where is Art?

where is Art*
*short for ‘Arthur’

where
is Art who
played the guitar
so late in the night
until told to give
it a rest or simply
‘shutup’
did he stow
it in the case
a tired evening
leave it discreetly
in the flat before
leaving to never
come back turning
to take on the
workaday world
accounts monies in
cards forgotten about
worries more than
the papers across his
desk a wife the kids
he loves to bits
the mistress on
the shag carpet pile

lights for mariners in rain

lights for mariners in rain

under night cloud
the lights below
the bridge
hung on the span
near the pillars,
to mark in
that channel
safe steerage
to port and
starboard between
obstruction and
hidden shallows,
one red,
one green,
their shine gathered in
shimmer on wavelets,
gone with that same
insistence.
and the soft
rain, the rain
of evenings

cannery row

cannery row
to the characters of ‘Cannery Row’, the novella by John Steinbeck

With acknowledgement to montereybayinn.com for use of this image

because
i grew up by
the switch of
tides the long
run out, the rolling
edge back in,
brimming at then
bundling over the
lift of musselled reef
the sucking mud
of shell bed,
the smell of sea
dried out in sun
returning
i knew,
‘felt’,
first hand
Doc’s’ fascination
with the pools. the flit
of lives within, the nestling
into pebble of pincer
and tail flick yet had