The Caustic Winds

 

Look into the restless angered winds

Where stand battered frightened mutineers

Hands of rain wash want from starving eyes

As they wield their thoughtless words

Returned by laughing ghostly herds

Stampeding shadows over ever-darkening skies

 

Between dogged belief and futile reach

Unanswered questions loom and smolder

There’s nothing that time holds forever fast

Armed with their useless emptied pales

Dropped in thunderous crashing gales

Vain attempts to bail away the aching past

 

Tiny grains pour through the narrowed glass

Mournful pleas repelled by deafened ears

Blown by the caustic winds of wish, woe and wait

While cracking rigging creaks and strains

Over the pained moaning lost remains

That left too soon because they came too late

 

“Amen” sang the captain

While slaughtered by the crew

Who were swallowed by the waves

That had fuck all else to do

 

                                           

                          s. paul  (Jan. 2021)