The Baja California Travel & Living Webzine

Baja Beach - By Will Pirone

The cirrostratus clouds assemble
Pixel-like against the blue screen sky.
Why does the angry Aztec god appear
Shaking his white feathered headdress?

Twelve gnarled dessert bushes
Mutely observe from the beach side bluff.
Exposed roots weave a blanket frieze
Across the cliff’s eroded strata.

They do not acknowledge my wave.

The skeletons of little fish
are strewn like curled brown leaves
Beside the upturned boat
At the dry river’s mouth.

We recline in its shadow.

The striped banner of beach and sea and sky
Hardly flutters to the wave’s white noise;
A tiny mollusk sucks sand inside a tide washed shell,
While cantilevered shrimp boats strain to draw their catch
Across the far horizon’s all encompassing edge.

 

Carnival - La Paz
By Will Pirone 2003

The iridescent abalone shell sky
Is sunset’s backdrop to paradise.
Silhouette masts comb the clouds
While the big screen whoosh and creak
Of a yacht race fills the sound track.

Cowboy sailors see visions of freedom
Vikings fulfill genetic dreams.
The modem crackles
The cockfight cackles
The line is drawn
And is gone.

The sybaritic dance goes on.

The one day past new moon
Sits like an upraised cup
Above the sand spit strand.
It tips and disappears
As night’s shell snaps.

The cue ball hits the pack
The carbon mast shatters
The dance is all that matters.
Stragglers with noisemakers pause
For a final anemic screech.

The eight ball drops.