Where was the brine
That could free my dreams from booze,
Containing (like a magician’s oceanic elixir)
All that I needed.
One day gazing
Into the Bellagio hotel’s lake
Of fountains,
I heard unknown voices crying
For the lute,
Not the heavy metal of Rock music
Blaring outside on tourist radios,
Impinging on grunge eardrums
Wrinkled by morning’s first frost
(as feeding crows dashed
With straw burdens
Past sightless eyes of statuary gods).
Sounds meshed into a strange symphony,
& fishermen angled in my mind
For the lurking mermaid-booty
Hidden (like life’s mystery)
At the lake’s bottom.
There Movado aquatic watches record
Silent steps of creatures
Evolving backwards
Into the phalanx memory serves:
All the forlorn cannibals waiting
For the discount gangster supper
Slices of my brain scatter
Into a planetary miasma-maze
Where loose wings of Icarus float,
Though nothing beckons
Beyond a seaweed shadow
Dead pirates sing lyrics to.