the epic journey of madame periwinkle and her band of pirates

 
Part I.  
As I lie on the sand, I am a conductor as the ocean orchestra rises around me. 
I hear a mother scold her child, blending into the scooping birds and crashing waves--
a railroad car hurtling down the shoreline, meeting at my toes.
I can count the waves coming in…
   one
        two
             three
                    Four dolphins surfacing, breaking the liquid mirror of the sun.
As far as I can see: sky glazed with white,
heavy in places from a brush too thick with paint. 
Towering cloud giants-- guardians of sensitive human skin crisp on my back
like the outside crust of a hot pocket.  I’m all gooey inside.
What mist is rising! as seagulls soar beside flying discs, their shadows shading my body.
     a tiny boy in shorts too big pursues the bird, no matter how hopeless the chase.
                           I guess girls and birds aren’t so different.
A pelican floating lazily on the water-- that’s where I’d like to be--
numb ears up to the challenge.
Poor gull-- all bruised on one side-- flapping still, crippled, leaning--
nothing to stop the oncoming wave from taking her over,
                  pressing her down to the bottom with the broken seashells.
Five stuffed-hen sisters stroll down the beach smiling-- sixty and shoeless must feel nice.
their spidery mist veins dabbling, floating on the surface of the water.
A semicircle of grass, expanding like a pupil, sneaks in through a hole in my straw hat.
 
Part II.  
He pulled a bandana out of his
      mouth
   his crispy, pitchy pout
         a painted picture--
                        painted, purchased Picasso on the wall
                                                tipsy white watch fall
                                                                                    off the free white woven way
                                                                        back this way
                                                            way back to the
                                    O    P    E    N    way…
                        brain smaller     mystery mound
                 sound on the down grades of a shrinking page
            growing larger now
                   like a highway novel--
                      light beams breaking
 
Flip with the drip, drip sandy throat-- crusty, crumbly
unfound.
All over again like a new learning
into the dentist’s laughing gassed
    that subpass down into the
    freezing mass of the oh no fading sunlight.
Crazy blues and yellows
    of the friendly fellows-- cellos dancing
         in the grass like a backwards
writing.
      A Chinese champion could have passed.
                          Past?  Alas!
Like a Maxways outing
        prattling to the boat
squinting like a cowlick took to sticking on the blonde-eyed young hare
squinting and pulling the webs back down there
sailing like a pale queen,
yellow cartoon strands of some little girl’s hair
         Flutter as I stare
champagne surfer boy physique
on bottom
country boy smile
     full all the while
          balancing it out on top.
Kerplop!  Raindrop-- we dockside pilgrims must go.
 
“Pink Panther Padua sun”
            (British accent)   “and the brilliant pear burst”
(telltale story
                      again)  “drunk and driving (through” the nasally negligent accent) 
“just burnt off and swallowed” (through the silvery sunset)
            “strapping good,   (really”)?
His Shakespeare-bashing curly brown hair--on the driveway
            telling tales with words
      not written
         or heard on the black-topped highway
words blanketed with blackballed silk
swaying through the letters.
American shirt beauty rising
      like Fender guitar riffs from the grunge days basement.
 
When you’re really mixed up--
marshmallows taste just like every other puff-painted part of the season
yellow corseted cheerleaders
hang down from the tailpipes of some other cat’s Mustang
       as the cops pull up
         with long greasy hair
     would A Clockwork Orange look any different?
melted bloody battlefield of over-slaughtered states
corporal compost pipes
   perched on couches like vulture demons
        each time we were failing to fly over a braless brain of trash
the mass of three preteen boys
     with a maleficent magnet rope
            igniting around his neck in gold
   think you’re doing magic
   think you’re producing water
like water pouring out on the page
        dewy dashes mixed with the Marley matches buzzing in the shade
                 magic milk-making procedure
                 in place with an eraser button
                 full of flakes dripping wet
                 of paraparetic wrecks
        crazy writing, lip biting tools in the rain
        losing train of thought as they stare out.
                 thought and thought on two planes
                 nouns and verbs can’t be the same
                 yet wrought with iron spelling
                       thinking is different.
writing redefined
        stories of picture perfect people
             (missing states of minds)
        ridiculous red strains of fire
raring out of the ground on her head
           scary music making the pain stand up
                her heart, screaming
                gotta stop so I can go!
“Did you see anything?”
                                        “The back of my eyelids.”
 
Part III.  
The tiny lion's paws crawled
     down the stairs to the shoreline
Against the roaring breeze covering
feet in sand.
            Twin redwoods towering with
     Neapolitan ice cream skin.
Fishing pole tugs at my pen every time
   I try to lie down.