The Monster's House (D.O.D. 2022)

 

We called it 'The Monsters House'

First 

Because it had no windows and was made of concrete

It had a lighthouse tower

Only a tiara on tiny red lights to warn planes

In fog and like May

Was always in thick blankets 

Of grey days stacked

On holidays most years 

There was some decor

As if it could fit in

With the community

It stood on the Pacific Coast

Line and you could draw a line 

Home from any spot

Within range

Like Babel

It spoke of neither here

Nor there

A power plant

It became powerless,

Nothing like plants

Holding sun

I tossed out my anchor

With the security of pillars

Standing strong

Eternal and moral

You can guess 

How it crumbled

Like sand

Decommissioned, dethroned

And deleted

From the horizon

As the world spun

On and on

I stood

Still

Ashes go nowhere

Nobody will remember

A solid building

Of imagination.

Image: Self, taken in front of Monster's House (Cbad-Tamarack) March 2020 (D.O.D.-date of destruction)

King of Sandcastles

All the little boys begin
by feeling the power
of costume and cape

learning man versus
nature-
good guys and bad guys

until one day
the costume
becomes a uniform,
clean lines
disappear and
superheroes
become firemen

capable of brazen acts
of valor.

Before the selflessness,
all the little princes
are pranksters,
putting a single grain of sand
inside the oyster shell,
into the monks shoe,

and these became pearls,
of course
time
refined
things.

Little girl, I was called
Firestarter,
and practiced the title
often on bridges.

I have never seen the Sandman
in my sleep,
but in my wake
I feel the sand
filling me in-
side.

Apropos of the ritual 
I chose
to be buried alive
after I say
I do
wish
to be cut by pearls
into innumerable
and indistinguishable
pieces of myself

made up
of ashes and rust
as it must be
my nature.

I must confess,
the arsonist
admired his work
while I wed

the King of Sandcastles
before the tide rushed in.



Photo credit: Galveston Island Sandcastle, Texas, taken July 2011 in Public Domain.

Sunny days with Purple haze

It must be that Jimmy knows all

we rely on his revised rigging

we can clearly see through tiny glasses

which are crumbled all around

as you said that which is built

must tumble to the ground

Eventually, 

on these long dogged days

stretching Pacifically 

horizontally both ways

You start by digging ditches

building by removal

connecting the channelled groove

each speck to spec, welding by will

And for the portcullis

a molding of macrocystis

do reserve some kelp for the keep

confounding those criss-cross-walls

one strand at a time

one per postern

a grain delay

water wise

These masonry molds of ornate turrets tell

a chivalric tale, a creation of deterioration

With a gypsy white washed beechwood to etch

windows, bars, doorways-all notably notched 

deleterious dimensions

of modern medieval convention

Wet cement won't hold

unless the tide turns down

the daily grind, of rise and fall

testing the outer castle wall

The sun casts long poles

from the towers to the South

the flood plain fills spreading

its frothy water line

Evermore, 

in this phase

of sandy daze

and purple UV rays