Roy Morrison

Jersey Shore
Pinned between possibility and prospect in a time of self-disrespect
The accoutrements of vacation scattered about like dirty napkins
The almost beautiful Russian waitress, the almost elegant seaside
restaurant, Sam, my son, and an empty seat at our table.

At 22 I was in Nazare with my wife bracketed by an anthem of sharp colors
piled upon one another, wooden fishing boats, home spun wool caps and socks,
haughty Atlantic cliffs flashing in the afternoon sun.
Life had the restless timbre of an old brass bell tuned to impossible
harmonics.

The fishing life is probably gone now along with my youth, marriage and
confident grasp of adventure. Loneliness and failure not just yesterday's
bittersweet patina but an option in an unaccountable present settling down
amidst strangely marked seconds and good enoughs.

Weight

Look in the mirror.
You don't have to ask how anything is possible
watching the truths you've carved into your face.
Stare back into the dark, daunting dead falls of your eyes
roiling with a failed lover's tears.
Stare past a flirtatious glance.
Stare more brazenly than even a drunk's leer and
your eyes flash back at you, still glinting with the shine of naivete,
the guilty pleasures of a plundered chocolate box.

Waiting

Sitting, setting a lure with the black lines of college ruled pages
soto voce in the Pleasant Street bar, temple of the unrequited
that's boho sophisto in Concord's gray amidst the squeal of 600 horsepower
stock car engines performing on Main street.
I offer stubbornness and stanzas of want in thrall to desire
Nostradamus of silence, exile and cunning,less for the artistic imperatives,
Joyce proclaiming his separation and difference,than for the quotidian
carnal.
A beer loosens my pen and my peripheral glance grasps the girls huddled at
the bar, the couple in the corner, the foursome loudly and convivially
trading tales and lies.
I sit on the couch writing to the bluesman's air stranded in the midst of my
solitary psychic oasis of aspiration, separation defining my vocation.

© 2005 by Roy Morrison

Cover Design: Joseph McNair