Adrift in my ocean
Foam lifted and light
The sky sets on the horizon
And your leaving brings the night

I spy the lighthouse oft the distance
And wrack my body to relieve the pittance
That space brought such a torpor and a tremor
I need your assistance

But tho I cry out in pain
As though struck, no answer except
The uncaring roar of the inner me calls
And the brine lacquors my lips and lids
So that all I can account for
Is the cold emptiness of the place that I had been abandoned in

Not one to give up, I summon my courage
Heart full, I swim away from the light
That can't shine on me, and the shore that won't harbor me
And push deeper to the midnight blue
So I can cast away the memory of you.

It is bitter cold and lonesome, but in time
I note the water eases its assault and the light begins to shine
Truly, not the lighthouse, false shore and rocky bay
But the dawn's morning light off the continent ahead

So I redouble my efforts and drag my weary and wasted body up the celadon sands
And open my heart and with my hands
Throw to the bitter depths the pain I had carried
Like a locker all the way across the ocean of many

And though for a moment I feel the pang of that empty space
I know you couldn't stay

The wrong time and the wrong place.

Nick

She curls my toes.

The way she looks at me, you know.
No time is sweeter than this. When the future is dark; the past shrouded in mist.

My mind is a caterwaul, my belly a bunker. When she gazes at me, my heart is thunder.

Come hither and sweep your troubles away. The day is over. Come.

Stay.

Nick

Collect and disperse, what's the worst a man can do. Think of you? Babe, how do you do.

Quantify and subjugate the cold food on my plate, so I can keep cryptic crypts coming, while my thoughts just keep running.

What can I do when my best friend has died. I only knew him for a minute, then there he goes, waving "bye-bye". Real men don't cry, do I believe that? I might. But I struggle to keep those thoughts away at night and by day light.

How do I feel about her? What's the thought and what's the gimmick? Happy to settle for friend but my heart pangs when she says she's with him. I dare not tell her for fear that she'll leave. But then they all do, don't they. What's the reprieve.

Nick

Require desire and delegate the choir to my sire, redesign and perspire; the liar deigns to fire the dire hire. I sleep soundly and softly while the people shoot aloofly so sooth sayers deny a responsible player and quietly quiet the last word.

this is not a beginning or an end
it's simply somewhere in the middle -
as it always was, and as it always will be
(i think.)

this is not the callous future you made out
the end-times we projected, lying cold in the winter of our misery
rather it is just another page
(maybe, it could be.)

so i shook away the rime
and practiced folding my hands
and looking up and around instead of down
to hear the music, not the sound
where roller-coaster emotions roil in a boiling sea of toil
and foil coils to the heart-breaking heights
(of somewhere else.)

nick