Finite Sailing

Shark fins part the dark waters we swim. Circling
the shadows lumber larger beneath white waves. Gathering
gaping maws reek of rancid meat,
rotting between rows of teeth.

This shifting square of ocean air will mark our graves.
Our boat floats above a beautiful emerald reef.
In this game there are no saves to roll master chief.

They bash our boat with stupid primal charges no shore in sight or flares to light,
our barge bulges, tilts, dented,
no emergency rescue or harpoon.
Friends await afar to meet anon
but death comes soon
glee-faced and beady-eyed.
When the fight joins they'll chew us to bits;
our legacy in this sea will be two shark shits.

Thrown overboard by the latest lurch I search for the deck.
Knives shred my arm!
I feel stinging cooling bicep
[He paddles in bloodied water,
screaming while large bodies press against him from below.
Frenzied, they rend him thoughtless.
He's (jerked {underwater) tackled} -tangled in fishing lines.
A tacklebox knocks out dread.
Froth churns, turns red...]

The Life Unlived

When I've no more left to live,
I pine for the life unlived.

She stirs upstairs,
shelling crawfish,
dropped tails fall in the crawlspace.

In this segment of my timeline,
I am doing mighty fine,
yet there's more I want for mien.

Trapped where I usually sleep,
my past: something I don't want to keep.

He's hardly real years afterwards,
his absence the silence between words,
giving sounds substance.

Sans silence there's white noise,
a drone unadorned is ignored,
pitches unchanging hardly heard.

Invisible in a herd of people,
even we don't want to learn ourselves.

They're worse than us,
which makes us better,
superior versus mediocre.

Y'all hunt for fun,
find regrets,
ah gather we're slaves and pets.

Stuck with me,
the life unlived seems...