The Datura Sea Poem by David Saltaire

The Datura Sea
softly waves silken trumpets
Dead sea fruits tumble in
feathery waters of white
and darkened purple regrets.

On the banks
calcified buildings
rise like coral encrustations
housing middlemen mumbling,
walking on rubber floors
and swaying to the easy shaking.

The sea offers up its fruit
to the brave planet seekers
popping spiny bulbs
spewing paper seeds
throwing light upon the open minds.

In the space between the
skull and the brain
a razor-rizzing scratches
clawing its way out of the head
and rolling like an egg on the floor.

Some things are to be rued
others lived through and forgotten.
Peace makes mankind crazy
the notes of war in the background
stroking anxiety which is much more familiar

than an unknown compromise
known as Serenity…
and yet, the Datura Sea
raises its fatal head to whisper
a death song in the deafened ear.

You know that
just behind this scene
of grassy reality
floats a wilder world
made of
flying cowboy boot patterns
and paisley organisms
spreading across the field of view
If you close your eyes I can always see it.

So we must row on,
though our sail of cotton
shreds in the jaws of night
though the sky opens at the wrong end
though the waves are insidiously poisoned
though our brain peaks and spikes
though it bleeds a furious midnight indigo…

The waves of petals! The noise of them
so bland and whispery
cause helpless fury to erupt like a choked volcano
a thousand feet below me…
a million, million
years ago,
but, I’ll
wait for
tomorrow
The sea is pulling me
to sleep
dark sleep.