Marooned

I thought I saw a man standing on Leigh’s roof in Donaghmede,
Hooded,
Holding what seemed to be a warning sign in my direction.
But it wasn’t a man, it was a chimney,
Smoking innocently, and even if it was a man,
I chose to ignore his selfless warning…

And then I looked up and saw the moon, so full.
I tried to strike up a conversation with the words of a poet
Ringing in my mind’s ears,
That the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.
But the moon ignored me like I ignored the hooded man’s warning sign,
Leaving me to reach the sea in solitude and ponder my mistakes…

The white light now shimmers off the surface of the sea,
Taunting me by withholding its wisdom
Gleaned from centuries of swallowing mercilessly
Those naïve enough to believe in its tranquillity,
And I can only sit and watch the water lap on the steps
Of my secret seat four rows down…

Alone.

I am a self-destructing machine who cannot have
The simplicities of the sea or the
Immaculate mystery of the moon.
They all run away before my pleasantries
Because I am from a different decade
When things were more intimate and less casual…

The handrails of my stepped seat bear evidence
Of a visitor to the sea who never left its grasp,
Their clothes’ remnants tied around the steel in a knot
As a warning not to follow them to the depths.
The second warning of the night,
But will I heed it?

The ocean could just carry me away,
Or drag me down,
Either way, I would get what I want.
The ripples are so tempting as I gaze with envy
At the sleeve blowing gently in the wind, and the
Lapping water is whispering my name…

And it grows louder until it is all I can hear.

The whispering then mocks my foolishness
For braving these Baltic elements just to watch
From afar as boats leave Howth Head to places
I can only dream of setting foot upon.
A chance of escape lies in the route of the sea
But I cannot swim so what becomes of me?

Nothing.
So I continue to look longingly across the ocean,
Willing it to rise up and sweep me from my seat,
Sweep us all from this life lived in futility,
In some falsified hope that by doing so
I can re-mould my being to be like every other 21st century man…

Then, for a brief moment,
A light shines on the horizon between the islands,
Coaxing me to take those tentative first steps
Into the icy depths disillusionment has carried me
To thus far, to a level of despair even he knew
In his short, soundless drama of a life…

But the light disappears,
Marooning me here until I die.


(I went for a walk the other night and this is everything I felt, saw, and thought I saw).