Beach With Absence of Yellow

 

 

 

 

 

Beach With Absence Of Yellow

 

 

 

 

Because

you were gone

the sun was a gin-soaked gypsy

in a yellow dress

going inevitably down

down where sticky darkness

wants to go, sliding from

the mouths

 

of ruined sailors

whose pleasures led them to the overflow,

drowned down gold-bright waves, row on row,

to wash up sorry scarecrows

on the shore, back-stabbed and 

broken to the empty land once more.

Because

everything is gone,

the morning sun is sober as a cat,

bored and batting at the palm-leaf's knees.

The sailor's flattened hat is

shredded on an unpersuaded breeze

that only wants to quit

 

and all along the boulevard

cigarette butts still roll,

the mirrors lie,

the telephones ring.

 

 

March 2023

 

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Word List: Randy Newman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Venus and the Sailor, 1935 ©Salvador Dali 

Vegetal Puppets, 1938 ©Remedios Varo

 

 

 

 

At The Hospital

 

 

 

 

 At The Hospital

 

 

Pendants of light

reflections reversed

bent on slick white tile

random voices

in chained rooms

living out their untold

fortunes. Are fortunes told

or are they read,

written in a book of days

all numbered

not visible except

through curving crystal?

Or are they droned

the same tune every time

inside the skull,

mortality's earworms?

I am indifferent.

The gypsy broke my cup;

my tea leaves spilled.

 

 

 

 

circa 2019, rev. March 2022 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link #131

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Sun In An Empty Room, 1963, © Edward Hopper   Fair Use

The Fortune Teller, 1933, © Brassai            Fair Use 

Advice From The Fortune Teller

 

 

 

Advice From The Fortune Teller

 

 

"Look up to jump," the gypsy calls.

"It's how you fly instead of fall.

It's a long way down, that last bump,

so fly your eyes like starlings brawl.

That's how you miss the awkward thump,"

the gypsy calls."Look up to jump."

She's jumped before. I try to trust

my heavy wings of wax and rust,

the sky my boat, the wind my oar,

my feathers eyes above earth's crust

cast floating up and sent to soar.

I try to trust. She's jumped before.

But then I see she smiles and smiles

at birds stitched high on cloudy miles

at knifing rocks that slice the sea,

carving waves like bladed turnstiles.

"Just look up and finally be free."

She smiles and smiles, but then I see.

February 2022

posted for dVerse Poets

Poetry Form: Sparrowlet

(for a complete description of this quirky little form, see above, where Grace is hosting)

Images ; The Fortune Tellar, 1933, © Brassai   Fair Use

Floating Woman, photomanipulation © Phillip Igumnov  Fair Use