The Salty Sailor’s Lament

Ximonic (Simo Räsänen), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A salty sailor washed up like debris.

Much time spent much too carelessly, all told.

A patient saint now patiently grows old;

A hermit living on a stormy sea.

I should have left, abandoned ship, escaped.

A wasted hulk now, rusty callouses,

but thinner skin from mindless malices,

both ridden and trod on, prodded and scraped.

All hatches battened, anchor down, no sleep;

Broken and twisted, all-scar-tissue built;

Wracked with anxieties, riddled with guilt;

A piercéd hull gone rusted iron keep.

Though need soon drives me back into the street,

Buried at sea, at rest, I seek defeat.