Friday, November 28, 2008

Ethereal Beauty #27

The promontory recedes. Water-skiing vixens
With perma-smiles no longer shoot the ramp
In effervescent hilarity, so I stare
At grim Dick Dana folding his laundry
And grumbling when mismatched leggings
Tangle with the port rope. Naked
But for cinched Doc Martens,
I lean like a deflated rubber protractor
And spot Davy Jones’ locker scurrying me back,
My high school box
Holding remedial English papers,
Pin-ups of koala bears,
And the church bulletin which held my first poem.
Coagulating in crimson arroyos
Of curved birch creases, a backwash
Brushes my boots and the ship bosses a flow
Outside the underwater demilitarized zone.
Hail sun! And hail myrmidon-wavelets
Nudging the peeling hull in coy kisses!
I’ll stay aboveboard and play poker
With distracted Dana planning his lawyerly career
With the care of one with a future.
Four threes! Stale biscuits and Cap’n Morgan’s
Mauve juice under the cavernous turquoise bowl.
No one needs to talk to me
And God is a laughable shade
Collecting coins to stash in His broken reliquary.
Fine mist repeats its impotent frissons.
I’m light, fissile on open deck, the way,
Hatchdoors flapping, the truth, breaking up.

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