Ocean Blue

The benevolent waves crashing in the tides
lulls me into a distilled day dream as I peer
upon the aqua, seafoam, cobalt, and white crests
of water spilling, cascading, and plucking
the bristling sand from the salty shore,
like a sleek bandit absconding a matron's prosperity,
until finally depositing pristine presents:
sand dollars, sea horses, shark's teeth, and jelly fish,
as the water bubbles over flooding inlets.

This is my impervious haven, the destination
I seek when overwhelmed by life's covert secrets
and insidious lies. I appease those torrid nightmares,
charcoal shadows that blister my translucent essence,
the kind of salacious venom that taunts and mocks.
But, I voraciously stamp out the clustering silver bedlam
that overcomes me in silent surges of sacrificial sobs
and boundless prayers to exorcise the malignant mutilation
that I once allowed to overtake the inner reaches
of my most vulnerable consternation.

But that was in a prior eon, and I have patiently evolved,
and my sleek, naked anxieties have all been exhausted,
played out like the local whore in town,
discarded under a racing bus, and in its place is a silken repose
complete with intoxicating serenity in the torrid bowels
of inhumane suffering, because no one is heroicly rescued
from the internal bruises that this weary world
dishes our way, no matter how you slice it.

I always return to the brilliant sea of blues and greens,
observe timeless marvels, and the cacophony
of the irascible currents, as they preach, lament,
murmur, and howl all the coveted achievements
I ardently discovered at my exorbitant expense,
but somehow, I now comprehend that the irascible answers
were as available as the pearly provisions scattered
like festive baubles at my disposal beside my gritty feet,
as I gaze at the glistening coast, my satin paradise
confessing all that was erstwhile just a precarious myth.

(C) Michael Wayne Holland, 2012