The Captain Has Drowned

Idols are made in dingy bedrooms,

As kids scour youtube for things to believe in

They find prophets preaching through audio files,

Telling them to scream.

This Saviour's poetry is inter-cut with kick drums,

And it’s beat makes those dirty walls resound,

Making the listener pause,

Causing something to stir.

It worms its way into their bloodstream,

Hitting them like a drug;

A proposed purpose,

An anthem to sing back with a previously unknown fervor.

And in it they found their Captain.

But their Captain has Drowned.

He choked on their admiration,

He was smothered in their praise,

Their hands had unknowingly pried the wheel away from him,

And veered his ship off course.

They all watched his every step through LCD screens,

Caught and coddled his cast-off words as scripture,

Made a mythos out of meager moments,

And propped a man up as a Messiah.

The Captain has Drowned,

And the crew held his head down as he struggled to breathe,

Converted lyrics to church hymns,

Doing it all with a masturbatory zest.

The Captain has Drowned,   

His last words unheard through all the praise.

Wave Watching

There they are with their fucking books and pens.

Writing shaky sentences with words that don’t have weight,

Things that lack any punch or Taste

Can’t even muster up any hint of HATE

It’s all pale and colorless.

… Right?

That’s what I’ll tell myself, anyway.

.......

See I used to be pretty good myself.

Words would just flow like like the tides rolling in,

Cold and merciless and unasked for,

Splashing against the poor unprepared me who was just digging his toes into the cold sand,

Knocking me over.

And what else could I do but taste the failure sewn in the water’s salt and let myself be carried out to sea,

Kicking out as I mastered a doggy paddle.

I was lucky.

Most feel the lapping of the water at their ankles and run back to the dry sand,

Or Immediately start to sink,

But after being carried out,

I knew I could do it,

Buoyed by the weightlessness of how hollow I was in my youth,

The purity of an empty plastic bag--

...not a pretty image...

--Detritus like all the rest,

But at least unaware of that fact

And dimly yearning to be something more.

Words Written over Coffee inspired by the Siren Songs of the Deeper Waters,

Emulating the greats whose influence was felt like massive ripples trying to drown me,

But I endured.

And they made me better in the end,

...

Acknowledging that em-betterment is scary,

Accepting that I'm ready to try a backstroke,

Ready to abandon the Shallows…

But damn,

Is it satisfying to make the switch.

Yet here I am.

Bitching about the form of everyone else who’s attempting to write.

Reading the forums and blogs instead of writing,

Reacting to honesty with snide and spite,

And why?

Because it’s easier to strike out then try,

Too scared of people like myself to make an attempt at anything extraordinary.

Too worried about sinking to Swim Down any more.

Happy to head back to shore with the rest of the world,

Home to Harbours where there isn’t the Love of the open water,

But the Hate and resentment of those who tasted the Salt and were too scared to keep going.

Lifeless because I am,

Pale and Colorless because that’s what is left of my complexion,

My own stench steals the taste,

And all the Hate is held tightly by me;

There is none left to share.