Poem: Cloudy Shore

 

Cloudy Shore

 

walk the shore, an arthritic dog,

each footfall births a crater.

wind strums a murmur of dead galaxies

to ponder many lives

in pores of immense, fickle surfaces.

what is the dog

to the multitudinous cheeks of the beach,

or the liquid crinkles by the thousands

squinting from the ocean?

 

the skyline intoxicates dark,

a nimbostratus hullaballoo.

wind seduced it quite well

to incite such a stampede:

these measureless, quested drops of rain.

they encompass the sand, the ocean,

and even the ponderous dog,

rendering its loneliness fervent 

and baptismal.

 

for hours, the storm conducts

its chuckles of playful grey fire,

until gales constrict a last wisp of sunset;

and the dog, sheet after numbing sheet,

wanders home.

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4/27/24 mods

8/11  ... lots of edits for flow and intensity 

3/19 "fervent" replaces "fervid"

3/3/23  ... many internal mods, hours after posting... grim death poem