I have driven North after midnight, machined

Past the mandarin festival of shore-lights,

Red-eyed. radio towers, amber overpasses.

The unreal sea licks at the feet of piers

Conquered as any spaniel. Froths of love

Surf from its jaws, faithful to our lit shore.

On vegetable beds of towels, lovers

Sprawl on the popular sand and. dream themselves

Borne on surf s to a delirium

of rapturous potency and annihilation,

A wish to be magnified under the lens of night

Then rock on sea-drift, cradles of dalliance.

Larger than they, the roller Coaster roars.

The terrors of the Fun House issue in steam

And wicked jets shucking the skirts of girls

Who writhe in panic laughter -

I have driven North to a silence of myself

There, from a headland. of the sea-risen moon,

Distance frames an image of the shore --

All ceremonial bowing and jeweled. meeting

Of surf and man. A print for silks or screens

Or to be folded inward on a fan.

When once a year surf eats its way inland

Through rock and road, howling Northeast from time

Into the shattering garden of the lights

And the fan splits to ribs of ivory

Glued to a tattered fabric, reckless lovers

Laugh in the wind but do not save themselves.

Only this eye on headlands saves itself

When it becomes the camera of the scene

Conforming all into its focal length,

Where no line runs from any shore of time

But runs dead center to the self-

Sealed ego: eye, mind, manner of speaking.

I have driven North past midnight, machined

To be that separate engine functioning

On shutters and on sound tracks of myself.

Let in the light, let in the dark, let in

The sound of voices reeled on the intricacies

Of the compassionate ego lingering

The whole length of its life to give away

The legend of itself, and, self-compelled,

Turn from the headland of its isolation

To reappear on screens of crowded halls

With newsreels of us all, pity and fear

Preambling FINIS on a light-drowned screen.