BLUE GHOST
Her eyes
and the lake
are his memories,
cobalt images of clarity
and purity, running deep.
It was in this cove
where the black spotted loon
dove head first
into the heart of blue,
attracting the tender pulse
of her affection
inciting her
to follow the creature
into the watery sweep
tangled with milfoil
that snarled her hair
while the checkered fowl
dutifully hunted
for its young.
Her blue eyes wide,
blended eventually
with the ripple of current
that swept beneath the surface.
He visited that cove often,
thereafter,
especially those days
where the sun’s gleam
highlighted the blue ghost
within the restless ripples
that will forever
wrap him in riddles.
CEMETERY SILENCE
He stood in front of the headstone
marking his father’s grave
under a maple tree
that shaded the parcel
reserved for his mother.
“I found that twenty
you sent me,” he whispered,
“found it in the leaves
next to the curb during my run
the day after
we moved you here.
I asked for a sign
and you thought of
dropping a twenty on me.
I knew it was yours,
all the serial numbers
matched your birth and departure date,
never mind the letters, all T, S, & K.
Money is what drove you,
but at least, this time, you answered.“
He concluded the one-sided conversation,
hoping for another sign,
but all that followed
was a long silence,
one that encompassed all the gravestones
and the rows of dead they marked.
He kneeled, got closer to the granite slab,
pressed an ear against it
as if to block the deafening quiet
that enveloped his surroundings.
Still nothing, cemetery silence,
the most disarming silence of all,
so silent, he could hear the still air breathe.
MAROONED
Trapped below
deck and under the sea,
turbulent
waves overwhelm
his minute
navigational craft,
settling in
translucent blueness.
Inches away,
the V-shaped bow
separates the
cuddy
from the
crush of tidal rush
and salt
water foam.
He laments in
loneliness,
aches for
warmth and contact
while his
lips blister
and
cannibalistic enzymes
induce
hunger, preventing sleep.
Hours pass,
the sea plays
hide and seek,
a deadly
game, he fears,
that nears
conclusion.
A vague
reality engulfs
his famished
brain,
silently
screaming
to escape
this nightmarish voyage
and once
again,
feel the
solidity of earth.
But the ocean
toss
slowly
dilutes his sensibility
and again he
relinquishes
to the
rhapsodic flow
which has
foiled
this
voluntary exile for solitude
and the
ability to contemplate
without
diversion.
Marooned in
this casket cabin
without
friend, foe or folly,
he dreads
expiration
without
notice to the salty torrents
of sun
drenched froth
and realizes
in haste
the deadly
nature of perfection and seclusion.
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