the shady jargon of an azure remembrance

i. the scarlet babble of a mind that justifies

I painted a frieze of sea girls frivolously slick
with a bottle brush of Revlon Pink Chiffon,

I performed a soft manicure using musty chapters of twelve
that sanded erotic half moons from the curt edge of sea-side taffy:

there were so many hungers, so little time.

why hasn't someone invented a cherry cheese-burger?

ii. the periwinkle distraction of involuntary memory

so, she walked with a pink indifference
along the cresting bank of innocent azalea:
a rising tide of inland salty foaming
that burst the day with a rosy madeleine.

is it really that easy to confuse
the loamy land and the salty sea?

that I thought so then is humbling now,
humbling in a way whose drift is only important
for an overboard body that has drifted
into the saline soup of crumbled creation:

this is one entrance into the apprehension of trite.

I only wanted a biscuit.

iii. around the browned curbed corner, there came a chime

the chromium bell of an instant savior
brought an unexpected parcel of cloudy frost
and delivered us from the evil of toasted almonds.

when you dogmatically live that life is sorrow,
life will happily obey with sweet, sweet sorrow:

the most profound verses screamed from a public address.

hello?

iv. friends long unseen with shocking lines

a small snipe of purple genius
can tremor the cranium, electrically,
with mattress memories of a former night-

I am not unfamiliar with
a set of synapses that fire at will.

if you can say one true thing,
I will surely say another,
equally untrue:

and so it goes.

though I call it love,
there may be another word
that is equally equal.

wading into surf was not enough,
wading into the surf had to be enough.

yes, we loved at first sight-
and still it's still not over.

still.

how semantic quivers make the world go around

afterward,
rummaging through the sub-text
of an already bloody encounter,

trying to salvage, like Proust,
the personal pronoun,
the ambiguity of which

fueled this tragedy of miscues:

when you said "She's very friendly",
I thought you meant your dog.

still glad of a little seaside death

i. destructive though it seemed at the time

first there was the silver chance that rolled as bones
and delivered the stony pearl of your peach unto me:
that was a jeweled chalice which rolled away so mordantly
from the carved marble tomb of our musky white desire.

so we called them emeralds,
so we called them rubies,
so we called them sapphires.

if only I could have endlessly bitten those gleaming stones:
my alphabets have become a poor excuse for breathing.

green,
red,
blue.

it was only what we wanted, then and forever.

the violet rhythm of the your bonnet dirged on the strand
and celebrated, with pretty ribbons in a flapping cadence,
the unseemly end of a common sun that, suddenly, came around.

funny how some things never seem to last.

ii. thirty years just to pay the thirsty rent

here the plaid pleats are a sure sign of sin
and, also, the incandescent price of a gouged admission
to a circular trek that has, strangely, ceased to flatter.

there always is, of course, a paradise in the lifting of a hem.

iii. the incandescent joy of recovery

later, you donned your flowered bonnet without regret
and followed the familiar garden groove of marigolds
that, arguably, started and stopped at the same doorstep:
you seemed to remember the woven cat that stopped the draft-

the blue lungs that were deeply hidden in the chameleon clouds
could not breathe the periwinkle vapor of your dreams.

iv. released from gravitas and tossed into a crimson orbit

an endless parade of blue dignitaries
is marching towards the silky sunset
in silly robes with silly borders:

I said I could but now I can't.

to name every creature must be an unctuous burden,
when every alphabetic permutation, however comical,
must follow rules set down during a primordial sunrise-

when you know the last permutation will end the world.

beating the batted bane of beauty
is one kind of rune for the tiresome
crawl of the player piano of now:

ouch! does not quite state it.

that was a set of dots beyond your comprehension
playing a melody you could not understand.

they had one thing that you did not-
a testimonial captured in an eternal frieze.

v. it seems your brights are on again

the shiny hose unsystematically curled
upon itself begs the green striped maze
of stony lanes filled with cheap goods-
belying, if it can, the directed sashay down to the stony beach:

the whelks themselves will throw your buttery fortune,
drawing a card from the uncomfortable deck of rounded stones.

lips once pale are suddenly painted with desire.

every spectrum contains a circle

i. it started near the garden of almost blooming

the pale blue shadow of a predictable leaf of graph
dripped behind the green sun of a fuschia terrace
on an afternoon filled with the geometric curve of insteps:

easy wide to eyeball this, from the sigh gasp calves
to the scarlet thrust of glamour toes in beige sandals.

this was the craving summer of grimy gnat filled screens
and curved lines that infuriated the crispness of Euclid.

and what was simply advertised as a failure of the will
became a rainbow of coincidence hidden in erupting leaves.

ii. after mid-summer the seasons start to change

the shadows of mimosa buds, having lost their scent,
form black comedic masks on the rain rusted siding.

we could smell the orange winds of autumn
hiding beneath the humid hems of summer
and the silver underside of weigelia leaves
that warned of scripted trysts unplanned.

a silver key balanced on the black mold,
unblenched, of the rocking chair armrest-
the chair painted in dramatic flowers
by the arm of a child expressing thanks:

this key could not open the painted doors
that lavishly barked the entrance to the garden-
it was a path we could not take.

iii. there are many ways to rectify the forgotten

in a dehydrated attempt to wetly articulate
the saved yellow globules of nostalgic desire,
the cancelled postage devoid of cellulose hinges:

deference is due to the wrappers of seed,
but only when the set of lavender ribbons
is proportional and, oddly, ironically demure.

there was the pitiless sun, not precisely prodigal,
that arced across peninsulas of the proverbial burning sand.

wait, she said, the waves are passing the bow
and the island is too distant.

iv. do not be disappointed by the refactoring of your bedclothes

in a windy foyer filled with antique chimes
and dead replications of the already dead,
do not sniff expectantly for a blowing wind
in this brown and barren alley of moldy must:

we cannot wipe away the chanting of the lost-
we can only hope to find someone who touches us
the way we touch ourselves.

the garden had a gate for exits

i. the pungent spread of nonsensical landscapes

the red flag that demarcates
the mulched illusion of a perfect lawn
puzzles the lone observer
with its signal of bland perfection.

the small set of saplings annoy with freshness:
what goat-footed god would call this a grotto of now?

there is a small fortress of shrubbery
that protects mechanical brassy water
from the inevitable rotation of crops.

there is a quiet nibble that swells your lips.

there is the inevitable theatrics
of inhaling the big green tongue
that could have lapped your shores
while the scotch broom in its gaudy spray
of cream yellow and regal maroon
blushed over the paint chipped banister.

in retrospect,
removing the ferns was a big mistake.

ii. meanwhile, back at the franchise of mystery

wire frame glasses inverted on a desk,
a tin of tea, two pencils and all the rest-
it all wavers slightly in the sweetness of a breath,
a piano climbs somewhere unfathomably deep:

the movie of a blue-veined hand reaches your cup and drinks.

this is one way of letting go.

iii. a final climb in the ecstasy of nothing

to effectively pull the shaved and mottled skin over one's head
it is best to either use a bulky sweater knitted by a mothball aunt
or to replace it altogether with a natty cover more in the Phoenician style:

a wisp of purple feathers, perhaps, or maybe hard brown scales,
perpetually reeking of the perfect oyster salted sea.

this is the pearly paralysis of endless choice.

just below Washburn cemetery

a sizzling slate sidewalk speckled like a spaniel in heat
is an unlikely canvas onto which to paint the mottled past:

in an aerial spray of chemical geraniums and exuberant gems
we have promoted the chrysanthemums into a cascading explosion
of the luscious pinks and sultry mauves that once burned a history
on the grainy needled page like a red iron on a bare wooden plank.

that part is, unfortunately, a distraction from the pain.

do you remember crouching by the mossy brick retaining wall
and cherishing the smooth pebbles we found by the anemic creek?
later we spat on the pale and cracked shale of the hillside sidewalks
and made a personal mortar to write our names in shades of beige.

saying good-bye to an old friend for the last time,
a friend that stood beneath the wispy poplars
in a spring that never ended in your mind:

I still cannot pronounce his name.

insomnia is so overrated

reverse the telescope for a creepy inversion of sense
that depicts the starving moon on a unexpected draw down.

these are the incandescent trumpet trills that nail your heart
onto a carpet that is only shagged in the pink of memory.

somewhere in a wood that is the crayola of forest green,
we hear the dark tremolo of gnomes that are prone to biting.

this is a culture of scary stories that ascend into the heaven
of the things unarticulated that make you cry at bedtime.

migrating towards the harvest

there is a rutted road where the mud has dried
in a burnt sienna chorus of angelic certitude.

can you separate the bouncing of rusty shocks
from the season where broccoli must be certain?

when the chrome rims beg for a seamy satisfaction,
it is the leering end for the greasy lips of someone.

an unexpected exile causes a memory of the future

the windy reversal that made us wetly laugh
in that memorable June when the smoky rain fell
with a dripping insistence that cloaked the roof in musk
and aired the tarnished chimes in a sad, jazzy arpeggio:

in simple times the black climate is an arc that vaults
from downy tufts to the scraping of leather soles.

but the enchanting static of chanting matins
made a scarlet vacuum in the drainage tube that year-
when all we wanted was a savory tear to fall on salty lips:

why was it so hard to bring red closure in a time of dripping rain?
being unable to count the diamonds was not a crime that resonated
in the sparsely screened gazebo with deck chairs slowly yellowing.

the abstract pleasure of pulling purple smoke
can be easily settled in a variety of manners,
from blackly noxious to the wispy puff of now.

living a half-step beneath the melody of shrubbery,
your rough napkins could not rub away the rouge.