WHENE'ER I ERR

This wavering path
has been silent suffrage
nearly forgotten,
not worth repeating -
It is a mast of gilded folly
affixed to foundering ships,
cast adrift into merciless fogs of daydream.
Thrust crooked, dark and jaggedly swayed
thrown open, laid bare and raw
found dense and smashed
against the craggy looming edges.

One does not ask for this,
but handles it as best one can,
up from the turgid foam,
wrapping bloody-knuckled spite
defiance and stubborn will intertwine
whole gutted remains - gripping flesh,
dug deep in ancient failures.
The mind – a decadent sea sponge
caught in recoiling tentacles
squeezed to near inexistence.

Bedraggled,
the sop of fertile staining algae temptress
licks these torn keels,
jabbed tattered resolve -
reminding with ease
of that simple surrender
beneath the tides,
giving way to the inevitable.

I will not allow her triumph so easily,
though one day she must –
cackling gales at the pains
I held on - begging
some omnipotent force
to sing a mariner’s lullaby -
or unaccomplished welcome.

Hence, whene’er I err
I simply look up into the skies
and find my moral center
staring from that beacon
at the top of the world:
the flood - a distant memory
come crashing
on my spiritual compass.
…and perhaps, somewhere
forgotten bluebirds reign supreme
left quietly
to mingle with the stars.@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).