Brian Michael Barbeito

there are wolves in sky and, during the waltz of the hidden, epistolary episodic belles lettres to the shoreline unknown

the past is a long while away, when there was the dream of an orange city and the night, and another and me caught in fright, trying to make our way. or the great and grand cathedrals north. I told the woman, ‘there used to be a church under the ground, and I went there and it was beautiful and old and functional,’ and the woman surprised me by saying first, ‘I know,’ and secondly, ‘it is gone now…’ and I thought about all that and there were wolves in the firmament one two three maybe more. and I listened to so many things, hundreds of things, and read until my eyes couldn’t function, but in the end I closed my eyes and tried to listen to the rainstorms. Mata once read The Thorn Birds near southern balconies whilst I watched the skies over the sea. and one day, someday, I will live in the skies over the sea. why do you long for much? opulence. fashion. power. fame. money. food. the new. the gauche. the decadent. more. more. more. why, if you were different, you could live in the sky ov’r the sea. w/me. we could live there forever. w/the wolves. I will be there anyhow. you should stop by. oh one time I went down there after a long strange dream and walked the coastline at dawn. joggers. yoga people. walkers. the world. but I was always a stranger. I only looked up in the end and yearned for home, longed to live again in the air, w/out a care, where the astral wolves sway by the thousand fold lair

storms baptisms worlds

there was a long corridor made of the deepest green painted cement. it was far south, and the off season, w/nobody around. I went along it and noticed that it had begun to rain. yet the rain was warm and soothing and made sounds as it went off metal railings and stucco walls. at the end were steps and the walls had openings so that one could see where they were going on their journey. outside of the dark stairways was seen the sea. even though a storm was half-arrived, you could see the sea, discern the whitecaps boasting up, then dissolving, rising again, and disappearing. to the right a far way was a pier, not seen then. to the left just as far, a lighthouse. I wonder why we always went right and not left, though right was beautiful. if I go back maybe I will travel by foot left instead, to see the lighthouse. but with nobody then, sibling or peer, I was on my own. those were the same storms the pirates experienced. and the first settlers. and the people indigenous to the lands. those storms carried some ancient message that was beyond literature, philosophy, or science. they were mystic storms. I waited in the rains, under the warm sky-water. I looked up so that the water would touch my eyes. I had been borne w/a double crown. I put my head straight again and the water landed on the double crown. I baptized myself in the strange feral storm world before returning to the earth that was normal, orthodox, prosaic.

town or the karma of the leaves

inside the town the trucks sat dormant and the clouds joined conspiratorially to keep out the sun, the jealous clouds, nearly always. the garden variety lonesome seagulls sometimes scurried around upon the earth, the plazas w/their kitsch and too loud signage, displays looking out upon nothing, waiting for something, possibly for the sun to shine again and inspire patrons. a hawk that lived by the car dealership sometimes could be seen flying, gliding also, surveying road kill or a field mouse in the flaxen flatlands under impossibly long hydro wires, cables that traversed across the town and led secret almost silent lives, noticing the overcast air, the sun strewn atmosphere, autumnal leaves, spring rains, winter storms, everything. maybe the lines laughed at the people and even animals, living out their lives thinking they had autonomy when they were at the whim of the fates called weather and time, bloom yes, but decay, no?- the destiny of nearly all things. the growth and greatness but then wither and cycle of the tree leaves beside the flatlands. yes. the karma of leaves. and that was how it was. a bit more miles to the north there was a more natural way- wooden fences replaced chain link, vultures and wild turkeys took the place of plaza seagulls, and horses, a hopeful signal, could be seen upon ranch lands pastoral, rural, calmer, less constrained. yes didn’t the chaparral of the forests and the moss and even agate and spirits breathe a bit easier there? less care for the world. involved in their own world. sometimes the horses were adorned in jackets and covers for the cold. the horses were black, white, and brown. two worlds…the town, and the places beyond the town that urban sprawl sought to overtake. the years coming. the years running like horses themselves. the moon succinct in its own chaos. daydreams are dreams we dream on the curvy windy summit, nuanced by autumnal leaves. outside towns. outside those towns anyways.