Adrift I.

Fourteen days adrift at sea.

Morale had ebbed as far.

Sun dried spittle on the lips

Which crimped like roads to Shangri-La.

Men sucked orange (flesh and pips)

And ground the rinds down for their tea:

“A treat,” they’d whisper, close to tears;

The waves below lapped hungrily.

More days passed, in their place fears

Took sailors in their grips;

Those fears hauled three men overboard

To glug a fate beyond their ship’s.

At length one sailor saw his sword

Not as a sword but as some shears

With which to trim a better meal than

Dregs and rinds and empty beers.

Man looked to man much less like man,

Much more a scrumptious hoard:

Offal, marrow, suckled meats —

Enough for fillets flat and broad.

Lies (The Good Kind)

The thing we must say first is that it’s blue;

Next I’d venture comment upon its size;

I fear to the ocean I’d bring nothing new

Without espousing some appalling lies.

But I’ve reasoned that lies can be for good,

And can, perhaps, point to our higher truths;

Those equestrian types would have me rude

If I dissembled not my hate of hooves.

And in this case my verbal reticence,

My sneaky sealing of opinion’s doors,

Shows that I’m conflict-shy (at the expense

Of my contempt for those who would talk horse).

So when I call the tide land’s fading kiss,

Just know there’s nothing in my verse amiss.