The Beast

A man on deck reads by lamplight

As the boat swings

 

In some other world, he lives:

In this, his eyes flick upon the antic figures

Inky characters, leaping and dangling

 

A whisper ripples the dark sea

The beast, Leviathan

Stirs in the abyss

The Sea

When I am old, I will only take instructions from the sea.

I know, by suspending myself here

in half sleep, engaged in meaningless conjunctions -

words reduced to things and mechanism;

broken clocks,

qualities draped carelessly on objects,

without sense or fit.

 

Monsters that speak.

 

I could stay at sea and learn all this while wide awake.

I would say:  “I started here, as I now hope to end:

Absent, startled, whole but unaware.”