Heart Of A Pirate

The day you lost everything, where nothing is left for you,

all you know and love gone.

Stay and you shall fade,

a shadow of your former self.

It wasn’t your fault,

you may not believe this and all I can do is guide you away.

So that when you are partly whole, you can look back.

To contemplate.

Let’s sail across the seven seas, climb the highest peak.

A beautiful world awaits us,

it may seem a little dark, a little fucked up.

I do not know what awaits us, but I know it’ll never be boring.

Memories and experiences await us,

a single life we have, a life of accumulated memories.

Hold my hand and let’s burn brightly while our flame’s strongest.

For when we start to fade, memories will be all that sustain us.

1967 Ford Mustang Fastback.

Driving it across town.

From my grandfather all the way to my brother,

and finally, to me.

With reluctance, apprehension against a girl behind the wheel,

or maybe who or what I am.

This town with its thinking its attitude,

meeting you was the only redeemable thing in this town.

A clear horizon, a town absent of tolerance.

I will wait for you,

at the diner at the edge of town.

Come and we’ll drive to a place far and vast,

where tolerance we may meet.

Stay and we may never leave, where regret and lost will find us.

Smoke rises from the stone chimney

door creaking open, wrapped in a thick red scarf.

She steps onto the snow filled fields

crackling burning wood behind her.

To the north east, a dew dance across a leaf

bending it with its weight and hanging at the very tip,

slowly its weight bends the leaf to the surface

ripples outwards across the reflective surface.

I’m a wanderer with wear on my clothes

stitches over them and my backpack,

scars and memories etched in body and mind.

A stop is but a transit enroute,

a way station minimalist in construction.

Tracks in water, covered in sand, or afloat in the air.

A deer by the lake, ripples outworth from her mouth,

birds atop branches parallel with the water.

Up the stream bears relax upon the shallows waiting.

She walks towards the water

her clothes loose and baggy

carrying a basket with ease.

I’ve dream of fantastical places

seen a world beautiful beyond imagination

a world no brush can capture.

Wood slowly multiply by the cabin wall

an axe planted on a stump nearby,

an easterly wind blows across the land.

Cool and wet, sunlight breaching the tree line.

Fog dissipating and falling back into the woods,

small pearls shining across the grass.

A cry bellow from the cabin

Frost armour the leaf sides

like thorns on a rose

touching the lakes icy surface, fused.

Not a thing stirs

door creaks open slowly,

a child wrapped in a thick red scarf

weighting heavily on her shoulders.

From the shadows the lady emerged

fresh and filled with vigour,

she smiles at the child

as she plunged into the snow.

The train approaches,

the snow-covered easterly track clears as it rushes into the station,

the sand-covered westerly tracks remain still as the tracks remain barely visible.

I held her hand,

as the train stops before us.

My backpack stitched and weathered, hers’ new and freshly made,

my scarf still around her tiny shoulders.

The doors open

we step forward.