No more the sea,
With its treacherous talk
Of adventure,
Of poetry.
No more will my soul
Yearn for the unsolicitous cliffs
Where the heart of cars
Departed once precipitously,
Left a plume of matted flowers
And an exhaustion of maternity.
No more the tortuous sea,
Its intoxicating sea-salt mist
And all the grey variants
Which number in their hundreds;
A fleet of adjectives:
The fret, the mizlin, haar
And ollund-blue boar drizzle.
The dormant sea, then,
The plastic sea, soulless,
Unfathomable, unloved,
And uncontested by molluscs.
No more the sheer sea, and its seasons
Of sudden shifting patterns,
The pale green glass
By a beach of burn-brown burrows.
No more love, no poetry,
No sea roses, no infidelities
Of language; but instead,
A constant mourning,
A dropping down of flags,
A pinching out of lanterns.
A silence. A warning.
