Darkened two hundred year old cypress
wheel house
The rising of summer saturn’s red glowing face
Gray backed dolphin eye ball
us eating dinner along the port side
Ensuing stem chase,
caress
Four hour sleepless
watch
Radar’s iridescent green ilume
One hundred and seventy fathoms depth, yellow indicated
Blackness
Tow strobe penetrated
Concave earth apparent
Unyielding converging blips
Hourly bit lip
Miles of bonito bait pools, schooling
Surface munching
Rapala lure, rejecting
WHITE SMOKE?…WHITE SMOKE!
Diesel school amnesia
Water strainer, sea cock…
block Waist
Engine fever
Salt water, the Tylenol(temperature reducer)
Tonight, we will not seize her
Emotional reliever
Tender feet
Sand paper deck, meat tenderizer
Rail cleat placement for possible toe removal
Steadying sail spontaneously sheds its hardware
Noggin buster
Full moon tide
on a beam sea ride
to a Neil Young melodic journey
with a metallic under drone
Aft port tank sucks dry
while humidity rains from the overhead(sky)
Droplets’ shiver before their weight increases
suddenly release
to join others
reunited on a wet cork sole
Shuddering stop
All hatches rise to unveil the bullet proof Dinosaur
lying still in a bilge gray coffin
Frying pan hot
Blowers wine
Burnt appendages sacrificed to bleed the choked giant
Air has sucked into its main vein
Purge the fuel line
Inverted wrench wrestling
Fresh salt air lungs now suck diesel,
nausea
Horizon line focus at sea
She turns over, chugging
Back to zero nine two degrees running
McSherry’s watch
(Cursing the proximity of the radar screen to his head)
My co-pilot lusting to spear a giant tuna fish
Aft cabin vibrating
A Temperpedic pillow, crash
Rolling, pitching with a new sun rising
Humidity soaks through all clothing
Preparing a Saki, seaweed, rice and bonita dish
as shoeless feet stagger around the galley
* All cabinetry must withstand the weight of a man in a sea way
Part of a Dave Gerr wish,
list
Grab rails abundant
Inner ear imbalance
Big fish tally
from a green and yellow hula skirt
Arm fatigue from reeling
Multiple sun block cream, redundant
Late night breath holding…
education
Two minutes, eleven seconds duration
while thinking about the births of my boys
and their first breaths,
with emerging head crests
North Carolina blue claw crab population,
reduction
Four hour, red pasta sauce from stock,
consummation
A certain California Chardonnay investigation
with a Dutch taught, bottle opener less,
thumb buster… push
Osprey nest tangles on green channel markers
Tough sleeping with every four second green, flashing
Their sashimi loving, downy young
Pelican’s constantly surface crashing
and subsequent deaths from blindness, from
The VHF’s new southern twang
after a soldering iron adventure,
hardware store run
Hat for red grouper, barter
Drunken slip mate
pickup truck ice need, late
A great blue heron skewers minnows
in a culdesac wooden ship graveyard
Rotting white oak frames emerge from the shallows
like sets of eaten saur ribs, upright in the mud
Stacks of W.W.II PT boats
nose out of the phragmities reed
Proud relics with a built in flaw
An eight year life expectancy
Under the watchful eye of a family of water moccasins
near massive, rusting dredging machines
rivaling David Smith’s sculpture
Raccoons dine on driftwood picnic tables
A tea colored manmade canal
up into the Albemarle
sound
Swing bridge opening requests
admits green fly invasions
Blood engorged Rorshack splat tests
Mozart Divertimenti to
an orange, magenta sunset, glow
on tanned, calloused, aging hands
Oil slick, calm sea
Black walnut tables constructed from a single shot down tree
retained since fifteen years old
A father’s target practice provided an entrance
for carpenter ants
Some of the boat’s history often told
The over the side, bladder relief,
pee
Filleting king fish on the swim platform
Knife handling prowess
in a four foot swell
Benihana, jealous
Cape Fear gives us an indication of it’s namesake
Woolite equipped, black bucket washing machine
Clothes’ pinned to stainless steel cable guard rail
likened to a Brooklyn backyard
Little amber LED’s stacked up in a wire reinforced glass cabinet
Systems on, show
Radar’s constantly spinning confidence
Keeping us in the “know”
Days collide
Over the phone my son Lucca turns five
Plexi glass checks in the Floridian heat
Sheepshead fish feed on barnacled bottomed boats
The abundant food that lives and grows on the most purposely toxic environment
that man can create
The thought cancels our order
We read that Mahi-mahi hide under seaweed island floats
The U.S. Navy dominates Norfolk harbor
Red tug boat worker ants abound
Red tug boat worker ants abound
Harbor fest congests
Ancient railroad bridges impede
Droves anchor to witness the fireworks display
Corpse like humans rest
on rubber rafts, beers on bellys
Fur less sea otters with pop top abalone
Missed channel marker run aground
Tunnel drive easily evacuates
Tow U.S.A. vultures congregate
Our lack of draft frustrates
Wagers lost
Depth sounder,
protest
Alarm deactivate
Condensation’s growing warmth
upon sunrise’s shudder
A herring gull parallels our course
The auto pilot takes it turn at the rudder
Flying fish crash land on the stern
eminiscent of blue jays killing themselves on windows they could not see
On oil the engine burns
With fuel to consume
in view of the sinking moon
Another pee
Steep chop, west wind off Cape May
The head has decided not to cooperate with fecal needs
Diaper changing a prerequisite
Port exit
Cirrus cloud cover
Clean bowl recover
Emergent tankers
Ten degrees alter
Albacore-ish,
fish takes the bait
Three minutes later ,
gently fried roe, cross cut slices, ginger, scallions
(No batter)
Tropical southwest prevailing
Dimpled ocean surface
Heading for the continental shelf
Kitaro plays on the trunk cabin roof
In the pulsing sun, tattoo’s seem to fade
Countless watches made
Cerulean blue rollers
Bow pennant has turned to tatters
All alone a beach ball floats, barely touching the surface
One hundred and fifty Nautical miles from port (latter)
Reminding us of our happiness
Dual blue fish strike
One has a foot fetish
The other performs an on board Houdini
while quarter inch nylon bound
Teeth gnash, evasion
McSherry does his best Barishnikoff
An oily green, right hand rubber glove floats past
A perceived wave
on a wave
Late night butter fish chumming while tied to lobster pot in six hundred
athoms
Without knowing a large fish spools our reel and bends the holder
Then again
Rudder bearing begins to leak
Neptune borrows our black bucket
Bronze portals alternately frame the sky, the sea…
Troughs deepen
Another pee
Fifteen hundred miles in an ever widening stern wake
