ultimate landmark

Doing the magic and living the magic
are different things.
That’s how we manage, our storywine aging
and blood getting thin.
Here we’re dwelling, the ocean’s echoes,
the end of the world.
Wasn’t I born to be shot on the deck or
be told and unfurled?

Here I do linger and lazily wonder
again and again:
is it familiar, this riverside town,
or am I insane?
Having avoided the shame and the scaffold,
expelled from the hive
– look at me now – I am totally baffled
and hardly alive.

Hour by hour, a hand on a handle,
on coffee and rum,
watching the tower, my ultimate landmark,
beyond river’s run,
watching the tower, my ultimate emblem;
embracing the fall.
Look at me now: I’m a private world ender
yet nobody’s foe.

Didn’t I hear this and didn’t I write this
four winters ago?
Storylines faint, but the water line rises,
let’s give it a go.
Give me a staircase, a sheer drop, an edge of
a daydream – I’ll climb.
Doing the magic and living the magic –
one thing at a time.