You will still be here

I am standing here
Like I always do
Staring across your watery leagues
Wondering where this wind comes from
Now salving my dry skin
Now raising my rumpled cape
And now driving this tumult.

I close my ears here
Like I always do
And still the coursing blood
To a crawl and to a trickle.
I listen to your growls and slaps
To your roars and your whispers
And wonder what to answer.

I stretch out my hands here
Like I always do
My spirit wanders out across the leagues
Above the clouds and in between
We wrestle between the rocks and crevices
Drenched with the salinity of your sweat.

I build my castles here
Like I always do
Knowing they are built on sand
Knowing they will not stay
Beyond our courtship dance.
I build them still with turrets and battlements,
Armoured cars and diamond scepters
I build them still with sweat and blood.

I make my dreams here
Like I always do
I choose my cast from these travelers
Matching oblivious to your gaping maws
Matching your drumbeats and their heart beats
Scenes and acts woven from the debris
In your wake.

I will go away
Like I always do
And leave you to your beat
And to your rage and to your fury
I will leave at moonlight
But you will still be here
Like you have always been.


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What more do you want of us?

What more do you ask of us
Deity of the depths
Beyond the cola with six lobes
And the palm nuts of the two headed tree?

We have brought the chameleon and his powder
The cricket and his drums
What more do you ask of us
To salve this your hunger foaming all night

The goats were fat and fresh
The yams long and fat
We have danced around the fire
And yelled into your wind
What more do you ask of us?

This your anger that throws fits all day
Has eaten the cock and still boils
Has eaten the palms and still boils
Has eaten the earth and still boils
What more do you ask of us?

You have taken your priest
As you have his father and his father before him
Now you must accept supper from strangers
Supplications from cast-offs
Sacrifice on broken pots

What more do you ask of us,
But boulders and rubles from afar
Soil borrowed from our enemies
Craft learned from the spirits
To meet your anger.

Our roots are in this soil
We will not make our nests in the air
Our roots are in this soil
We will not breed beneath your waves
What more do you ask of us?

Deity of the depths
Meet us half way, that is our prayer
Still your anger, that is our request
Return our soil, that is our demand
What more do you want of us?

Do not expect sacrifice from our king
Nor supplication from his court
Deity of the depths
The palace is on stilts, as you can see
Their boats stand at the ready

What more do you ask of us?

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***the sea is eating our coast
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