I find myself in foreign land, a nowhere home for a no-one somebody. If I had imagined it in my dreams it would have been lush green grass that rolled right up to the rocky edge of the land where dark waves broke in metered endless white sprays. Day and night, and I would walk down in the evening dark to make sure. Stand at the edge and listen to the soft rolling crush of water, shifting in vague outlines before me towards a dark horizon.

And so that is how it is, my future dreams of a past named the present and I did not settle down until I found it just right. A tipping over abandoned with holes in the roof and walls graying slat shack, a place to call home for my pack of small things and me. Tucked back in the gnarled bent tangle of tired woods close enough to make a five minute walk to the beach.

A beach to break hearts at by day. In the evening I slip away into the dark to nurse my own heart. Dwelling over could have beens and no longers. I am the one you see walking along the edge of the waves and wonder about but never talk to, the weathered bent by the elements distant stranger.

This is the end of my reckless journey though, I will remain here growing unnoticed older until I die. I will become a distant mystery for the future of unanswered from wheres and just whys. Some will spin lies and half-truth stories around the thin frame of my existance. I carve small rough figurines out of driftwood, they are scattered all over the dirt floor of my shack with holes in the walls. Something simple to make more mystery, anything to give my life more meaning I do not understand. A something new to search for.

This is where it starts. This is where it ends.

We've been looking for our commander again,
radio dial spins freely,
as we listen for an empty space,
in all the static.
Flashlights spinning in the dark,
dropped and rolling on a pitching deck,
illuminating halved cones,
in fading yellow light.
Amidst the hollow lobsters,
boiled away to nothing and shipped frozen,
next to the Australian waffles and brown lettuce,
deep in the reefers,
still no sign of him there.
The water's gone sour with bromine,
turning white chlorine green,
dying skin blue,
his face not found in the washers.
Coffins stacked three high, nine deep,
silent in the blackened lights,
waiting for the words,
to bring the sleeper out,
in another day's searching.
What the hell happened to him,
he was just here,
now we have no direction,
save the task of this place called home.
Not making any sense,
bleating alarms in empty spaces,
red warnings singing for no one,
we're all out wondering again,
about what to do with the knives.
Making for our last in trailer parks,
dead end jobs in endless self-abused former shells,
of what we may have once,
been able to achieve,
able to kill,
able to heal.
Give us back our captain,
send us back to where we came from,
at least then we can launch one last strike,
finishing this game at last and sating the need for blood.
We're dying,
bodies riddled with depleted uranium,
stoked chemical furnaces tearing away the flesh,
the commander wielding a fork.
Step closer to this bed,
listen to these last words,
take this light child,
this uniform and these tools,
go and find the commander.

Yurei, 2001

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