One Way Ships - Part 1

Flings and wings and rings rejected… Cupid’s arrows fly deflected… “It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind” Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions mocking mirror’s cracked illusions… Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile Drifting wan, below unheeding worried, wounded suns a’ bleeding… Struck dumb by night, no way to say “Let’s sound the stars another way” Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks, shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks… Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride Gypsy dreamer in denial… Sleep and slumber standing trial… I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept Martian moons provoke the oceans… Strange enchantments stir the potions… The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies Voiceless echoes feigning laughter… Crushing quiet screaming after… Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap Startled stars at dawn are slacking… Still her tempest sail is tacking… In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets… Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets Cold cathedral clocks upended… Frozen second hands suspended… Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby Ticking-tocking time’s a’ tolling… Cruel eternity’s cajoling… The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left Brigantines skim gated grottos… Distant divas voice vibratos… Though eons pass, then intermix, I’m trapped ’tween time’s untallied ticks Conquered candles flicker faintly… Braided tresses quiver quaintly… Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime… Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime Bolts of lightning flash unkindly… Stoned, alone, I huddle blindly… I drain another dram and bray “she’s far too far too far away” Twisted waterwheels a’ thirsting… Flaming flower buds a’ bursting… Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow White crowned wave crests break unbounded… Shackled seashore sands lie pounded… Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled Captive bluebirds nest in baskets… Morning glories cover caskets… Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin Continued in Part 2