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.