Sea Dream

I wake up to a half dried skull
with flesh still wet around it
mostly in the eye sockets and jaw,
but it is only my alarm clock.

Although, from that high vantage
in my dreams
I can see all the the power lines
connecting in the center
of a bleeding blue whale’s mass,
still swimming in the slightest slack
available.

I always cut it free with a pocket knife
after paddling out on a station wagon door
using a skeletal arm as an oar before
sinking to the depths,
and still do not
awaken.

Sirens swarm my body
which rubs their breasts
against me,
and I do not resist.
Their flesh is scaly
like salmon skin
and I begin to realize
I am drowning.

Pirates fish me out at the last second
along with one or two of the sirens
and put bullets in their heads.
I’m kept prisoner in the hopes
I may illicit a ransom.

To my surprise I do
and the news sparks one big
party on the main deck
with cheap fireworks
and champagne
because the lot of us
are headed home for good.

They let me fire a machine gun
into the air and we are all drunk so
I accidentally clip the captain
who is sharpening a spear.

It puts a damper on things and everyone
goes to sleep, for all our lives will be much simpler by tomorrow.

Only the tomorrow I wake up to
is today with my disgusting
old alarming clock staring back at me
just blinking red and green
with nothing in between.

So now my choice becomes
just lying here, or getting up and going somewhere new,
and now the skull has grown
an eye back in just
the short time we’ve been talking
pretty soon it will remind me of myself.