Thinking of the Ligurian Sea
Where the romantics go to drown,
Somber as the Tuscan sun sets
Speaking the ineffable noun
My heart a hopeless wanderer
Fleeing pregnant ghosts
Seeking in parti-colored silks
To evade accusing hosts.
The fear a promise unrealized,
The events trivial and benign,
Oppressed beneath the clearest skies,
The punishment condign.
As if words could salve the wound
Of silence purpos’d or rash.
Instead, I light a pyre of dream and desire,
Burn my cigarette heart to ash.
The foetus in the suicide’s womb
As the heartsick cold closes in –
Regrets at graveside or crepuscular shore,
The distance remains infinite.
So I’m thinking (though thoughts cannot help)
Of life beneath a darkening sky,
Of remains on a beach where once I wept,
Where poets go to die.