from GHOSTING

Before you step on board, ask yourself

how much can you erase before you vanish?

What traces are you willing to lend, what secrets

do you need to conceal?

Crewing the ship one learns to feel bad

about how far you need to go

to feel bad, when you cast the net

and find yourself flapping around, gills bloodied

black eyes grayed like marble glass, caught in

this boat with shadow friends

that dissipate in ocean breeze

while sea snakes walk S shaped

off deck planks and steamed crab

blossoms white shells and brains

crack and break like cauliflower

skulls and irradiated thoughts

the gutless landscape bugs out

point their pistols up

and BANG!

cloud intestines drop

If heaven pulses like a bulging vein

the wind hurls the gulls’ caws

into an El Nino squall

and the sea wails will throw you overboard

just to watch you drown

On the deck the sirens’ screams

pretzel shape the fog

the fog downs the galley wall

and builds a gated community on your eyelashes

Aaaargh!

there blows a schooner

small enough for you to swallow

and Aaargh!

the sea dragon aches and

Aaargh!

regrets curdle like warm yogurt on the jetty rocks, but

your face already ice creams

in the lactose puddle

of your desert hot head

a mirror of batshit-iceberg-slicking life drip

crusting over the grief horizon

ripping off your eyelids

like the Bodhidharma of sleepless nights

that exhaustion won’t let you fail

because among so many

you have to believe

you alone will persevere

Ghosting yourself at 3 AM

the lover’s destiny is to stand in solidarity

with the monsters that want to eat them

A land lover massages their jelly fat

to become a more delicious snack

hops in the water and

the siren’s glee

sounds like a colony of black ants

at the tetherball court

when the kid with a face like a dirty plate

gets pegged with a dodgeball and plops

their ice cream in the greedy sand

Despair, this ship can only be skippered by ghosts and

Departure, every hull is cramped with smacking lips

and the wanderer’s heart pumps

sticky down my sweatless hand

Salvation is the wound stabbed flank

and a sea hag with seaweed hair

holding a blood tipped pen

The gunboat reports Blast Blast Blast

white flashes in the smoke filmed sky

and plop plopping

swallow corpses pound down like pepperoni shaped

nipples shaved off Zeus statues and dropped from Olympus

I read the inflated animal in the morning mirror like a bible

because the person I think I am

inside this picture of the captain

always has this feeling

I’m going to drown and

the stars spackled on the water

cackle like the glint of a pack

of smiling hyena’s teeth

waiting for me at the deck end

If they break on the hull of my skull and

slosh loud in the absence of sound

My hands are like two heavy chords

an immemorial song

holding tight to the wheel