Ravenous eyes scanned the barren
moving portrait packed with spastic caricatures
babbling like inflated scoops of curdled milk
left over from last year’s sleep-over,
force-fed to him with a blunt and rusty spoon.

When he stood up
the pale sea of his stomach rippled like nauseous waves
from the rising tides of last week’s discontent.
And his culpable downward gaze rode upon an empty ship,
captained by a pirate-hoarder of odious loot.

His bare feet delighted in the seaweed
of green shag carpet left from years of fluctuating tide,
when a tepid plop of brain-freight struck his
balding crown like a seagull air-lifting an unsuspecting victim
a pasty gift from above.

Yet the living room started to spin
when his blundering feet lost step to
the storm of his newly found fly-eyes,
feeding upon the scraps put out by the neighbors,
and he clung to the walls.

The tide turned once again,
and he boarded the self-loathing ship
bound towards a distant bay
overshadowed by lofty seagulls
taunting the natives below.

In a futile attempt to steer away from the crashing rocks
he stepped off the ship to introduce his bare feet to a
cool spring of green grass.
And while he arrived at the bay, he met a new,
welcoming visitor.

The bee singing in his ear
stung the water with veracity
that rivaled the fire-storm of his first plunder,
forcing his eyes towards
the affable reflection of a familiar young sailor,

and he threw his grubby coins
at the ghost in the bay,
hoping to shear the hull
that had detained countless groans
and moans of formless rowers.

The ice-cream shot his tongue back
to a day that had found the crabs amusing,
the prickly starfish soft,
and had saved the shipwrecked sailors by
sending them out to sea.