No deposit, no return
A little too early in the morning
I walked up the beach above Malibu,
above the Reel Inn, inside the fog,
the sand, the sea, and the sky all the same color
and a seagull came down, gently
like a floating Kleenex
landed, walked up to me, and started talking.
I was drunk, but I swear it happened.
“I don’t mean to hover,” said the gull, “but
I’ve been watching you, and it seems to me
that you’re trying too hard. You’re living so people
will say—at your funeral—how nice you were.”
I looked away, out at the wet, sandy horizon.
The seagull walked over to a bottle on the beach,
kicked it over a half turn.
“C’mon buddy, isn’t it true? You can tell me.
We all do it. But look at this bottle—can you see it
from there? It says, NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN.
Ok? Got it?”
The seagull flashed feathers and got up in blue sky.
I flashed up there too, and followed him. Or her.
BEEN OUT OF SCHOOL WAY TOO LONG
Come and get my poems, enroll in my school of poetry, make yourself at home and don't worry,
it's not that kind of poetry school; the cafeteria is much more Pumpkin Pie and Hush Puppies
than Cassoulet and Coq au Vin, though those last two are marvelous, blackened, with a side saucer of Twinkie cream.