JOE'S ARK

JOE'S ARK

In amber stone you're caught,

in bone-like flesh,

the agony and the ecstasy,

the two staves in your heart,

the one to stab,

the other a staff,

the one the furies, devils,

the other the rod of Christ.

You choose your other life,

the one 

out in the deep dark sea

where now you've pitched your tent 

there in eternity, the floods 

in sandy fathomed bed 

where rocks your head, 

that shell, that poetic face,

through which we whisper grace,

a prayer, for a soul possessed,

floating in the limbo of no man's land;

where whale and octopus cling on,

to consciousness its weathered

measured trance-like vision spoiled,

by tempests wrecked and wracked,

oh cry out, I have not sinned in vain

my self within, 

my senses in denial

have lost their arts, 

my body drifts apart,

in tiny bits, the nibbled edges fishs eat,

disintegrating from this world,

in some unidentified bark

where first my breath took flight,

is it the Noah's Ark?