A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliffs edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them
He dreams of ships
Moving, silently and with
The grace of clouds
Through water the colour of
Tarnished metal
Waves damped down to sullen swells
By the weight of his expectation
They slide through, like icebergs. Unstoppable
Shocking all who see them with their presence
They are more real than the ports they visit
Their sharp profiles stab hard the eyes of those
Who inhabit those low and windswept towns
Though they are made only of wood and tar
Canvas and steel, let all those elements
Be energised and brought together by
The urgency of my desire. If I
Cannot go with the agents of my thoughts
Across glittering, slippery waters
Let them take the part of me that yearns with
Them. Let them stand for me in the parts of
This world I cannot own with my senses.
And then let them return.
He dreams of ships
Spinning across a black velvet sky
Like dice made of bone
Singing their songs
Braiding the emptiness
Into a skein of thought held up
By the lightness of his desires
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