Washed & Heaved & Waiting
2018, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
gull flocks wade in an unseemly wasteland–
an impending graveyard, where
bones only unearth themselves
at breaking dawn: when we, so lowly,
release. viscous like spilt blood, creeps
the petroleum. fatty as marrow, pulp and
wasted rations. and mirror the surge:
fashion tangled nets, mangle the ocean’s face,
sculpt a brilliant bottle, only to
fire it in cold deep waters and fracture
nearby faces of ceramic calcium shell. who
is spreading miasma as seamlessly as an infant’s
breath? a bereaved breath that
empties itself from delicate gills and hearty lungs,
a breath– lost in the war of false politics,
false characters, false promises.
they loiter at the gates of ocean-washed ribcages,
too inflated to enter, too inflated to understand.
even underwater, the bass discern
a fake gold cabinet drowning in a story of salt,
blind to roaring currents devouring lives.
it takes cognizance to listen.
the universal arid world prays;
bone-bleached coral, ashen skies,
forgotten creatures, wrecked beaches,
a million souls lost beyond the seascape–
these are the refugees of the ocean,
awaiting a savior,
so mightily.
scene: end of the world
skipping copper pebbles,
the obtuse fisherman claims that he
will become a birdhunter as the
gray gull floats
alone.