Poem: Cloudy Shore

 

Cloudy Shore

 

walk the shore, an arthritic dog,

each footfall births a crater.

wind strums

a murmur of dead galaxies

which ponder many lives

in pores of immense fickle surfaces.

what is the dog

to the multitudinous cheeks of the beach,

or the liquid crinkles

of all those squints in the ocean?

 

the skyline intoxicates dark,

a nimbostratus brew.

wind seduced it so 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.

 

all day, the storm conducts

its chuckles of playful grey fire,

till gales constrict a last mouse of sunset;

and the dog, sheet after numbing sheet,

wanders home.

=============================================

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