Shells [edited]

to catch a sunrise, I sit facing out
into a window or a wide space, watching
letting the world grow

the way an artist waits for a painting
to creep out of the canvas
rising up from the white ocean a great fish
hooked by an unskilled fisherman

and just like he thinks maybe God's voice is
the sea-shore gravel on breaking rocks
His eyes guttered and serrated
sharp as the sea's edge,
when I pray, it is to the conch-shell God;
whispering into the sky my secrets
I imagine them like buoys
or faint lights on a wind-tossed ocean
pieces of myself in bottles in far-off countries

and I think, strangely

that I have been talking
all these years into a vacant shell
hearing my voice go round, around
catching my words in a calcium spiral
brittle as finger-bones, white knuckles,
coiled in tight like clocksprings
like new light on sand dunes and barbed wire and empty fences.

Great poem!

I love the lack of punctuation here - it makes the poem feel much more free and open; it feels sort of like stream-of-consciousness, almost reminding me of Jack Kerouac. Your choice of imagery was beautiful; I particularly thought that this was cool:

in a calcium spiral
brittle as finger-bones, white knuckles

coiled in tight like clocksprings
like new light on sand dunes and barbed wire and empty fences.

- Really nice poetic ending, even though you describe little the images feel strongly evocative to me. =]