The Buccaneer In the weather of his dreaming A dull grey mist Blends the edges Of the above And the below His horizon no longer Sharpened keenness
Where once the clinched nails Held fast the full-ribbed clinker Planed and skimmed To the finis terre And made battles With the monsters of the deep Where once the smooth-oiled planks Of seasoned oak creaked In the high sun’s radiation Now groans with agued age And splits the splinters of wisdom Into brittle sticks of parched sinew Smiling with confused emptiness Redundant in thought and deed
Just as now the proud Proud jutting prow Is blunted No more the wave slice Synergy of winded cloth And sheeted tension Dividing the waters In pursuit of gems That boyhood treasure Plundered in eternal leisure Is now spent Linen sags today As yesterday Listless and heavy cheeked The contraband was spent The open chest full empty Cutlassed spoils dispersed Vacant and sallow-cheeked faces stare From dark recesses everywhere And he himself in skull and bone From deep in a spray-damp chair
Which was not always so When strutting the decks Visioning through the prophetic glass The shortened view And the long range investment Riding aloft the crests Tearing through time Amassing considerable wealth Crafting imagination with fire Jewelled and crafted fire And objects of great beauty Ripping through the Roaring Forties Into a cascade of rich abundance
Until the distant years drew near And gleaming metals gathered rust And riming reason turned to dust And And memories forgot themselves Forgot themselves and And Fragmented time and space
The old buccaneer yawned And the chasm yawned too Tales displaced doing Stories found their summaries In the hold The gold is tarnished What is old is withered And encompassed with an acrid mould
The eyes that smiled grow grey Deep blinking confusion Non-thought nonsense The glimmer of who are you And hopeful of a deeper well Of cognition
You are who Who are you You are you How do you do Not too good These days
Bless Bless the shadow The like of which inhabits me Bless Bless the blessed memories The dreams of which possess me Bless Bless the man The seed of whose being made me
The old man falters unbalanced on the edge Still dancing on the dancing ledge His canon defiant His cannon silent now And at the edge of the world He drifts helpless Over the eternal waterfall With monsters Me and all