This harbour was made by art and force.
And called Kingstown and afterwards Dun Laoghaire.
And holds the sea behind its barrier
less than five miles from my house.

Lord be with us say the makers of a nation.
Lord look down say the builders of a harbour.
They came and cut a shape out of ocean
and left stone to close around their labour.

Officers and their wives promenaded
on this spot once and saw with their own eyes
the opulent horizon and obedient skies
which nine tenths of the law provided.

And frigates with thirty-six guns, cruising
the outer edges of influence, could idle
and enter here and catch the tide of
empire and arrogance and the Irish Sea rising

and rising through a century of storms
and cormorants and moonlight the whole length of this coast,
while an ocean forgot an empire and the armed
ships under it changed: to slime **** and cold salt and rust.

City of shadows and of the gradual
capitulations to the last invader
this is the final one: signed in water
and witnessed in granite and ugly bronze and gun-metal.

And by me. I am your citizen: composed of
your fictions, your compromise, I am
a part of your story and its outcome.
And ready to record its contradictions.

Profound!

Settling to doze.
Catnap called for.
Hand in hand.
They'd strolled through time.
Short in eternity.

Through darkness into light.
Bright green forest.
Streaming sunlight ,
Splitting sky.
Clear day.
Scent of the forest carried through the atmosphere.

So warm.
It was so very warm.
In a blanket of compassion.
Felt like they were twelve again.
With childlike vigour.
They promenaded.

From the forest floor the scenery changed.
Juxtaposed....so strange.
They could smell the sea.
With renewed crystal clear senses.
They could hear the oceans roar.
Collected seashells while they walked.

Justified dancing on the shore.
To be young again.
Feeling release.
Skimming stones of memory across the rolling tide.
Vivified in minds eye.

A pebble for their children.
One each.
One, two, three.
Wandered into waters edge.
Last drifting breaths to the edge.

Door clicked open.
There they lay.
The happy couple in eternal slumber.
Pill bottle placed neatly by the bed.
For heaven's sake both were dead!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

"look at all the lonely people"
i waltzed into the desolate church on the corner of a street in a town i didn't know the name of.  i've turned into one of those people who spends time in cathedrals on their days off in towns i've never heard of, due to loneliness, mostly.  to my surprise, there was a young lady halfway sitting and halfway standing in a pew next to a stained glass window. her breathing was heavy, i could hear her across the room.  she had a somewhat horrified expression on her face, which was pale and almost ghostly.  she looked so dejected, it was absolutely heart-rendering. once i took a step towards her, the priest of the old church appeared and told her she had to leave her sad state and her pew next to the stained glass window. her melancholy expression remained as she walked slowly out of the church, letting the wooden door slam behind her, never once looking up at me or the priest. he took his place in the exact same spot this young girl was in, and began to write words in a small leather journal with a quill pen. i turned around and left, and decided to come back at the exact same time i did the next day, in hopes to relive the past few moments.
--
as promised, i promenaded down the center aisle of the pews in the church, the carpet crackling under my feet, due to old age, adding to the sense of eeriness that lurked through the establishment.  the young girl was not there. i sat in the pew she sat in the day prior, in hopes of her walking in once more.  i waited for hours, and she did not show.  i faintly heard the sound of a violin just as the priest walked through a door near the altar.  his hands were covered in dirt, and i was curious.  i approached him.
"hello, father. might i ask why your hands are so *****?"
"ah. you're the man from yesterday." he said, a slight glimmer of fear in his eye.
"yes, that is correct."
"you seemed to be quite fascinated by miss eleanor." it's almost as if he knew how intrigued i was by her, although i didn't know her name until now.
"eleanor? the lass from the day prior?"
"indeed. well, it upsets me to break this news to you, but my hands are battered with dirt because i've just come back from burying miss rigby in the cemetery."
"you mean there was no formal ceremony to celebrate her life? what is the matter with you?! how did she die?"
the priest looked me dead in the eye, and spoke the chilling words in a completely monotone voice.
"she was one of the lonely people."

I heard a voice
It called me from the deepest greens of the ocean,
It allured me.
It called me again from the distant vortexes of darkness.
It sounded so familiar,  so intimate.

Silver ***** promenaded along the shore, scribbling poetry on the wet sand.
A distant Gandharvan threw light on them, their shells gleamed.

There is silence all around, and darkness.

The air is filled with nothingness.

In me froths a cold sea.
The waves roar against my eyelids and die a shameful death.
A million dreams swim in them.

Days pass by,
I stand here waiting.
Alone.
Come closer, dear voice.

As we nose dove into placid waters,
time and the sea froze in remembrance;
silhouettes of men, women and children
paraded towards the horizon,
their bodies, limbs and organs made of
the sand that made the beach
with each step taken west
they dissolved,
the air was thick with salinity and tenderness.

The Sun grew with warmth,
at the exuberance of this melancholic loop,
a helpless witness;
it etched this moment in time into their skulls,
a back-lit memory to never return to what broke them.

The Sun grew louder,
with omniscience.
Time and the sea unfroze,
and we delved deeper
into the mystic in search of ourselves.
The waves retreated in reprieve,
promenaded caskets of their past to the shore.
We realised we were more,
than just survivors in the sea of broken hearts.

The following anecdote baste
upon overactive imagination of mine
in sync with being married
and monogamously living socially chaste
life as a scrupulous anchorite,
whose weather beaten corporeal flesh
plus sabotaged, riddled,
and tuckered psyche effaced
after becoming adequately stuffed,
this turkey (in the straw)

then flapped his trussed wings
(at the speed of sound)
if listening closely echoes refrains
from Amazing Grace,
(which words reflections of John Newton,
a slave trader
who nearly died in a shipwreck,
and who eventually became a minister.
after which he penned the famous words
of "Amazing Grace" for a sermon

for his 1773 New Year's service
at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul)
unable to escape ill fate of mine
i.e. being analogous to cooked goose
subsequently found him interlaced
with various and sundry
other dead animals
fixed to be mounted
(courtesy a taxidermist) on a wall.

The holiday dates back
to November 1621,
when the newly arrived Pilgrims
and the Wampanoag Indians
gathered at Plymouth
for an autumn harvest feast,
an event regarded
as America's “first Thanksgiving.”

Ever since then throve,
a commercialization, commodification,
commination and communication war,
where many a big box department store
(large-scale buildings
of more than 50,000 square feet,
the store is usually plainly designed
and often resembles a large box
for example Walmart, Home Depot,

Tesco, and Ikea are examples
of big-box retailers,
but never forget warehouse clubs
such as Costco and BJ's
considered the original kind
of big-box retailers nevermore
to witness mom and pop businesses
(small business entities
that thrive independently and spurred

pick/pull yourself up
by bootstraps guild den age,
or family-owned) *******
bricks and mortar outfits
prominent during pre industrial
high societies, when love's labour's lost
venerated, serenaded, and promenaded
like The School of Scandal of trysts,
buzzfeeding the literati
with tantalizing amour.