Shaking my head at the folly of men
again I find myself taking up the pen
(booting the laptop in modern parlance),
sepia oozing from my gleaming lance,
dogged by tunes from Pirates of Penzance,
obliged to inform humans of their irrelevance.
Shallows, dappled and delirious, lure
the lugubrious hidden depths to shore –
toothy crags if you believe the crazed mariner,
a mighty oyster’s iridescent shell gaping open
according to the stranger in the yellow slicker
braced against a capstan on the heaving prow.
Line upon line of choristers display
their frilly undies as they dance
towards me on the sandy verge.
Mastodons once trod upon it,
this pebble lodged in my sandal
causing my tender soul to throb.
Diamond strewn, the lake at sundown.
Shadows stretch and the forest browns
with the sepia tint of knowing evenings.
The herald tips over from drunkenness,
his words slurred, his dispatches blurred
by the storms that penetrated his cloak.