Broke

There isn't much time, he thought, before the rest of my life looks like my wallet: empty. Nothing there but laundry lint and, as he folded up the battered leather and returned it, ass-shaped and thin, to its shelter inside his left-rear pocket, even the lint came tumbling down to the carpeted floor.

Well, there goes that.

Maiden

I have awakened with clarity.
She's gone again - a ship in the fog; quietly enveloped
in the night mists, she carries low her cargo on the surf
while the waves sunder against her hull, crying out for their maiden.
She is a pirate's bounty in waiting,

a schooner setting out to lose herself at sea.
She will be shipwrecked, she will go down fighting; and I will find her,
moored on the beach of my mothers, and I will stitch those tattered sails,
putting nails to wood and sweat to brow. I will bring a sea-worthy smile
to her lips with the strength of my arm.

Yet for now, her noiseless swish of hips takes the tide
and leaves the strong scent of lovers to
linger in the bedsheets.

The Siren

She's a complicated soul housed in a complicated frame;
her eyes do a complicated dance in this complicated game -
her hips call to me a chorus in this complicated way
like a siren on the rocks, enticing her simple-minded prey.
With my simple sea-faring skiff newly anchored in the bay,

I’m the dinner for this monster, a simple traveler doomed to pay.
and I see her on the rocks, just as naked as my song –
My heart simply seizes in my throat, but I continue to go along
Her eyes now a simple flame, only passionate and strong
and I tread toward my destruction, my will is dead and gone.

She speaks a complicated word in my simple-minded ear
and grips me with complicated emotion, more than simple-minded fear
My simple clothes come off like skin, I’m shedding complicated years –
This old sailor is devoured, now it’s all become so clear.
She’s my simple love and I’m her complicated tears.