Reposing in Mid Death

For aeons piled on centuries
And countless ages more,
I’ve harboured on this ocean throne,
Ten thousand leagues from shore,

My lives have come and gone like bees,
Frequenting this old hive—
A soul where death cannot prevail,
And so, I stay alive…

With time-worn eyes, that watch the mists,
Descending on the waves,
Like smoky breaths, from hell’s black lungs,
To melt in wat’ry graves,

The ghosts of time — they speak to me;
I am abiding death,
A softly spoken entity,
With softly metered breath,

The souls of sailors dead and gone,
The spectres of old time,
The familes and captain’s crews,
Who perished in their prime,

Their sundry ghosts are in the brine,
And woven in the kelp,
Their agony and tumult wild,
Their hopeless pleas for help,

They know my throne and call it home—
The presence of old death,
Their conversation? conscience-true!
Like jabbering Macbeth…

“I saw my father swept away!
Sucked down into the deep,
And I was far too feeble then,
To make a saving leap.”

“I was a captain of ten men,
And sought New Zealand’s shores,
Before a raging tempest trashed,
Our life boat and our oars,

In helpless madness floundering,
Amid the storm-black sea,
Succumbing, every one of us—
Misjudged in grave degree!”

“I was a goodly cabin boy,
Obsequious and true,
Before a brutish bully hurled me
In the raging blue!”

“I was accused of crime back home,
In Ireland, when I left,
Condemned to penal servitude,
And still I am bereft!”

“I am the captain’s cook, I say,
Sojourning to Fiji,
But I am dead, my life blood shed,
My conscience is not free.”

See, I am death, I will not judge,
For that is not my place,
But I will listen carefully,
To every candid face,

To every soul that would describe,
Their perilous demise,
To this unflinching confidante,
Under these blue-black skies,

My knowledge of their pain? Insane,
My empathy expired!
But ask me if I care — I do,
For all that has transpired,

I wish I may, I wish I might,
But I am helpless weak!
Now set below an undertow,
Of which God cannot speak…

AD Lovkis, 22/07/25