I went down those indifferent rivers,
their currents no longer chained to men.
The old ropes snapped—ha! they hunted
the ones who dragged me:
howls in war paint,
and those bodies nailed to painted trees
broke the spell of order.
I didn’t care for cargo or captains anymore—
not wheat from Flanders
nor cotton spun from the bleeding hands of empire.
The uproar silenced,
and the rivers—
they finally let me decide.
I hurled myself into those wild tides,
more reckless than a boy chasing lightning.
I outran the anchors of reason—
peninsulas screamed as I tore past them,
laughing like God drunk on creation.
The storm loved me.
I danced—light as bark—
on waves that swallowed widows
and spared fools.
Ten nights.
No lighthouse touched me with its stupid eye.
The sea kissed my hull with green tongues,
rinsing off the vomit of men and
the purple wine of regret.
It tore out my anchor—
threw away the hook.
Since then, I’ve been bathing
in that poem of salt and sky,
a galaxy melted in milk.
I drank its verses,
and sometimes, I’d see a face—
a drowned man’s dream,
drifting upside-down,
smiling like he knew.
Sometimes, love turned red
and fermented in my belly,
a rhythm older than any song,
bitterer than any drink,
sweeter than flesh.
I saw skies ripped by lightning,
and water climbing into the sun.
I know what men say they’ve seen—
I saw it truer.
Suns bruised and bleeding
over oceans full of dying gods.
I’ve dreamt nights so green
they glowed like ghosts.
Snows melted into kisses.
And the sea whispered secrets
in chlorophyll and starfire.
Months I followed the swell—
mad and swollen,
a herd of storms stampeding reefs.
I never once thought
a woman’s feet could calm such rage.
I crashed through imagined Edens—
strange Floridas
where flowers blinked like wildcats
and the sky dragged rainbows
like wedding veils through ash.
I saw swamps boiling,
traps full of bones,
dead giants melting beneath reeds.
Waters fell from nowhere
and the horizon swallowed itself whole.
Glaciers hissed like silver suns.
Waves split open the sky.
And in the black scent
of tangled trees,
serpents thrashed as bugs devoured them.
Oh, I should’ve brought children
to see those fish!
Gold and blue and singing—
like lullabies before language.
Sometimes the sea sighed,
exhausted and old,
and laid her dark flowers at my feet.
I knelt like a woman praying
but not for mercy.
Birds screeched,
and dropped their arguments
onto my back.
The dead floated through my ropes—
they slept as I drifted on.
Now I’m a broken plank
lodged in some cave’s green throat,
thrown skyward,
out of reach
of any rescue boat,
any human hand.
Free.
And smoking under violet clouds.
I once pierced the sun
with a splintered mast—
brought poets the jam of gold mold
and the spit of starlight.
I was a stray board
covered in electric moons,
black seahorses chasing me
while July struck the sky
with fire hammers.
I’ve heard, far off,
the sex-calls of monsters,
felt the whirlpools groan.
The ocean spun me like thread
but I stayed still—
somehow.
And I missed Europe,
its broken walls,
its old regrets.
I’ve seen constellations burst
like archipelagos,
and islands that smiled
just for the mad.
Do you sleep there,
Vigor not yet born?
You golden birds?
But I—wept.
Too much.
Every morning is a wound.
Every moon, a cruel joke.
Every sun—another goodbye.
O let my ribs snap—
let the sea finally take me whole.
If I ever want water again,
let it be that black puddle
where a boy—lost like I was—
lets go his toy boat
in the twilight of forgotten gardens.
No more, no more—
can I trail the ghost of cotton ships.
Nor stare at flags with pride.
Nor swim beneath
the brutal gaze
of prison ships.
:: 11.27.2025 ::
E.P. Robles | Poetry 
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