I am on vacation, but still in New Jersey… Cape May specifically, it seems to be an annex of Philly these days, I didn’t intend on writing so much, I felt so not inspired, but, I did write, like a homeless weirdo on the beach (oh the looks I got creating my art), but that said… here is what I wrote, tomorrow , a monday, I will be on a beach, some beach, probably remote because I want to hear from the plovers, the kites and the gulls, instead of the dull populace I know… (this will be added to my porch series)
“porch” (vacation version) 10.7.2018
cape may, cusp of columbus day
I come here to get away
and find myself surrounded
by sounds and lights
I can hardly hear the waves crashing
billy joel cover band and conversations,
shadows from car lights through railings flashing
shadows of people that grow and stretch
I’m sitting on a bench on the ocean road
a concrete promenade
across from an official entrance to the beach
a sign orders me I am not allowed, by the town, ordinance
white wood rails cast an L on the ground
and now the cabana bar is wailing some stevie ray vaughn
something I might have chosen
“the sky is falling”
kindle wood wired fences, to protect the dunes
the car lights feel like flashlights, walking up like midnight joggers
older couples walk by –
I wonder, flip flops make a certain pop sound
what will I be when I am older
not too far from now
I am the only one out here alone, writing,
everything else seems inviting and wrapped in reveling
but I remain, trying to concentrate on the waves
the constant surf in the near distance
not the clamor blocking from all directions, distraction
am I selfish, for just wanting the sound
the sound of the ocean crashing, allowing my mind to rest,
there is a breeze, but yet, the plants of the dunes do not move
I suppose they are immune when I am enamored by the move,
a silver mother and golden daughter walk past
at least I imagine they are such, their language in form and my experience spoke to that,
the bike racks are not quite bursting but near full, at night,
the paint and stain on the bench looks quite pristine, woody and iron blue,
even the garbage bins seem clean,
but the din…
that ever present welling of amplified conversation.
If ever a tower of babble there ever was
“porch” 10.7.2018
so how did I wind up here?
sitting alone on a bench
the stir of life all around, a maelstrom
and I am the eye
sitting and observing, all this life
a lifeless eye, closest to the intense
but calmest of all,
life, merry, singing, dancing,
friend, family, lovers,
cheaters, smokers, would be elopers,
detached from all this
tricking my mind, that time is,
time also sweeping me by, and through
sidelined (as if escaped)
but the days peeling away just the same
I question my motives my every move
introspection
I have more than many
certainly more than some
I should rejoice –
but here I am
staring at foreign plants on common sand
these pages moist with the breath of the common sea.
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