Flotsam

a poem

I found boundless sea and flat horizon

Under distant sky and dense silence

Like grace and gaffe lost in vast space

An endless liquid limbo lacking in place

This ceaseless dream that I have known

My simple raft that I must alone

 

Water’s immutable but weather’s mercurial

Storms hasten my lost-at-sea burial

Looking for land and landing on none

Drifting aimlessly, chasing the sun

Light glinting brilliance off cool glass facade

But the tides conceal corpses, lifeless and odd

 

Forgotten flotsam bloated and rank

Cadaverous faces pallid and blank

The countless bodies feted in the brine

Conveniently concealed at the end of their time

A rogue wave comes to capsize another

A ship with many souls, now lost of all cover

 

More hands grasping and gnawing for life

In incensed surf, indifferent to such strife

I watched them drowning, these fading few

Choking and gagging the tempestuous slew

Desperate for air and derelict in death

Now closer than ever to their final breath

 

What apathy I felt in apparent agony

What helplessness there was for generic tragedy

Among mass graves and marooners what visage belies

These martyrs without mourners but sanguine blue skies