(for the unknown You) –
Sweep up a mound of achievements;
layer dogwood and newspaper beneath;
find a small, secluded shoreline to sleep an endless sleep;
shovel money (in at least twenty currencies),
some status and fame
onto the funeral pyre’s unremembering flame;
write furiously with computer or pen,
fill out the days’ whitespace with enthusiastic fantasy;
revel on a fallacy (or three);
win the gladiatorial games in the Corporate Arena;
rediscover a bit of ancient folklore;
set up nice altruistic societies to make orphans feel infinite;
plant a little garden – give guidance in its growth;
build four or five fine-but-small boats
with richly decorated keels;
fight for something worth believing,
though I’m still unsure what that means…
A(my) guess: lyricism and poetry and prose,
musical composition, simply being kind and open;
A suggestion(for You): lay Your hand on a patient’s slowing heart
in a cancer ward, catch their tears with a jar
and meditate on better things to do;
give the old folks a laugh;
steal the Elgin Marbles back for the Greeks,
or, for the memory of ancient Greece;
find where lay a psychopathic fascist’s bitter ashes
and give them to the conspirators for closure;
(for me) place letters on the graves
of John Keats, Percy Shelley,
Wystan Auden and William Yeats;
rescind, abolish, annul, invalidate
my station in God’s dysphoric, existential reverie;
heap up beautiful words and send them off to sea
inside a laptop on a cellophane-wrapped raft;
(for both of us) think thoughts uplifting;
smile thirty-three times a day (or more);
plan for the future of ourselves and others;
give just a bit of love to our mothers;
sweep the kitchen and the city streets for free;
by your garden plant a tree.
Beyond these things for us to do,
be proud-yet-humble, open-eyed and acquiescent;
just accept; all things inanimate and animate, accept.

Anger consumes my body, like fire from hell
My body keels over from lack of food
Food which I purposely neglected to provide
Hate, abuse, deceit and anger take over me
Pure ugliness, staring me in the face
People that are supposed to care, supposed to love
Who claim to care and claim to love
Yet seem to me as wolves in sheep’s clothing
Wanting to control me, dominate me, constrict me
Who crush me over and over again
And wonder why we are always butting heads
Sadness creeps in my heart, but it is not mine
And it saddens me more that I feel her hurt
My heart aches for love, for touch, for affection
It longs to love and to be loved
But all it receives is sadness and pain
Crying out for love, my body cries too
Not with tears, but with blood
A deep crimson red running out of me
Staining everything in its path
As this blood runs out of me, so does my strength, my energy
I am exhausted and long to sleep
But my mind is forever going, going, going …
Why? Why? Why? Why?
The question of a thousand why’s consumes me …
Threatening to crush my very soul.

This pond  is where I will die,
Squandering in owl hours to ****.
Still, the Ducks swim by.

The blue moon is a Julia Dragonfly
Haunted by a lethal, green dream thrill.
This pond is where I will die.

Threadbare Marauder Rooks squawk a cry,
The stickleback flakes its dithering gill.
Still, the Ducks swim by.

Importunate possums chase ducks to comply,
How could my moon mother be so ill?
This pond is where I will die.

Bluebirds deflate their keels with a sigh,
I gravitate towards their beauty, I am still.
Still, the Ducks swim by.

Aureole Sirius tip toes the sky,
Nimbus withers, Kamikaze men shrill.
This pond is where I will die.
Still, the Ducks swim by.

I

Curled
a snake of a road
uplifted on a bank
of mud falling
to a welter of mud
glistening gleaming
in the afternoon light

Underfoot
on the rough road
a green mossy
water-**** alive
out in the air
waits to be swept
over and again
by the evening tide


II

Let me stand still
from this relentless
passaging looking
attentive always
investigating the possibilities
of all the eye can see
within a footstep’s distance
an arm’s reach
a hand’s touch

Let me stand still
on this low **** wall
between estuary water
and a channel in the marsh
One - a lively blue
waved and winded
every which way
The other - a muddy brown
rippling in one direction
in slow procession

Let me stand still
but turn slowly
to mark the edges
of the sky’s horizon
turning clockwise
from the north
and return -
a whole sky seen

Let me stand in wonder
as flock and skein
a sky-squadron of geese
high-flying over head
southward out of a pool
of midday estuary light
to disappear beyond
the mainland shore


III

The boat keels over
so the line of her
below-water body
reveals a womanly self
that roundness
that beamyness
so rightly feminine
and now holding to herself
a heeling hull
full-breasted sails
taut in wind and water

IV

A drawing makes the ordinary important
It is a text that forgetting words for once
spells out the body's role in fashioning
our creative thought

Its contours no longer
mark the edge
of what you’ve seen
but what you might become
- each mark a stepping stone
to cross a subject as if a river
and put it then - behind you

V

Soon to be sloed
but wait a while . . .
its lovely flowers
must form first
on this shrub we call
Prunus Spinosa
the Blackthorn

Flowering against
the sky’s blue morning
as if it were -
a cloud of whiteness
a masking of lacework
spread on stiff branches

Yet here
in the garden below
this towered room
in which I write
the shrub has clothed
the end of the garden’s
marsh-facing wall
above and across
and on either side
spreading to newly-cut grass
falling on the pasture beyond
holding itself
purposefully against
the prevailing wind

VI

Silvery in gun-metal greyness
this evergreen edible shrub
(the Sea Purslane)
with mealy leaves
and star-shaped flowers
form a natural border
twixt shoreline path
and salt-sea strand

A hiding place
for ***** its leaves
hold fronds that take
a reddish hue
a delicate shade
welcome-colouring
in this marshness of mud
and brown water

VII

How fitting are the words
correctly scribed on the bench
by the wall in the orchard
next the pond on this fine
sunny day Certainly
‘The time has come, ‘
the Walrus said,
‘To speak of many things:
of shoes and ships
and sealing wax - of cabbages
and kings’.

Yes - this gentle morning
blessed by softest breeze
and shadow-playing light
has formed a place of peace
to summon thoughts
that hold no sense
except to scan so rightly
for the writer’s pen
the reader’s voice

Such random objects
fuel imagination’s play
this sunny day upon
the bench beside the wall
within the orchard
next the pond

VIII

By dancing shadows on the wall
a plaque records his gift:
orchard - pond - and all within
two garden walls
a rough masonry
variously gathered
rich in colour
mark and fissure

Four Italianate hives
cylindrically domed
precariously tiled
set at ends and in between
on fifty yards of facing walls
- as cotes for doves perhaps?
to coo and coo . .
when shadows
move and flicker
on the wall
to and fro to and fro

because he loved this island
so - he wished his memories
might live here and now

IX

Together on the sea wall
she said look
an owl on that fence
over there
Short-eared she said

and so silent
(with surreptitious step)
we advanced - it stirred
and lifting its broad-winged
body flowed into flight
with slow strong strokes
beating hard towards the sea

but changing its mind
(and poising on the wind)
returned to quarter
the field below
where we stood standing
rapt by its silent purpose
as it turned and tumbled
to get a better view
of whatever poor creature
lay beneath its
telescopic sight

X

Here to seek a stillness
I don’t own but claim
I do  - so here and now
in this quiet corner
(my back to that rough-hewn wall
fluid with its dance of shadows)
I wait to hear to listen
and to know . . .

Seated on this bench inscribed
with Lewis Carol’s words
there is an invitation made
to take the time
to talk of many things
(if only to oneself)
Insignificant actions
Graceful words of love
Admiration and respect
for friends and simple pleasures -
We are so blest in all such things . . .
*believing always
a greater Providence
that (so to speak)
waits ahead of us

Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut,
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door
To give their summer jackets to the breeze;
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar
Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;
Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift
Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift
Lightly among the islands of the deep;
Islands of lofty palm trees blooming white
That lend their perfume to the tropic sea,
Where fields lie idle in the dew drenched night,
And the Trades float above them fresh and free.

remember those  nights
we   placed hooks  in  our  eyes?

waiting in our  sleep
to catch  the  white tailed lies
that  swam inside our bed

do  you  remember those nights?

we   should, instead,  have  walked
the  chrome stacked  streets
that  rolled like silver  eels
amongst stub ends
sailing on tarry  keels

in that  vanishing space between
the  night -clubs gaudy  hush
and  a  needful capital morning rush

before the  coffee,
before the  bread,
before the  morning headlines
but  we   chose  hooks

do  you  remember?

The comments of the ocean
Blend nicely with the brush
Of tipper topper dinky dinghies
That paddle all a hush

Ships sailing on the summer current
Keels are black and leery
With barnacles and treasures trawled at sea
They nose ahead worn and weary

I sigh a little on the plinth of my palm
Propped nicely 'gainst the ivory table
And clink ****** cups, you know
Those little things that make you remember

Shame? Not me. When I watch the birds
They hover without shame
Boasting of the clouds they've visited
And castles up high they are welcome to

Take, take, take the spring breeze that simmers in
I couldn't feel the grace of disgust
I couldn't, I'm too happy
With salt ground tea and seemly company.

You're across
An ocean swell
You're across
A boat's plough crushing
Waves down down

You're beyond
An island crowned in orange cloud
Seagulls busy dancing tangos
On the greasy wind.

You're way past
The strokes of spits of sand saliva
Of palm trees clapping coconuts
Making feigned horsehoove beats
To bring the waves a shouting match.
Roars clean the salty, dry air.

You've passed,
The shallow castles
Of whale dens,
Keeping ships in new homes
Wooden kin with keels and ribs
Flies and jibs.

You're not here, that's for sure,
But,
I feel you,
Maybe somehow.
I do.

my body and soul in a boxers ring
the ref has been shot, throttled, and kinged
compliant to no one, inside is a known run
yet all parties here are the foe
are the loser the liar and lo--
the body is violent.
the audience: god, and they sit there silent.
soul socked, blocked, and bruised, he shivers to quiet
and body, it staggers and quivers in triumph
but it shakes and it cries because its eyes are mine
for a fire inside
does not inspire
but burns and hollows to rinds

soul, he delivers a blind hit.
in stride and in mind, an inmate of wildness.
of trial-less, unending, childish depending, spiraling slightly askew

and of tiredness.

the soul, he kneels, and body, it keels
the ref has revived and is quick to the meal
she tears apart body and dips into soul

there's only one answer
as god keeps their hands still
no matter the way that it's told.

She lived in a cottage, made with bones
Her garden, ringed by teeth,
All from the shipwrecked sailors floating
In from the hidden reef,
You couldn’t see when the tide was high
But the rocks lay down, and tore,
Down where the tide swept in the keels
That had sailed too close to shore.

The bodies were floating in for days
When the storm would calm, abate,
Bloodied and torn, their sailor ways
Were left to unfeeling fate,
The crows would gather and crowd the beach
As they ripped each corpse to shreds,
Tearing the flesh regardless, whether
The man was alive, or dead.

The beach turned into a boneyard, under
A blue and perfect sky,
With nobody willing to ask it,
The obvious question, ‘Why?’
But she in the boneyard cottage knew
When she harvested the beach,
For every ship, as her cottage grew
Left the bones, so white and bleached.

And there on the hearth of the kitchen lay
A skull that had been her own,
The one true love of her darling years
Who had promised to build their home,
He denied her plea and had gone to sea,
Was caught in a sudden storm,
Came rolling over the reef one day
With blood on his uniform.

And now, whenever a distant sail
Appears from near or far,
She runs on out to the bluff and screams
To God, ‘Wherever you are.’
She summons up from the depths a storm
With wind and a blinding rain,
And giant rollers that head for shore
That carry her lover’s pain.

It’s then that the skull on the hearth lights up,
A glow from its empty eyes,
And then a terrible screaming from
A mouth, that had once been sighs,
She knows he wants her to save the ship
She’s luring onto the rocks,
But whispers a curse at the fatal rip
‘On all dead men, a pox!’

David Lewis Paget

An imagined being,
The mitigated reality,
Beset on all sides,
Makes you wither,
in comparison,
to the deception,
To enhance the enviournment aboutnd,
that fits upon themselves the wworld,
Under watch,
kept under lock and key,
the universal truths,
hidden under their *******,
the single timeless entity,
That turns the world over,
in onto itself,
keels into oblivion,
touching back to the abdominal,
fact that it retaliates,
fought behind reason,
Love behind common sense,
The world undone,
By the limitless one,
The being that lasts,
Something,
Beauty,
In repetition,
Found to be prevalent,
In excessive inquiry,
What's and Who's and Why's,
It means no difference,
When facts speak for themselves,
Examples are found in the outside,
Shuddering ample reflections
In the tide pool,
Spiraling.

You make a good bed,
Sophia said.

I smoothed the top sheet
of Mr H's bed
with a motion
of my hand,
trying hard not
to look at her
by the sink
in the corner.

It's a firm bed,
isn't it?

It's metal framed
for endurance,
I said,
lifting my head,
seeing her standing there
with Vim powder
in her hand
and cloth in the other.

We have ****?

I pulled up the blankets
and duvet,
pretending I hadn't heard.

No one around,
she said,
be safe.

Until Mr H
or some other old boy
comes along
and keels over
clutching their heart,
I replied.

She smiled, turned
and began powdering
the sink and scrubbing
with the cloth.

I looked out the window
at the grounds below;
the grass
was a bright green,
the few trees
in full leaf.

I turned
and she was
standing there
with one foot
on the bed
and her skirt hem
lifted, showing
a fair glimpse of leg.

You sure
we not have ****?

Not here, not now,
I said,
taking the glimpse
of leg inside my head.  

She pouted her lip
and shook her long
blonde hair.

Shame,
it could be good.

I went out the room,
closing the door,
thinking of my next task,
giving Sidney
his morning bath,
and as I walked on,
I heard her
mocking laugh.

folds over, keels over in a midday faint, too scorching for compassionate glances. . .
on display in a crowded menagerie of folks
who don't give a **** if it lives or dies?

who just want it to disappear
and refrain from disrupting
their precious status quo?

their delicate REM patterns?

their brilliant stream of thought
about what they'll **** for dinner?

How I loved those harbour lights,
as shipwrights, we worked through those long and lonely nights and laid keels for Queens that rode the sea.

She was one,
The S.S mv Lexicon, a giant of a lady she. would leave her lipstick marks upon the sea and we just loved her, built her dream in funnels square and clean and launched her late one Monday Eve and when steam had scorched the boilers, we've seen our Queen go sailing far away.

That day has gone now, steam no more, a passing fancy but I adored the smoke and grit, the wit of Bosuns as they spat at this and that and harried cabin boys who touched their caps out of respect, I expect it's for the best.
And tomorrow what will be is a lack of joi de vivre and the sea will look so flat.

Don’t cry because you have lost something,
Be glad because you have room for something more.
Consider it, an opening of another door.

Don’t laugh because someone you dislike is hurt.
Ask yourself inside, what is their life worth,
To someone whose disposition with them isn’t as curt.

Don’t be sorrowful, because something is never coming back,
Be joyful because it’s less to pack.
There’s more space on your incredible, ***** rack.

Don’t shout to the skies,
When someone you loathe, keels over and dies.
Keep in mind, all the questions and whys.

My hands fumble to find the switch
A change from light to dark
To drown my trembling imperfections out in a numbing abyss
A blinding black blur that calls the demons out from under the bed skirt
Where they’ve been playing with dust and fraying my trust and squeezing my brain and pressing my pain
And laughing
Oh how they laugh at me
With their pointy teeth slapping the air that denies my breath
I beg them to leave
Let me sleep! I say.
But they tickle my ear with their fiery tongues  
And jump like a bounce house on top of my lungs
My body keels over and I pull my chest close
Prepare to deflect the next daunting dose
My hands clutch crush and my knuckles weep white
A basket of bones by my skin’s sorry sight
That hangs like a wet carpet outside to dry
Old and forgotten by a golden goodbye
But the sun forgot how to simmer and shine
And the air carries a vapor heavy with signs
That point down to the ground but I know there is more
They call me to a place that is far past the floor
Yes darkness drums dream demons for in it all I see
Is my soul’s own inferno forever beckoning me

An incomplete face
in its glass slab,
pulls a distance over me.
Mournful, I watch the neighbors
streaming down the toothy walk
in black and brown coats,
their laundry massed  
on shoulder tilt,
or in little onion cart.
They are all right here,
in this winter identity.
Washington accepts them.
If they should crane
& launch a coup d'œil
into this hunched pane
they'll know I am not of them;  
what body I have
stalls on this laminate -
the black fume
behind fastened eye
has already bolted
to keels of poetry
across furrowed Atlantic:
completing a glass face.

I jump out of bed to the sound of my father's wake-up call. I was just playing a very important game in one of my stupid, meaningless dreams. My head spins downward in a still drug induced motion. Lora had been with me last night, which had helped me sleep. I run downstairs as Downers always tend to sustain my energy. My lunch is packed and I belch up some of my Gatorade I had already drank. I can feel a reassuring burn in my throat that tells me "Today is another day." Father asks about when I'm getting my tonsils removed and I tell him, and he says "It's good you know. Just get it over with." Yeah, that's what I'm doing; getting the **** over with and done, I get it." I come into work and I see orange foamy **** on the ground that smells like *****. What a **** job I got myself into. And the kid that works with me is a ******* four eyed *****. He stares blankly at me, never hearing what I say. "Looks like antiseptic." He responds, "What?" I walk away and get to work and think about the Fiorinal I am going eat. I go to the bathroom and take two with my Gatorade and then wash back another two. I take Franky out to the field, and he's chortling and having a real fit. I tell him to shut the **** up. I also let him know how much of a **** he is. My head feels loose and my body feels light. But it's still a mundane kind of high which is ****** to cope with such a mundane, life-******* job. So I take three more. Franky starts spinning in circles like a two ton child waiting in line for pizza day at school. Franky's nihilistic values and unruly behaviour has been a total ******* hassle to me. I've heard he's bucked and killed three people so far. So I feed him some of my Fiorinal; about 300 milligrams. I kick the ****** in his paddock and he runs off to harass the others. My head is throbbing nicely and my center is igniting with a sunlight feeling. I see Franky out there gradually falling under the spell. He then keels over; lopsided like a fat bag of flour breathing heavily with a dry cough. I give him a peanut butter sandwich as a method to resuscitate. He cranes his neck from his idle position and eats the sandwich. It turns out there was another 300 milligrams concealed within the sandwich. I walk away as I eat four more pills. I'm good but not good enough. The kid that I’m working with is still sweeping the hallway. The mundane procedure erases his reality into some meaningless nightmare. He then looks up to me and asks "What's wrong with Franky?" I tell him to shut the **** up and get back to work; "And work better while you're at it." I knew about the pills in the sandwich cause I put them in there for Franky. What I didn't know was that Franky was allergic to peanut. I see him out there, spread eagle with his belly touching the ground. I go “****!” and eat another dozen-something pills in response to the distress. The kid asks what I’m eating and I barely hear him and then I think about burning down his stupid church so there is no excuse for him to miss every other Sunday’s work when I got better **** to do. Then I think about the pain in my stomach and the blood I taste from somewhere. And as I’m running to help Franky, I think that he will be fine; he’s lying on his stomach. Usually when they are dead they are lying on their backs. When I come up close to him, his large red eyes see only death. I feel something raw and smooshy in my underpants. I must have soiled myself unknowingly. He’s still breathing, that’s good. My body and mind do not feel intact and everywhere I try to open up my closed eyes, the peephole becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. I smell like ****. Was it the pills? Was it the store-bought stuffed peppers I ate last night while playing solitaire? I think of its oily texture and merciless burn which only causes more stomachache and diarrhea. I’m now lying next to Franky. His struggle to live is sad and pathetic. I close my eyes thinking: respiratory depression. I start to cry. I hear the ambulance. I open up and I see Franky’s eyes frozen directly at me; as if he knew I killed him. He is stiff, heartless and somewhat waxy. He looks like he should be on display in the Kremlin. What separates between us now is the coagulate sandwich that smells like stomach juices. I don’t know if it’s mine or Franky’s. “Are you alright?” someone asks. I can’t respond; there is no energy. I’m sure it’s the paramedic. Now Franky’s owner races through and steps over me and onto the coagulate sandwich which goes Sshjerp! Tears stream down her puffy ***** face and starts consoling to the dead animal in a very sick, twisted kinda way. She goes back and forth from talking to him and then yelling at me. “You did this! It’s all your fault! You can go rot!” I’m half conscious and I have an oxygen mask strapped over my mouth and I’m humming one of my favourite songs, thinking about how delightful it is to be alive whilst the ***** still points her gross, fat fingers in my face. “Say goodbye to your twenty thousand dollars, sweetheart.” The twenty thousand ******* dollars you had spent every ounce of energy to maintain and keep alive.

everything
feels that it keels
over
like a
pinball
in a machine—
hits green

and falls to your fingers.
save it
or you die

but you have two ***** left
and that's all you need.

she goes             freeing herself
and stops            to break her fall
suddenly            to gather herself

and begin again    with such brazenness
was it        the moon
and not     the far-flung bird of song?
was it        the brigade of shadows
and not     the heady kisses of night?

     she keels over like a vast wave
stretching    her   arms   into   the sky
once   again,  permitting    herself   to be seen
   not  by  the moon,
not  by   the   hale  of such  night  that struggles   not  to
   tipple   over   her hair   that demands    a   different hue
  of  silence
   but    by  herself     in   the mirror
the   metamorphosis,
     true   to  the   claim   of   the   world
  except    she   is   not   to  flutter   away,
                             just     yet –

It is towards a slow keeping-together of themes
from a missal-thrush memory
that words keen and are made.
                                                   The place matters little:
a furrow of ponds, a wet landscape
curved like a dish, the brittle stare and awkward movement
of spread-eagling duck on a cup of ice –
                                                            what do these matter? unless
the memory keels to the retina a shape of things to come,
teases and minnows them down to a flashing fin
in a chamber of shapeless streams, in a chamber
of crosses and thrushes.

Hmm, what’s that smell?
I’ll follow it through the house.
It lingers wherever I go,
Perhaps it’s me.

I recognise that smell…
The sickly stench of failure.

What’s that sound?
I’ll follow it through the house.
It rings in my ears wherever I go,
A tinny, shrieking laugh.

Of course,
It is the sound of cynical laughter.
Mockery.
Every second of it impaling me.

What’s that darkness
At the edge of my vision?
It is creeping further in.

Of course,
It’s the blinding death of guilt.
It is the poison that seeps throughout
My every cell.

I cannot see,
I am choked, unable to breathe,
The sound, it deafens, it deafens.

The floor is colliding with my knees,
And my vision is running away.
My ears are being crushed into my head
By my hands,
In a desperate attempt to shield them.

But the thundering howling overdrive
That my senses are in…
It is melting me from the inside.

My body caresses the floor,
Slipping…
My hand curls away from my head,
Falling.
My vision keels over.
Darkness.

And my nose breathes in the last breath of failure,
As it rattles into my broken lungs.

Says Etréstles: “The immortality Aeternitas trepanned the fury of enchanted isolation after descending from the crow's nest on a trip to Rhodes, sinking haggard towards an underworld dressed without pain or ischemia that complained to me originating from transient cellular fatigue. This was enchanting me towards another pseudonym that renews it under the pretext of digging itself into the eternity of unspeakable silence full of possessions in shallow Beech leaves, and above all those ungerminated senses. Abbreviated topic and placebo speeches that were exerting a cluster of cloaks of once fermented and materialized in disconnected lapses disintegrating towards their perpetual movement, exiled and physical-dynamic, but not eternal. Aeternum was boring itself into the continuity of perpetual preaching where nothing and no one emits it out of everything unknown chaos overwhelmed or becoming independent of its effects full of irony and tragic moans sniffing out its dying flat lux, and separating into double archetypes torn from the rehearsal of the thousandth life like all reflective floaters not being afraid of being in a substance that was seeing itself crazy and seduced from its imaginary. For everything that is intolerant, unable to see rolling chariots of fire and not evolving with the exactness of an eternal minstrel. When we were on the deck of the Eurydice I saw how they danced through some diaphanous fingers when observing how the same color of the Ouzo was fading all over its sudden and rebellious sphinx, falling from its own feet insinuated to others that they were apprehended when counting of the cheers and emotions to be later discerned in Aion's ashes. Powers of a potential beginning became a cautious being In Aeternum in a straight line to his clone without beginning or end, without time or matter, being himself his own deity rebelling from the correlated fractal dam. What notion is born from the concept of “Instantaneous being, immune to the cloistered effective and continuous knowledge when materializing as a god…, God of Bern-Gethsemane, among the songs of abyssal seas before the perfection of a hymn, ceases to exist, falling out of tune in the court of Aionius”. I stresses; mandated the zeal to stay in the twelfth cemetery being able to get rid of the symptoms of ****** and Harpies with the flourishing of venerable pious beings like Vernarth, behind these beautiful winged women remaining lustful just by looking at him, and subsequently being swallowed with all their evil thickness resulting from snowy genius. All of them rested with their sharp claws breaking their intrinsic heart in everything that is sometimes a tear before moving through banal philosophical philanthropy, which was lightening their days to discount it in what they learned from another pair, not being the subsequent ones same. Nothing is suffering like the jubilant flute that solfeggio when its sounds are randomly listless making ****** in its trepidation with harmonious notes and emaciated tears on the surface of a mask. Behold, his parallel face is a disfigured universe, not being possible to count distances between his equidistant eyes, and formerly sighs that go unchecked with his physiognomy at the end of the egress that rubs against his relative beloved, disintegrating his own turned into nothing. All these ailments are melified universal emotions that stand out in harbingers of destroyed futures described in some Olivacea Bern branches, made up of the precepts of multiple physiognomies, father and son hating of so much affection and orbiting in lasting decadent cycles with areas and divine contained rootlets of Beech tubers satiated in reliefs of insane emancipating curves..., called Empresses of Vernarth, just like In Aeternum with spaces falling from various inter-tempos to its high grace and radiant help towards the final pinnacle that was ready in the will to lighten him up and go cornering leaf after wasteful leaf.

Everything was recreated in minuscule variations between Romanzas Tchaikovskianas, recent and terse when they divulged him near the Volga. Vernarth planned with the facade of him to resist amid musty and gutted late musical papyri; called scores of illusion and fervor at the sound of the celestial harp that was nothing more than another harpy, coming close to him as it fell on the pegs that struck a Muscovite bell. The borders in themselves became a reality in his space and accompanied him, making him feel that he was still outside the spaces of the Hermitage when he remembered it..., even though he did not know anything or the coolness that attenuates him indistinctly from the Bern-Time that was frolicking in his emotional cover, making him feel such hypothetical compunction at realizing a deadly thread. His life mechanics hesitantly fell off V.V.'s lectern. Gogh, developing in un concretized models with singular embarrassments that have not yet stopped in its squalid rind, on the way to uncovering and then imagining knowing whose it is or was, knowing that no precedent would model its sensation of hyper-Ouzo, aggravated with maledicence in his space Bern-Time, and surrounded by his **** hysteria coming out of the bellows of his veins and ferocious ******, singing to cruel people who laughed with great art for whoever challenged him and concentrated his sorcerer's trick. Ferocious evil devils were still in their remnants rolling through some cracks that ask to circulate in Florence, in Tuscany among some Diavolo with multiform cosmogony, "Possibly reliving" that has decayed from himself, and resorting to himself to facilitate the last parallelism of the variable molecule and lung protervo balanced in grim expansive hopes by validating him..., perhaps of a false revival. From here he will have to absorb himself with hepatic gargles, and seriously insulted desires as he gets drunk from the unknown universe, pretending to decipher the encrustations on his back full of particles that were hidden in residues without mass or gravitations, overestimating the heart that hangs from a hedonistic Longines and from a mischievous ending outlined towards the woods of Hylates longing for him. His verses are confused with ailments and consciences without trace or trace or firmament that remains ephemeral before closing the cousin Lux that was passing in front of In a Gadda Da Vida, whose symbol is the one who outlines it in darkness highlighting his metaphorical soul intangible solemnity and portraying his adolescent face that dozes under the attentions of his ascendants, removing intemperances, and prophetic doping that was torturing and invading him on the fold of Alikantus's haunches when he was annoyed that his own steed would carry him in his arms resting on his disturbed property endorsed in an equine Hoplite. Its iconology is and will be in the hexagonal baptistery of Ein Karem, solfa templar choirs and choirs that thunder from the spawn of the sheaves to a sanctuary that nothing calms in infinite and allegorical deities with tortuous moratoriums enduring the resistance of the obtuse sprains of the ineffable.

Vernarth Antithetical to an Auric medal, it rested superimposed on his arms, wrapped in well-tempered cymbals, nourished by turpentine allied with Ouzo caramel, minced after thick Hellenic toasts when they began to perpetuate themselves with sagacious heretical attacks and narcissistic bravery as they went cloistering himself in maturity that dressed in an imposed narrow law fame, which was expiring under immutable and succulent decrees perched on the same aphrodite in love with himself. Meanwhile, Vernarth stocked up on medallions chained to garments of happiness they were inscribed with precise digits and sighs that would name him as Vernarth, "Son of Sisyphus perhaps", the guru of pending conclaves and hesitations "Here is who I spoke of allowing him to delight in named feat and with trivial branches in plunges that were varying in the spheres that were degenerating into heavy lightness towards their alter confusion. He bites the line of a comet falling on him, knowing that the Sotíras or Sóter has done penance within it that will not let him sleep on the motionless stars. Unstable from a primordial advance, then starting from the worst chaos that could have engulfed Vernarth In Aeternum. From this adolescent temptation that will launch meteorites and elegies at the castle of his courtship, telling him to remain confined in the solidity that he will postpone for other winters and the same passages that will make him come from the northern *****. The sweet necropolis would then light up by not being lost among the living, rather by the fallen who would have to seek the living among the fallen to help them and reciprocate between nearby verses by resurrecting them from In Aeternum…, seducing them from his active life! Vernarth denies coming and going along the aforementioned hillside with his courted delay... she will have to remove his dagger from his wrists, more or less restricting soporific arteriosus threads, smoothing the scaphoid and pyramidal, permeating with tender fire and playful irrational object "instigate In Aeternum to my onerous mind, whose world map and impolite split in the valleys of Berna-Universal..., as Adonis planted that was perceived in agreed cycles,... only by alternating his instigations..."

In æternum Auream Consecratam, Vernarth defoliated after the axis mundi and exaltation of the Bern-Universe world, encrypting in the engravings of all the memories of the Harpies, even in their finished archetypal capital where they moved through the midst of trunks cosmogonic footsteps and of the gods with spare hearts in frank wandering architecture, rebuilding themselves with new gods of consecrated aura. The party continued with decreed dialogue and continued with the medallion on the drag chain that went under the draft of the ship indicating the message to verify and rest in the preciousness of one who can balance his man's maneuverability with his Lynothorax open to the world so that Zeus in this day of utilitarian morality makes it part of his infinite use, but with orderly practical use. In this proportion, St. John the Apostle warns him of the sighting of Cape Koumbournous, approaching Prassonissi, not far from these two appears the third, Karpathos, all this limited to the south of Rhodes in the concordant uniform of his entire work, transforming integrally according to the conception of St. John for the predicaments of maximizing the weight of his alliance with Vernarth; now converted into a dogmatic designer, placing Gnomic poetry to help his memory. For all the themes of wisdom and conversion in each stone on another with a liturgy of construction of the temple that extended them to Patmos, in intelligence biblical verse was explaining the versed maxims converted from the prior cadence of poems in sequence, and legacies of stanzas of wolves that save lives to their hunters with prosaic testimonies delivered in hilarious argumentative eagerness, but not transgressing the expository towards Bernese-Hellenic poetry, with rhythm and cadence of the hours of the day that the centuries do without questioning its cyclical beauty, although I walk on it in a drama of lost revelry.

Saint John says: “The maxims, aphorisms, and apothegms will be where they differ from their charm like the beloved fugitive that Werther awaits from Goethe, like Vernarth, threatened by his madness to escape from the harpies emitting in his apothegm “His intensity is neither worthy nor irritable, but abhorrent." Vernarth is detested by large masses of clones of war comrades who make their apothegm young death in the hands of abhorrent old age, which falls into trends of compromising verses, and circumstantial that require doses of Ouzo on those levels of the classic apothegm, seated on a Klismós with a bald and contoured ***** on the four legs of Vetrubio, and a backing of light Rembrandt being born of all equal synchronicities at the dawn of a preceded and pseudo-literature, which more than letters will be retractable symbols of his bellicose artistic memory that bears of the tabulator of its reflective collections, leaving divine blood in the claws of the Griffin that slices blood of vermin that bind the light with its red pupils, like Werther and Vernarth swallowing the divine gesture that differentiates from those who are not prey to the erratic intensity of the wolf wise, who pursues his prey beyond cold and hunger, finely leaving his victim between nearby hooks and his neighbors Garfed Family members making enemies of natural blood relatives. Here is every part of our challenge in every listless use that is consistent with our entire works since the trade winds put us in the best climatic emotional mode, towards those who live on the food of wisdom more distant than the ignorant fools, but rather for those who they make their species our own variety in good moments that will be intense, but nothing that we cannot moderate with this greatness of small lux, but with great expressive mechanics dissecting interstices and remains of sediments that will remain for us to reassemble with public voices a Messiah as a great speaker, even with nubile apothegms that do not allow to be portrayed. We are sailing here slowly with the force of the blows that drag us to the Koumbournou cape, we can look at the highest peak that can be seen, being devoured by our own expectation that makes us go beyond what we thought we could achieve as a founding prize in the new religious laws that we have to refound, after the phylogeny of Olivos Berna. Not only does the Greek landscape manifest itself to us with the mythical laws to re-study them, but they also make them possible with our overseas proximities on cliffs that fill us with courageous courage towards one end of the stranded ship heeling upward, and towards the lavish waves that speak of coasts and white waters on the same waves that sang denominated in verses of the renewed goddess Hera, and who are related by a hero like Vernarth glorified. Neither illustrious nor villainous, but an aristocrat of Nymphs, Muses, Harpies, and Hesperides taking the sun deck with them in the Eurydice triaconter, stripped of benefits to the one who is just beginning to rule over him with his pious song. ”

The Vernarth-Werthian Tragedy was crossing the overseas challenges of Koumbournou, witnessing before his eyes the storms and effects of the intensity of an adult youth with his apothegm “My intensity is neither worthy nor irritable, but it is abhorrent”. But of Werthian scope, with the intention of competing with all the leaders of the courtship and of the sources of its antiquity similar to one more degraded of charm, leaving those who love and those who have been bewitched by all those who have been abandoned by adhesions of love unrequited. Cycles of horrors over the ship expelled the worst that made the ship list with rattles from Vernarth's gouges that made three-dimensional the superfluous darkness of the birch that was anointed on the mainmast, causing populated voices from minor to major near the Koumbournou cape. Certain temperamental harpies perversely wooed him from high to the freest confines of the scale of sarcastic incantation and countless love affairs. He is forced to witness his own indomitable fictions with an adorable room in the peasants where the harpies and their corsets licked the bobbins of some tonal hypocoristic words, contrary to the euphemistic of his apothegm that bordered on the most abhorrent apocalyptic when he found it in his practices mental manipulators and in the fictitious reality of loving beautiful women who do not correspond to those who love them! They knew this interdict that is hidden in the pavilion of some rockeries that hit the doublets of the minor harpies presenting themselves to everyone in the skylights of the sky, which were overshadowed by contested intimacy since they could not correspond to the final linguistic sounds of the lipped apothegm, adjoining in full love and colorful operatic stillness. Vernarth continues with his gouges inscribing his name and the name of his harpy that would finally rid him of ****** ailments. Arhanis; the harpy looked at herself in three glasses simultaneously, giving Vernarth sorrow for the attachment that escaped through the hiding places of the matrix fairies with delirium tremens when they submerged themselves under the decorated breaths of the floripondium that lingered from the totemic censer, recomposing itself in an incomplete wagon with areas of hydro-monoxide heaps overheating and producing viscosities, smearing his chest and mouth in the vortex as he softens the flow spilled by warm lightning rods in each abandonment, while nothing consoled him when everyone attended to them to overcome his catatonic course. The ursids who embraced the females would be outraged by his laziness, and the hopes of finding them would take them to the shore of Aphrodite with her final dirge defragmented and out of tune. Werther, with obvious elegy, appears with essences and disappeared in anxiolytic body parts. Werther says: “Here is Koumbournou, here is Wahlheim where our docks would still like to house rising boats that cut their bows and keels leaving each other in nothingness. Both pontoons would kiss in their death locked up near the In Aeternum, adjacent to the openwork where the auric medallion grieved. For the first time before committing suicide I saw that the heavy doors that led me to Lotte were opening, letting joy fall on my eyes, being the harpy that every female bears with a name similar to the one who fills her cup with desire and vanity. The harpies whimpered with their bellies full of harsh tears, asking Vernarth for two harpoons from the coarse cellophane of the flimsy sea of her soul, still standing before him dressed as a Werthian organism. Until the Panagia Ipseni, the monastery of Rhodes, cries of projectiles were felt that crossed each other in the swift flight of the desires of the immolation of both, whose ballad melted the rows, tying themselves to two naves like bushes grafted onto the hands of the suicide's executioner. The one who speaks here is entangled in Lotte's glottis, still alive to ******, and he calls me with eagerness and regrets my death in the whole world, not for my Werthian love for her. Vernarth says Werther, this rots me with uneasiness, I let myself fall into its obscenities to decay from Lotte's apnea, which is still in all those who suffer when two harpoons cross for the same destiny..., the victim chooses the first " Says Lotte: "Even after the Vernarthian time, both who dare a rude hostility as a way of harpooning doubt and who are not prone to suicide, it is that hope itself sweetly lingers in the one who receives the wound that bears my name..., that of Werther that grapples with the spur of the Eurydice, and that of Wernarth that crosses paths before both of us were lost in the midst of oblivion. I am still in Wahlheim, but I give birth to those who in the evenings after the bells still come to claim my destiny, perhaps their tragic destiny was taken by the princess Eurymedusa who will take them to Rhodes and Patmos, following the path of the myrmidons between them whom I envy and the princess herself loving him in her Rhodes prose”

It is towards a slow keeping-together of themes
from a missal-thrush memory
that words keen and are made.
                                                   The place matters little:
a furrow of ponds, a wet landscape
curved like a dish, the brittle stare and awkward movement
of spread-eagling duck on a cup of ice –
                                                            what do these matter? unless
the memory keels to the retina a shape of things to come,
teases and minnows them down to a flashing fin
in a chamber of shapeless streams, in a chamber
of crosses and thrushes.

At age 45 I decided to become a sailor.  It had attracted me since I first saw a man living on his sailboat at the 77th street boat basin in New York City, back in 1978.  I was leaving on a charter boat trip with customers up the Hudson to West Point, and the image of him having coffee on the back deck of his boat that morning stayed with me for years.  It was now 1994, and I had just bought a condo on the back bay of a South Jersey beach town — and it came with a boat slip.

I started my search for a boat by first reading every sailing magazine I could get my hands on.  This was frustrating because most of the boats they featured were ‘way’ out of my price range. I knew I wanted a boat that was 25’ to 27’ in length and something with a full cabin below deck so that I could sail some overnight’s with my wife and two kids.

I then started to attend boat shows.  The used boats at the shows were more in my price range, and I traveled from Norfolk to Mystic Seaport in search of the right one.  One day, while checking the classifieds in a local Jersey Shore newspaper, I saw a boat advertised that I just had to go see …

  For Sale: 27’ Cal Sloop. Circa 1966. One owner and used very
   gently.  Price $6,500.00 (negotiable)

This boat was now almost 30 years old, but I had heard good things about the Cal’s.  Cal was short for California. It was a boat originally manufactured on the west coast and the company was now out of business.  The brand had a real ‘cult’ following, and the boat had a reputation for being extremely sea worthy with a fixed keel, and it was noted for being good in very light air.  This boat drew over 60’’ of water, which meant that I would need at least five feet of depth (and really seven) to avoid running aground.  The bay behind my condo was full of low spots, especially at low tide, and most sailors had boats with retractable centerboards rather than fixed keels.  This allowed them to retract the boards (up) during low tide and sail in less than three feet of water. This wouldn’t be an option for me if I bought the Cal.

I was most interested in ‘blue water’ ocean sailing, so the stability of the fixed keel was very attractive to me.  I decided to travel thirty miles North to the New Jersey beach town of Mystic Island to look at the boat.  I arrived in front of a white bi-level house on a sunny Monday April afternoon at about 4:30. The letters on the mailbox said Murphy, with the ‘r’ & the ‘p’ being worn almost completely away due to the heavy salt air.

I walked to the front door and rang the buzzer.  An attractive blonde woman about ten years older than me answered the door. She asked: “Are you the one that called about the boat?”  I said that I was, and she then said that her husband would be home from work in about twenty minutes.  He worked for Resorts International Casino in Atlantic City as their head of maintenance, and he knew everything there was to know about the Cal. docked out back.  

Her name was Betty and as she offered me ice tea she started to talk about the boat.  “It was my husband’s best friend’s boat. Irv and his wife Dee Dee live next door but Irv dropped dead of a heart attack last fall.  My husband and Irv used to take the boat out through the Beach Haven Inlet into the ocean almost every night.  Irv bought the boat new back in 1967, and we moved into this house in 1968.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun the two of them had on that old boat.  It’s sat idle, ******* to the bulkhead since last fall, and Dee Dee couldn’t even begin to deal with selling it until her kids convinced her to move to Florida and live with them.  She offered it to my husband Ed but he said the boat would never be the same without Irv on board, and he’d rather see it go to a new owner.  Looking at it every day behind the house just brought back memories of Irv and made him sad all over again every time that he did.”

Just then Ed walked through the door leading from the garage into the house.  “Is this the new sailor I’ve been hearing about,” he said in a big friendly voice.  “That’s me I said,” as we shook hands.  ‘Give me a minute to change and I’ll be right with you.”

As Ed walked me back through the stone yard to the canal behind his house, I noticed something peculiar.  There was no dock at the end of his property.  The boat was tied directly to the sea wall itself with only three yellow and black ‘bumpers’ separating the fiberglass side of the boat from the bulkhead itself.  It was low tide now and the boats keel was sitting in at least two feet of sand and mud.  Ed explained to me that Irv used to have this small channel that they lived on, which was man made, dredged out every year.  Irv also had a dock, but it had even less water underneath it than the bulkhead behind Ed’s house.

Ed said again, “no dredging’s been done this year, and the only way to get the boat out of the small back tributary to the main artery of the bay, is to wait for high tide. The tide will bring the water level up at least six feet.  That will give the boat twenty-four inches of clearance at the bottom and allow you to take it out into the deeper (30 feet) water of the main channel.”

Ed jumped on the boat and said, “C’mon, let me show you the inside.”  As he took the padlock off the slides leading to the companionway, I noticed how motley and ***** everything was. My image of sailing was pristine boats glimmering in the sun with their main sails up and the captain and crew with drinks in their hands.  This was about as far away from that as you could get.  As Ed removed the slides, the smell hit me.  MOLD! The smell of mildew was everywhere, and I could only stay below deck for a moment or two before I had to come back up topside for air.  Ed said, “It’ll all dry out (the air) in about ten minutes, and then we can go forward and look at the V-Berth and the head in the front of the cabin.”

What had I gotten myself into, I thought?  This boat looked beyond salvageable, and I was now looking for excuses to leave. Ed then said, “Look; I know it seems bad, but it’s all cosmetic.  It’s really a fine boat, and if you’re willing to clean it up, it will look almost perfect when you’re done. Before Irv died, it was one of the best looking sailboats on the island.”

In ten more minutes we went back inside.  The damp air had been replaced with fresh air from outside, and I could now get a better look at the galley and salon.  The entire cabin was finished in a reddish brown, varnished wood, with nice trim work along the edges.  It had two single sofas in the main salon that converted into beds at night, with a stainless-steel sink, refrigerator and nice carpeting and curtains.  We then went forward.  The head was about 40’’ by 40’’ and finished in the same wood as the outer cabin.  The toilet, sink, and hand-held shower looked fine, and Ed assured me that as soon as we filled up the water tank, they would all work.

The best part for me though was the v-berth beyond.  It was behind a sold wood varnished door with a beautiful brass grab-rail that helped it open and close. It was large, with a sleeping area that would easily accommodate two people. That, combined with the other two sleeping berths in the main salon, meant that my entire family could spend the night on the boat. I was starting to get really interested!

Ed then said that Irv’s wife Dee Dee was as interested in the boat going to a good home as she was in making any money off the boat.  We walked back up to the cockpit area and sat down across from each other on each side of the tiller.  Ed said, “what do you think?” I admitted to Ed that I didn’t know much about sailboats, and that this would be my first.  He told me it was Irv’s first boat too, and he loved it so much that he never looked at another.

                   Ed Was A Pretty Good Salesman

We then walked back inside the house.  Betty had prepared chicken salad sandwiches, and we all sat out on the back deck to eat.  From here you could see the boat clearly, and its thirty-five-foot mast was now silhouetted in front of the sun that was setting behind the marsh.  It was a very pretty scene indeed.

Ed said,”Dee Dee has left it up to me to sell the boat.  I’m willing to be reasonable if you say you really want it.”  I looked out at what was once a white sailboat, covered in mold and sitting in the mud.  No matter how hard the wind blew, and there was a strong offshore breeze, it was not moving an inch.  I then said to Ed, “would it be possible to come back when the tide is up and you can take me out?”  Ed said he would be glad to, and Saturday around 2:00 p.m. would be a good time to come back. The tide would be up then.  I also asked him if between now and Saturday I could try and clean the boat up a little? This would allow me to really see what I would be buying, and at the very least we’d have a cleaner boat to take out on the water.  Ed said fine.

I spent the next four days cleaning the boat. Armed with four gallons of bleach, rubber gloves, a mask, and more rags than I could count, I started to remove the mold.  It took all week to get the boat free of the mildew and back to being white again. The cushions inside the v-berth and salon were so infested with mold that I threw them up on the stones covering Ed’s back yard. I then asked Ed if he wanted to throw them out — he said that he did.

Saturday came, and Betty had said, “make sure to get here in time for lunch.”  At 11:45 a.m. I pulled up in front of the house.  By this time, we knew each other so well that Betty just yelled down through the screen door, “Let yourself in, Ed’s down by the boat fiddling with the motor.”  The only good thing that had been done since Irv passed away last fall was that Ed had removed the motor from the boat. It was a long shaft Johnson 9.9 horsepower outboard, and he had stored it in his garage.  The motor was over twelve years old, but Ed said that Irv had taken really good care of it and that it ran great.  It was also a long shaft, which meant that the propeller was deep in the water behind the keel and would give the boat more propulsion than a regular shaft outboard would.

I yelled ‘hello’ to Ed from the deck outside the kitchen.  He shouted back, “Get down here, I want you to hear this.”  I ran down the stairs and out the back door across the stones to where Ed was sitting on the boat.  He had the twist throttle in his hand, and he was revving the motor. Just like he had said —it sounded great. Being a lifelong motorcycle and sports car enthusiast, I knew what a strong motor sounded like, and this one sounded just great to me.

“Take the throttle, Ed said,” as I jumped on board.  I revved the motor half a dozen times and then almost fell over.  The boat had just moved about twenty degrees to the starboard (right) side in the strong wind and for the first time was floating freely in the canal.  Now I really felt like I was on a boat.  Ed said, “Are you hungry, or do you wanna go sailing?”  Hoping that it wouldn’t offend Betty I said, “Let’s head out now into the deeper water.” Ed said that Betty would be just fine, and that we could eat when we got back.

As I untied the bow and stern lines, I could tell right away that Ed knew what he was doing.  After traveling less than 100 yards to the main channel leading to the bay, he put the mainsail up and we sailed from that point on.  It was two miles out to the ocean, and he skillfully maneuvered the boat, using nothing but the tiller and mainsheet.  The mainsheet is the block and pulley that is attached from the deck of the cockpit to the boom.  It allows the boom to go out and come back, which controls the speed of the boat. The tiller then allows you to change direction.  With the mainsheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, the magic of sailing was hard to describe.

I was mesmerized watching Ed work the tiller and mainsheet in perfect harmony. The outboard was now tilted back up in the cockpit and out of the water.  “For many years before he bought the motor, Irv and I would take her out, and bring her back in with nothing but the sail, One summer we had very little wind, and Irv and I got stuck out in the ocean. Twice we had to be towed back in by ‘Sea Tow.’  After that Irv broke down and bought the long-shaft Johnson.”

In about thirty minutes we passed through the ‘Great Bay,’ then the Little Egg and Beach Haven Inlets, until we were finally in the ocean.  “Only about 3016 miles straight out there, due East, and you’ll be in London,” Ed said.”  Then it hit me.  From where we were now, I could sail anywhere in the world, with nothing to stop me except my lack of experience. Experience I told myself, was something that I would quickly get. Knowing the exact mileage, said to me that both Ed and Irv had thought about that trip, and maybe had fantasized about doing it together.

    With The Tenuousness Of Life, You Never Know How Much      Time You Have

For two more hours we sailed up and down the coast in front of Long Beach Island.  I could hardly sit down in the cockpit as Ed let me do most of the sailing.  It took only thirty minutes to get the hang of using the mainsheet and tiller, and after an hour I felt like I had been sailing all my life.  Then we both heard a voice come over the radio.  Ed’s wife Betty was on channel 27 of the VHF asking if we were OK and that lunch was still there but the sandwiches were getting soggy.  Ed said we were headed back because the tide had started to go out, and we needed to be back and ******* in less than ninety minutes or we would run aground in the canal.

I sailed us back through the inlets which thankfully were calm that day and back into the main channel leading out of the bay.  Ed then took it from there.  He skillfully brought us up the rest of the channel and into the canal, and in a fairly stiff wind spun the boat 180’ around and gently slid it back into position along the sea wall behind his house.  I had all 3 fenders out and quickly jumped off the boat and up on top of the bulkhead to tie off the stern line once we were safely alongside.  I then tied off the bow-line as Ed said, “Not too tight, you have to allow for the 6-8 feet of tide that we get here every day.”

After bringing down the mainsail, and folding and zippering it safely to the boom, we locked the companionway and headed for the house.  Betty was smoking a cigarette on the back deck and said, “So how did it go boys?” Without saying a word Ed looked directly at me and for one of the few times in my life, I didn’t really know where to begin.

“My God,” I said.  “My God.”  “I’ll take that as good Betty said, as she brought the sandwiches back out from the kitchen.  “You can powerboat your whole life, but sailing is different” Ed told me.  “When sailing, you have to work with the weather and not just try to power through it.  The weather tells you everything.  In these parts, when a storm kicks up you see two sure things happen.  The powerboats are all coming in, and the sailboat’s are all headed out.  What is dangerous and unpleasant for the one, is just what the other hopes for.”

I had been a surfer as a kid and understood the logic.  When the waves got so big on the beach that the lifeguard’s closed it to swimming during a storm, the surfers all headed out.  This would not be the only similarity I would find between surfing and sailing as my odyssey continued.  I finished my lunch quickly because all I wanted to do was get back on the boat.

When I returned to the bulkhead the keel had already touched bottom and the boat was again fixed and rigidly upright in the shallow water.  I spent the afternoon on the back of the boat, and even though I knew it was bad luck, in my mind I changed her name.  She would now be called the ‘Trinity,’ because of the three who would now sail her —my daughter Melissa, my son T.C. and I.  I also thought that any protection I might get from the almighty because of the name couldn’t hurt a new sailor with still so much to learn.

                                  Trinity, It Was!

I now knew I was going to buy the boat.  I went back inside and Ed was fooling around with some fishing tackle inside his garage.  “OK Ed, how much can I buy her for?” I said.  Ed looked at me squarely and said, “You tell me what you think is fair.”  “Five thousand I said,” and without even looking up Ed said “SOLD!” I wrote the check out to Irv’s wife on the spot, and in that instant it became real. I was now a boat owner, and a future deep-water sailor.  The Atlantic Ocean had better watch out, because the Captain and crew of the Trinity were headed her way.

                 SOLD, In An Instant, It Became Real!

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell the kids the news.  They hadn’t seen much of me for the last week, and they both wanted to run right back and take the boat out.  I told them we could do it tomorrow (Sunday) and called Ed to ask him if he’d accompany us one more time on a trip out through the bay.  He said gladly, and to get to his house by 3:00 p.m. tomorrow to ‘play the tide.’  The kids could hardly sleep as they fired one question after another at me about the boat. More than anything, they wanted to know how we would get it the 45 miles from where it was docked to the boat slip behind our condo in Stone Harbor.  At dinner that night at our favorite Italian restaurant, they were already talking about the boat like it was theirs.

The next morning, they were both up at dawn, and by 8:30 we were on our way North to Mystic Island.  We had decided to stop at a marine supply store and buy a laundry list of things that mariners need ‘just in case’ aboard a boat.  At 11:15 a.m. we pulled out of the parking lot of Boaters World in Somers Point, New Jersey, and headed for Ed and Betty’s. They were both sitting in lawn chairs when we got there and surprised to see us so early.  ‘The tide’s not up for another 3 hours,” Ed said, as we walked up the drive.  I told him we knew that, but the kids wanted to spend a couple of hours on the boat before we headed out into the bay.  “Glad to have you kids,” Ed said, as he went back to reading his paper.  Betty told us that anything that we might need, other than what we just bought, is most likely in the garage.

Ed, being a professional maintenance engineer (what Betty called him), had a garage that any handyman would die for.  I’m sure we could have built an entire house on the empty lot across the street just from what Ed had hanging, and piled up, in his garage.

We walked around the side of the house and when the kids got their first look at the boat, they bolted for what they thought was a dock.  When they saw it was raw bulkhead, they looked back at me unsure of what to do.  I said, ‘jump aboard,” but be careful not to fall in, smiling to myself and knowing that the water was still less than four feet deep.  With that, my 8-year old son took a flying leap and landed dead center in the middle of the cockpit — a true sailor for sure.  My daughter then pulled the bow line tight bringing the boat closer to the sea wall and gingerly stepped on board like she had done it a thousand times before. Watching them board the boat for the first time, I knew this was the start of something really good.

Ed had already unlocked the companionway, so I stayed on dry land and just watched them for a half-hour as they explored every inch of the boat from bow to stern. “You really did a great job Dad cleaning her up.  Can we start the motor, my son asked?” I told him as soon as the tide came up another foot, we would drop the motor down into the water, and he could listen to it run.  So far this was everything I could have hoped for.  My kids loved the boat as much as I did.  I had had the local marine artist come by after I left the day before and paint the name ‘Trinity’ across the outside transom on the back of the boat. Now this boat was really ours. It’s hard to explain the thrill of finally owning your first boat. To those who can remember their first Christmas when they finally got what they had been hoping for all year —the feeling was the same.

                            It Was Finally Ours

In another hour, Ed came out. We fired up the motor with my son in charge, unzipped the mainsail, untied the lines, and we were headed back out to sea.  I’m not sure what was wider that day, the blue water vista straight in front of us or the eyes of my children as the boat bit into the wind. It was keeled over to port and carved through the choppy waters of ‘The Great Bay’ like it was finally home. For the first time in a long time the kids were speechless.  They let the wind do the talking, as the channel opened wide in front of them.

Ed let both kids take a turn at the helm. They were also amazed at how much their father had learned in the short time he had been sailing.  We stayed out for a full three hours, and then Betty again called on the VHF. “Coast Guards calling for a squall, with small craft warnings from five o’clock on.  For safety’s sake, you guy’s better head back for the dock.”  Ed and I smiled at each other, each knowing what the other was secretly thinking.  If the kids hadn’t been on board, this would have been a really fun time to ride out the storm.  Discretion though, won out over valor, and we headed West back through the bay and into the canal. Once again, Ed spun the boat around and nudged it into the sea wall like the master that he was.  This time my son was in charge of grabbing and tying off the lines, and he did it in a fashion that would make any father proud.

As we tidied up the boat, Ed said, “So when are you gonna take her South?”  “Next weekend, I said.” My business partner, who lives on his 42’ Egg Harbor in Cape May all summer and his oldest son are going to help us.  His oldest son Tony had worked on an 82’ sightseeing sailboat in Fort Lauderdale for two years, and his dad said there was little about sailing that he didn’t know.  That following Saturday couldn’t come fast enough/

                          We Counted The Minutes

The week blew by (literally), as the weather deteriorated with each day.  Saturday morning came, and the only good news (to me) was that my daughter had a gymnastic’s meet and couldn’t make the maiden voyage. The crew would be all men —my partner Tommy, his son Tony, and my son T.C. and I. We checked the tides, and it was decided that 9:30 a.m. was the perfect time to start South with the Trinity.  We left for Ed and Betty’s at 7:00 a.m. and after stopping at ‘Polly’s’ in Stone Harbor for breakfast we arrived at the boat at exactly 8:45.  It was already floating freely in the narrow canal. Not having Ed’s skill level, we decided to ‘motor’ off the bulkhead, and not put the sails up until we reached the main bay.  With a kiss to Betty and a hug from Ed, we broke a bottle of ‘Castellane Brut’ on the bulkhead and headed out of the canal.

Once in the main bay we noticed something we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t see at all!  The buoy markers were scarcely visibly that lined both sides of the channel. We decided to go South ‘inside,’ through the Intercoastal Waterway instead of sailing outside (ocean) to Townsends Inlet where we initially decided to come in.  This meant that we would have to request at least 15 bridge openings on our way south.  This was a tricky enough procedure in a powerboat, but in a sailboat it could be a disaster in the making.  The Intercoastal Waterway was the back-bay route from Maine to Florida and offered protection that the open ocean would not guarantee. It had the mainland to its West and the barrier island you were passing to its East.  If it weren’t for the number of causeway bridges along its route, it would have been the perfect sail.

When you signaled to the bridge tender with your air horn, requesting an opening, it could sometimes take 10 or 15 minutes for him to get traffic stopped on the bridge before he could then open it up and let you through.  On Saturdays, it was worse. In three cases we waited and circled for twenty minutes before being given clear passage through the bridge.  Sailboats have the right of way over powerboats but only when they’re under sail. We had decided to take the sails down to make the boat easier to control.  By using the outboard we were just like any other powerboat waiting to get through, and often had to bob and weave around the waiting ‘stinkpots’ (powerboats) until the passage under the bridge was clear.  The mast on the Trinity was higher than even the tallest bridge, so we had to stop and signal to each one requesting an opening as we traveled slowly South.

All went reasonably well until we arrived at the main bridge entering Atlantic City. The rebuilt casino skyline hovered above the bridge like a looming monster in the fog.  This was also the bridge with the most traffic coming into town with weekend gamblers risking their mortgage money to try and break the bank.  The wind had now increased to over 30 knots.  This made staying in the same place in the water impossible. We desperately criss-crossed from side to side in the canal trying to stay in position for when the bridge opened. Larger boats blew their horns at us, as we drifted back and forth in the channel looking like a crew of drunks on New Year’s Eve.  Powerboats are able to maintain their position because they have large motors with a strong reverse gear.  Our little 9.9 Johnson did have reverse, but it didn’t have nearly enough power to back us up against the tide.

On our third pass zig-zagging across the channel and waiting for the bridge to open, it happened.  Instead of hearing the bell from the bridge tender signaling ‘all clear,’ we heard a loud “SNAP.’ Tony was at the helm, and from the front of the boat where I was standing lookout I heard him shout “OH S#!T.”  The wooden tiller had just broken off in his hand.

                                         SNAP!

Tony was sitting down at the helm with over three feet of broken tiller in his left hand.  The part that still remained and was connected to the rudder was less than 12 inches long.  Tony tried with all of his might to steer the boat with the little of the tiller that was still left, but it was impossible in the strong wind.  He then tried to steer the boat by turning the outboard both left and right and gunning the motor.  This only made a small correction, and we were now headed back across the Intercoastal Waterway with the wind behind us at over thirty knots.  We were also on a collision course with the bridge.  The only question was where we would hit it, not when! We hoped and prayed it would be as far to the Eastern (Atlantic City) side as possible.  This would be away from the long line of boats that were patiently lined up and waiting for the bridge to open.

Everything on the boat now took on a different air.  Tony was screaming that he couldn’t steer, and my son came up from down below where he was staying out of the rain. With one look he knew we were in deep trouble.  It was then that my priorities completely shifted from the safety of my new (old) boat to the safety of my son and the rest of those onboard.  My partner Tommy got on the radio’s public channel and warned everyone in the area that we were out of control.  Several power boaters tried to throw us a line, but in the strong wind they couldn’t get close enough to do it safely.

We were now less than 100 feet from the bridge.  It looked like we would hit about seven pylons left of dead center in the middle of the bridge on the North side.  As we braced for impact, a small 16 ft Sea Ray with an elderly couple came close and tried to take my son off the boat.  Unfortunately, they got too close and the swirling current around the bridge piers ****** them in, and they also hit the bridge about thirty feet to our left. Thank God, they did have enough power to ‘motor’ off the twenty-foot high pier they had hit but not without doing cosmetic damage to the starboard side of their beautiful little boat. I felt terrible about this and yelled ‘THANK YOU’ across the wind and the rushing water.  They waved back, as they headed North against the tide, back up the canal.

      The Kindness Of Strangers Continues To Amaze Me!

BANG !!!  That’s the sound the boat made when it hit the bridge.  We were now sideways in the current, and the first thing to hit was not the mast but the starboard side ‘stay’ that holds the mast up.  Stays are made of very thick wire, and even though the impact was at over ten knots, the stay held secure and did not break.  We were now pinned against the North side of the bridge, with the current swirling by us, and the boat being pulled slowly through the opening between the piers.  The current was pulling the boat and forcing it to lean over with the mast pointing North. If it continued to do this, we would finally broach (turn over) and all be in the water and floating South toward the beach towns of Margate and Ventnor.  The width between the piers was over thirty feet, so there was plenty of room to **** us in and then down, as the water had now assumed command.

It was at this moment that I tied my Son to myself.  He was a good swimmer and had been on our local swim team for the past three summers, but this was no pool.  There were stories every summer of boaters who got into trouble and had to go in the water, and many times someone drowned or was never found or seen again.  The mast was now leaned over and rubbing against the inside of the bridge.  

The noise it made moving back and forth was louder than even the strong wind.  Over the noise from the mast I heard Tommy shout, “Kurt, the stay is cutting through the insulation on the main wire that is the power source to the bridge. If it gets all the way through to the inside, the whole boat will be electrified, and we’ll go up like a roman candle.”  I reluctantly looked up and he was right.  The stay looked like it was more than half-way through the heavy rubber insulation that was wrapped around the enormous cable that ran horizontally inside and under the entire span of the bridge.  I told Tommy to get on the VHF and alert the Coast Guard to what was happening.  I also considered jumping overboard with my son in my arms and tied to me hoping that someone would then pull us out of the water if we made it through the piers. I couldn’t leave though, because my partner couldn’t swim.

Even though Tommy had been a life-long boater, he had never learned to swim.  He grew up not far from the banks of the Mississippi River in Hardin Illinois and still hadn’t learned.  I couldn’t just leave him on the boat. We continued to stay trapped in between the piers as the metal wire stay worked its way back and forth across the insulated casing above.

In another fifteen minutes, two Coast Guard crews showed up in gigantic rubber boats.  Both had command towers up high and a crew of at least 8 on board.  They tried to get close enough to throw us a line but each time failed and had to motor away against the tide at full throttle to miss the bridge.  The wake from their huge twin outboards forced us even further under the bridge, and the port side rail of the Trinity was now less than a foot above the water line.

              Why Had I Changed The Name Of This Boat?

The I heard it again, BAMMM !  I looked up and saw nothing.  It all looked like it had before.  The Coast Guard boat closest to us came across on the bullhorn. “Don’t touch anything metal, you’ve cut through the insulation and are now in contact with the power source.  The boat is electrified, but if you stay still, the fiberglass and water will act as a buffer and insulation.  We can’t even touch or get near you now until the power gets turned off to the bridge.”  

We all stood in the middle of the cockpit as far away from anything metal as possible.  I reached into the left storage locker where the two plastic gas containers were and tightened the filler caps. I then threw both of them overboard.  They both floated harmlessly through the bridge where a third Coast Guard boat now retrieved them about 100 yards further down the bay.  At least now I wouldn’t have to worry about the two fifteen-gallon gas cans exploding if the electrical current ever got that far.

For a long twenty minutes we sat there huddled together as the Coast Guard kept yelling at us not to touch anything at all.  Just as I thought the boat was going under, everything seemed to go dark.  Even though it was early afternoon, the fog was so heavy that the lights on the bridge had been turned on.  Now in an instant, they were off.

                               All Lights Were Off

I saw the first Coast Guard boat turn around and then try to slowly drift our way backward. They were going to try and get us out from between the piers before we sank.  Three times they tried and three times again they failed.  Finally, two men in a large cigarette boat came flying at us. With those huge motors keeping them off the bridge, they took everyone off the Trinity, while giving me two lines to tie to both the bow and the stern. They then pulled up alongside the first large inflatable and handed the two lines to the Coast Guard crew.  After that, they backed off into the center of the channel to see what the Coast Guard would do next.

The second Coast Guard boat was now positioned beside the first with its back also facing the bridge.  They each had one of the lines tied to my boat now secured to cleats on their rear decks.  Slowly they motored forward as the Trinity emerged from its tomb inside the piers.  In less than fifteen seconds, the thirty-year boat old was free of the bridge.  With that, the Coast Guard boat holding the stern line let go and the sailboat turned around with the bow now facing the back of the first inflatable. The Captain continued to tow her until she was alongside the ‘Sea Tow’ service vessel that I hadn’t noticed until now.  The Captain on the Sea Tow rig said that he would tow the boat into Somers Point Marina.  That was the closest place he knew of that could make any sailboat repairs.

We thanked the owners of the cigarette boat and found out that they were both ex-navy seals.  ‘If they don’t die hard, some never die at all,’ and thank God for our nation’s true warriors. They dropped us off on Coast Guard Boat #1, and after spending about 10 minutes with the crew, the Captain asked me to come up on the bridge.  He had a mound of papers for me to fill out and then asked me if everyone was OK. “A little shook up,’” I said, “but we’re all basically alright.” I then asked this ‘weekend warrior’ if he had ever seen the movie ‘Top Gun.’  With his chest pushed out proudly he said that he had, and that it was one of his all-time favorites.

            ‘If They Don’t Die hard, Some Never Die At All’

I reminded him of the scene when the Coast Guard rescue team dropped into the rough waters of the Pacific to retrieve ‘Goose,’ who had just hit the canopy of his jet as he was trying to eject.  With his chest still pumped out, he said again proudly that he did. “Well, I guess that only happens in the movies, right Captain,” I said, as he turned back to his paperwork and looked away.

His crew had already told me down below that they wanted to approach the bridge broadside and take us off an hour ago but that the Captain had said no, it was too dangerous!  They also said that after his tour was over in 3 more months, no one would ever sail with him again.  He was the only one on-board without any real active-duty service, and he always shied away from doing the right thing when the weather was rough.  He had refused to go just three more miles last winter to rescue two fishermen off a sinking trawler forty miles offshore.  Both men died because he had said that the weather was just “too rough.”

                     ‘A True Weekend Only Warrior’

We all sat with the crew down below as they entertained my son and gave us hot coffee and offered medical help if needed.  Thankfully, we were all fine, but the coffee never tasted so good.  As we pulled into the marina in Somers Point, the Trinity was already there and tied to the service dock.  After all she had been through, she didn’t look any the worse for wear.  It was just then that I realized that I still hadn’t called my wife.  I could have called from the Coast Guard boat, but in the commotion of the moment, I had totally forgotten.

When I got through to her on the Marina’s pay phone, she said,  “Oh Dear God, we’ve been watching you on the news. Do you know you had the power turned off to all of Atlantic City for over an hour?”  After hanging up, I thought to myself —"I wonder what our little excursion must have cost the casino’s,” but then I thought that they probably had back up generation for something just like this, but then again —maybe not.

I asked my wife to come pick us up and noticed that my son was already down at the service dock and sitting on the back of his ‘new’ sailboat.  He said, “Dad, do you think she’ll be alright?” and I said to him, “Son, she’ll be even better than that. If she could go through what happened today and remain above water, she can go through anything — and so can you.  I’m really proud of the way you handled yourself today.”

My Son is now almost thirty years old, and we talk about that day often. The memory of hitting the bridge and surviving is something we will forever share.  As a family, we continued to sail the Trinity for many years until our interests moved to Wyoming.  We then placed the Trinity in the capable hands of our neighbor Bobby, next door, who sails her to this day.

All through those years though, and especially during the Stone Harbor Regatta over the Fourth of July weekend, there was no mistaking our crew when you saw us coming through your back basin in the ‘Parade of Ships.’  Everyone aboard was dressed in a red polo shirt, and if you happened to look at any of us from behind, you would have seen …

                               ‘The Crew Of The Trinity’  
                         FULL CONTACT SAILING ONLY!

Crossing the overseas challenges of Koumbournou, the storms and effects of the intensity of a Young Adult were witnessed in her sight, with her apothegm "My intensity is not worthy or cause of irritability, but it is abhorrent." But from a Werthian field, with the Venia to compete with all the leaders of the courtship and of the sources of his antiquity, as one more degraded of the spell, he left those he loves and those who have been bewitched by all who have been abandoned by adhesions. of unrequited love. Cycles of fright on the ship, triggered the worst that made the ship list by their rattles of Vernarth gouges that made the shallow gloom of the birch three-dimensional, which anointed it on the main mast, eliciting populated voices from least to greatest near the cape. of Koumbournou. Whose temperamental harpies, they fell in love with the evil high and freer confine of the scale of the sarcastic enchantment of their songs and love affairs without courtship. He is forced to witness his own untamed fictions, of adorable stay in the peasantry where harpies with their corsets on, lick the doilies of hypocoristic words, euphemistic opposite tonal of their apocalyptic verging apothegm ...; but it is abhorrent, when he found in his psychic manipulative traditions, the fictitious reality of loving beautiful women, who do not correspond to those who love them! Knowing this question, they hide in the pavilion of the roqueríos that beat the corsets of the minor harpies, presenting before all the skylights of the sky, which were obscured by contented intimacy, as they could not correspond to the final linguistic sounds of the lofty apothegm, bordering in full and colorful love of operatic stillness. Vernarth continues with his gouges inscribing his name and that of his harpy, which would finally remove the ****** ailments. Arhanis, the harpy looked at herself in three mirrors simultaneously, giving Vernarth regret, for the love that escaped her through the hiding places, the matrix fairies, with delirium tremens, were submerging under the decorated breaths of the floripondium, which delayed the totem censer, recomposing an incomplete wagon of areas rich in hydro monoxides, overheating and producing viscosities, smearing his chest and his mouth in the vortex, spilling warm lightning rods at each abandonment, while nothing consoled him, while everyone attended to them to overcome their catatonic state. The bears that embraced their females would be outraged by their laziness, and the hopes of finding and rearming them were taken by the shore of Aphrodite in his last defragmented and out of tune dirge. Wense, with her evident regret, appears to her with marrow in corporal and anxiolytic disappearances.

Werther says: “Here is Koumbournou, here is Wahlheim, where our dikes would still like to house the ascendant boats that cut from their bows and keels, leaving one between the other in nothingness. Both barges kissed in their deaths, locked near the In Aeternum, adjacent to the draft where the auric medallion was distressed. For the first time before committing suicide, I saw that the heavy doors that led me to Lotte opened, letting joy fall over my eyes, being the harpy that every female carries with a name similar to the one who fills her glass with appetite and vanity. The harpies whimpered with their bellies full of dry tears, they ask Vernarth for two harpoons of coarse cellophane from the flimsy sea of her soul still placed before her, donning a Werthian body. Even the Panagia Ipseni, monastery of Rhodes, the laments of the projectiles that crossed in the swift flight were heard, of desires for the immolation of both, in a romance that melted the ranks by tying themselves to two naves like bushes grafted in the hands of the executioner of the suicide. The one who speaks here is entangled in the glottis of Lotte still alive to love him, who calls me with an eagerness to mourn my death throughout the world, but not for my Werthian love for her. Vernarth, I rot with calm and I let myself fall into her obscenities to decay from my apnea in Lotte, which is still in all those who suffer when two harpoons cross for the same destination ..., the victim chooses the first ".

Lotte says: “Even after the Vernarthian time, between the two who dare in a rude hostile way to spear doubt and who is not prone to suicide, it is that hope itself gently delays, who receives the wound that bears my name ..., that of Werther, who fights the spur of the Eurydice, and that of Wernarth, which crosses before we were both lost in the fog of oblivion. I am still in Wahlheim, but I give birth to those who, in the afternoons after the bells, still come to claim my destiny, perhaps their tragic destiny was taken by the princess Eurymedusa who will take them to Rhodes and Patmos, plowing the path of the Myrmidons, among them whom I envy; the same princess loving him in her Rhodes prose”