MATTHEW RETOSKE

Water Gongs

On the shore,
Shrouded,
Too little skin
To contain seagull swarm veins;
Colubrine forces spring
And search for spawning grunion
In the streetlight spectacle.
The
Glitter of midnight
High tide;
A pants rolled at the ankles tide:
Innocent, lifeless.

Through interlocking diamond windows
Of this glass box
Transparent cell
I hide,
Suffocate,
Play “bedlam and the lion trainer”
(A game I've invented)
And appreciate the view
Of another sky's ride astride
The afternoon moon's rare flesh.

Mounds of powdery ground cinnamon
Rise from pouts of congealed wine
Spilled by a sloppy god-
Cursed by eyes
Eternally mesmerized by his own brushstrokes.

This is the human age
Or so I say,
(when my gloominess is so inclined)
A concretized river display
Of tell-tale sign loneliness.

Russian school-girls line  
The leafy suburban river banks
Their thoughts of acoustic tiles,
Balustrades, and things architectural.
They spy abandonment,
Become eluvial.

I become stranger
A floating bottle's unknown, yet no doubt, tragic history,
Or some guilty party's whereabouts within history,
Coerced by spiderwebs of indeterminate age
Like Narcissus: sealed with entropy,
Solitary.

Where ripples on the face
Grow placid
The water gongs' songs
Dissipate.
Gesture
One last place

copyright Matthew Retoske