All I want is to sail to those far-off lands
Where ships are freedom, where sailors catch the winds
With canvas nets in their coarse and salty hands,
Adventure around corners, and nothing binds
Us to those old worlds that we have left behind.
I want to see the sun rise, brand new each day,
And open new pathways like maps in my mind,
While the deck and the sea beneath me do sway.

The ocean's a goddess, a temptress of men
Who never could keep their feet on solid ground
But rather sought to wander, and now and then
Chase after a daydream, and soon they had found
Their hearts and their eyes filled with love of the sea.
Thus a thousand such souls were stolen by thee.

This, no song of an ingenue,
This, no ballad of innocence;
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever her natural bents.
This, a solo of sapience,
This, a chantey of sophistry,
This, the sum of experiments,--
I loved them until they loved me.

Decked in garments of sable hue,
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents,
Wearing shower bouquets of rue,
Walk I ever in penitence.
Oft I roam, as my heart repents,
Through God's acre of memory,
Marking stones, in my reverence,
"I loved them until they loved me."

Pictures pass me in long review,--
Marching columns of dead events.
I was tender, and, often, true;
Ever a prey to coincidence.
Always knew I the consequence;
Always saw what the end would be.
We're as Nature has made us----hence
I loved them until they loved me.

Whiskey works in waves
I saw something hazy, a light
Making it's way down to the shoreline
I followed and took two more shots
Along the lakeside
One was to warm me up
And the other to make me believe
I couldn't drown in anything
Besides a body of water
Yet even with my feet
Firmly planted on the beach
My arms flailed above me
I coughed up seaweed
And my flooded lungs
Began to sing a broken chantey
"Take down the mast, o!
Tear down the rigging!
Tell me! Tell me!
What is a life worth living?"