I know the treachery of the sea
Her fierce tantrums and hostile depths
The sting of her salt-water spray
Corrosive tears, that burn the faces
Of my occupants raw
Ceaseless her fidgeting
Waves knotting up
White as the knuckles
Of a clenched fist
Her anxiety
Appeased only
Through violence
=
I know her viscerally
Beneath my hull
The constant writhing
Of meaty serpentine bodies
And bulging black eyes
That stare with a flat, fixed gaze
Their puckered mouths
Rimmed with vicious teeth
These, her curious organs
Move independently
=
I do not know for what reason they wait
Always pacing back and forth
Staring and nibbling
I fear these cannibalistic appendages
That stalk my perimeter
Sometimes I see them plucked up
Hearts, livers, spleens
How is that she survives without them?
=
I know the sky
Mother of manipulation
She drags me about by the sails
Like a naughty child
Being tugged around by the ear
I have no choice but to follow her
=
I am afraid of her darkened face
Of her riotous storms and the forlorn wail
That summons the sea into brutal coalition
The lightening and the trident
Against these fearsome weapons, I am humbled
Yet even she, is capable of tenderness
A loving caress, a fragrant melody
She propels me forward with her nagging
And I am freed with her breath
=
I know love
It breaths inside me
Like a bellows
Every night I feel it
Turning over in my heart
These tender hands
That adore and worship me
With hours of devotion
If not for them
I’d sit tethered
At the docks,
Sails bowed, miserable
=
Though I do not know
What these creatures are
I know their lives are complex
Mostly superfluous excess
They speak of their idle land-locked sentience
These impotent little motors
Dreaming but never actualizing
They do not understand freedom
Why look how they anchor themselves
With so much baggage!
=
Their romances, paper flowers
So delicate they continously
Replace one another
The red gasoline they suck generously
Leaves them empty and stupid
Drunken they spill about perilously
They laugh and they sleep
Oh how they sleep
Even in the open ocean
Sometimes but mostly
In the prisons they fashion on land
=
I fear the soil, the stillness
Those shallow graves
The stalled white cubicles
Of their profit-driven existence
They do not know where they belong
But I know and I prefer the sea
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(Long I know. I didn’t think I’d be able even to write on this topic but once I fit it to my peculiar style I wrote too much!)
mindlovemisery 