The Drowning Of Four Sons

   
   
The breakwall is death, reaching    
Out into the merciless seas, trembling    
Incarnation of creation, withstanding    
Battering waves shifting the ocean bed.    
Memorial stones evoke peril, reinforcing    
Mindless power of the elements, echoing    
Silence of supple flesh and brittle bones.    
Your father led us through salty mist    
To the dead end at the threshold of the storm,    
Pointing to the waves, he calmly spoke of the rip    
Dragging the surfer to the anvil of the sea.    
         As I am the ocean, a rock you must be.    
         Prepare yourself to drown in me.    
In my youth I dreamt of riding a longboard,    
Just like our fathers. They’d take the kids out    
Into the surf and push them onto the whitewash,    
Shouting, “Paddle, paddle!” I’d scream with grit teeth,    
Feeling the power of the ocean rush through my body.    
I remember seeing you at the end of the breakwall    
Next to your father. I was close. I could almost touch it.    
I never felt so alone, waiting for the hammer strike.    
   
   
   
Why does winter’s touch relieve, why does the warm    
Embrace of the sun make me sick? Human conditioning,    
Mindless control? Whatever deals you make whimpering    
On the bathroom floor, breaking out in a cold sweat,    
Twisting tourniquets, seeking the cold hand of redemption,    
You know how it ends because you will it to end this way.    
(Down isn’t up anymore, it’s time to sink into oblivion),    
I’ll take you under my arm and smother you like an ocean,    
Holding you tight in the grip of the winter storm,    
Pulling you down into the chilling depths of night    
Where darkness is impenetrable and the merciful sun    
Will never make you sick with fever again.    
         Southern seas roll    
         Salt and freshwater wine    
         Wets the lips of the river mouth    
         Washing the wreck ashore.    
“We went barefoot mulberry picking on my birthday    
And I kissed the fallen fruit bleeding between your toes.”    
You found me, barely breathing under the mulberry tree,    
Paralysed by the silkworm devouring leaves of consciousness.    
In your hands, running your fingers though my hair    
Wrapping me up in aesthesia silk, soothing whispers    
Holding on to every breath, binding pupal existence.    
Morì spinning circles in a death bath.    
   
   
   
Calvin Felix was a dreamer,    
He dreamt everyday that the rains would cease,    
That the bleeding grey sky would vaporize    
Giving back hope to an empty world.    
He dreamt of galaxies of angels    
Adorning night and the sky ablaze    
With the eye of providence, beaming eternal light    
Guiding him home to salvation,    
But the deluge did not stop and misery reigned.    
Calvin Felix dreamt of death,    
He dreamt of dying everyday,    
Sinking into a bath while rain pelted on the metal roof,    
Silence seeping into his ears, pulsating memories    
Of the womb, cries muted by the horn of mort.    
Swallowing his tongue, the arrowhead of time    
Sliding down the back of his throat    
Piercing his lungs, life echoing in bubbles,    
Fading softly like deliberate footsteps of a hunter    
Following a dream of death.    
   
   
   
Born into paradise under the full moon,    
We stood ashore on the eve of the rising king tide.    
He said, “I have never been so close to my son.”    
It is because of him I fear the depths of darkness,    
He dammed his child with a cruel hand    
Pushing fragility to the edge of trust,    
Only to discover he has proven nothing,    
But fractured innocence with malice.    
I cannot swim to hold my head above the wrath of the sea,    
I dare not walk along the shoreline by his side, in fear    
The waves will wash away the grains of sand    
Beneath my feet, loosing my footing,    
Falling into the flow, the force dragging me,    
Hands gripping my sodden clothes,    
His weight holding me under    
Until I stop kicking and gasping, beating    
With my fists and heart of the heartless.    
The invisible force of the ocean    
And the power of presence,    
Relentless, like the pull of the stars and the moon    
I am drowning when my father asks me,    
“You’re only a child, what do you fear?”