Redondo Beach
The Jersey Shore
The edge of all your foolishness
Squawk at the waves
Your wisdom, your millions
The gullet of your reason
Albatross without calling
Or defenses
Give up the sea and course inland
Mounds of fetid treasure piled
For pecking free
Relinquished to the wind
Swoon for a while
In malodourous comfort
Your ephemeral bounty
Crusting round the rim of ponds
Reflect the sky of home
Of tempests unnoticed
Distant and unfed
By you or any dust you’ve stirred
Take to the air
You common bird
A column of expression
Thrust up with vanity
Peircing wisdom’s vapourous flesh
With your lost and feeble
Rapture
Reach another tidal plain
And drink the swell of promise
St. Petersburg FL, 2005