Running Low

Albacore dreams float soundless,
drop to sediment, petrify
and wash up:
broken empty shells
pulverized underfoot,
inflicting wounds at will.

All the lost blood
won’t collect
on the beach,
the sand gulps it and dives
into froth.

Burrowed in muck,
all the ‘O’s and ‘AB’s
reaffirm their common lineages,
summoning up a plume of sanguinary vitality
(luring jerky lurker sharks
near the shore to nip some ‘A+’
from a lazing boogie boarder–
that type’s always running low
for some reason).

———-

Original draft posted to WHARVED on 3/2/12,
entitled #130

Sailor Parry

In the midst of a blight
brought forth by injustice,

Sailor Parry
abandoned his bow

in favor of an idiosyncratic approach
buoyed by the near-legitimate agency
with which so many people
squabble on a near-daily basis.

Suffice it to say that he’s miserable now.
The life on the sea was a demanding one,
but nothing he couldn’t handle
(with a nice snifter of scotch
warming in his palm).

He’s not as much of a red tape connoisseur
as most folks sharing the cubicle farm,
and his frustration tends to surface
in the form of a lighthearted jibe
(sometimes misconstrued as unobstructed malice).

As the weeks and months pass,
Sailor Parry begins to doubt
the instinct that drew him
from the briny depths to the skyscrapers
of those self-professed modernographers
who derive satisfaction
from pushing the 21st Century agenda
as far as it can possibly go–and then some.

“All the world’s a sea, but some of it
parades around as a c-word.”