Photograph of white on blue...
another life - someone else's memory of you;
sea and sky, and I spy an errant shoe
that may have been my size;
sandy soles caught as wind waves roll on by
this sandbox - I wonder, where am I?

Hoist the sails, gird the loins!
Get up topside, boy, and pray this wind prevails!
Steady on, don't shy from speed!
Bring our guest something to write upon!

What a frame -
horizons arise and and recede, left behind
in no time, it seems, woken dreams,
and just like a child's coloring book,
I'm drawn outside the lines,
fleetingly meeting each self I surmised to have died
sometime along the line. Were we all in here,
stymied by squalls or foundered by fusillade?
I am thawed, scrimshawed; Captain, we are near!

Ready the ropes, all hands on deck!
Set sights on the island ahead, on Vulcan's slopes!
That's it, men, stall in the shallows -
we've no kind of port to welcome us in.
Ready the boats to alight on umbral shores!
Make space, our guest has business here.

Noon is dusk -
foliage enfolds and intoxicates even the sun;
the jungle takes me and moves me through its maze;
am I free?
As jungle thins,
a coronary core ahead scatters obsidian smoke -
determined, I approach. I will reach the mouth.
Steps take me...


I am in here.
Molten platelet plates let beneath Terra’s scab,
carelessly torn:
the volcano king, steeped in old magic.
I am in here.
This land will be forever scorched.
Remember what you’ve seen.
Fly your living remains away from here.
Leave me!


Was I there?
I'm left the impression that something has festered inside
a heart undisturbed:
born in ancient times, overgrown in vines,
perhaps beyond repair.
I must be in here but it's less picturesque and I fear
I must ask this of you - am I out there, too?