I cant shut Miller up

                    hes a voluptuary who talks incessantly vivaciously an to keep up with him I fire synapse after maddening synapse into the air through the smoothvaulted ceiling that is my skull an from it bolts of shivering light peer down through cordite smoke tickle the floor an up from the batshit pinholes blink like nuclear stars an inbetween on wrinkled sheets of tissue projections are cast by reels an reals of purple memory blue experience and yellow unrealised possibilities 

   I run my hands through my hair

light shudders 

motes of dust are stirred

   I want to fall back to sleep dream  Im in my bed beside my love her warm breath at my cheek her breasts near my breath upon them

                    sleep  deep  sleep

but sonorously his voice washes across the chords of my nerves  the vibrations they intone are irresistible

                                                                                                                 they writhe like slick serpents on tines of wet grass or blind earthworms burrowing to evade ivory beaks of famished birds

I cant shut him up

I wont shut him up

                   fast phantoms jailbreak between the blink of an eye I scarcely have a clue that they were even there  dull irradiated shadows evaporating on the film of my eye like the scent of fresh water in the desert the smell of roses of a feminine ghost 

 

1409,  Saturday,  20  10. 12

by the sea 

            a grizzled hawk clasps a rusted metal-rail fence and watches us intently she scrutinized the wet rounded stones we slip and turn in our hands in our fingers which were usually underwater but this afternoon revealed by a still approaching low-tide 

   unimpeachable  Farmer’s Almanac summonsed us

high-tide was 3.89 feet at 1243 hours  itd be 1.04 feet at 1835  in another halfhour

 

we knelt together among the warm stones and sand

 

the Pacific receding furthur than we had ever seen before at the cove

 

the surf crying out from under the belly of the sea-carved land bridge to-day was mute  and in its stead was a susurrant plea  a seductive coo 

                                  its cool breath  feathers  stroking our ears

 

the hawks eyes glittered like the coloured seaglass we sought

 

once abundant were fortunate now if we can salvage small bits and pieces

 

yet no matter their size their facets and colours are breathtaking as we capture themdeftly tickling the stones sifting sand with our fingers where they hide 

                                                        betrayed on confessional strands of unfrequented beachheads 

our accomplices  low-tide the cove we descended into

 

the seaside hawk was unexpectedperhaps  as surprised as we

at first blush suspicious

                           then she understood there was no calumny in our sudden appearance

 

we respected her bristled patience

 

our silent awe our reverence coaxed her far better than puny words might have

 

 

she kept her place her talons poised ticking the flaky metal and let us pass unmolested not more than an arms reach away

 

as we did she looked away regally casting her eyes on the shining sea the abrupt tawny rocks

 

maybe we were a curiosity

 

though nothing more

 

 

she might not remember us

 

we would not assume what she might

                                         but this afternoon the stones and sand under our fingers under her gaze felt radiant and alive and the suddenness of the seaglass peering up at us  rapture  was only intensified by the reality of lifting our eyes finding each others

                                                     then lifting them just a bit further

realising her eyes on ours 

 

2352,  Thursday, Valentine’s Day,  14  2. 13

0953,  Twosday – Aniela’s birthday,  25  4. 23