Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

While waiting to be famous
the boss still an employee
Bruce Springsteen wrote of his growing up
of New Jersey
the people, the places, the sights and the sounds
the joy and the scars.

Popular culture often transcribes error
Sam wasn’t asked to play it again by Ingrid Bergman
Captain Kirk never ordered Scotty to beam him up
and
Springsteen didn’t call the song youth thought his best, ‘Sandy’.
A British middle of the road band renamed it
disguising sentiment as sentimentality
clothing under boardwalk passion with prim harmonies.
Melodic marketing
avoided wrinkling top 40 brows.

Adolescence yet to know the touch of a woman
prefigured desolation
hearing hypnotic anxiety of lyrics
“ … the waitress I was seein’ lost her desire for me …
… said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore.”

The zodiac’s prerogative
women and men
learn the impossibility of romance
before the imperishability of love.
The indifference of one
for whom we would set ourselves on fire.

She was beautiful
he only a photograph
a snapshot quickly shuffled to unspoken
the next image drawing prolonged warmth of memory.
Perception imagined imagination. Until later.
What happens when the dreamliner embarked for marriage
becomes the life raft of separation
when the dazed triage of assessment
turns to a brutal imperative – flee.

Did summer end early
or winter arrive too soon
was unhappiness a brief storm
or slow moving cold ?
Were there the peace negotiations of separate bedrooms
or a fist a crumpled form and echo ringing door slam?

This is a ghost town – literally.
Two wheels roll down a gently wet road
instinct follows an ancient scent
a salmon returning wisdom to old waters.
Some things do not need to be spoken
they pass directly to heard.
Along the bordering sidewalk her first steps, to first marriage
perhaps this is where he came courting
bringing laughter, it was needed more than company.
Laughter, slashes of blue in grey, eiderdowned skies
the perfume of rain wet dust, on parched streets.
Laughter – sometimes cure – often analgesic.

Once eye turning state of art, it’s an old bike now
vintage
if such categories exist for bicycles
polished out of retirement for ceremonial duties
65 miles through a river gorge
youth reprises for one day.

The haunted household recedes.
rain washes memory to concentration
cloud haloed bush stalks to roadside.
streams fire hose spray from rock arteries
might have been regrets dissolve to bliss
bliss thanks fortune.
Morning closes to afternoon, river opens to ocean
strength is tired now, middle age resumed.
The town is busy.
choice limited.
the hotel less than five stars
self-congratulations doesn’t notice strain between husband and wife.

Punishment’s reward. Beer. Beer and fries. Then beer.
One for the road. Later that night, beer receives the blame.
Angry voices. A command to get out. A banged door.
In the morning nothing is said. Or seen of the husband.

Embers fade from red to orange
cooling to patched grey – auburn hair in middle age.
Time is almost ready
not quite
after waiting
since midway through the decade before last
it doesn’t mind five more minutes.

A nondescript piece of paper
thumbed and menopausal
the size of business card
which in some ways it is.
House number
street name
postal code
Country. A long way from this.

Amputated from the top of a letter
unfolded with smile
refolded in sigh
for 16 years
outliving two wallets
comfortable with a third.

Precision timing
the undertaker must calibrate that exact point
knowing when the earth is ready to receive
the loved ones to yield.
As gently as possible
fingers lower paper to coals
funeral pyre acceptance.

Morning cannot resist
there is no miracle.
nothing remains.