untitled

What manner of nightmare is this?
That on violent awakening I find myself once again at its start;
The sun stings my skin.
It's orange and red flames choke the burning sky;
this beach where the breakers roll in,
relentless and without mercy,
rush upon the land
like an invading army.
But not over sand, this beach is not soft and silky;
except where time has crushed and ground
the porcelain crockery to colorful
glass-like grains of shimmering prettiness.
These vessels once made in loving piety now
knives that assault the surf and sky.

There on the shore my feet have been ripped
and shredded by shattered beauty,
the fragments of teapots or plates once honored
in some faraway land.
My feet have walked in a circle, a circuit, from sunrise to sunset.
My bloody footprints extending back to remind of a journey,
some washed by the ocean's crushing hands.
I fall onto a rock and wait for you
but the gull's circling betray their allegiance,
and in mocking cries like dark birds of prey
over their carrion cast down their scorn upon me;
to pluck out the eyes from my head.
This an act of mercy, for at my petition they did it,
if only they would erase my memory with it,
or have the skill to rip out my heart through my pleading mouth.
But like Prometheus thus I am accursed to relive this moment again and again.
After unconsciousness to reawaken on this heartless beach once again seeing,
and to see what would break my heart,
cut my soul in half and
split my tongue.

Look and consider,
don't turn away from my suffering in disdain or disgust.
The heavy croak of dry tears in my throat,
as I plead for mercy on that bloodied rock,
the hollow and sticky tap of beaks picking at my hollowed eyes.
For as surely as the sun will sink below its rim
I will live to die again,
and with newborn eyes
behold that which will tear me asunder
from that no mercy is given.