The Wreck

The waves of the sea flow unknowingly

Where graceful ships once sailed

Where swimming backs glistened in setting sun

Where dolphins and turtles swam

            And still the waves come.

The waves have no memories

Not like the land and the sea-floor

Memories can’t be written in the waves -

Like they are in the rock -

Or strewn across the water

Like they are in the sandy bed of the ocean

            And still the waves come.

The ocean keeps her secrets below the surface

Men get caught up in their reflections

While beneath lies something greater

In the shallows or the depths

More mysteries are hidden

Than the ever-undulating surface tells

            And still the waves come.

Near the white sand shallows
Of a palm speckled beach

Lies a secret there for any to see

Anyone who looks deeper

And has an aluminum lung

            And still the waves come.

Past a carpet of timid garden eels

And schools of shimmering jacks

And flashing barracuda

Is the waves’ hulking secret

Weighed down by bright orange fans of coral

And the black, yellow and green of feather stars

It is the wreck

            And still the waves come.

What was once a ship, now a secret garden

Flowing soft corals and multicoloured hard corals

Darting gobies and ponderous groupers

Fish of every colour on a painter’s pallet

Grazing turtles

And slowly patrolling sharks

Tired out from a night’s hunting.

And still the waves come.

This secret garden

This Atlantis beneath forgetful waves

Is hardly touched by man and rarely seen

An oasis in the underwater desert

            And still the waves come.

But if you go where the waves can’t remember

And where the storms have long passed

Where the turtles and the white-tips roam

You will see a slice of Eden

Buried from man forever

Beneath waves with no memory

            And still they come. 

Even Pinocchio Knew His Maker

The puppets mock the puppeteers

not noticing their strings

They dance and hop and raise their voice to sing...

All they know are peers

of wood and wire

of paint and polish

of termite hollowed ash

of ventriloqu’d voices

and mimicked choices

that with their pride does clash.

“We are the kings

We hold the strings!”

They obediently say

not knowing who in the air

above holds fatal sway.

Don’t you see the enemy?

He wishes you to dance

your time away until you say

it was nothing but mere chance.

Don’t you see the enemy?

He wishes you to hide

him behind a myth or blind

tradition that you deride.

And what if sin and evil

are more than dated words?

What if they hold meaning

more than the absurd

notion of a god that acts like a child—

notion of a god that is anything but mild—

For what does this race earn

if not cruel death

by turning on itself and ignoring the rest?

We rape and burn and pillage

We steal and break and kill

A child takes a village

But one father has no will

We sow our own destruction

And arm our future foes

We revel in corruption

To what end? No one knows

And all us so-called-people

Who think ourselves so good

With hubris higher than a steeple

At the wayside we all stood

The spectators are guilty

The watchers did the crime

The reclining ones have blood-stained hands

We all live in the grime

Not one of us is sinless

We all hold equal share

We can make ourselves all kinless

Or admit there’s burdens to bear

When we see that we’re all brothers

And sisters straight from birth

We’ll be halfway to discovering

Our purpose here on earth.