what might have been lost
oh, that which is lost
what it all might have cost
what it's already cost
is nothing
was nothing
is every thing
every
no
thing.

She-pirates?

I was amused to see these and many other paintings of she-pirates on display at Surrey's in New Orleans, on Magazine St.

Fly High Jolly Roger!

Voyageur

To set forth in the mist
on glass reflections
of a world that never was
shimmering, beckoning
a siren call.

To paddle out further
then the old man says is safe
and tempt her
Gitchee Gumee
with the bait of another wraith.

A daredevil, red and white
a treble hook in the depths
wedged into igneous
a rusted reminder
of trolling with impunity.

My paddle dipping deeper
in starlit Superior
j-stroke swirling eddy
truth and truest north
the last voyageur.

Jolly Roger

Ride
high
Jolly Roger.
Let us fly to the ends once again.
Our parchment was forged-
let us loosen the scourge
and hurl the full force of our men.

Fly
fly
Jolly Roger.
The treasure is lost in the deep.
With swords, a rout-
we’ll hang, no doubt
with none but our whores to weep.

Fie
fie
Jolly Roger!
Why smile in the face of death?
We chose this road
put our marks on the code
to make mayhem until our last breath.


This
is goodbye
Jolly Roger.
A time we all knew would come.
Our powder is wet.
They’re flying fleurettes.
Outnumbered outlaws, outgunned.

Die
die
Jolly Roger
We’ll see you in depths of glory.
No yield or surrender
this fight they’ll remember
and this fire is all that is holy.

Did you love me?
Do you love me?
Will you love me?
The questions of the ever-child.

Did you want me?
Do you want me?
Will you want me?
Eros, in retort, reconciled.

If you could-
If there was no should-
Does that mean you would?
…To be existentially beguiled.

A masquerade
Scheherazade
willingly flayed
standing mute at this our trial.

Oxbow

An absence of temperate
seasonality
back and forth between guilt
and liberty
want and should
gin and tonic
in monsoon country.

The river ran red
brown
full
fast
furious
and we didn’t want it…

Now it is dry
mud caked and cracked
stagnant in emptiness
and depletion
and the children stand
with their toes in the mud
in the middle of a channel-
an oxbow stranded
by dwindling currents
holding only fevers.