Book 12

Jade and delft claws

litter the cobbles

pincered remnants of the

grasping hard-shelled scrabble

for a short life

severed bodies in avian maws

the punishment

for straying into

a shallow environment

An avenue of parvenues

on review

the studied nonchalance

of the Champs Elysee

Brows arched

in the triumph of

unruffled trumpery

unstifled towers of

trifled, truffled

egos

Sea gullibies

and children's cries

the wind winds all

in kite string

and singing halyards

cup of clouds

a bowl of sky

a silver salver of seas

an easel of breeze

playing the tease

do as you please

take your ease

I do not wish

the cities amazed artifice

not for me the busy

animated wannabe bodies

no glitterati, twitterati

not I

I wish no more than

the pleasure of unpeopled

ever unsettled shores

liquid to languid

many hued moods

the horizon's magnetic muse

unshared solitary amusements

the surety of solitude

page Death leaves grieving

wreckaged unreckoned

Madras insect fans

kimonoed dervishes

crayoned doyans

arial, oriel, Ariels,

oroboros carouseling

Cymbeline's cocooned children

fluttering, seiving

the nectar for believing

in the unfailing crysalis catechism

Downed

fledgling goslings

gathered flightless

en flotilla face

the sailor's distant scarlet

early warning

swimmingly unaware

away toward the

shoreless

from infancy

we build our shells

compartmentalizing our

many chambered heart

an operculum wherein

compressed lips

whorl pearls

the castenet of clamshells

in the curl

the gulls soprano croon

tern's keen croak

the heron's silent sharp

trombone

the hushed cymbal

of surf

the plover's skirling pipe

the two note tide turning

to the combers beat

and constant boom

Elf locked

Elvis coifed

unleaved

eldritch limbed trees

winterized

and we wooly headed

enmittened

scarved and swathed

adult kittens

crave the scarce sun

Thin red line of lip

curved by cupidity's quip

nothing dims

from dune to dale

what was scarlet

now pale

always unadulterated

Anne

Warm bread

newly risen

word buttered

spread by pen

to open mouth

each bite uttered

then written

by hand

holding the staff of life