Monday, August 8, 2011

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. 

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

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.