One-Way Ships

Flings and wings and rings rejected…
 Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile

Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns a’ bleeding…
Struck dumb by night, no way to say “Let’s sound the stars another way”

Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks,
shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks…
Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride
beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride
Gypsy dreamer in denial…
Sleep and slumber standing trial…
I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept

Martian moons provoke the oceans…
Strange enchantments stir the potions…
The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies

Voiceless echoes feigning laughter…
Crushing quiet screaming after…
Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap

Startled stars at dawn are slacking…
Still her tempest sail is tacking…
In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets…
Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets
Cold cathedral clocks upended…
Frozen second hands suspended…
Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby

Ticking-tocking time’s a’ tolling…
Cruel eternity’s cajoling…
The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left

Brigantines skim gated grottos…
Distant divas voice vibratos…
Though eons pass, then intermix, I’m trapped ’tween time’s untallied ticks

Conquered candles flicker faintly… 
Braided tresses quiver quaintly…
Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime…
Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime
Bolts of lightning flash unkindly…
Stoned, alone, I huddle blindly…
I drain another dram and bray “she’s far too far too far away”

Twisted waterwheels a’ thirsting…
Flaming flower buds a’ bursting…
Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow

White crowned wave crests break unbounded…
Shackled seashore sands lie pounded…
Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled

Captive bluebirds nest in baskets…
Morning glories cover caskets…
Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin
and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin
Hungary hounds harangue the highlands,
howl at skies and desert islands…
Below, unfettered carbon crows conceal the parting path she chose

Lighthouse lamps and lanterns lolling…
Mute abandoned fleets are calling…
The shallow shadowed portholes vaunt dim traces of the past that haunt

Curved magnetic curtained faces
yearn contorted brief embraces…
Her fairy-tale like tattoo touch was serpentine but soft as such

Coffee cups and spoons corroding…
Mystic tea leaves, visions boding…
A cabaret calls, standing bare, beneath a splintered footloose stair,
vain vapors drape her vacant chair in One-Way Ships beyond repair
Splattered days are dripping dreary…
Shattered nights are wearing weary…
Without her footfall at my side I steal away within to hide

Fancies flame, persist to flaunt her…
Wanton whispers hiss I want her…
Hyenas, haggard, held at bay, still gnaw on bones of yesterday

Graveled graveyards grey and ghastly…
Apparitions pacing past me…
The answers to my whys and sighs have veiled her limpid pale blue eyes

Lurid figments storm the valleys
snatch the helms of spectral galleys…
The coughing phantoms at the wheel, they make it all seem so unreal…
Rebounding cracks of thunder’s peal, shake One-Way Ships while seagulls squeal
Yesterday’s unsung, unspoken…
Bygone paths fold, draped and broken…
The weary winds of winter cling to voiceless nightingales and sting

Desert blossoms growing colder…
Drifting sand dunes pause, enfold her…
An arctic kiss and blush revealed forbidden pipe dreams flung afield

Weeping willows’ wilting snow drops
drip on tips of tiny toe tops…
Their opal fires bleed and fade while suns explode in icy jade

Jagged hours hangin’ heavy…
Footsteps pace the barren levee…
While pros and cons and kings debate, acclaim and blame and fame equate
the ruin’s remnants left to fate with One-Way Ships that fail to wait
Blazing blades of love surrender…
Memories and thoughts transcend her…
The Persian gazer’s crystal shows I’ve truly lost my ruby rose

Buried deep in evening’s embers
dust forgets what flesh remembers…
The bitter taste of farewell’s haste has laid the virgin skies to waste

Ruffled ravaged ravens ranting…
Churlish ancient churchmen chanting
resounding what she told me true “There’s nothing more that you can do”

Trial adjourned by judge and jury…
Freed, she flees, absolved of worry…
Remaining runes and relics burn to feed the ashes of the urn…
Six seers, wiser, soon discern the One-Way Ships of no return