Nautica And Her Maidens

Wanton sleeplessness

Beneath an open window

So that epic and heroic dreams of

Lust can fly

In and out

Of my sultry room,

The lapping tide

Of traffic rolling back and forth,

Its murmur filling my ears as I lie spilled

Across my bed, exhausted, face down…

…A castaway washed up, blasted from breasting the waves

Across vast seas

of the city

through innumerable islands

of blocks

above wide reefs

 of streets,

  along interminable shores

                                                                  of sidewalks

                                                        stranded in

                                                                                        cafes,

                                                Bouncing and bounced

                                                From bars of sand

             …All waving with women…

    Here onto this land in the heat of the day have I floated…

Face down, my panting mouth pressed against the large, firm breast

Of shore, my mainmast toppled, its remains scattered beneath me

On this tight belly of sand, a foaming bed, the sail of sheets clinging wetly

To my empty stomach and weakened legs

As I am gathered up by the soft hands of maidens

Bringing me off to pools of… I am jolted! My seamen! Whe..?… 

Then …it comes… agh…

A wrenching ache! ugh! ! Again!

There are none remaining, gone, never more, far scattered, spilled

Into the throat of devouring waves, forever swallowed in the caves of the deep.

With one eye I weep for them. 

Faint, I collapse.

As now I see, barely believing, a handful of gorgeous maidens

In my vivid, erotic imagination

Encircling me, scantily dressed for disport beside the waves

These waves into which so many, so many of my seamen have spilled!

And every day Nautica and her maidens come

To this same location and find me

Day after day in this same condition

So nearly dead from exhaustion, from my exposure

To the sea and its waves, to the city and its traffic

Needing aliments and medicine

And in my delirium I hear them applaud

My resurrection as I rise, my limbs stiff

Aching to be massaged and anointed, murmuring to the women to help me

Find my men, to bring them forth,

That I know they are close, very close

Rousing myself to stand, to come inside their circle.

They merely stroke my head and say, “there, there…”

Running my hands across myself to see that I am all there

They bare me to a nipple of sandy hillocks which the wind undresses   

I am a foreigner

As my gazes passes across them like a wind

Caressing their skin, touching everywhere

One after another are satisfied

To help me come

Back to life, “ah” they say, “our drowned man, he is so large

A towering member of a great people from some distant land".

And at the end of my great

Mind that towers

Like waves across the shores

That remember how we escaped Circe, or was it that other

Wild woman, what was her name? Calypso

And how naked, battered and hungry

Nautica and her maidens take me every day

To her Father to be recognized as a king,

Ahh!!….