Phoenix, AZ

Today through the windshield
Camelback grew like large
mushrooms in the sand.

Each mound crumbled forth,
covered from the sun down
in dust, like a red

and dull-throb contusion. I saw
the green-and-flower spine-forks
of desert drink bloom

elegantly in the moonrise,
steady through the breeze.
The stars found her back
raised high and breeding inward

when the praying monk
breathed through them.
                       -JM, ca. 2000
                               Photograph taken in January 2009 at White Sands (not Phoenix, unfortunately).

To Salvador Dali

I could stop and stare for hours,
twisting into focus
lines from your brush. 
Lines that run down the page 
without slingshot support.
Lines that fade into each other,
bring out double meanings,
release what the concrete hides.


Hovering over the page,
I forget being me.
Wonder what it's like
to have drawers unfold your sides.
I create too, sometimes.
Imagination flowing out,
lazing words over the edges of notebook pages.
Words that slip out of reality, 
floating like your paintings.


So I ask you,
Is it better to start with the pomegranate 
and explode through the bayonet?
Or does she always come first?
She is the one at the end of all the sodomy.
Bread, pianos, virgins, skulls--
It all leads back to her,
I can see it in her eyes.

When she has eyes.

                           -JM 2001

Photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection.