Guest Poetry!

The following was written for me by the most excellent Fliss Davies, to whom I owe my humblest thanks for flattering my delusions of self-importance:

Through the mists of your ever expanding ego
the ship of vulnerability slowly navigates
sometimes disappearing behind rising waves of bravado
but ever present
it traces a course that leaves doubts in its wake

The ship has sails of silver
and an unmanned tiller
and a mast that rises to the sky
other ships sail with the wind
but your boat is cast adrift
its compass spinning and its sails hanging
limp and dry

reaching the top of a wave
the husk of the hull tilts, uneasy
it might capsize
turn turtle in the sea
until there is nothing left but keel
a solitary monument to possibility
surrounded by the mist
rising out of the ocean

there is a dawning comprehension

the sheets groan
the sails pulled in tight
the course upwind
a beam reach of free air
under the moon's glare
and the questioning quiet

the ship breaks free
sails away from the mist
but now what will protect it?
There are monsters here not fond of mist nor fog
but fond of teasing small ships
playing with planks until they are pulled apart

you revel in destruction
seek the monsters out
hand your ship to the cruellest
to keep as a toy
it clutches the fragile frame within its gnarled and twisted fingers
and crushes wood beneath their weight

what happens now?
your boat is gone
the canvas floats with salt
there will be more ships
you are building one now
this one has blue sails and a golden mast

maybe this one will travel further