blue
it’s blue
january blue
child’s afghan blue
bossa nova musically blue
brother and birthday streamer blue
marbled backdrop and herring gull blue
blue
guarded by glasses and dylan eyed blue
disquieting human fragmented blue
love lust cold arrow’s blue
hillside spring blue
fairytale blue
lost blue
blue
see the blue centerlight pop - kerouac
CRETE
I. Malia
I’m feeling very Greek goddess right now,
You say, rising naked and rosy from the waters.
Your hair drips and glistens in the Cretan moonlight
as the waves caress you and the saltwater touches every piece of us,
unencumbered by some summer purchase.
I imagine your expression,
nervous, like mine—
as you bravely face Poseidon
presenting him with a young body
but feeling older than the sea.
We reveal
the strength of bare figures,
toes curling among the rocks,
smelling of sticky brine and flushed heat.
Autumn elsewhere, high summer here,
warmer when we linger,
ripe with the laughter of girls
toying with womanhood
free and full,
complete
in the naked dark.
II. Danube
Shadows slip through blue quiet
shrouded by night mist, made by the moon,
forms in similar curves
guarding one another from unwelcome eyes.
Already shivering, but
softly baring ourselves, we are ready, ready
not quite ready, to further embrace this snaking river.
Eyes closed, arms around my chest, I step
into unstable shallows.
Losing my breath to the cold.
Giving my warmth to the cold.
Reminding the mother of her children
on either shore, two nations have bled into this water.
Yet, I know she still gives life,
because her sunrise, still far off,
will plant red and orange seeds.
“Do you suppose I don’t feel it? And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink … I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!”
WINDERMERE
It begins in the spring,
on April days that look like summer;
I need my sweater
with the heart-shaped buttons.
After lunch
he enters the house,
carrying the faint smell
of freshwater
and a fish
swaying
on
a
line.
Heads out back, proudly
slaps it on newspaper,
slices through scales
and pulls at backbone.
Supper,
bleeding
on the Style section
as the sun comes
baking the entrails;
and the heart,
separate,
carefully dissected,
beats its last
beneath my stare.
On Sunday,
I sketch a fish
with one motion.
In blue pavement chalk,
an afterthought,
my fish has one eye
for white heels to step on
and the rain
to wash away.
PENCLAWDD
On a yellow afternoon
dotted by haystacks
and shaded by cool,
green footpaths,
I discover the plot
of Blue Anchor,
so small I could cup
this place in my
suburban hands.
A graveyard - locked
A church door - locked
I cannot find the dead
or the living in
on this hillside.
But for unruly
red haired children
asking my name,
mocking my accent
and cycling past
like a tribe on
warhorses,
I speak with
no one.
They round a corner
shouting still,
bike chains
spinning wildly
with child’s control
zip zip zip.
Gone.
In their
pronounced
absence,
I catch
the steady thud
of a ball
against a grey house.
