The Ocean

I ride this big machine without controls
Across an ocean deep and black
With swells translucent slate-gray
Against a dark, forbidding, stormy sky
And holding to the hard, metallic shell
I close my eyes and find no comfort.

Wet metal pressed into my skin
Bruising, spinning gears the wind
Is roaring; sprays my face
Dead water blinding
No seeking solace
Barely a handhold or a bit of strapping
How did I ever get here?

There is no place that's comfortably dry
And safe and sure.

The last thing I remember
I was waking up in cool white sheets
With sunlight dappled in my room
Through oak trees, Saturday morning
With scent of bacon, French Toast
Cold whole milk and syrup soup
And bounding steps the smell of dirt
My wild-eyed dog and GI Joe
The front yard sandpile my domain
The earth my only ocean
And such solid substance as it was
That burial was just a hug
Against the cool comfort of history.

The very dirt lived and breathed
Beneath my feet.

No smothering there, no falling
No abyss of sleepless death
Anonymous
Underneath a lifeless mass
Of soulless numb enormity
That grew unheeded
Cancerous and inorganic.

Here not even death that joins to something
Known that feeds and then gives birth
Again and again and joining hands
With worms, at least
Acknowledging my nutrients
Saying Grace and thanks to God,

Folding little worm-hands
Bowing little worm-heads
"God is great, God is good
Lettuce thank him for our food"

Banana Splits on television
My dad, Hugh Beaumont
With a worldly flair
My mom, the warmside that I sought
And burrowed into
Smelling cigarettes and coffee
And the New York crossword
On a Ouija board we never used
For Ouija stuff
But only for a level surface.

At what point did the anesthetic
Smother me and take me under?

And waking trying to retrace
Progression into darkness
The beginning of the storm
And construction of the apparatus
That I cling to on this ocean
I created.