They say He was a serious child,
  And quiet in His ways;
They say the gentlest lady smiled
  To hear the neighbors' praise.

The coffers of her heart would close
  Upon their smaliest word.
Yet did they say, "How tall He grows!"
  They thought she had not heard.

They say upon His birthday eve
  She'd rock Him to His rest
As if she could not have Him leave
  The shelter of her breast.

The poor must go in bitter thrift,
  The poor must give in pain,
But ever did she get a gift
  To greet His day again.

They say she'd kiss the Boy awake,
  And hail Him gay and clear,
But oh, her heart was like to break
  To count another year.

My friend signed on to a coastal ship
His name, John Escobar,
He said, for only a week long trip
On the Steamship Southern Star.
While I worked out of the office of
The Southern Shipping Line,
To keep in touch with our fleet of ships,
But the Southern Star was mine.

They said that ship was a special case
It was fitted out so well,
They joked of equipment so refined
It could sail clear through to hell.
I’d noticed bulges down on the hull
But under the waterline,
They told me to keep an eye on it
When they said that it was mine.

It sailed on out of Ascension Bay
When the tide was running high,
The motor gave out a whisper like
The sound of a woman’s sigh,
It wasn’t supposed to leave the coast
But it went far out to sea,
And kept in touch with the dit-dit-dit
Of John on the morse code key.

He tapped a message out every hour
And I let him know I knew,
The ship was sailing way off its course
And lost to the coastal view,
He said the Captain was acting strange
He was locked up by the wheel,
That all the maps had been rearranged
And that something wasn’t real.

At midnight there was a message came
To me in a darkened room,
It said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on
But we just sailed past the Moon.’
I sent, ‘Just lay off the Bourbon, John,
If this is John Escobar,’
And he replied that the Captain died,
‘And I don’t know where we are.’

He sent more messages on the hour
And they seemed to grow apace,
By midday out on the second day,
‘We’re somewhere in outer space.’
I didn’t know if he’d gone berserk
But we’d lost the Southern Star,
It disappeared, and the thing was weird,
When I lost John Escobar.

The messages gradually petered out
So I don’t know if he lied,
He said some things about Saturn’s rings
And then the battery died.
I lost my job at the shipping line
For they put it down to me,
They said, ‘your ship was the Southern Star,
And you’ve lost the thing at sea.’

David Lewis Paget

I forgot why I wanted to write about you
But then again
I forget a lot of things nowadays
And the things that I want
Never make sense anymore
At least you made me want something

And so
When I saw a star
Dashing across the horizon
I wished I would see you again
Then for a second
A single second
I closed my eyes
And I could feel your hands in my hair
But it wasn't your hands
It was just the shallow wind
Shallow
Hollow
Empty
Like your desires
So when I kissed you
You left your eyes open
And when I asked you if I looked beautiful
Your answer was inaudible
Always too silent to hear
So you broke me
Or maybe I broke myself trying to fix you
And the sparks we created
Started a wildfire
One that I couldn't put out
Even after you left
So it burned the last broken pieces of me
The ashes swept away
In that shallow wind that feels like your hands.