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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 ocean
Strange enchantments stir the potion
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
Chasing clowns and desperados
While jugglers juggle circus bricks, I'm trapped by time's uncanny tricks

Candied 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

Zigzag lightnings flash unkindly
Stoned, alone, I huddle blindly
and drain another dram and say '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 sea shore's 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
swap 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 peal, shake One-Way Ships while seagull's squeal

Yesterdays 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
A frozen kiss and blush revealed forbidden pipe dreams flung afield

Weeping willow's melting 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

poem by Terry O'Leary
Added by Poetry Lover
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