007.365 - the beach in Watts

                                 How mad will you be? - Brendan Constantine

I stare at him

not angry, mad

as in Hatter

as in George III

as in the rulers of Europe in 1914

when war was as unnecessary as ice cream

yet the only choice they had once the prince was shot

"how mad will you be?"

but as an artist not a helpless

not as the young man chasing the tumbrels

yelling that he too was an aristocrat but without a name

insisting and insisting til the courts finally had to behead him

to shut him up and let them get back to their work

beheading the real aristocrats

the ones who had titles and names and land

"how mad will you be?"

like van Gogh

or maybe Picasso

and I imagine myself staring at the ocean

with both eyes on one side of my head

or with one of them perpendicular to the other

watching and watching the breakers roll onto the beach

over and over as if maybe just once the sand would turn gold

or the sea horses would sprout sea knights

with armor that would cover but not smother their gills

and wonder if I should run sit on the beach

and stack seashells

higher and higher till I had to lean the stacks on each other

for mutual support

and to imitate those towers in Watts

no, wait, I'm a poet

I say and remember the tumbrel chaser

"how mad will you be?"

if I am to stack

it's words I must stack 

words and images and metaphors and similes and more words

climbing and winding around themselves and reaching for the sky

til I too can stand back

look at a structure solid enough to last years

but seeming as fragile as earbones

as intricate as Faberge eggs

look at it and feel helpless

what will I do next?

turn to someone and ask

"how mad will you be?"