O Captain! My Captain!

Feeding the buzz on stillness
get up on stages of living
look out further than the shadows
of their aristrocratic noses

Call me O captain! My captain!
I lead you yet not
read me within a master poet's
pain made immortal

His heart bled for others
as he stumbled on the deck
steering on stormy seas
deep within himself

Never getting his sea legs
loving his roles
clown and pauper
Lover, father or prisoner

his last role was for himself
an exit stage left
he has left the building
hear the dirge rumble

Exult O shores and Ring O bells
he has reached the furthest shore
he walks the home of his dreams
love painted that came alive.



(*last italic line sourced from Walt Whitman's poem of the same title*)