remains of busted beer bottles and cracked plastic jut from stinking tide-water mud     eyes narrow against sand saturated sustained winds grain sting and cling before slinging past    sleeping man scorched cedar red sloth snores against driftwood    his dog pants patiently pawing sand playfully    once roaring giant beside me sulks now  
those ******* dams    
superb river        I formally apologize for us       we the new humans injected our cement turbine barriers into you       so we can read bibles and bake brownies after dark     so streetlights can work grave shifts     convinced they’re delivering us from evil     I imagine how you used to roar      carve    tear     from your northern mountainous sources      converting wastelands to pastures and fertile gardens    feeding the starved   cleaning the rugged        assisting the ambitious     the old ones learned to cooperate with you    
we massacred most of them and now control you    
so anyways I’m here now    watching an old man fight bitter wind     his old sailboat approximately ten thousand times his size      I’ve seen men tack but this is different      powerful winds continue to whip westward       he heaves his body left and boat groans cooperating     pulling hard right      harder right      harder right       sail’s about forty five degrees off water now and I think         he’s gotta be gravebound      see now the ol’ skipper has gone and dove right again and the sail shakes snapping against gales but succeeds to the left      his boat follows and keeps inching upwind           inch by inch     in the back of his mind he considers retreat        but knows the more golden shores lay ahead
behind him are bruising bridges and barges and big trucks accelerating in left lanes beeping and blinking in blistering sun     there is a ******* on jantzen beach that is supposed to have great bbq wings    heard theyre to die for     and great women with giant fake       personalities     theyre hired for their personalities         theyre encouraged to show their personalities and put them on display so all the heavy men can enjoy their stay
my prized old man battles eastward upstream upwind to your golden shores      hes gone another thousand yards in the last hour      each cut strenuous muscles battle ropes sail     each cut seems dangerously intense and immaculate     below him solemn oppressed river travels reluctantly towards ocean
I lay back in gray-black sand and close my eyes       sand particles whipping the right side of my face       I think of what is next in my day     writing some ****** spoken word     reading some weathered whitman and wordsworth       watching some girl drink herself dumb    all the while hearing the sails and old man struggling     redskinned man snoring   dog digging   my eyelids look red with sun shining thru them
Walking to the river now      each step deeper down ***** freezing my      ankle       knee       thigh      dark brown-blue water continues to rise around as I sink down     when shoulder high I dive down to bottom and kick       lungs fully expanded begin to grow stale and I surface       I notice I have been pulled down river ten yards        eleven yards      for a while I float kicking eastward but the river wears on me      I exhale fully         sinking down
Alien world of thick green surrounds me   ive forgotten the meaning of breath time life     ten feet       eleven feet      below     shimmering surface rises     pressure presses ears persistently     each foot deeper water colder   whines of far off jetboat jetski engines and muffled airplanes pollute     I picture how I must look to unsuspecting fish     naked boy eyes open cheeks inflated arms suspended above     below weeds dance and baitfish prance     something about scene is other-worldly
lungs crave air so I kick back up      far from shore and from shirt      people look at me like I’m reduced to a       floating head    I swim back to shore    concerned red man approaches me    his dog licks my hand and its paws scratch my stomach  
i guess he thought i was drowning     i think i am too