when I turned on Wyoming I got the Lackawanna blues

i. I saw a blend of freaky spectrums bleeding unto a scarlet deck of hearts

the fluted feast of yellow sparrows dewly pecking,
posted a periwinkle rain of righteous seed and aging rye:

ahem.

this caused us to sputter the caraway spunk of testy innocence
into a forgotten chamber of mouldy fireflies and cloudy glass-

this caused us to thrust aside our staunch and freckled youth
and embrace, like tadpoles, the amber tufts of wispy grass
mirrored upon a glassy pond of our own silver reflections:

ahem.

that was the sacred spark of ebb and flow worship, eminently reasonable,
when salty promises from a freckled ocean lolled unexpected bursts of foam-

respected threads of black and purple,
and funny hats and other things that should never be rewoven:

ahem.

ii. then the beach led to a main street confusification

maybe the fine line between loitering and malingering
disappears when leaky black macadam turns to tranquil sand:

I tried to jump down from the white wooden slats
but your one chaste kiss made me dizzy:

a day later, I fell in love with you,
and you've never left my mind.

iii. romance consecrated in neon never really dies

dancing in the surf is timeless and ironic at dusk,
given the salty cautions of tidal beginnings
and a gulf stream of gold champagne and ruby claret.

and ebbs and flows and neaps and baubles
that the innocent boardwalk is compelled to hawk anew.

it's just the norm to be forsaken
by the fake enthusiasm of departure
and the selling of mink to a salty few.

to hang with ocean friends
that a tide of books cannot wash away,
revives memories of the numinous plane:

a sticky popsicle stick stuck on equally sticky thighs.

hush, hush, you said,
go into the reeds and be rabbit still
and wake me in the morning.

iv. crispy letters and bleached mockery

then you lived near a trove of antique bottles
and the blue glass of ancient friezes eclipsed,
like a privateer, the galleons of my mind:

on a blistering beach I parted the summer weeds,
without a cutlass or a clue, trying to reach your shore.

I almost forgot about that benighted time, when, with rusty key,
our ballpoint scrawls from tidal nibs in a blue-clawed basket
were cloistered into mahogany antiques and left to nightly yellow,

unilluminated.

v. memory is merely redemption etched on slate sidewalks

I always thought that the cave of sacred birth
was hidden in a cornfield near a drainage ditch:

then, you said, Mechanicsburg.

the artificial grotto is, therefore,
a pale mystery I do not fully understand,

meant perhaps to hide dusky acolytes in frankincense
behind a smoky lattice with purple velvet draped on slats-

gadzooks!

I only wanted to look for you
in the streets below St. Anne's
but the streets were all one way:

I do no know why that was,

unless the pale grotto was an artificial heresy
that kept me from finding you.