Maritime Mythos
Down by the harbour
Where the angels
Come in
Trailing cigarette smoke in their tattered wings
Their nets woven from their own blood
And laden with the innocent.
They drag their catch up steps of ember
Stooped on their burning feet
To the threshold of their father’s door.
“Father is absent”
Mutter the slaves at the angels’ feet.
The angels tremble
“We know.”
Down by the harbour
Where the fishermen
Lift nets, glowing,
Full of fallen stars,
They drop
One by one
Into the fishermen’s pockets.
Ethereal beings
Downed, wings clipped
Power contained
Now treasure, slipping
Through the greasy hands of greedy men.
The children hear the stars sing
They weep
They know.
Down by the harbour
Where the siren song
Of gulls and crows
Is the only thing the blind man knows,
Where cruel storms bring civilizations to their knees
And prophets
Mere children
Call to a deaf god,
Where the sea knows not of compassion
Or pity.
The monsters of the deep are calling.
An answer?
Who knows.
Down by the harbour
Where the trees bend to the serpent’s will,
Screams echo off the pearl bricks
And through storm
They walk.
They, the harbingers of the final prophecy
Drawn from the dying breaths
Of a child drowned upon the sea.
And in the sky?
Not a flicker
Nor a sound
Listen.