it's always been the other shore

it’s always been the other shore

samuddo / ocean2015

john martone

copyright © 2015 by John Martoneisbn 978-1-329-48205-0johnmartone@gmail.com

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it’s always been the other shore

small planeso bright eyes hurt

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bare feet pause at bougainvillea

magnolia close as you’ll get

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your veins —

monocotsparallel

dicots netted

summerremember

your wateryou’re water

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turquoisethen deep blueribbed shell sea

shelling a boy turns cartwheels tide’s coming in

watching waves till dizzy

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weathered driftwood human

aloe plantlizards are really fast

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you find home after home in that cloud

epiphytes breathe on a power line

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small lizards climb the doorframe at dawn snail rests on the stone

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low tide sailor’s eye mermaid pursebarefoot fool

beachcomber looks for his place

big bangwaves wash up perfect shells

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uprightbeach-

comber’sfound

his driftwood spine

waves

the morning after

the morning before

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all those places roadside dreams

all those depthsa mottled sea

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memory counting waves

back to the very first —

some no one

salt spray no help for the lenses

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slow as can besandhill cranes acrossa hospital road

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out of the sun bruises when you touch him

old men & sea urchins feeding tubes

from the deep —wine-darkold man skin

ninety year old capillaries fish tail skin

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august 6a bell on this beach

old penthus have I heard —cicadas

cicadas now another tide

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sandpipers flyto the arctic & back & you’re afraid

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blue heron sizing you up odd-shape frog

sea turtle nests roped-off — how you knowwhere you are

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palm rootsin storm

let gojust when

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cell-by-cellmore nakedly sea lettuce

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sand-color witha catch-all pouchdead pelican

caught in that

current once

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bare feet in the tide living things

short-limbed — not muchof a swimmer sand crab you

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the samesandpipers

shore & dreamper

haps

surfwood went by anothername then

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my medicine buddha a lapis sky

happens to everyone

don’t be afraid

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botanize the beach road

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seedsyllables flowers

flowersseed syllables

syllables seed flowers

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lost in linnaean mantras

discretion the smallest bromeliad —spanish moss

propriety a cycad

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spaciousnessa sand pine

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no one bougainvillea no one no one —

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your name joyweed chaff-flower

red beak — 3 daysto remember your name heliconia

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fingers your fingers air plant

air plants in palm bootsall the way home

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banyan shade air plants leaveroom to breathe

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hardly turn at all dunesunflower

putting allclockwork to shameschefflera

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coconut palm leans in advance of the storm

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a green anole waits for you —why not smile

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a fool gets lost in it

ancient lives turn to stone

in the sun at the sea

ancient sun on the sea

turns the stoneinto life

ancient seaturns the stone

of our livesinto sun

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but the bougainvillea dusk —

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staying so long to watch the perseid showeroutside your motel room

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late summer the thought of —

the thought of late summer

late summer night sounds you turn to a lost art

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perseid showers

foam on the waves

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nothing to do eyes adjusting to perseid dark

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lighthouseyucca

trailer park in the sandblinding

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a buddha land’s rings of lakes bromeliad

bromeliad & the sun at center

sea oat people

rooting in sand

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white sand sawgrass cemeterysoon at sea

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space inthe sea grapes for you

it’s always been the other shore