pain like bands o rain
spin off a hurricane
and no one is safe
the sugar ship stands out of the water for it delivered
and rust usual sunk, suns in open air
and remembers friends like flotsam
from the bilge expelled the shite and sewage
it is everyday a fight in the bay
to stand one’s self without slump & sway
like oysters dead in the bay
and thirty years of the same un-changed water
it’s bound to get old
this failure to be bold
descend like plumb line
(
l’audace
l’audace
toujours l’audace
)
other little men
of crossed arms and crossed wills
and Papillon not for sailing
expel me from the sugar ship
the cast adrift
for the mournings of thirty barnacling years
now let us go
you and i
to the seaside church where the many-headed god hosts one
and removes barnacles the thirty years growth
from the dismal reef where starfish do not repeat
and eels skulk out of one’s abandoned grotto