The Writers Voice
The World's Favourite Literary Website

Chesapeake

by

Eric Michael Hines

The day I first lived,
Death played me a jingle 
In organ tongue
Half-past nightfall 
Off the shore of the Chesapeake… 

I lost my job that morning. 
Downsizing.
A decade wasted 
Counting sums I’d touch only illegally,
Smoked away on a torrent of decaf blends
And three-ring binders
That bound my sanity.
I cried in a restroom stall,
Quietly though,
So the men at the urinals wouldn’t hear.

On the way home, the highway spoke like a mother,
Dried my eyes with her breath,
And called me down the parkway.
Like a son, I followed 
Without knowing why. 

The road brought me past the Chesapeake. 
It shimmered in the moonlight
Like an earthbound aurora.
My heart pumped to
The beat of a song I heard once in a dream
Of my life as it should have been,
And for some reason,
I stopped alongside that road. 

I went into the woods
And found a sturdy branch.
With a paper clip and some floss
From my boss' briefcase,
I made myself a magic fishing rod for catching dreams

I ran out into the surf with my rod and screamed at waves
Which roared back whispers,
Pushing me,
Vomiting my filth back to the sand. 
They slapped me
And I cussed them with prayer. 

“I’m not leaving ‘til I take something back, or you kill
me!” I said. “Go right ahead, God! Kill me, you coward! Erase this
mistake like all the other ones! I dare you to show yourself!” 

My rebellion was fun for only a moment. 
I stepped blindly over the edge of an undertow
And sank beyond the brink of shallows.
Desperate hands clawed 
The blackness. 
It swathed all around;
Still and warm like a cradle.
Deeper, deeper I fell.
The bitter brine kissed my throat
With honey far sweeter than my damned heartbeat.
I chose the mirror black beneath the sky. 

At that moment, the shadows of the future
Danced with the echoes of the past,
And I heard the choirs 
Only good men hear
And the gnashing
For men like me. 
My life was a fantasy tale
Alone on the shelf,
Unread by even myself. 

A voice came to me in the darkness. 

“No." 

I thought it was an Angel denying my entrance into Heaven. The voice drew tears
from eyes that weren’t mine. I saw the body spinning below in a silent
pirouette. 

“It’s not me,” I told myself. The truth hung before me, but I
didn't want it. It was over. 

Then I heard the love.

“No,” said the voice again. “Live.”

Cool fire 
Carried me down
A tunnel 
Toward the light
Of birth.

I was delivered from the water free,
Under the Iunar midwife.
I was a newborn baby-boomer
Flying with tattered wings. 
My eyes flowed and

let

fall

the

ocean 

blood. 

I asked for a sign,
And got a billboard,
And a strike two.
I caroused with the end
And found the beginning
With a magic fishing rod and a nightmare, 
Off the shore of the Chesapeake.

Critique this work

Click on the book to leave a comment about this work

All Authors (hi-speed)    All Authors (dialup)    Children    Columnists    Contact    Drama    Fiction    Grammar    Guest Book    Home    Humour    Links    Narratives    Novels    Poems    Published Authors    Reviews    September 11    Short Stories    Teen Writings    Submission Guidelines

Be sure to have a look at our Discussion Forum today to see what's
happening on The World's Favourite Literary Website.