Help me scrub the deck,
Tighten the halyard,
Bind the stays,
Let's conquer the oceans,
Don't count on days,

Say good morning,
To the water and winds,
Pull the sheets and start sailing,
And feel the ocean breeze,

We brave uncharted waters
on boat with crumpled sails
We float where it is hotter
but that's another tale

We lose ourselves on purpose
in storms and surging waves
We dwell upon the surface
but it's the depths we crave

You and me set out to sea to chase the setting sun --
But it set too soon, so we caught the moon
(Still a great prize to be won).
Though, it changed the rhythm of the tides,
And all the waves they churned.
It came that you and me soon learned
We never could return.

Attributed to Sir Francis Drake.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Effort has been drained from me effortlessly
Each day goes by with further disdain for myself
I sit in my ship and let the bugs eat me alive
Who can help me?

I've burned bridges
I've poisoned myself
I've sailed away
And now I'm on this island, dying.

Who can help me?
I don't live without fear anymore
There is no certainty
Who can help me?

I'm scared to progress
I hold myself back
I abuse my body
In hopes to go back

Who can help me?
Who can help me?
I only fear death when I stare it in the eye.
Who can help me?

I want to go back
To the time where I could live
But I feel this rope tighten
Can I make it back? I'm not positive.

Who can help me?
Who can help me?
Who can help me?
Who can help me?

When I can't help myself

There is something about it
The inexplicable curve in the diet
Swimming in pink grapefruit,
Sharing the stunted manifestation
Of a slice of clementine Gouda cheese
The way, the solace in a lone glass of wine
Chilled iced, purged crayfish
Flushed from the brittle salt basked seas
From the callused knuckle of stony fisherman
Casting out at the crackling array of dawn
With the waters brimming at the hulk
And the mast scraping it's white and red tusks
The fisherman who left at dawn
Leaving his beloved steeped in slumber...
Allowing her eyes flutter to the beam of pink salmon
And there is just something about it,
Pulsing from the faint flicker of overhanging bulbs
A writer stoops over a sliver of miracle
Purged from the raw etched in his vast chest
The very act of describing compassion & sin
With the ink soaked mechanism of his typewriter
The legacy of a young girl
Who wasn't meant to save the world
But to find it, the humanity whisked away,
Drowned perhaps by whiskey and alcohol
Eyesights deterred from the long lone walk
Pocketed with threats and head shakes
The writer's fingers fly,
And funny how there is something about it
How it doesn't end in full circle
That we lack the great capacity
To seize the flesh of truce
So distilled we sail,
So perturbed we write,
So empty we feast
Never quite knowing
That elemental presumption
Of something more

Man is in chains from birth to death
What control he has to have on his fate
Every step and every pace till last breath
What is hidden in fate one can't narrate

If this is the case then what is to assess
No doubt that it is great Creator's bless
If all is written then what else to express
Silently to bear all carry the real success

It's God's grand scheme which to prevail
Human tricks are just always bound to fail
Man from paradise to this world is on bail
Very many whirlwinds come on way to sail

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow