Wheels contracting against smooth asphalt,
eyes crimson if my biology would allow
such an apt gesture. Instead my face
is stained tired, tear tracks like muddled
cursive. Making sense to those who consider
life and death.
Down a hill, around numerous corners filled with
jagged potholes the taxi man navigates to find the smooth
part of the cooling concrete. The harbor lies placid, calm and
far away, its belly cradled by stillness that can only be the starting
of rainy season. My spirit gathering energy is impatient for
that other dock.
for that still face nine miles south.
He sent the bare backed beauty for us, whose skin, ages past elastic
hung to his skeletal structure loose, wrinkled, the softest and harshest
shade of earth. Shouting periodically at the stars and diction to make
The Queen proud:
Juliette Eight Foxtrot.
Repeat
Channel 14
Kingfisher bound for Port Elizabeth
8 on board.
Words like fast, water and shift burst forth from his lips
cradled between obscenities only a seaman would be proud of.
Then that gentle oceania turned its inside out and lighted a path
for us clear through the base of the southern cross.
Unfathomable lights directed us home with glittering force.
Phosphorescence, an ever present aqueous glow draining the darkness of
its power. The water an ambassador for his wish and will. His life
force moving with tremendous crests.
He called for us, our feet moving slower than his heart.
Rounding the port's jagged corner, she stands lighted and empty. A deep
emptiness. If the earth could mutter she would beg for her son.
His chamber of hulls lay docked besides the long wharf. Its grey,
black tonight. I squint through salt and exhaustion. Here fast but not fast
enough. I feel cheated, and it provokes my sorrow and my sick
curiosity to bring him to the surface. To command my fathers
spirit and bones to ascend,
"Rise good man from the chamber, disregard its claims over who you were.
Rise good man and prolong that smile in my minds eye a little longer, the
one we all inherited, the one we share in our disbelief.
Rise good man so I will have someone to argue and complain with.
Rise good man so we can talk about god, war, history and the sea.
Rise good man so I can feel as though i can live again, fight again, do again.
Rise good man and take her pain away.
Rise good man and occupy the void.
this exists within an obsessive edit.
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