The Reef-Wreck

An aged and broken ship
eased into a small secret bay
and died there, sinking
50 feet to settle in soft
white sand. There was
a waft of perplex bubbles
as the entire crew
swum free and then
one ghost was gone,
the boat forgotten. Many
years later word reached
oceanographers that a
ship had formed a reef
in an obscure island cove.
They sighted the wreck
from the tops of two rusted
masts listing 20 degrees
above still waters, akilter
like a cockeyed cenotaph
whose riddle is not ours
to explain. When they
dived down they
found the rusted bulk
had grown a reef of
corals wide and wild.
Twenty years after
the ship had sunk it
had become a water-town,
thronged by ten thousand
fish and eels and housed
beings thriving on
the foundation of one doom.

Does it really matter that
this music stayed upon
my lips but only sailed
that far, even though I
thought to make great work
of it? Even though the
poundage of that labor
failed to find a shore
beyond the moon, the surf,
inside the soul’s black
underwear? So what?
Low organum’s for whales,
so here’s a morsel for Your
throat, my jawed
and vatic Dick,
for you to gnash and
throat and shit; inside
Your rude motions
make what You can of it.
I must figure out
what I think I do not know
and what I truly don’t,
that all my corpuscles
take hold exactly
where I can’t, or won’t.



In my dream I was
back in school --
a man of almost 50
trying to finish the
last course or two
at the font of this
life’s bookish career,
as if all of this were
naught, not yet.
I steeled for humility
wondering what to
tell my wife, three
thousand miles away
(“Honey, I forgot
to finish school,
I’ll be late for dinner,
see ya in three months”)
-- And then she was
in the Stockroom of
my dreams where all
my songs are shelved
and labeled for
dispensation according
to to the gods.
How did she get
inside that room
so many salt leagues
down my brain?
She fit in there like
a briar in the underwear:
There was was porn on
the computer (too many
windows to close out),
so much custom orders
to place; she was hungry
& wandered off while
I read PDF files which
tried to emulate
in Version 1.1 style
the arts of making love ...

The art and the heart
persist even in their
slow mutual wreckage,
nourishing stuff we’ll never
see or ever understand,
though falling is to shore abyss
as longing is shrined
in one lost kiss.
This sunk wreckage is
Your’s, salt master, to
swim and swive and
sport the deepest hue,
the dolors of a voice
tinctured of ink and rue.
The oceanographers
said that for the sea
denizens motion was
unquenchable as thirst
so the sunk ship gave
them something to
hold onto and thus begin:
Is that why you bid me
here, blue master?
A deep shore in dark
welcome for all
Your ghosts to fin?