Too Much Everything

There's too much everything out there today.

Even through the windows I feel it.

A dim rising murmur of this-and-that-and-this-again

Pillowing the pressure into glass

Before the door slams torpedo-fast

And shoots me onto the promenade

Melting me into the fish-and-chip parade.

The soot-pile pupils and surgical pecks

Of the swirling bird world eternal

Blacken out the sky in barbershop stripes

As sandwiches are snatched from yellow hat toddlers

Corkscrewing faces murderous tight

And swapping food for empty clutching fists.

Further on, a sausage dog whimpers a dirge

Scrabbling attention from the humans

Chatting along their easy way

Into the A.C. snow-globe meat shop

Leaving pup alone on pavement

To tangle up the frantic leash

And aggravate a beetle.

On the western edge of the sea-bent street

The strident yearns of classic rock

Float off a busker in waves

Shimmer stink-line-and-sinker into the heat

That thumps down all at once around us

Drumming sticky thick pulses through our hair

And smudging out the sullen grey guitar.

Four more hours and the beach is bare

But for the half choked barbecues.

Deserted by the tide and gathering dusk

Superseded by drowsy student fires

Of seaweed and salted bark

As the sparks set mirrored places

For the oversleeping stars.

And out upon the pebble bed I lie

Sifting through the day in all its garish yelling glory.

Grateful as ever for the mellowing sea

That winds down through the dark into me.

And after so many shovelled heaps of everything

It's a joy to have this tiny slice of nothing.