I went to the beach to fall out of love with indifference.
To chase after the birds of sun-coloured hue,
fine in feature and in temperament, with
dazzling songs of shallow sonance,
muted only by the waves of life in its
false, unhappy circumstance,
doomed as they were to soar in endless vanity,
chained by the shackles of the clouded skyway
as it sank to meet the swirling sea,
with no respite bar love,
and no escape, bar death.
I feel now in hotness what I dreamt of then in cold to glimpse.
In the fickle shadow of towering pines these birds lie
languidly, reclining in a soft ocean of tiered green
where they inescapably alight at least daily,
atop manifold slivers of beer and embroidered rainbow
which silently speak one’s name,
sirens of judgement as outsiders pass
along intersecting concrete runways,
barbed by the blazing thorns of scrutiny
under watchful eyes,
scorching those who greet them while
sparing the disdainful,
who find it in their bliss to be
themselves, ignorantly ignored.
I hear broken birds on palisade horizons, singing.
Cleansing wreckage from the bodies of
strangers in stationary cavalcades,
approaching torrents of cloudless rain
alone, as fire clings to soaking limbs,
ivory streams purging filthiness and
soothing burns, a measure of short-lived clarity existing
fleetingly, before the overwhelming pressure of
sneering audience and Cheshire Cats
bears down, the flames returning bright,
stoked hesitantly by burly fathers and
small sons, travailing tirelessly on blazes beyond
rekindling, smothered and starved by corduroy shoes
and ignored, small grains of blazing light,
extinguished.
I taste the sounds of barefoot passengers worshipping shade.
Seeking deliverance with a clumsy gait and indifferent
facade, past tobacconists and ice-cream parlours and
homespun hotel bars, through deserted streets in
search of an oasis, wandering,
thirsting for salvation from the most caustic of
barren springs and tantalised, by mirages of truth
manufactured, deliberately teasing the palates of
unhinged critics and feeble epicures, satisfaction, found
in a faint hint of subtle sweetness, the lilting smile of
an earnest photographer and a blotted feather,
fallen from circling wings, irresistible.
I find mirrors reflecting old clothes and fireworks in low fidelity.
Within the halls of one’s despair geniality begets forbearance,
entrances sealed with an unfaithful portcullis like the
ticking over of new years and vacant antechambers,
forcibly relinquished with reckless abandon and lost,
leaving behind only two faded relics ostensibly by design,
each a model of fashion and roles for the forsaken,
and to the northern reaches of helping hands and heartbreaks
they lie in a flaxen sun, plucking violently the quills of innocence
as they lose their own to keep, and then leaving.
I see the setting sun rise at midnight in a surfer’s dream.
With chestnut blonde hair flowing like numbers scrawled
on generic billboards, rapt in the warm embrace of
platonic hands and open arms,
gambling away nights spent foolishly on
idiosyncratic indulgences and vanity,
redemption sold only to temptation in
tantalising brown eyes, clutched by the insecure talons of
well-intentioned predatory songbirds, and trapped,
drowning in moonlight and breathing the sun,
making frigid waters hot and cobalt waves crimson,
faring one well with tragic and intimate ease,
until next time.
