Only the missing you
pivots me.
After the words. After
you have gone naked to discover the Pacific
and I have repaired my lips
from their blood. Wishing you courage,
congratulating you on it all
bon voyage
on your trip past Molokai
It is your bone sockets how they
rocked you over me
Memory of the sea
or Rilke's 'without a tongue,
can conjure you at will'
After the words
after your offer to share the bed or
You know how madness creeps into
the night, slips around yesterday's
door to memory, leaves you terrified
of consequences & what was left behind
by ageless reason, circumstance
leads to accidental lapses
& you scream at changes in the sea.
You wave, to the wind for a sunset of gold
& amethyst, sing rainbows
of the moon in time.
While the seasons turn upon themselves
you grow stiffly old.
In a pre-fabricated dance
you're humming out of tune.
seas of tranquility they sort of nod
when you look at them as if to say
in a little while it won't exist
not even on postcards
On the boardwalk
old men take off their hats
& dream of the city, once theirs,
calling the sea in.
The wind pushes
into the sweat
of a woman a yard wide at the hips,
into the smells
of hotdogs & warm beer
& across sand
a pale spider makes false rushes
at a string trailed
from the fingers of a kid
who is watching a girl's thighs
open as softly
as a clam mined by the sun.
Years of wandering aimlessly,
Or purposely through the moss
Through the trees.
Years of history
Slowly dying
Slowly dying because of us.
Because of us.
Because of you.
Because of me.
Because of them.
Birds used to reign the skies;
Now, these metallic vultures reign the airs.
Orang-Outans used to roam freely amongst the trees,
Manatees among the seas.
No more excuses
Or ignorance:
The iced winds calm my thoughts
They crash on the cliffs
The froth building upon impact
Save my soul
Help me out of this hole
Alone with the storm,
I clamber onto scraps of flotsam
I yearn to yomp out of these gallows
But you pull me back in
Save my soul.
The winds get wilder
The waves stronger
Untameable
A pause.
No wind.
Peace.
It might take fifty years for the waves
to turn clear glass cloudy white,
unmistakable as platinum blond hair
in photos from 1936 when Grandma Dagmar
looked like Jean Harlow as she discarded
broken milk bottles that I might find
and piece together into a ghost or new moon.
Your eyes were the sea
And just like the sea
They swallowed me
They were beautiful in ways that people wouldn't understand
But too dangerous with ways that seemed impossible
And I let them consume
And I kept sinking and sinking
Baby
You were the most beautiful way I could drown
On a grey day by a grey sea
As the tide flees this steady shore,
Two children —
altogether mindless of Monday
and the grim anguish of their parents,
Greet white-capped waves with ecstasy
And far away, a three-sailed bark,
Poised on the edge of sky and sea
Slips silent into mystery.
Who stands before the mast?
Is it the shadow of the man?
Or does this brim-full heart,
holding his hand,
Chart a sure course by some forgotten star
To bring him home again?
i write this with an inexperienced hand,
one not yet rough with the calluses of
another whose seen nirvana with their
own eyes, one not scarred with the
hurts of a dozen lost others, seared with
the burning flames of life's never-ending
pains; but one, smooth as silk, a fresh
cloth to be marked and used, before i peak
into my unique beauty.
i write with pure ignorance, words of advice
forced into these ears, meaning well, of things
ive never understood, of foreign lands and the
sad tales of sailors who were lost to the sirens
prowling the dark waters, looking for fish, but
only to be devoured in a pathetic leap of faith.
dangling my legs above infested waters, i wonder
A captain with no ship,
is what I’ve become.
The past is the past,
it can’t be undone.
I ask very much,
from my new crew.
But expect nothing,
that I wouldn’t do too.
The seas will be rough,
you need ability.
But just beyond,
is the Sea of Tranquility.
You were born when the raging seas go quiet
When the 7 oceans saw the moon & get calmed
You were born when the night sung to the wild
sweet lullabies.
When the lions and beasts slept just as the stars sighed.
You were born when sun and rain held hand
And began together their slow dance
That's why I tell you, you belong to Peace
Madness is your father but you look like patience .
For you take your image after
your beautiful mother.
You guessed it right.
Yes.
You are silence.