I went down to watch the ocean this morning - well, Long Island Sound anyway. My last chance for a while, classes start tomorrow. I wonder sometimes how I can be refreshed by that gray, drizzly, melancholy harbor - locked in winter’s intemperate grip - but I am.

The salty air seems thicker and richer, the sky bigger and wilder. There’s the relaxing sound mix of wave and gull. The ugly brown pelicans bickering like old, married couples, as a lone fisherman, in his yellow macintosh slicker, sorts his boat lines under the watchful, hopeful, hungry eyes of floating black-backed gulls.

Maybe I should become a sailor? Besides, I hear it’s a great way to meet guys.

why do the white gulls call? (everyday must have its poem)*


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the cries are intelligible,
each a separate story of:
patient waiting, of seas
unending waving, unchanging,
cycling, waiting, prophesying,
propelling history, retaining a
staining past, future similar...

why do the white gulls call?

for evening tide rapid approaching,
we may even have a decent sunset,
first worthy of being drunk toasted,
all reminders that this ordinary Monday,
has nearly escaped without an extraordinary
composition, you prone position negates
inspiration, so rouse yourself, rise taller

tribute due, tribute demanded, tribute needed,
that is why the gulls screech, fearful of lapse,
that poet will suppress what is compelled, no,
compulsed! the senescent days offer no excuse,
indeed, the time of limitation is nigh, is here,
the gulls know their history human, its lore,
needs foretelling, retelling, and keeping

humans come and go, but gull generations require
the prescient precision of their words, to define,
to record each day’s unique way of living/dying,
so they can become forebears of the future,
the passers down, of that they cannot exclaim well,
we humans are their heroes, living close by,
we carry the gulls thanks given, for skilled appreciation

so they cry out, is our poem be readied, for the day’s end
comes closer and every day must have its poem!

gulls squawk angrily on our roof
they argue about survival
forgetting they carry the souls
of drowned mariners

we argue in our bedsit
penned into a miniature life
fighting for identity
the right to be ourselves

we could be by the sea
but those angry squabbling scavengers
have never seen a wave in their lives
just gulls not seagulls

forgetting ourselves
we spar around the furniture
you are southpaw
I am orthodox

they root through *******
scattering it everywhere
no use to man nor beast
disease ridden vermin

wrapped up in life
forgetting how to fly
but we can all soar
if we ride the thermals

Massive, gray, these leaden waves
bear their unchanging burden—
the sameness of each day to day

while the wind seems to struggle to say
something half-submerged planks at the mouth of the bay
might nuzzle limp seaweed to understand.

Now collapsing dull waves drain away
from the unenticing land;
shrieking gulls shadow fish through salt spray—
whitish streaks on a fogged silver mirror.

Sizzling lightning impresses its brand.
Unseen fingers scribble something in the wet sand.

Originally published by Southwest Review

He walks the end of the pier, alone
No home to go to,
A ghost in ragged clothes
Passing among the crowds,
Unseen and unheard
But he always feeds the gulls,
Their noisy raucous squabbling
Over a few scraps of bread,
Reminds him of how unhappy
All these tourists really are,
Pretending to enjoy their holiday
Kidding themselves they are free.

She and me
Kick our legs over the cliff
Watching the water pound in steep
Crests of mist,
Awash the quaking stone.

Drinking through the daze
Withering and coastal
Happy with every day
that drips
And growing older
Sedimentary
Seeking the simple deaths of life.

And when we sang our songs to the flocks of gulls
And they called saline
Eating fishbones
Circling like biplanes
Above the coast
We wondered what wandrous
Raptors out ran the oilpan
And instead became this.

We eat our picnic meats
And settle down for a long daydream
Staring at the overcast blanket
Seeing streaks of Grey dispersed between
Feeling
Warm and a little bit loved by the sea.

Me and she
There was no stopping
Her questions, flying hot lead at my
Brain
Dripping gall juice inside the spleen
Infected and hungry
Waiting to engorge our final meal
A bunch of microscopes in the petri
Dished out and left to drift
Amongst the lapping waves.

Assuredly,
When those gulls flapped their lazy way
Heading down the coast
Searching for simple meals
And calling family in the sky
They wondered to god
about solitary
You and I
And just what was our deal?