verily this evening, from the veranda
i smell the fragrance of their arrivals.

the tall, slender, stockinged women
swaying like bamboo in the wind.

the admirals in white commandeering
vessels — the shear of wind, a tractable beast.

the ploys of men to woo the darling,
  the hesitations of dames cloaked
in obvious handiwork of skirts.

they slalom through life's rugged streets
like blueprints of doors revealing
  benign propaganda.

it is all too real to me. i have lived
behind the shadow of words.

it is all that i am cut up for — doting on
it still, yet a nonexistent blossom.

hearing them leave the interior of walls,
soldering the notoriety of burdens.
witnesses drowned in water,
their muffled voices reinvent the quietude. there is a dailiness overmastered by them, such rampant
mendaciloquence denied by me.

i move past cataracts of crowds
and hunt for the silence: this importunate need that feeds my bloodthirsty being.
i awaken the sleeping prowess
of words and listen to them.

now, leave me with my ocean.
i was meant to ***** in the blue
and froth like the last of unburied water,
  dreaming of fish.