The ordinary mind is nothing – a chance to not break.

 

Our letters are thoughts

of having private feelings

to being in array

entombment marble

We were wise

to having been

 

Be wary of sirens

which I have implanted

to lead the silent ones

astray

 

There are no awnings

in an ocean

no cover for the hurricane-watchers

You, Amphitrite, veil rustled by wind

perched still upon the shore

My arms the nightmists

that blanket the Pacific

I embrace you through the struggle

 

This horse below me it belongs to the sea. He a creature that yearned to be tamed, despite his wild neighs of defiance. Glaze myself over, reminded that if I am to rule all waters of the earth, that must mean I am in control of all movement also. The cause of every day is the pain of bleeding never. Where orthodox ducks in and declares, “Here – a boat!”

 

This goddamn horse called night. A horse from the sea, it does not wish to ride, it is not an ocean. Culled from waves, beating mercilessly against the dusk-stained horizon, summer’s reply was never. I may choose who I rescue. But even gods have their limits. The moon’s position this night ensures my planet’s even farther away than it’s meant to be.

 

The stallion unborn

as of yet

small tides

 

Cloud frowns

at gnarly sun

Drought dries the

earth the people

they cry out at me

in prayer & song

 

Me and this goddamn horse

I will answer with a storm

But only when

time is tide and

the winds have forgiven

my worry

 

I was the shore, too, in years unknown, unrecorded – the historians all aghast at my sudden disappearance. Withdrawal is perhaps the chief agent of interest. It defies all other movement to trickle meaning. Modern only to the floor of that lake I spawned, fed upon treacle and ocean floor violets, the scythe I use to tame this beast is more pertinent than the flawless form my body presents. A man has to tame his own desires or else live a life of torture. In such a life, every conversation, the slightest exchange is a wrenching reminder of what really controls us when the gods are absent.

 

The beast throws down

its head tries to bury

its own depths the sand

has its lots

 

Shores can be made

of many things – rock,

sand, grass, even

a mountain

 

Nowhere yet has

our hero erupted

his fleece army

of shadow above us

Made the sky like

night only in the

junket’s vision

of a day

 

Let us sit

beneath these shades

with our wine

until those clouds

come & please let them

as this sun

is diminishing our

movement capacity

Oh let us –

 

(but not once is Neptune able to hear their cries for allotment for his own task that which secretly controls those forces they wish for him to unfurl they have wished for some sign or symptom his presence his reign and yet the sweetness of his entanglement allows for no variants there are moments one at a time and then there is movement yet the action solidifies into a stop-start beginning that will end them all sooner than he may afford to stop engaged as he is with his own turmoil mired confusion this task the business with equus ferus and the winds have begun to mock his gestures and then perhaps he himself is persuaded by the sirens’ earthly calls)

 

Make blood an ocean. The certainty that a clear sky presents – that is what alarms. No higher ceiling than that – the fade-out drears their movements down until they are ankledeep in the dust, too moored to the barnacle-encrusted piers that deride their attempts at ascension.

 

We the hero-

sufferers of this

drought will we not get

our own statue

to commemorate our

drunken struggle

to hang on &

not feel the burdens

of death too

swiftly?

 

We want out, the

dryness and the heated

winds – silent simmering

that engulfs our

breaths and pre-

vents our singing

 

What are we to do

but for the cloud leakage

that must baptize

We know not sing-

ularities we are broken

savage by this medi-

terrain & no winter

 

Lord, do you see our

promise, this cow for

yr horse, an ex-

change that will

satiate both our

worlds – yes, it is

 

A bridge & we hope

to hear yr steps upon

it – this dying not

our thing, yr fantasy

still to be reverenced

by those with strength

to stand

 

But the creature fought on, and the god tried to stab it with his fork. The wife sat quietly upon the shore and watched the commotion that disturbed the calm of the ocean and, as the struggle neared its completion, waves began to tear into the both of them, so that the two bodies – god and beast – had to equally contend with the ravishings of the salty waters. This gave their struggle a further tint of madness in the wife’s eyes (for she was the sole to see) – a chaos of movement of interlocking forms each becoming more brutal in strength as the tides set upon them, rabid as the cloudless night, and cold they became as they fought against the currents. Until the waves fought back and, beating against flesh and hide but unable to gain mastery, the all-out struggle between god, beast, and nature unleashed the first ripples of a tsunami.

 

Now sprinkles seem

to come our sacrifices

have wrought opulence

of a new season –

Let us finish the wine

Before we leave this patch

& head down to the shore

to offer our final thanks

 

Dear Neptune has arisen,

strengthened our valves

our fields shall give rise

to the richness that our

raped soil has forgotten

feeds

 

Breath of ambivalence

admitted but no

it must rain

One hears the

thundering

our god has

commanded the

gulls screech fair

warning the sky

blackens to seal

its fame

 

This night our cellars

to be full this night

we will watch from

our cellars and see

the waters

that life brings

and in our chests

we know which way

the winds we are

led, now Neptune

 

Is upon us, hear

the rumble up ahead

The tide slowly

disappears

 

We will sleep before it. But lo – the tide has not returned. And in its place, a horse comes galloping toward us – a fire burning in its yellow eye. The rumble continues, and now it comes seaforth not skyforth. A wave higher than a tower, and up on top, Neptune in his boat-chariot, spear raised triumphant.