My heart a pocket empty of metaphor
Well, almost, as I walk on this October beach
The battleship sky a stage
Where drama unfolds
Between ragged characters
Who fly
At the whim of the Writer
Tattered by their passage
Beaten black and blue
Inscrutably angry
Amorphously threatening
No layers of clothing
Nor meaning
Can resist the chill of this wind
Slicing through my soul
The horizon bereft
Of silhouette
Save the optical illusion of the points of waves
As if I could see that far
Jetsam washed up on a hostile shore
Sea trash
Ripped from the deck
Where I once made fast the lines
And painted everything in sight
Another mate swabs her deck
Holding the mop
That was once mine
That I did not know at the time
Was the most precious
Possession
Give me the rum of each endless day
While the smell of snow in the air
Manifests the white comforter
I me lay me down drunk
Where the beach ends
And the beach grass begins
Meeting the long night
Of my dreams
Of un-being
Jess Killmenow 