Pirate Queen

And today
with the indigo streaks of dawn abating past the drawn linen curtains
there existed an old fear of doing nothing
in the face of everything
so I will take my pirate jacket
and walk in leather boots
in search of a love, a sword, or a letter
with transient thoughts of electricity winding in thin blue veins
throughout the edge of fog ensconced mountains
holding defenses like an age old keep.

The blackbirds flew in arcs the other day
against the backdrop of a quicksilver colored sky
that wafted in clouds of fulminous gray
like the dead steam from an old freighter
approaching a harbor on the thin blade
of horizon's West-observed dawn.

In the road,
the cracked old pavements
without a draught of beer
with the dreadnoughts of old nightmares
escaping an eclipse and sunset
with visions of tremendous violence
in a rafted holding pen of ships gathered like artificial atolls
where ten thousand queens
lorded over diminishing supplies
and the few pirate men
drank the last beer
before strafing procedures
by cloth winged biplanes.

I should have known love before
in the itinerant appearances of love messages
sent through a telepathy
as she hoisted her correspondences
with sniper's scope and bewilderment
as pale as the envy of a sea green sky.
Those blows from oars fell only on the ocean's skin
and below the tremendous surge of ink-infused black
fountains sprayed like oil and blood
at the verge of a longboat's wreck
but for the daliance of a maiden's hand
that sewed a pattern of oleander leaf
in silver on navy blue
were we lost for love
as the correspondence stricken with irreal guilt
did melt away in the diminished floatings
of an offshore stationary left to disappear
beneath the dark blue of tides
that lapped like a disturbed cistern
in gradients of love and hatred.