SEA FEVER

Strewn up on pallid rocks of day 
a hulk of years
rusted wracked with rents and gaps 
my soul yawns wide
as shore empties to horizon 
I long for the tidal pull
my blood filled with crafty hooks
Gulls crying my eulogy
landlocked and mired 
a dumb Knut waves
mocking and chiding
lips crack and flake 
cast up on a desiccated shore
expelled on a cold and coarse horizon
Raw slits open like gills
blood flees my body 
like fish from a net
sloughing my skin I emerge 
caddis-like in crimson suspension
Fish crowd my corpse 
shivering in razored shoals
shredding discarded flesh 
my body a sunken vessel
scuttled and spavined 
a haven to crabs, 
a meal to shrimp
Ocean has swallowed continents  
worn mountains smooth
in its panthalassic waves
I drift no more
shambling and wandering 
on parched and arid land
spread beyond comfortable bounds of  latitude
Shunning the tender touch of rain
Ocean’s delicate and distant kiss 
sent to baptise the heathens
passing ignorant in boats across my skin
In a blind and febrile attempt 
to discover safe havens
to regard as home, 
when the cradle of our souls
lies so near, crashing and roaring.
Patience endless, never still                                                                                               
until man gives up his hold 
on earth and is washed home on the morning tide.

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