FanStory.com - Metaphorical Seas by phill doran

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"Metaphorical Seas"

Chapter 1
Two Sahara

By phill doran

Exhausted, spent in moans, sirocco winds
expose mauve marble fists -- torn minarets
in rows; each distant bruise a broken tooth,
an island in a storm-wracked copper sea.

Along ghost-rivers hollow torrents swirl
as barren dust-clouds gutter out like flames,
and slurs of powdered lions, reshaped dunes,
stir like the blurred wings of a million moths.

As each dun mountain shivers redefined,
anonymous tan desert tides dissolve,
and night exhales its frozen breath and moors
the darkest craft upon this wretched shore.

*

The sun's rise bleeds a mystery of light
revealing obscure marks on ribbed inclines;
the cuneiform of insect trails, short works
of foreign text in undulating Braille.

Poised, lapis-tongued a lizard tilts to hear
susurrus-soft red butterflies descend,
while scorpions as silent as seashells
await mistakes, beneath the sapphire sky.

From spider threads, ripe rosaries of dew
cascade; the dawn's accumulated wealth
disbursed as bounty, showered on the meek
alive upon the Great Absence of sand.

Author Notes Blank verse on two opposite views of the desert, in 12-line sections.

Chapter 2
Pause

By phill doran

Thin flames of mist rise bloodless, stark between
the darkened trees, where silence silts in wells
and settles on the shadow-soaked terrain.
While torpor spreads, subverts the meagre soil,
small beasts curl under layers of decay;
immobile loops of claw and paw wound tight,
interred by change, chilled by an unseen sun.

As frost draws ragged razors through raw air,
so feral coils slip anchor, set to sail
the drowsy rhythmic tide of earth's dull pulse.
Adrift, like breath exhaled, they float upon
a spectral sea of life deferred beyond
gray sleep's low headland; free, immersed in dreams –
awash with sultry memories of spring.

Author Notes An exercise in Blank Verse on the theme of winter and small beasts ('meagre' is the UK spelling as is 'gray', I believe)

Chapter 3
Out on some borderline - VI

By phill doran

A rhythmic slap and slither rasps the shore
and rolls along a curved, tanned hip of sand
where branded, stranded bathers beach beneath
their tilted, striped umbrellas -- tracking light,
like flowers in full bloom; exotic sprays.
Their bodies wink a message, moist in oils,
like beacons, buoys of shipwrecked men-of-war
aground on shards of guilt, deceit and lies.

She watches children crab along far rocks
where wrack and driftwood tangle in the shale,
and thoughts to leave return, much like a tide;
a steady beat of little form which ends
in thunder, splayed in torrents, thick with foam.
Beside her, sunk in dreams, her traitor falls
and rises on the ebb and flow of sleep,
adrift beneath her shadow as she stands.

She skirts along the water's hem of lace
as pearls of perspiration track her breast;
her slanted footprints weep, dissolve to sand;
diminished sails incline on inert waves.
Where seabirds drape the sky, like open books,
a borderline exists, the world divides;
a crossroad on a journey without maps
and, taking stock, she turns to face the sea.

The lazy skies are bloated, full of day
and streaked with broken reefs of barren clouds
as she descends, accepts the lapis mouth
of azure tongues which lick her heels, her thighs.
Like lust, the waters lap, engulf her heart --
rise up, conceal her throat, absolve her eyes
'til lungs concede, inhale; resolved, all while
a rhythmic slap and slither rasps the shore.

Author Notes Note: the word 'buoy' is pronounced 'boi' or 'boy' i.e. the English way...no disrespect to American 'buw-ees' intended.

Chapter 4
The Myth of the Sea

By phill doran

With urgent hands the father tears the cloth
and lays exposed his young son's faultless back.
Then, with one forearm he restrains the boy
and brands upon his shoulders welts of wax.
The pinioned body arches from the pain,
until it ebbs and leaves two garnet scalds.
Into each scar is woven, one by one,
the plumage of a thousand mortal beasts;
each folded, layered, blended in the seals
until at last the old man helps him stand.
New limbs respond; a canopy uncoils,
two alabaster bows to breach all bonds –
a battery of quills at his command,
no longer earthbound, Icarus ascends.

Author Notes An exercise in blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentametre

In legend: Daedalus escaped from the island of Crete with his son Icarus by building wings for them both; fashioned out of wax and feathers.
Although warned, Icarus flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax of his wings and he fell into the sea (in the area which now bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria.)
In this piece, Daedalus is saving Icarus not punishing him.

Chapter 5
A cup, ac-up, acup, acuppa cup

By phill doran

In dreams, I ply a Mocha-Java sea
where rich, cream-crested swells arise to lap
warm rhythms on my arabica bows.
From Ethiopia, mild breezes fill
my brilliant-white, fine China-thin lone sail
and in an instant, I am skimmed across
an expert-blended ocean of tan foam.

To be East Indies bound - and gagged upon
such aromatic, percolated airs!
As fragrance filters through a chestnut spume,
in waves as thick as winter fogs which cloak
Vienna's café squares, so long-black clouds,
poised demerara-moist, distant yet ripe,
conspire to stir and grind me on the rocks.

Author Notes The majority of this piece was written using words found on the lables of coffee tins, jars and associated items - I have just joined the dots...albeit not in the style of Horace.

Chapter 6
Late Autumn Afternoon

By phill doran

At noon, the season's slanted sun defines
a cider-yellow road with ashen banks.
A rutted bevel, like a slumbered snake,
it slithers through the grasslands, through the cleft
between the hills that summer burned away.
Nearby, below a span of whittled trees,
the leaves conduct a dry and hobbled dance
where husks corrode; their ripened spoils unbound
to burrow in the wealth of rotted earth
or snag upon the tangled manes of beasts.

Beneath this leafless latticework of boughs,
the amber hours track a breaching sun
which rests against a dapple-collared trunk
and sets the dun-dark bark in soft relief -
a pastel gild of mottle-flecked decay,
of lichen's eau-de-nil and whiskered moss.
A mellow haze unfolds, confounding tones
until the muted bronze of perished time
accumulates and permeates the soil -
the burnished tints of autumn's sombre brush.

The world exhales; the stilted sunlight sets
and, coddled, seeds content themselves to dream
while charcoal ribbons race from naked trees
and sharply bear away from day's descent.
Across the distant stubble, drowned in mist,
day flounders in sloe creeks - a darkness sprung
from deltas which advance a twilight sea.
Contrived in close conspiracies of shade,
a lace of frost succeeds the dying light
and, pinned with stars, the night consumes the road.

Author Notes This is a 30-line exercise in blank verse.

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