an
off the brow of a leaking vessel.
Nowhere are there signs of more than
partial seepage though smoke in the
back corridors exists from the fiery aguandine.

IV

Green palms unfurl as flags
to the accordian of my eyes,
blinking back the strong belt of sunlight
that precisely floods the room.

Sailors jostle this crowd of memories,
some surly lipped with broad tattoes.

A naked mermaid presses her thighs 'gainst
memory door, then winks as the
stellar crust of oblivion takes me.

***************************************

Page 47
In sleep, waterfront toughs are transformed
to storeowners that smile, exchange pleasantries in
Saba.
(French gendarmes embrace on the other side
clustering like starfish on the twin breasts of a beach.)

I devour cups not of riverwater in this cell
but the best pink champagne at the captain's
reception.

With hatfuls of intermittent rest,
blurred outlines recede into mists
thin as General Winter's treasured April snows.

The bony M of a hatpin,
the passkey to better redress of fortune --
the turnstills, concealed within lavabeds of
bladegrass.
beckon upon the return voyage home.

***************************************

Page 48
REGALIA

If the rich are different
they show it with the
clarity of their table
as Scolt FitzGerald decreed,
the breathless hush
of their regalias,
the manner in which wedgewood &
crystal are cleaned to a
polished exactness --
the shimmer of expensive china
no less repetitive than
the hulking boys
waiting in window stops;
monsoon rain pelting
the upper Punjab plains.

***************************************

Page 49
SAN CRISTOBAL

A gypsy sits in a taverna
joking with a sailor
who has left
bridges and maidens
along islets connecting
many a storied sea.

Ducats tumble from a
cloth bag the way
the gypsy remembers
caravans and the
remembrance of gold
steeled against
warm flesh in
moonlight of his native
Umbria.

Lavender is the coat of dreams
along navy blue hemmings
the colour of the gypsy's
eyes, the blood's
colour progeny whose
men of wealth
both are related to.

Page 50
The gypsy stares at the taverna
wall and the ducats gleaming
to outside rain.

Men joke at rail depots
where in a like fashion water
splashes mud into little
arches up a riverbank.

Neither has the shallows of
minnows at his command.
Bunched up stubble in the wind
cannot fathom lies
or gender hope --
it is lhe province
of the mind,
t