This was all I got out of a five week hitch on the rivers. oh well, better than nothing.

Seated upon a coil of line

On the head of a towboat

Shrouded in the fog

That rose, interminable from the

Brown serpentine line of

That ancient river was a man.

Thousands of miles from what he loved

What mattered.

What granted meaning.

Eleven months gone now

In a blur of displacement

And commuting, punctuated

Only by notable highlights

And the stubborn ghosts

Of the past, their corporal

Form sticking stubbornly

To the secret inner workings of his mind.

The sanctuary violated.

A consciousness marred, yet subtly

Improved by the vagaries of

The world, and the callous, wanton

Hate the people that walked through it so frequently

And tragically, displayed.

So few are good to one another.

So he will float perpetually

In escape amongst the brown water,

Industrial ratchets, steel cable,

Kevlar lines, cheater pipes, and sweat.

He will cleave these tows in half

And force them through locks one

Cut at a time until the process,

The barges, each lock, and every inch

Of river becomes part of his soul.

And someday, perhaps, he will find peace.

Just around that next bend.