Becalmed, the doldrums bear down frowning.
Hull fouled by weeds, persistent barnacles.
The ship is steadfast in her silence,
The light alone enough to shatter us.

Beyond us, off the bow the dolphins plunge
And leap toward home
While we, a company of refugees,
Lie static on this open ocean.

Our eyes are burned by distance.
No breeze to flutter them,
Our tattered flags of truce no longer fly,
But hang like limp, compliant prisoners.

We pray for wind,
The puff-cheeked gods of weather
Drawn upon our useless maps.

A force 10 gale,
The flecks of wave tops on our faces
Rage, determined demons,
In our dreams.

The thunder starts to sing…
Lightning strikes a move like a poised ballerina.

Rain falls like passion in the middle of hot romance.

Seaweed along shore doesn’t seem to mind the nectar from above.

One lonely ship at sea.
The rain kisses every inch of her.

Wind whispers sweet nothings into her sails.

The most invigorating feeling has come over her.
But alas, her sails begin to drop.

The feeling is long gone now.

She presses forward searching for it once more…

The moon shines brightly above her.
She moves forward.
Wanting to touch it…
Wanting to feel it’s beam of greatness upon her.

She swims further away from land.

Her sails still lifeless.

The shore becomes a line of electricity now.

Soon, it is no longer in sight.

What was thought to be a small island ear to the Bermuda Archipelagos in the North Atlantic Ocean, discovered a hundred, or so, years ago. it's now been found to be, a uniquely rare species of a giant frog.
Resulting in a summit of all the world's scientists, and leaders, fearful that this frog may hop, or leap. and such is it's size, and weight, could cause a giant super Tsunami, that could flood the entirety of the globe.
Therefore, should they put into place, preventative measures, such as culling it. with this in mind, the French delegation immediately offered to dispose of the frog's legs.
It was decided to approach the problem by visiting the site, where the frog was sat, so a large cruise ship embarked on a small voyage to visit the site, so as to decide how best to deal with the situation, and the fate of the frog, that the press were now calling 'Frog Island'.
Meanwhile, the frog, which was just awakening after a long hibernation, opened it's enormous eyes, saw what it thought was a large fish floating nearby, and without waiting, it's massive tongue shot out, and swallowed the cruise ship whole. the stomach of the frog, was happy to digest the actual ship, but immediately disposed of it's contents, all wrapped up in spawn, and delivered out of it's rear end, shocked, but alive, and soon rescued.
Subsequently, there was an uncertainty, as to how to destroy the frog. If it were bombed, it may still cause a Tsunami, if it were poisoned, he impact could cause catastrophic environmental damage, and poison the world's oceans further. Another idea was proffered, perhaps they could try to somehow pin it down to the ocean floor, but the scientists couldn't reach any agreement, as they had no way of knowing how strong the frog may be, and besides, maybe it was so big, it couldn't move, even if it wanted to. No-one could even guess at it's origin, and felt sure it was some kind of anomaly, of some as yet unknown species, as the largest known frog until now, had been the Goliath frog, measuring up to just over 12". They took some comfort by the fact that there were no indications, it had ever moved.
It's mouth was at sea level, and initially, it's diet seemed to consist of a variety of sea life, and assumed that the frog had eaten the ship by mistake. At it's rear, they soon discovered remains of all kinds of fish, including Whale bones, along with flotsam and plastics, and other debris. Further investigations, unveiled remains of ships, and aircraft, this puzzled scientists at first, but at least explained that the cruise ship hadn't been the first mistake, if mistake it was?
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists, and the like, around the globe, went into overdrive, and started now to believe that the frog was the cause of all the mysteries that had ever occurred in the area known as The Bermuda Triangle, further investigation, helped along with satellite images revealed, that indeed, there may an element of truth to it all, as some of the missing ships, and planes from a period of over 100 years, were discovered by the rear end of the frog.
Although this seemingly solved one mystery, the bigger mystery, and potential global threat, was the frog, and another worrying thought, was did it have the potential to reproduce. If that were a possibility, was there another 'frog island' somewhere, lurking in the oceans, somewhere on this planet?
Various instruments were landed on the 'island', using similar technology as used in missions to the moon, to carefully find samples, that may give some clues as to how to deal with the situation. It was soon discovered, that the frog was in fact at least 2,000 years old. Furthermore, there was some kind of undersea volcanic activity, originating from the frog itself, somehow connected to it's digestive system, and burning stomach acids. Further baffling, and worrying scientists, as any interference could cause dangers to the structure of the planet itself, and it was still unknown to where it's feet were, so further investigations were urgently needed, as time was of the essence.
Meanwhile, the frog simply stayed where it was, aware of all the hive of activity around, and upon it, and remembered a joke it had once heard "good morning mister frog, how deep is the water today?" "kneedeep kneedeep!" said the frog. The giant frog was so amused by this, it let out an enormous belch.
Meanwhile, a nearby ancient under water volcano erupted, sending a tsunami across the ocean directly towards the frog, and arrived just as the frog had belched, in the process drowned the frog instantly.
An island, not so far away, a pair of giant eyes opened....
by Jemia

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud
Two of us, alone, as one
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin
Your slender legs, columns that taught  
The Greeks in Helens age, touched the water  
And the sky. I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone you are the hinge  
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes  
I hold your skin, my Selkie
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance
In the country of the sun
We end at the house in Umbria
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

Aloft upon some distant shore
The seabird sets her wings to soar
The salt sea tang of crested breeze
Or howling gale of winters freeze,
Through oceans, mountainous or not
Or sea Sargasso flat and hot,
In dancing wavelets sparkling clear
Where hunted mackerel school in fear,
Where natives in their dugout boats
Caste out their nets and balsa floats,

That tiny bird will soar adrift
Negotiating each wind shift.
One wonders how a thing so small
Can fly against the wind at all;
But sweep she does and plunge and veer
In gracious symmetry to steer
Across the oceans vastness too,
To land right there, right next to you.
In squawking lightness, dancing swings
Sea bird alights ….and folds her wings.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
8th. December 2007

Let’s take a silver train underground
to the back streets of Atlantis
thru the corrugated iron roots &
then to the peak itself, to the
saddle of the last ridge past strewn
                             boulders,
finally meandering thru cascading snow
wearing miner’s hats on the perpendicular
                                       dark night &
going up to the edge of the Southern Cross
where we reach at last the pure white
                            glistening glaciers &
                 begin to chant over bones in rags
                                       of Scorpio
Armless in the sticky substance how could
         they ever have had a chance?
         Permission will not be required
         only poems of blood offered to
                 the memory of TREE
         It is not ice which is eternal
         but the fury of the absolute
         separating the void from the spirit
                                      of man,
         uplifting like life when it is used
                                against itself,
         that is, Radical Love -- & again, we
         are reduced to living beings
         Caught by the instant
         we are taken away
         We live in the imprint of the flame
         & we are helmeted within the internal
                                              blackness
         where the ray begins its passage
                    across the indignant sky
Vain clouds uncaring in a tangle of
                                       crossbeams
culminate in the hermaphroditic mirror
                   of the epileptic dancer
                              asleep
                        And during sleep
                        the light is joined
                           to the light
     It is all a matter of getting up
and then to abandon the pain
It is there that the journey beings
     in the self generated flame of
        Spontaneous Combustion
            (Swayambhunath)
    The main line running counter
    to the triangle comprising the
    MAELSTROM, the DOLDROMS & the
    SARGASSO SEA where sleeping Atlanteans
                                       dream forever,
     this line, this battlefield of the ages,
     crosses the divide of my most wandering
     backdoor heart.
     We will all have to go
     if we want to reappear
     in the rhythm of the ritual
     It’s the wheel of fools spinning
             over my bed
     If I put my left foot first
     they will find a way to call me
                      by that name
     tracking tremors
     like glyphs
     on drunken walls
     in the negative palace
     just before taking eave
     of my senses
     the white powder dissolves
     in the sunlight
     & making noise like a peacock
     he hops on one foot up the mountain.

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind- with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.

It is bounded by the gyre, this sea without a shore.
It once was but a sea of weeds but now there is much more.
Here are plastic bags and cups discarded thoughtlessly.
Refuse from our teeming shores comes here eventually.

In another time and place these waters were deep blue
crystal clean and beautiful as when first Columbus viewed.
Dappled sunshine lit these waves in this sea without a shore
but now it is a garbage dump ( as if we needed more.)

The plastic and the Styrofoam are scarcely changed by time.
they'll still be drifting in the sea when breath is no longer mine.
The salt sting of my bootless tears I've add to the sea,
for all the creatures great and small who drown in Man's debris.

When once the twilight locks no longer
Locked in the long worm of my finger
Nor ****** the sea that sped about my fist,
The mouth of time ******, like a sponge,
The milky acid on each hinge,
And swallowed dry the waters of the breast.

When the galactic sea was ******
And all the dry seabed unlocked,
I sent my creature scouting on the globe,
That globe itself of hair and bone
That, sewn to me by nerve and brain,
Had stringed my flask of matter to his rib.

My fuses are timed to charge his heart,
He blew like powder to the light
And held a little sabbath with the sun,
But when the stars, assuming shape,
Drew in his eyes the straws of sleep
He drowned his father's magics in a dream.

All issue armoured, of the grave,
The redhaired cancer still alive,
The cataracted eyes that filmed their cloth;
Some dead undid their bushy jaws,
And bags of blood let out their flies;
He had by heart the Christ-cross-row of death.

Sleep navigates the tides of time;
The dry Sargasso of the tomb
Gives up its dead to such a working sea;
And sleep rolls mute above the beds
Where fishes' food is fed the shades
Who periscope through flowers to the sky.

When once the twilight screws were turned,
And mother milk was stiff as sand,
I sent my own ambassador to light;
By trick or chance he fell asleep
And conjured up a carcass shape
To rob me of my fluids in his heart.

Awake, my sleeper, to the sun,
A worker in the morning town,
And leave the poppied pickthank where he lies;
The fences of the light are down,
All but the briskest riders thrown
And worlds hang on the trees.

Old Neptune marks his boundaries today, leaves sargasso
and thin, bamboo-like reeds on the shore of Dauphin Island. He blows briskly, to urge his white steeds to the seashore.
The water is dark with disturbance, veined with foam like tatted lace. The scent of Neptune swallows the fast-moving air crossing
the island from Gulf to Bay sides. Oil rigs
haunt the horizon like boredom, breaking
the vista, reminding all who see them of human limit. Old Neptune accepts no limit, no boundary. We, who want fixity
as security, we watch as Neptune abuses boundaries, expands us
whether we want him to or not. There is no fixity; yet there is security. There is consolation in flow, in flowing with Great Neptune, rolling in his
tidal urgencies.


c. 2014/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

I am alone with you. 
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces 
As before in the empty cinema, 
Where we arrived, at some beginning, 
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes, 
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air 
And the moony screen, 
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings. 

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd, 
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals. 
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean 
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always 
Known you. 

Across the border on the far island, 
You stepped into the waters with me 
And when you disrobed you lit the stars 
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin, 
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night. 

Síneánn, I am your Pablo, 
We are two white birds sailing 
Over the foam of the sea. 
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal 
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman, 
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week. 

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word 
Siberia, my light Rosaleen. 
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

The night is speaking like a cascade.
She’s knitting filigreed lights and shadows.
Sunk in the deep sea
of Sargasso eyes
I stay quiet and don’t find words.
And the scars on your hand
are fading, in order to burn
in my heart.
Oh, sailboats after a long trip
with all the winds in the sails –
sand is calling you.
But it isn’t death!
Oh, it isn’t the end too!
The hand
is going to knock up a hut for you
and in the wide garden
it smells with magnolia and manuscripts…

And I am a sign

The original:

Нощта говори като водоскок

Нощта говори като водоскок.
Преплита филиграрно светлини и сенки.
Потънал във дълбокото море
на сарагасови очи
мълча и не намирам думи.
И белезите на ръката ти
се губят, за да горят
във моето сърце.
О, платноходи след дългото пътуване
със всички ветрове в платната –
зове ви пясък.
Но не е смърт!
О, това не е и краят!
Ръката
ще ви скове на дом
и във широката градина
ухае на магнолии и на ръкописи…

И аз съм знак.


Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud
Two of us, alone, as one
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin
Your slender legs, columns that taught  
The Greeks in Helens age, touched the water  
And the sky. I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone you are the hinge  
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes  
I hold your skin, my Selkie
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance
In the country of the sun
We end at the house in Umbria
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

Wet welling from earth  .  .  .
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******,
  .  .  .  I plung into her.


We are lost at sea  .  .  .
In moonless night our soft cries,
Curled waves drowning us.


Above her in bed  .  .  .
Little breaths lifting our bodies,
Eyes, fingers, dreaming.


Her green eyes are set,
Jewels from sargasso seas,
My ghost ship is wrecked.


Her long hair tangles  .  .  .
No struggle in rising— then,
  .  .  .  We are rapt in bed.

‘OLD AGE is a SHIPWRECK’
Charles de Gaulle

Some boats sink themselves slightly in order to
sleep—they awake with grog hangovers, leaning against

rocks, tillers askew as sea is softened by golden dawn.
The boom swung, tipsily; when the drowsy sail

was hoisted it groaned: *auxiliary! Poking its prow
through the greybeards, the cutter then gathered pace,

parting plungers and apologetic waves as it cast off,
taking leave of the harbour in a cloud of spindrift.

The sail was slumped dizzily on the once-strong
shoulders of the mast—it sighs for its sorry spar and

state, remembering arduous journeys on seas of glass,
but no one dares say how conifer bark rains down in

flakes when it sleeps. The signal lamp, once brilliantly
bright, fraternising with the stars each night, is now

outshone by the eyes of abyssal creatures; see it
wrapped up in a pea jacket, perched on the yardarm.

On the weatherdeck mop and bucket are talking
scuttlebutt and canonising shipwreckless legends of the

past—when the laughter stops, and the deployment of
nets, perhaps they stop to think why, and sloppy work

and holystone and, sky…



Kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake—looking for a
school of fish whilst, in their numbers, orbiting the

vessel in an ellipsis; suspicious eyes on our walty
cutter and its measly midday catch. Tragic wrecks of

birds and ships alike, who is to say—to draw the lines
and make divisions of sea and bird and wood? Birds in

their collective strength move like waves, how they
could carry ships! This one is anchored fast, riding it

out as if a storm. But this collective strength, these
birds with villainous intent nip at the weather-worn

fishing nets and lines and a few ***** are lifted. The
barnacles sleep, nightmare visions of keelhauling—who

knew they had such wounds to heal?—forgotten
underneath in the darkness, they are plucked from their

shells by beaks regardless.

Back at the harbour the boat and its weary flanks and
planks and parts and hollow and hull are comfortably

submerged and sleep. The sun is sinking too it seems,
melting on the tongue of the sea. The broken-backed

vessel, dead doors shut, sail folded, mast
unencumbered. The signal lamp, intimidated and

outnumbered by the many who are brighter in the sky
with light years in their eyes, it decides to sleep out

and keep check for the night for the crows in their
murders covet nesting spots on board.


Splinters and vibrating minutes and the bitter end,
perturbed by the day of eddies and unseen internal

waves, nipped by the endless Kittiwake, they are
consulting compasses for the correct hour—

but no response, just the obviousness of the moon,
even from fathoms down and not a whisper.


As in every dark night here there is no silence for the
utterance of water and rustling of stars. You can hear

Sargasso **** dreaming, after hundreds of years afloat
without making root, dreaming of something better or

at last nothing at all. And in every creak of wood there
is a year of bad weather. And within the strength of

every bird is an empty stomach and a restlessness of
wings. In every decomposing fishing net there’s an

echo of vengeance, heard beneath the ringing of a bell
on the harbour. And in every compass there is a needle

tirelessly at work, endlessly referring to the stars—

The red-tipped needle in its binnacle tower
—confused it still spins and swirls

and in every skiff, freshly built or sea-worn and sore,
there is always a desire it will never speak of:


   to
   dive
   for
   pearls


                                     on the ocean floor.

Portrait d'une Femme**

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
      London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
      Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
      Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
      No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
      One average mind —   with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
      Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one.   Yes, you richly pay.
      You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
      Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
      Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
      That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
      The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
      These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
      Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
      No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
                  Yet this is you.

dissonant from the ground that ached
of frostbite,
fractured and mistress of

the Sargasso

she birthed the thin ghost of dawn
in legato
drawing the trembling line of

her lips.

fervent, the bulbous-born sky
washed her
in fat drunken clouds of

gray ships

climaxed in the aqueduct of
erratic dusk
and emerged as deity of

bagatelle and dust.

.
Wet welling from earth  .  .  .
Deep valleys, hills, sweating *******,
  .  .  .  I plung into her.


We are lost at sea  .  .  .
In moonless night our soft cries,                                                           ­            
Curled waves drowning us.


Above her in bed  .  .  .
Little breaths lifting our bodies,
Eyes, fingers, dreaming.


Her green eyes are set,
Jewels from sargasso seas,
My ghost ship is wrecked.


Her long hair tangles  .  .  .
No struggle in rising— then,
  .  .  .  We are rapt in bed.


Her eyes blinding me,
Milky way of her body,
  .  .  .  There is a heaven.


In forest we taste  .  .  .
Each other in evergreens,
Hot dews on the moss.


Blissful time kissing  .  .  .
My bare thighs sink into hers,
  .  .  .  Running sands so quick.


As olive or grape  .  .  .
So shed, paired souls are threshed,
  .  .  .  Out of their bodies.


Hummingbirds share truths .  .  .
Nature sounds with all sweetness,
  .  .  .  Bee in the flower.


Always in a field  .  .  .
Wild flowers— a bunch to pick,
  .  .  .  Herself a bouquet.


In the park we walk  .  .  .
Flocks of white birds taking flight,
  .  .  .  Two hearts light as air.


We kissed under moon  .  .  .
Pox of stars grew flowering,
  .  .  .  Nightshade of her lips.


She took me to bed  .  .  .
Skinned in bliss— was reborn, lost,
  .  .  .  In her satin folds.

she is wearing some chemistry
an old dress for a bluestocking
she turns her face towards a green sea
new rhymes for blazing verbs lurk
in the definition of imprecision but
everything is falling into place
cell to cell conversations afloat
shards of mystery smooth
rounding out the caves of night
mirror wars meanders
mitochondrial Eve confused
into this new creature
saturated with radiance

questions not asked
but answeared
how you love her
do your hands chase
her tango shoulders
is there music inside
the shade of water
waste inside nails
naivete in knees imprisoned
vibration self-asserting

a devious sweeping world
of unthinkable gestures
your hands a seismograph  
for the cataclism of shiver
no need to search for
her selfless sense
as you ravening negotiate
the fossilized song of you
the depth of this tympanum
this membrane
time itself this creature
zoon erotikon
levellling up resurecting
ravaging enchanting

all the rites of passage
for the overwhelm of flavor
she breathes in prehistoric gills
nirvana dance inside DNA
you redefine your sharpness,
delicacy tears & tearing
she dissapears in a snare drum
sanity evaporates as mist
over arched forests
in the pulse of no air
in between skin and akin
in the bewilderment of bodies
searching for their lyric
manna for beautiful beasts
over the sargasso sea

she wails genuine
metanoia, love's dianoia
no disambiguation

TALLAHASSEE CONTAINS ALLAH to whom I'm truly true blue
as He is the Just, the King, the Watchful, the Father of me & of you
Like 9 dogs eatin' tuna fish I cried for your thigh to comfort me like
the jack breadfruit that comforted Bounty Lieutenant William Bligh
whilst he abstained from Tahitian maidens who were cunningly shy
My big, beautiful mouth that frets & sasses makes me intellectually
superior to everyone except the most idiotic of ******* dumb *****
whose apple cider vinegar becomes unsulfured blackstrap molasses
Remember again old cross firemen, Jesus burned for your arson sin
2,000 years before I wrapped your fat *** around your chinless chin
through hellish dew of frosty equanimity with Gail Fisher as Peggy,
Mannix shaved his dangling loose hairy stems above gay legs leggy
so that he might wiggle folklorical jigs like Haitians do with reggae
Gay-***-whackin' Hillary Clinton humps *** to a disco-***-humpin'
beat from her *** crooked-pants-suited *** to her lezzy-***-toed feet
stuck in turds as Bill sodomizes a mule, **** Hillary can be bought
stuck in pig **** as Billy rapes another, shaky Hillary can be bought
with Kleenex 'cause her honker has 5 pounds of unsought nose snot
that added nothin' to the virulent ****** that I ain't not never caught
On clean teen carpet she munched, slurped & lapped sink drain-like
forcing me to slap her shitless so that she could be a real, sane ****
whose despicable antics I am not morally outraged by, nor annoyed
as this repugnant behavior is directed medically by faux cushingoid
which accounts for her likeness to the puffy-faced star Alison Lloyd
who had something criminally criminal to do when she wasn't doin'
something grimy to fill her cravenously-craven-criminalistical void
that toys with emotions that are not immune to being toyed with on
the weekends that were made for Michelob on my blue hemorrhoid
that toys with emotions that aren't afraid of being toyed with on gay
weekends that were made for Michelob dumped on my hemorrhoid
only 'cause it is something to do when you are not doing something
that could have ended early the cowboyin'-guy-life of William Boyd
whose hoppin,' in the hoppin'-along biz, derived from a secosteroid
Vegetable-hating vegans love pagans & meat-eaters secrete beavers
& Yukio & Yoko Mishima beat to death with a bat old Tom Seavers
after he frittered away his ball-batting career as a raunchy, gay dude
to the tune of 4 original Beatles crooning the god-awful "Hey Jude"
while fat priests ****** nuns & nudists in nudist colonies pray ****
for chapel cameras of the ******* Channel's dude ranch, Play Dude
where the rudest nudists & naturalists, nudely & naturally stay rude
without caring to distinguish betwixt fake night & serious day food
that could throw a self-effacing exhibitionist into a filthy, gay mood
with prelude payload which equates to slaves getting their pay sued
by orthognathical charlatans who worship devil-lovin' Ben Franklin
in his guise as Frenchy Chucky de Gaulle who could send tank men
for forensical strikes targetin' ****** on rivers whereat men bank sin
with a plugged-up ******* called Peter Hamilton, feet or Nam again
in quokka flesh minus 22% over a pig sty or a bacon-oiled ham pen
Even though He maintained amazing Bible-understanding abilities,
Pittsburgh's wall-to-wall ******* gave Jesus the Hill District jiggers
Despite His God given Holy Christian Bible-understandin' abilities,
Pittsburgh's loo-to-loo ******* gave Jesus shaky, Hill District jitters
that ache way too late & shake for a sexily-religious girl who titters
over dead Zhanna Friske's Russian lickspittles & ******* pig-sitters
gettin' one passed normal lesbians with tattoos of sickly zoo critters
that clearly show pederasts of The New York Times ******* shitless
after chalking Marxistical New York Times sources ******* shitless
in Bethlehem stables stabling new stud muffin horses shoed witless
where hippy people with greasy long hair were quite apt to be livin'
clawing about what's issue based vs. character drivel, I mean driven
Ol' Walker McDonald was my very special friend until he ***** me
under a nice fig tree beyond the bitchiest beach of the Sargasso Sea
where he wouldn't quit ****** me despite my sexiest desperate plea
I hollered a lot in a ******-nutty masculine voice but he did not care
about rotten figs that matted my Ellen-degenerated, lezzy-short hair
I told everyone in North Vietnam & Laos that he couldn't he trusted
'cause the 21,798 times he ***** me made me thoroughly disgusted
like there were gigantical nests of bugs up my *** heavily encrusted
in cracks where ****-crop-dusting planes can't dive swoop in dusted
before flying into my inner-sanctum room like old Corrie ten Boom
whose bee-busy life, after her crapping-out death, has yet to resume
in order to beat senseless neo-brutalistical V.A. nursing home abuse
that kills the blood-coagulatin' screams of a cursing gnome papoose
draped across the *** of a ***-rail engineer takin' it up the caboose
to make his gay meaning known to stragglers too lucid to be obtuse
Don't ****** me I'm your amigo, oh yeah I forgot in your final spin
that a plucky slice'd paralyze you forever good on any hot spinal fin
****** ****** at ****** mall: Who's the baddest ****** of them all?
Is it Ringo, or dead George/John, or false/fake ******, Beatle Faul?
I cannot wear no slutty dress because I got a sass-*** dose of P.M.S.
I can't ***** in my slutty dress while I got a bad-*** dose of P.M.S.
My boyfriend's a ***** queer who has been ripped up his ***'s rear
In city pig files they record my criminal-*****-bone record in miles
Here amongst the thoroughly hypnotized, I spank your lard **** red
while you flee with free fleas that fly with flies that are too-well fed
while you flee with 3 free fleas that fly with flies that are overly fed
The traveling mermaid porked & beaned me in the moldy sea green
as P.B.S.'s Fred Rogers fits into a death list of ***, dead codgers we
ruefully mourn the murders of Jack the Ripper's ******-red lodgers
who overtly related homosexually to lesbian heterosex bed-dodgers
on mountain picnics in Pennsylvania where they are fed odd chores
There ain't nothing grim in threading tawny-titted Hawaiian women
before drug-induced comas or with food cramps got from swimmin' Demon Hillary, I Would ****** Everybody Just to Make You Smile
Is this wrong? No, murdering everybody is Scratch's most beautiful
way to say: "I loathe you Bill" in his hottest court of Luciferian trial
A raunchy **** bussed my *** with cerebral palsy quicker than Ajax
scrubbed the crapped-out Admiral William Halsey. I'd mount 1 trull
plain or crunchy too but not when she humps like a Harlem *******
We told everybody deaf 'bout "us" but everybody but "us" was deaf
to our mutant deafness save Harland Sanders & Burger Chef & Jeff
Swallow this sea-warped poker chip to see what can happen while I
moodily tap out Florida flame red maple trees to drain all the sap in
Anita O'Day never curled the nether tufts of Melvin Howard Tormé
because she was a limpless gimp who saw sike-a-***** as girly gay
in the throes of scissor lovin' between Blobert Rake & Huddy Bolly
whose fine, rug-burned legs queered their sapphical, sexoholic folly
that in 1966 farted greasy Earth's real cheeses to slickly **** breezes
as 99 rescue inhalers asphyxiated fatalistically-asthmatical wheezes
I love the ocean. Do you feel the aloof sea spray on your face? That
ain't sea spray. That's a gay *** peeing down on you from the roof.
I like my ******* on caffeine-free diets as they're better controlled I
think, than apes on caffeine-big diets who **** ******* cherry pink
for sea-lovers in iron linkage to twist apart a chewed-on master link
soaked in a tub 93% bigger than a beef washer's blood-washed sink
Let us forgive my unkind words but the dog turds I tracked in aren't
my dog's turds 'cause your ***'s really pretty like that of an angel's
dead cousin, so you must not cream on creamy donuts by the dozen
I will not talk of you in the old past as long as you are able to ****
really fast. The way to hell is lousy with sinners as each part of you
could provide several dinners. Our cherries are nicer than the sweet
cherries in pies. I wish that our 4 eye sockets had 4 cherry-red eyes.
You're so tiny that you stand 'neath my knee at a distance so nice to
bruise my better kidney. Shut up a lot, I told you before. I ain't got a
mistress who did not chronically snore. I could slather your body in
peanut butter from scalp to *** belly like would that jack-*** Kojak
Savalas brother called Telly. How many times have I warned you to
shut up? 3,345 trillion 9 hundred thousand 128? Enough is enough!
I scratched your back while you were reverently praying, just like a
Catholical priest, which is the chief role I'm now piously portraying
Part of me wants to **** you the other doesn't when I was me & you
were so wasn't, when your ****** were floral with dandelions, ever
more gay than those that were Paul Ryan's. After January we'll ****
bleached whales on the beach while I castigate old adulteresses in a
sermon I preach beneath the flickering grand dragon wizard's torch.
God has blessed us with elbows & knees & sharp teeth, only to bite
whoever's sporting deliciously-moist quims that we strive to please
Kicking the **** out of constipation is my preferred realization with prunes, olive oil & herbs from rich soil, for once I'm well you'll see
healthful regularity overtaking me. I'll make your cheery cherry pop
by threading your pretty Barbie bobbin so fast that I can hardly stop
from attaching psychedelical fixations to conundrums psycholytical
No one asleep had ever downed a pickle 'cause the racer who hit 45
wet spots was the women-pleasing racer large Richard **** Trickle
No one awake had ever drowned a pickle because the racer who hit
damp spots was the ****-racing racer, big-stick Richard **** Trickle
No one awake had ever got ******-cell sickle with the racer who hit
87 damp spots, the ***-****-racing racer, ***** Richard **** Trickle
who found that **** babes with keen intellects were tricky to tickle
as ****'ll be doin' Marianne Faithfull with big-ribbed-****** ******
in his British Marxian way with obligatory sledge hammer & sickle
to spread her ******* for shire horse hung Beatle Jimmy Nicol
as Albert Hofmann's 102-year-old L.S.D. schlort is a thrill pickle in
a Swiss lab bobbing dead in *****, unable to pork, **** & ***** all
while Bert Hofmann's 102-year-ol' L.S.D. ******* is a dill pickle in
a Swiss lab bobbin' in *****, unable to poke, sock, cram & stick all
because of contact with a toxical/allergical rose bushy thorn prickle
Some of me's puerile, the other section's a rash, over my nasty belly
is mama, below is a wacky, pinkish ******, while I pile onward real
love from 11 p.m. till the pole star's there, 8 degrees from starboard
several acres from where the **** wipes for my liquor bar are stored
You're brave & you're wise, with my camera I'll capture your thighs
I long for blonde hair of which you've plenty. I want to kiss all of it
before you turn 20. Our Russian passion will pass a fever pitch like
convicts on a chain gang diggin' a ditch. You whistle alluringly like
Lauren Bacall. I wonder, can you do it pulling from Bogart's straw?
Let's eat cookies while we sleep in my million-dollar Blue Bird bus
because I have expensive chocolate chip cookies just for the 2 of us
Tell me the truth, I am dyin' to know. Will you be able to stop when
we go go go? It's very important that you're careful so you don't get
knocked up by a drunken sailor or a window washer or a blind man
with a tin cup. Your pocked *** is really low slung like a green pine
ladder's 1st broken rung. I bang you in the murky morning too early
for lunch 'cause you ain't ½ as **** as Alice from The Brady Bunch
whose meat-hacking with butcher Sam included a knock-out punch
Turn up the gas, I want no damp cell, no moist damsel in **** hell
whose ill virginity is wiped clean by my hellishly-wild *** machine
I love you tall, I love you short in a barrel, beneath a port. You are a
broad. I know it's true. Live up to the crooked contract or I will sue.
Richard F. Burton, extinguish *** Taylor's fiery *** that lit abruptly
in the Golfo de México from B.P.'s unmothered-crack-head-****-gas
I took harmful advice to seize a 1-upped leg man ****-deep in knees

Daddy grows with the stalagmites now;
suicide off white rock
where mourning breathes staccato
with all the vibrations of a cross
as my bones wash away into
The great Sargasso.
No body can birth me now
in this dissonant space
with bluish tides stretched
to the corners of my mind
that echo deep into the crevices
the cracks the creeks
I breathe them in
like a wretched ceremony
an ode to my two thighs
that bear the weight
of outlandish theories
of what it would mean to be alive
and I wake up in the spring
mushrooms and flowers and things
bloom from the tips of the fingers to
the bottoms of the feet;
I am thawing.

Sanguine avengers descend
like self-righteous saints
who themselves orchestrated the disaster.
Rouged cheek,
blood coated lips,
Argonauts lost in a sargasso sea.
You and me,
separated at the tongue,
joined at the groin,
drowning together,
because neither will touch
the oxygen bottle.
Incense cloys,
around the edges of our history,
it's no mystery,
this cannot end well.

A young mother cradles her broken child
Amid the fragments of her world, her soul.
Blood drips.  Rain-sodden insulation drips.
Stillness between storms.  The trees are all gone.
A dark Sargasso Sea of shattered wood,
Bricks, clothes, books, toys, rags, glass, papers, bodies.
In the gasping heat the rot begins now.
No houses.  No lights.  A helicopter
Floating valley boys with plastic boxes
Taking cruel pictures and O-My-Godding
For the telescreen (between soda ads).
And in fortresses of personal affronts

(Safely far away)

Keyboard commandos leap into inaction:

People who choose to live there deserve it.
We told you that global warming is true.
We didn’t have these things ‘til they kicked Jesus
Out of these here schools. And paddling, by God.
It’s Obama’s fault.  Or is it George Bush?
It’s the Republicans. Public schools. Gaia.
British Petroleum.  Coal.  SUVs.
Suburbs.  Not reading the Bible.  Comets.
You’re stupid. Well eff you back.  Eff you more.

While in the second lowering line of storms
A young mother cradles her broken child.