A stubborn black sailboat
in an ocean with no way out,
in a sea with no harbour.
"Have a pleasant voyage,"
reads the plaque on its hull.
They're waiting for a new breath,
the sailors — to spit out
air reprocessed
from bodies almost smouldering.
"A hundred ambrosias of God
haunt your dreams in this rancid air!
And many other things
scattered across the deck
become new wonders."
It is a drug — oblivion,
betrayal of the senses.
To cast no shadow —
now
the highest of arts,
and to lie on deck as a heap
of meat among shattered things.
"He’d have jumped into the sea,
and pushed off from the bottom..."
But water has no bottom.
Freedom is
the choice
not to wake from sleep,
when all around is wasteland
doomed to nausea.
A blue flatness.
A stillness.
The bite of bloody teeth.
Salt and blood
taste the same
in the mouth.
Harold, hiding his pain,
laughs from the deep.
Now sailors and fishes
share the same dreams.
19th Oct 2019