check-out time or non-existant room service in a flea-bag motel.

Page 44 OFFERINGS (A Movement in four Parts)