Some Unfeeling Waves

As they used to write

A child would die typically on a holiday to the seaside

Some unruly waves brought in to set the mood

A bad marriage would become worse

A suicide launching those still alive into the life

They were meant to lead

And things would end there leaving us to think

Of unrealistic plans we had abandoned

Spending the night revising and drinking

Over what had long ago stopped worrying our sleep

There are friends we can talk to about these things

Who don’t care how the past holds us back

We lend each other books and cassettes

Filled with scratchy and wobbly emissions

Which we nervously break into bits

Grand Tour

Take from these

A stained announcement

In a bucket of corks

Stamped with vintages

In private moments they burned

Witches in soap bubbles

Destroyed their instruments

Before adoring Japanese girls

Stethoscope landings for hijacked

Airplanes on a runway of thorns

Like cracking a safe

Breathe deeply it said

As you hit the slides alarmed to bounce

On a concrete bottom

Say the words without a stutter

That’ll bring you the fierceness

Of cuttlefish changing colors

On the way back from some European jaunt

Where disappointment

Like Oklahoma

Followed you around

Your local congressman

Tired of waiting for your endorsement

Sublet your emotions

To a future without a past

Worth its salt or anything

But a lot of sitting at bars

Exposed to the elements

In your space blanket of desires

You survived