Coastal Guide p.1

I spent a few

Weeks here and

Can speak to its charm

It’s quality of life-

When led in 

Parade they look

Back to see you follow

Their collars open catch the slight

Wind from the sea

The heat from automobiles

In the blowing scud

Causes them to steam

Happiness raises a cry

In forgotten corners of

Your personality

The slight staleness

Of goods in keeping

With the attitude

Of open lack of care

And bespeaks a

Tolerance toward the

Steady act of time

I suffered at least one debilitating hangover

In the widest open day

Imaginable

But was comforted by the

Same contents of my pockets

In the same clothes I began with

You could do worse

*

Meals are tucked into

Thresholds are stepped on rather

Than over

So the emphasis is on emphasis

The accent placed on the first

Syllable and the last

And it’s so that events

Are registered

Births and deaths

And the circulars get the rest

Production has no say

But takes what it gets

To give what it does

Obsolescence only exists

If it’s looked at that way

At the bar there is

A brighter outlook

And it looks out

Under the bar sign

To a fine view of the shore

*

Here you fall off the north road at night  into

Unlit gently rolling landscape

In daytime defer to the 

Swollen novels

Blued by the sun 

Within Whose soft covers

The tale of a faint

Arcing path is writ

You see that path everywhere

The motif is echoed

Wherever you go

A symbol of it stands to face you

A chevron or a mask

That swings from chain

Or is printed in the town papers

Or is seen by the shaping light

Of star cover

Two lights burn far out on the water

And it’s those warm eyes

By which you find the place

With all of it’s internal complications

You can smell the tired smell

Of alcohol filtered through

Human skin

But then it’s gone

And a new breeze

Works itself up.

*

Thankful they have 

Actual phones

We can bend and put

Our ears together

I’m mesmerized 

By the loveliness

Of the things

Taken for granted here

I beheld our savior

Not as a man

But as the shade in the room

In the halo around a 

Candle

And the quiet here

Just outside where nearly

The only sound is the mosquitoes

Ticking dully

Against your cheeks

Daytime brings a more level 

Sound with everyone

Going to work

Tending to a life as

If it were a garden

The mist makes faint aural

Rainbows that lift up

Presented over 

A bean shaped grey

Mass

That waiting in your car

You catch looking

As it will being so large

At everything.

*

Coming into it the

Town has a pillow of manure

And shellfish smell

You are let down into by unpaved road

Shellfish whose liquor

Runs through the boards

Into lightless seep beneath

And feeds the cycle of the place

Farms run up to the sea

Clothing follows older tastes

As filtered through the

Poor strainer of thrift

All is chipped, worn, bent

Or faded

But the towns people

Are more themselves, more

Focused on good behavior

And if you stop there long 

You’d need to do the same

Despite how you 

may feel

The looks you get and give

Have no longing in them

Nor do they ask a question

There is no measure there,

Just regard

For what you may do next

As if it were any

Of their business

There are no strays but

Everyone has something

A cat or dog

The gulls are always descrying

Arcs above because the sea

Is close by on both sides

Diesels’ smell blends with

The salts’ and both recall

The oysters liquor