French Olive Oil

Poetry | Clem Flowers

Slow mercury collapses on the beach lungs fright of the 

grey dawn 

breaks down another 

easy night 

skulls of dead kings 

make delightful window decor 

out in the rust belt waves 

lonesome slab of salted earth

bleeds into cool city edge 

in the midst of the aging hills 

heating the lull of the breakers—

Smoke signals along the 

dirty ruby shore 

batch of blue blooms 

underscore the light trails while we 

stumble 

thru the ashed over sides 

and wonder and worry and claw 

for anything more than the 

beige nothing offered as 

God’s home version 

of the game—

Dwindling faith is battered 

down 

to a ramshackle climax 

out on the hill to Heaven 

salt corroded lights cast our shadows into the 

majestic swoon 

the old lords demanded 

the royal artists convey 

as their shimmering  presence in fat, 

rolling oils on a fresh canvas  

as we meld our heat into one loving hearth.