I have dreams of seas and oceans
Aboard a sailing ship
At the helm of a dinghy or sloop
Whatever moves from wings on waves and winds
It’s a small and fragile boat, it should be,
Riggged to serve a no return escape
Its sails expand beyond my lungs
And breathe a bigger life than me
Wrapped around in puffed up sails
I am just a minuscule and lighter man
Lucid enough to remember the butterfly
A little lost between a pair of wider wings
Woven round a worm
The pretty insect is in fact its very wings
And its body a pretext to fly
Yes, let the oceans make me feel
As small as modern men refuse to be
On seas that seem immense and are indeed
Submerge the whole of me within a trough
Threaten me to break the hull in two above
A crest
Divert my route along the strongest streams
Unseen to all except the seasoned sailor
And this will I admit that I am not
Even worse than that
A poorest swimmer I confess to be
That’s the reason why, precisely,
I had become a bohemian on boisterous boats
What else could men embrace
If not their fearsome phantoms
When fancy faces leave with love?
So, come and comfort me
With the tempests and terrible temper of yours
Oh you the sea! Mistress over maelstroms!
Address to me the sweet and sour distress
The mess you toss at me in fits of fondness
Make me mild and meek, a modest matelot
Stir up the storm that can shatter and shake
Any canoe, even a caravel, or flaunting fleets
Like a calabash afloat
After these ordeals and humbling mortal blows
The boat will bend and sink from stern to bow
In saintly past when man was part of mankind
We would have reasoned out the need
To save our souls
But now in times of self-esteem and lesser faith
I should have blazoned granted rights
To save my self
Not a message yet was sent in desperate prayers
No SOS or SMS, no buoys or bottles
For I could never sense despair when free at sea
There was not the slightest effort so to spoil
The moment I had waited for in awe and marvel
As I, or something else, decide it’s time to dive
I will dare descend to darker depths
Where a silhouette can stand without its weight
Suspended, topsy-turvy maybe, who can know,
Having not a single hint about the roof and floor
To fairly halve the waters into hell and heaven
Though the former seems to have begun to freeze
Still, before a man as me arrives at either end,
He, as I, will have to deal with certain duties
Such as taming all the demons dwelling near
The slime that sleeps along the slopes below
Viscous vegetation, mucus by a monster fish
That slobbers where my hands could slide
I must also learn to breathe again all along
These are all the fears a fool can host inside
And despite the disgust and distrust of the depths
I can see behind the frailties freaks as me can frame
And blame the bliss of blue abysses for
Under the surface of oceans and seas
We unveil a living way without the worldly worries
About the weight to bear or clothes to wear at all
The wonder words the wiser whales can wean us from
I have learnt about the whole caboodle
From those who bamboozle their own laws
Tricking the greedy with lies
Or those like Rapunzel, with the hair’s flow
Charming the lonely with tales
And I’m relieved and happy
The world on lands is not allowed beneath,
Wanting the wits of the waters,
To wield its weird and wretched witchcraft
On memories man could have of me
The luring dread and lasting dreams
Over the depths of the oceans and seas