Armada Poem by Troy Cochran

This sea of mine makes too much haste
to roll its carpet out
for every variety of face.

Here a crest to set upon the very best
by laying waste to all the rest
feeding from a trough, as if all hungers must compete
for solitary space
to make a simple path across an over-crowded room.

Nothing very pacific in this baltic gloom.
A cold icelandic glare that mitigates against
a warm apologetic stare; the agitated dance
to get around opposing nets,
damn near meeting mast to mast, and chest to chest,
as if one heart were parceled out
beating in arrhythmic booms.

My ocean needs more rooms,
less continental shelf;
accommodations for ten-thousand aims
crisscrossing over one another's names.

Aromas so profuse I have trouble to distinguish
Russian musk tumulting with Parisian perfumes,
Mediterranean zest in a green Aleutian soup
of walruss tusk, the starch of naval uniforms
breezing in a full armada
after one Tahitian dress.

I see atlantic squalls abutting chilled antarctic walls
in every clear and jostled city pool, the spill
of small martini falls.

I cannot comprehend it All.
I only know I thrill to find a space that I can call
a momentary still, let the wind take what it will.

The world is just a beach ball.