Be cautious when delving into the bottomless abyss of the unknown
Of the ever unpredictable oceanic being
The dolphin you love dearly will not save you from a shark
And who are you to say the ocean must change
So you may immerse your life into its
Force of nature complexity
It's wisdom and destructive power are inseparable
And be you a marine biologist fascinated by the depths of the oceanic complexity
Or a child drawn by the colors of the coral reefs
Or a fisherman seeking sustenance to his spirit
Or a mermaid from Starbucks at Port Authority
Or a witch particularly evil when interlocking fingers with two main sources of her livelihood
All the same the ocean will not adopt
To your capacities to withhold it
So shall you dive?
Even if you hear its echo in the back of your mind
From the moment you open your eyes
To the last waking thought

This simple dance
revolves around itself
repeating intricate figures
until its inevitable end.

And then?
A riddle wrapped
in the loose skin of the night
beckons to us all
the certainty of death
leaves us wondering
while stumbling along this frosted
winter shore.

A thousand times
a thousand ships
have sailed daily
and sent nary a missive home.

The signal fires are burning
on forested headlands
here along this rugged coast.
Dark and solemn capes
gather the pelting rain
into their skirts.

The signaling smoke
from fir-fed fires
wraps itself in salt spray
serves as a beacon for the lost
a message to the departed.

Yet not a word
not a message in a bottle
from those who have set forth.
180 degrees of the compass
and not a sail.
The sea splendid and empty.

If no news is good news,
then bliss is our birthright.
If no news is something else
again,
then simple silence
will be our wage.

chaos is overwhelming, innate, a perfect picture of what i've become
i live within it, no, i thrive within it,
pushing myself to levels i probably didn't need to reach,
but here i find myself, and often,
i'm alone

i wonder about what it all means, the pushing and the pulling,
the wanting and the nothingness, how i can wake up in love
and by nightfall all i want is to curl up inside of myself

there are moments when you're inescapable, but i'm
beginning to wonder if you've know about my evasion
from the start and have gotten too good at pretending

i wish i could be the woman i am sometimes, the one
that sees you for who you are and understands that
we all progress at a pace the stars decided lifetimes ago

instead i mirror my own destruction upon you, perhaps
because i see the chaos looking out at me from your
eyes that still seem young, and are nothing at all like my own

I am ever so simply a woman and so I liquify from the waist down and on the eve of a disastrous morning, I use the tips of your your lips as marmalade and marinade within the notion of you. If I was to ever go mad, it'd surely be based on the mere idea that you once knew me as certain as you knew the difference between a prism and a square, just additions and subtractions of necessary and unnecessary lines.

seventy-five years ago today
I was napping on the deck, only the day
after I celebrated birthday number 25

they call that quick stretch from then
'til now, three-quarters of a century--though to me,
it seems not a fraction of anything

if anything is a fraction, it is I, though
now a full century on my calendar, I am but half
a man, my two legs sawed off, 12/7/41

on the flat screen in my room, I see other ancient
mariners, many proudly wheeled to the commemoration  
of that day--most with legs yet there

but what good are those parts, for war
and age leveled them, hobbled them even if they walk...
maybe I was the lucky soul

for I was sliced down to size all at once
humbled, hurt, but happy to come home, where
I made a life, with what pieces I had left

after the Sunday morning which began
with a soft singing breeze from the Pacific, and ended
with the tempests of hell, as I understand them

He skims the haze of the day
like a cat seeking its food
prowling lane alleyway
to find you in bitter mood.

On your door the unwelcome guest
you would not call him to stay
with him time is a waste
he would better be shooed away.

You hate when he starts to speak
his sunburned face is a bore
must cut him short pretty quick
behind him close the door.

Like you are nine of ten
but he knows his job is done
is rewarded all his pain
if he can charm just one.

The one that ears lends
a carer who knows well
how it greatly depends
a family on one sale.