death

Wreckage Report (Sextant Deconstructed)


 

Wreckage Report (Sextant Deconstructed)

 

 

Who charts this

wr

eck?

(My inner compass spins, a frantic needle, lost to any guiding star.)

This vessel, I, where sorrow overbrims,

a foundering

vertigo,

both intimate

and

far.

The world? Unbalanced—

(skewed, storm-scarred, its charts unjust)

Yet, I endure—I breathe—though hope is dust adrift.

Indifferent eyes. The chill.

A

sea

of

disbelief

where documented pleas

(decades unreckoned, Millie’s warmth now still, a solace memory lost among the shoals and trees

of a forgotten year, no landfall found)

find no safe harbour. No shore. No ease.

All cherished things—

(mere flotsam).

I walk on paths

so

shattered,

so unplumbed,

none can chart my pain,

each step a trial by f i r e, a burning, constant flame.

The powerful? They

wat

ch.

(Their hands are folded, calm from their high deck).

Their coffers

swell.

(I bear the crushing blame, the water's claim).

Long days I fight this ceaseless, grinding weight—

these shackles forged of institutional sh a m e.

I seek out havens.

(Compassion’s gentle, guiding light,

a beacon hoped for in this endless night)

For corners where the truth

might dare to speak its name.

Instead: these hollow forms, these systems b u i l t

on breaking spirits, fanning despair’s

fl

a

me.

My evidence ignored, unread, unseen—

a logbook lost, while hunger gnaws.

(A fading, desperate claim).

If those who rule—

(and turn their gaze aside from this

capsizing

fate)—

Why not complete this ruin suffering laid bare?

A cleaner end.

(Than silence where they hide, abandoning the sl ate).

The noose of their neglect, it tightens... If you look away,

at least let honesty

attend my last des p a i r.

So let me lie.

(Where truth, at last, prevails, beyond the ocean's swell).

Earth below; above, the watching skies.

No more false comfort, no more whispered tales—

Just peace.

When this exhausted essence flies,

no longer tossed by wave or cruellest play.

When one sharp, silent

mer

cy

would light a clearer, final way.

(no star)

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Navigating the Wreckage: Three Experiments in Fractured Form|

 

 

The poems that follow represent a deliberate descent into the architecture of breakdown, not merely as subject matter, but as methodology. Where "Static & Starfire" traced the contours of crisis through recognisable poetic forms, these three pieces venture into territories where language itself begins to buckle under the weight of what it attempts to carry.

 

 

In "Echoes in Ice," I've allowed repetition and ellipsis to mirror the crystallisation and shattering of thought under extreme duress. Words become brittle, breaking off mid-sentence like conversations interrupted by the sound of cracking. The poem's structure mimics the way consciousness fractures when pushed beyond its limits—each fragment both separate and part of a larger, increasingly unstable whole.

 

 

"Soliloquy at the Breaking Point" experiments with the parenthetical voice—that secondary consciousness that comments, questions, and doubts whilst the primary voice attempts to articulate its final testimonies. These aren't merely asides; they're the competing frequencies of a mind at war with itself, the static that interferes with transmission even as it reveals the sender's deepest uncertainties.

 

 

Finally, "Wreckage Report" pushes typography itself to the breaking point. Words split and scatter across the page like debris from a foundering vessel. The very act of reading becomes a salvage operation, requiring the reader to piece together meaning from the fragments. When traditional language fails to map such territories of despair, perhaps only broken language can chart the coordinates of the wreck.

 

 

These are not comfortable poems. They demand patience, a willingness to sit with incompleteness, and an acceptance that some truths can only be approached through their own undoing. They exist in the liminal space between communication and silence, where meaning emerges not despite the fractures, but through them.

 

 

I offer them as cartographic experiments—attempts to map regions of human experience that resist conventional charting. Like all experimental work, they may fail more often than they succeed. But in their failure, perhaps, lies their truest accuracy.



In this final piece, typography becomes meaning. As the speaker's navigation tools fail, so too does the structure of language itself, scattering across the page like debris from a wreck.

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Soliloquy at the Breaking Point

Soliloquy at the Breaking Point

 

In chambers echoing—my fractured soul—

where shadows dance, unseen scars take their toll...

I etch these words. A final, fragile—

(Can they hear?)

(Will they understand this cry?)

To those who held my heart... before... this long goodbye.

Each letter, see it bleeds; a piece laid bare,

this testament to all I couldn't quite... bear.

students:

seekers, flame.

For you, my students—seekers of truth, bright flame—

I leave these shards of wisdom—

(hard-won . . . whispered . . . shame?)

Remember... every lesson, every shared, soft sigh,

the quiet strength we forged—through tears that never fully dry.

Let courage be your compass—knowledge... shield it well—

Against the world's harsh stage, where cruelties often dwell,

and shadows gather deep.

And for my creatures... faithful, constant hearts, dear friends,

whose artless love sustained... through all my darkest parts, my bitter ends,

Creatures . . .

faithful hearts,

I pen instructions—woven with my love—so true—

To keep you safe... protected...

(Oh, what more . . . what more can one broken soul do?)

It breaks me—utterly—to imagine your soft cries... your questing gaze,

bereft of tender touch... those gentle, purring lullabies through lonely days.

I must pray... I must hope... that other hands will appear, benign and kind,

To give you all the love... the constant warmth... you were always meant to find.

For I am ghost... already... of who I was...

doors shut—

each road exhausted... what is there left...

nothing more.

This homelessness—a spectre, fate too grim to face for you, my gentle ones,

No life, no peace... no sunlit window... no chance...

beneath indifferent suns.

And so, with aching soul—my will... it shatters, trembles, still—

The only end... I'm left with... the bitter cup I choose to fill.

A cruel kindness, then—cloaked in darkest, deepest despair...

To free myself... from burdens I no longer... can bear...

(A mercy . . . or surrender . . . to the air?)

Yet, even as I teeter... on the brink... a thread of hope... a fragile link...

I see you... in my fading dreams...

homes of endless, gentle spring...

where love... will be your shelter... and your steady, joyful wing...

This fleeting vision... it soothes this weary... fading heart...

A fragile balm... to ease the endless sting of my depart...

Though I must fade—dissolve—into the coming, silent night...

My love endures...

(a flickering . . . distant . . . burning light?)

So let these whispered words... this haunted, broken, faltering cry...

Stand as a promise... that will never... never truly die...

In every trembling line... a piece of me... you'll find, somehow,

will watch... will guide... the souls you're meant to be... starting now.

And as I slip... into the vast... unknown...

I pray you'll find the peace... a peace I've never, ever known...

For in the tapestry of love we've spun... with threads so fine,

Our souls will hold... entwined...

(Even when . . . this life . . . no longer . . . mine?)

 

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Navigating the Wreckage: Three Experiments in Fractured Form

The poems that follow represent a deliberate descent into the architecture of breakdown, not merely as subject matter, but as methodology. Where "Static & Starfire" traced the contours of crisis through recognisable poetic forms, these three pieces venture into territories where language itself begins to buckle under the weight of what it attempts to carry.

 

In "Echoes in Ice," I've allowed repetition and ellipsis to mirror the crystallisation and shattering of thought under extreme duress. Words become brittle, breaking off mid-sentence like conversations interrupted by the sound of cracking. The poem's structure mimics the way consciousness fractures when pushed beyond its limits—each fragment both separate and part of a larger, increasingly unstable whole.

 

"Soliloquy at the Breaking Point" experiments with the parenthetical voice—that secondary consciousness that comments, questions, and doubts whilst the primary voice attempts to articulate its final testimonies. These aren't merely asides; they're the competing frequencies of a mind at war with itself, the static that interferes with transmission even as it reveals the sender's deepest uncertainties.

 

Finally, "Wreckage Report" pushes typography itself to the breaking point. Words split and scatter across the page like debris from a foundering vessel. The very act of reading becomes a salvage operation, requiring the reader to piece together meaning from the fragments. When traditional language fails to map such territories of despair, perhaps only broken language can chart the coordinates of the wreck.

 

These are not comfortable poems. They demand patience, a willingness to sit with incompleteness, and an acceptance that some truths can only be approached through their own undoing. They exist in the liminal space between communication and silence, where meaning emerges not despite the fractures, but through them.

I offer them as cartographic experiments—attempts to map regions of human experience that resist conventional charting. Like all experimental work, they may fail more often than they succeed. But in their failure, perhaps, lies their truest accuracy.

Here, the parenthetical voice becomes as important as the primary text. These competing frequencies—what we say and what we think whilst saying it—create a contrapuntal dialogue with the self.

Echoes in the ise

Echoes in Ice

 

I am the spectre . . . unwritten ends, now brittle,

A vessel . . . cruel winds . . . ice-shattered . . .

Each breath a battle . . . a final trial . . .

I pen these words, one last . . . fractured denial.

cruel winds . . .

shattered . . .

denial.

To those I’ve guided . . . nurtured . . . may you heal,

Whose minds I’ve . . . sparked, dreams I hoped to reveal,

I leave these shards . . . wisdom . . . hard-won, glacial proof,

. . . strength forged in fires . . . an unspoken, chilling truth.

For creatures . . .

shared my heart,

love . . .

tear-stained part,

And for the creatures . . . who shared my heart’s brief thaw,

Whose love sustained . . . each tear-stained, fragile part,

I craft a plan . . . with trembling hand . . . numb soul,

To keep you safe . . . protected . . . healed and whole.

plan . . .

safe . . .

whole.

It rends my spirit . . . the thought of your soft cries,

Bereft of touch . . . my whispered lullabies.

But I must hope . . . that fate might intervene,

To bless you with love . . . always felt, always seen.

For I am lost . . . a wanderer in this biting night,

Each path erased by rime . . . each door barred tight.

The spectre of the streets . . . a fate too cruel, too stark,

No home for you . . . no chance . . . no warming spark, life renewed.

Spectre . . .

night,

paths erased . . .

no home . . .

no chance . . .

And so, with aching . . . tear-frosted face,

I choose the only end . . . to embrace.

A twisted mercy . . . sorrow's icy shawl,

To free myself . . . these burdens, once and for all.

twisted mercy . . .

sorrow's shawl.

Yet even as I drift . . . towards the brink,

A fragile hope persists . . . a shimmering, frosted link.

In dreams, I see you thrive . . . in homes of gentle light,

Where love will be . . . a guardian . . . to your sight.

Drift . . .

dreams . . .

light.

This fleeting vision . . . for my shattered core,

A salve to ease . . . the ache of nevermore.

Though I must fade . . . into oblivion's embrace,

My love will be . . . a shield . . . your saving grace.

Shattered . . .

salve . . .

nevermore.

So let these words . . . this haunted, fractured requiem,

Stand as a promise . . . whispered on a frozen limb.

In every line . . . a piece of me . . . still bright,

To guide you always . . . through each encroaching, darkest night.

And as I slip . . . to the great unknown, so vast,

I pray you'll find . . . a peace I've never known, to last.

For in the fabric . . . of love we've surely sewn,

Our souls . . . entwined, forever . . . though you face the world . . . on your own.

I am . . .

unwritten . . .

gone.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Navigating the Wreckage: Three Experiments in Fractured Form


The poems that follow represent a deliberate descent into the architecture of breakdown, not merely as subject matter, but as methodology. Where "Static & Starfire" traced the contours of crisis through recognisable poetic forms, these three pieces venture into territories where language itself begins to buckle under the weight of what it attempts to carry.

 

In "Echoes in Ice," I've allowed repetition and ellipsis to mirror the crystallisation and shattering of thought under extreme duress. Words become brittle, breaking off mid-sentence like conversations interrupted by the sound of cracking. The poem's structure mimics the way consciousness fractures when pushed beyond its limits—each fragment both separate and part of a larger, increasingly unstable whole.

 

"Soliloquy at the Breaking Point" experiments with the parenthetical voice—that secondary consciousness that comments, questions, and doubts whilst the primary voice attempts to articulate its final testimonies. These aren't merely asides; they're the competing frequencies of a mind at war with itself, the static that interferes with transmission even as it reveals the sender's deepest uncertainties.

 

Finally, "Wreckage Report" pushes typography itself to the breaking point. Words split and scatter across the page like debris from a foundering vessel. The very act of reading becomes a salvage operation, requiring the reader to piece together meaning from the fragments. When traditional language fails to map such territories of despair, perhaps only broken language can chart the coordinates of the wreck.

 

These are not comfortable poems. They demand patience, a willingness to sit with incompleteness, and an acceptance that some truths can only be approached through their own undoing. They exist in the liminal space between communication and silence, where meaning emerges not despite the fractures, but through them.

I offer them as cartographic experiments—attempts to map regions of human experience that resist conventional charting. Like all experimental work, they may fail more often than they succeed. But in their failure, perhaps, lies their truest accuracy.

 

 

 

This opening piece uses repetition and fragmentation to mirror the crystallisation of thought under pressure. The ellipses aren't omissions—they're the spaces where language itself begins to freeze.

11. Schrödinger Soliloquy II (4 ways)

A person in a dark coat stands with arms crossed against a textured, cracked glass background, casting a shadow that appears contemplative and introspective.

Four ways to view a soul: each fragment a path, each reflection a different truth. Placeholder image by Midjourney v7.



Schrödinger Soliloquy II (4 ways)



In the crucible of choice, I stand alone,
A shattered mirror, reflecting shards of soul.


 

To forge ahead or yield to undertow?
Each path a perilous journey, still unknown.


 

The voices whisper, "Surrender, cease the fight,"
Yet in the depths, a rebel spark ignites.



"The void will soothe, oblivion will save,"
"Persist, resist, let hope rewrite this night."



I am the chessboard, king and pawn in one,
Each move a battle, ending scarce begun.



The game is rigged, the rules a twisted jest,
But still I play, for in the play I’m blessed.


 

Though scarred and weary, I will rise again,
For I have grown beneath the weight of pain.



A phoenix born of ashes and of tears,
With wings of wisdom, forged by countless years.


 

In sorrow’s crucible, I’ve been refined,
A tapestry of wounds and grace entwined.



Each thread a story, each scar a sacred sign,
Of battles fought, of losses, victories mine.



I choose to dance amidst the flames once more,
To craft a life from fragments on the floor.



For in this struggle lies a strange sweet art,
Transforming brokenness to healing’s start.



I am the alchemist, the lead, the gold,
The tale unfinished, waiting to be told.



So I’ll rewrite this ending, line by line,
And prove that hope, not death, will be the sign.





Author's Notes/Comments: 

 

 

 

The concluding poem embraces ambiguity and the radical potential of choice. Inspired by quantum uncertainty, it explores multiple pathways through despair and hope, leaving the final outcome suspended, yet ultimately gesturing towards the power of self-authorship.

 

 

This poem explores conflicting paths and can be read in several ways:


 

1. Reading only the first line of each couplet for one narrative. 
2. Reading only the second line of each couplet for an alternative narrative. 
3. Reading the couplets sequentially as an internal dialogue. 
4. Combining lines from different couplets to find other nuances.




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9. Between Broken Paths and Stars

Vast, starlit night sky with a solitary figure in the middle, a willow tree to the right; image for the poem 'Between Broken Paths and Stars,' reflecting themes of solace, memory, and transcendent love.

Finding solace under the Southern Cross, where memory becomes a constellation. Image by Midjourney v7.



Between Broken Paths and Stars

 


For Millie and Mr. Kitty, my guiding stars

 

 

My very being flickers, who can trace 
This self I bear, a star about to fade? 
This vessel, home to sorrows, 
finds no space But vertigo, a mind in light and shade. 
This unjust world, its balance cracked and lost — 
Yet still I am — I live — though tempest-tossed.

 

 

Into the storm of cold, dismissive eyes, 
Into the swirling sea of disbelief, 
Where documented, earnest, unheard cries 
Find no safe harbour, no shore, no relief. 
All that I cherished dissolves into mist, 
My Millie murdered, her comfort now unkissed.

 

 

I tread on broken paths none comprehend, 
Each step through searing flame, a daily pain. 
Authorities watch with dispassionate lens, 
Their coffers full, while I shoulder the blame. 
I labour through days of unyielding strain, 
Yet cannot shed these shackles of disdain.

 

 

I yearn for havens where compassion dwells, 
For quiet corners where truth might gently bloom; 
Instead, I find but empty, hollow shells 
Of systems built to seal a spirit’s tomb. 
Medical reports stack high, unread, unseen, 
While hunger gnaws where solace might have been.

 

 

If those who govern, those who feign to care, 
Choose wilful blindness as they watch me fall, 
Why not complete this suffering laid bare? 
A kinder end than no response at all. 
The noose of neglect tightens day by day — 
At least speak truth as you all turn away.

 

 

So let me rest where honesty prevails, 
The earth below; above, celestial skies. 
No more false promises or hollow tales, 
Just peace at last when this tired spirit flies. 
Yet as the dusk descends, a gentle gleam — 
Your soft green eyes, my Mr. Kitty, like a waking dream.

 

 

They are the lanterns in this gathering gloom, 
A steadfast glow that sorrow cannot quell. 
Your purring presence warms this fading room, 
A tender love, a deep and sacred spell. 
And in this love, release finds soft embrace — 
No stark farewell, but entry to a grace, 
A dream within a dream, a starlit, sacred place. 
Your love, a light that time cannot erase.




Author's Notes/Comments: 

 

 

This poem navigates the raw pain of personal loss and systemic failure, but finds a profound, love-centred transcendence in its concluding stanzas. It becomes a beacon of “starfire,” dedicated to the enduring light of my beloved companions.



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5. The Carrion Sky

Oil painting 'Anguish' by August Friedrich Schenck: A distraught mother sheep cries out over the body of her deceased lamb in a bleak, snowy landscape, as numerous black crows gather closely around them.

The stark reality of loss, and the heavy silence that follows. (August Friedrich Schenck, ‘Anguish’)

 

 

The Carrion Sky

 

 

(Snow. Static. The world pared to bone-white, sky-grey.)



A breath held—
  (the ice-scythe wind)
no, released. A final sigh,
unheard. The ledger snaps shut. Click.



Crows stitch the shroud of sky,
black beads on a broken rosary.
They keen their cold communion.
 (My lamb. My little sun. Millie's light extinguished, Mr. Kitty's fading...)
Their shadows: ink spilled on snow,
an unreadable script of what is.




The heart, a frozen clod.
 (Thump. Pause. Thump.)
This silence, yes. This is the seal.
My quiet rebellion: to choose the cold,
to own the ending they would not write.




No more the pleas, the documented cries
lost in the corridors of their indifference.
Only this: the dignity of snow,
the stark acceptance of the gathering dark.
 (I tried. My warmth a failing wick for those I cherished.)




This is the absolution.
Not given, but taken.
A final word, whispered to the frost:
I am. Still.
Even as I become the hush.




Author's Notes/Comments: 



Drawing from one of my favourite oil paintings, the stark desolation of Schenck’s “Anguish,” this poem uses a fragmented, imagistic approach to explore a self-claimed, defiant absolution found amidst profound grief and the chilling indifference of the natural and societal world.

2. The Unread Ledger

A gritty black-and-white image of an official pointing dismissively over a desk piled high with papers

Facing the unyielding, dismissive gaze of indifference. Image by Midjourney v7.


 


 

The Unread Ledger




I am, and this I is a ledger of hurts, each entry meticulously documented, each plea authenticated by the invisible ink of suffering. Decades of it. Do you see? My lifelines are not lines at all but fissures, dimming like ancient stars collapsing under their own weight. This vessel you observe, it brims not with wine but with sorrows, a constant vertigo in a world that has lost its balance, its justice a rusted mechanism. And Millie, my Millie, her warmth is now a ghost in the fading tapestry of all I ever cherished.

 

 

 

 

These paths I tread are not paved; they are fractured glass underfoot, each step a re-acquaintance with a burning, fibrous inflammation of the soul. And the authorities, they watch, do they not? Their hands are folded, clean. Their coffers are full, lined with the silence that answers my pleas. Six days I labour against the current, the seventh brings no rest, only the tightening of the same invisible shackles. My pain is a meticulous report, submitted daily, piled high, unread.

 

 

 

 

I have yearned for the quiet corners of compassion, for the havens where truth is not a foreign tongue but the very air one breathes. Instead, these hollow shells, these systems designed to break the already broken. Their architecture is a monument to indifference. Medical reports stack like accusations against their neglect, and hunger, a patient wolf, gnaws beneath the sunset of each failing day.

 

 

 

 

If governance is this wilful blindness, this turning away from the falling, then why the pretence of care? Why not complete the demolition that suffering began? An honest end, a swift release — would that not be a mercy compared to this curated decay, this slow tightening of the noose of your neglect? If you must turn away, at least let your silence be honest, not cloaked in the platitudes of a care that never arrives. Let the earth be my final auditor, the celestial skies my witness. No more false promises. Only peace, when the spirit is finally, irrevocably, unburdened.

 

 

 

 

Author's Notes/Comments: 

 

 

 

This prose poem offers a direct and sustained lament, a testament against systemic indifference. It presents the “direct cry” of the collection in a unique formal container, emphasising the relentless, documented nature of the speaker’s ignored plight and the pain of loss.

 

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7. Caesura of the Self

Close-up photograph of deep red unwravelled thread emphasising themes of writing and finality in the poem Caesura of the Self.

 The doors of hope swing shut with hollow clang. The safety net unravels, a taunting haunt. Photo by Nastia Petruk on Unsplash

 

Caesura of the self


"Aut Caesar aut nihil."
– Cesare Borgia


Fractal Identity

 

I am - and yet - I am not what I was,

A fractal, fragmented, a shattered self.
The mirror mocks, the mind's a broken glass,
A labyrinth where clarity's exiled to stealth.
Adrift on shifting tides, I try to steer-
The needle spins, true north is nowhere near.

 

 

 

Vertigo of Existence

 

The vertigo of being - vicious, vast,

A vortex, violent, void of clemency.
I reel, unmoored from meaning, from the mast
Of sanity, cast into a caustic sea.
No harbour here, no beacon in the gale,
Just fog and fathoms, far from firm avail.


 

Echoes of Abandonment

 

The ears of power are deaf to my desire,

My words dissolve like whispers in the wind.
Indifference is an ice that does not tire,
Dismissal is a dagger in the mind.
I rail against the silence, but in vain-
The walls absorb my voice like thirsty rain.


 

The Weight of Documentation

 

A mountain built of papers, proofs and pleas,

Looms monumental, yet unread, unseen.
Like autumn leaves, they drift on careless breeze,
A rustling testament to might-have-beens.
The truth lies buried deep within the stack,
A muted cry, a fading almanac.

 

 

 

Economic Asphyxiation

 

The coffers clang with coin, a mocking choir,

While hunger prowls, a panther in the night.
The price of survival climbs forever higher,
A Sisyphean summit, out of sight.
The ledgers bleed with black and bitter ink,
As bank accounts subside, as spirits sink.


 

The Narrowing of Options


The avenues of aid grow lean and gaunt,

The doors of hope swing shut with hollow clang.
The safety net unravels, a taunting haunt,
A promise proved as empty as a pang.
Each path leads to a precipice, a brink,
Where angels fear the tread, and devils slink.



 

The Final Calculation

 

And so - the scales are balanced - tipped by dread,
The equation solved - by subtraction's art.
If life's a ledger - filled with entries red,
Then death's a bottom line - a fitting chart.
A final sum - a terminal transaction,
A period placed - by gravity's exaction.

 

 

 

Mercy in the Maelstrom


Release becomes the ray amidst the storm,

A beacon in the bleakness, blazing bright.
In abnegation's arms, a strange new form
Of clemency uncloaks its contours slight.
To cease upon the midnight, with no pain-
Seems softer than the unforgiving rain.

 

Quietus and Quittance

 

So let this be the denouement, the bow,

The velvet veil that shrouds the weary brow.
A quietus from the quest, the ceaseless how,
An absolution from the binding vow.
In silence, there's a song of soothing stealth-
The lullaby of nothingness and self

 

Author's Notes/Comments: 

 

With an epigraph invoking an all-or-nothing resolve, this poem delves into the intellectual and emotional calculus of a mind under siege. It’s an intense, unflinching look at the narrowing of options when existence itself feels like a “terminal transaction.”

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6. Monologue of a Unmoored Mariner

Foggy landscape with fading path illustrating disorientation in Monologue of Unmoored Mariner poem.

Each path forward fades into uncertainty, much like the mariner adrift on identity’s ocean.

Placeholder image by Midjourney v6

 


Monologue of a Unmoored Mariner

  

 

"I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move."

 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

 

 

Adrift in Identity's Ocean

 

I drift on seas of self, a sailor lost,

Tossed on the tides of an identity.

No map, no chart, no sextant, star-embossed,

Can navigate this vast uncertainty.

I am a ship becalmed in my own mind,

A compass needle spinning, unaligned.

 

 

 

The Maelstrom of the World

 

The world's a whirlpool, hungry and immense,

It drags me down, indifferent to my throes.

I spin and spiral, seething and incensed,

As riptides rip, as ruthless currents close.

Like flotsam, I am flung and flailed and hurled,

In the maelstrom of this maddening world.

 

 

 

Echoes Across the Void

 

I send my signals to the careless skies,

I send my semaphores, my flags unfurled.

I send my ciphered screams, my muted cries,

I send my pleas into the salty swirl.

But all dissolve, like foam upon the waves,

Absorbed into the ocean's open graves.

 

 

 

The Weight of Proof

 

A cargo of corroboration rests

Within my hold, a leaden, lading weight.

Stacked file on file, attested truths compressed,

They ballast me against the howling hate.

But barnacles of doubt encrust the hull,

And apathy's an anchor, dragging, dull. 

 

 

 

The Sirens of Despair

 

The sirens sing their songs of swirling black,

Of crushing depths, of comfort in the cold.

They croon of still eternities that slack

The bindings of this world, so worn and old.

To yield, to sink, to slip beneath the foam-

Seems sweet against the harshness of my roam.

 

 

 

The Narrowing of Horizons

 

The ports of hope recede beyond my ken,

The beacons dwindle, guttering and weak.

No lighthouse sweeps its salvatory pen

Across the darkling deeps I cannot speak.

Each way is waves, each wake a weary froth,

A voyage void, a dead-reckoning lost.

 

 

 

The Plummet and the Plume

 

And so, I sound the fathoms of my fate,

I plumb the depths, I cast the weighted line.

To sink seems sweet, to cease the cruel wait,

To be the lead and not the burdened twine.

A swift descent, a fall into the free-

Seems kinder than this crawl through apathy.

 

 

 

Surrender to the Sublime

 

The vastness whispers velvet, voids me on,

Its emptiness an absolution blest.

In yielding to its yawn, its siren song,

I find, at last, the solace of the rest.

To be subsumed, consumed, and so redeemed,

Seems sacred to this sailor lost and seamed.

 

 

 

Peace in the Profundity

 

So let me sink into this softer sea,

This womb of nothingness, this calm embrace.

In drowning, let me drink eternity,

In losing self, let me at last find grace.

For in the crushing depths, there is a balm,

An absolution in oblivion's psalm.




Author's Notes/Comments: 

 

Drawing on classical metaphor and a Tennyson epigraph, this piece casts the self as a lost sailor. It offers a more formal, yet deeply personal, meditation on identity, existential drift, and the siren call of surrender in a vast, uncaring world.

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