“Till taught by pain, men know not water’s worth” ~ Lord Byron.

To hear that far-off rumble, that faint praise

mixed in with the boom-dread of the breaking

waves. To half halt in doubt; there shall always

be doubt. Praise, as in lament, rumbling

in the wet sand. Doubt shall be my grave’s end.

Doubt and this throaty and forbidding maw

that you call the surf. To enter. To transcend.

To be sucked away. Blowjobs and lockjaw.

Spasms junoesque. Unchaste. Pungent. Cum

lost on the surge. All the things I’ve done mean

nothing. Stings of indifference. The sea rose

does not care even as I grow hard and numb.

I love laments that are crude and obscene;

like a note found in my abandoned clothes.