I Struggle On The Pier

I Struggle on the Pier

Midnight's moon glowers over the wretched bay
Hollering at its selfish waters and a nightbird
Screeches to a halt against a firm boat pole
And flitters at the wind torn mast;
All else remains in slumbering dreams
Below the wave-washed fish-fumed deck.
The bobber bounces greedily over the shivering grayness
As I, atop the pier, ponder lonely dreams and clumsy mistakes.
I hasten the bones in my ears
As in the darkness my eardrums react
To slight vibrations of clumping on the pier.
An angry stranger seeking revenge for an unhappy emotion,
Races around my sightless pole.
My heart begins to go crazy
And my eyes curse the blackboard that erases the noise.
Silence painful lonely silence
One that weighs heavily and pulses with the body.
The water that rattles the boats in tender resentment
Seems jealously calm, and my heart answers
The waves that touch the pier
And jump back-a child when frightened.
A half-moan, half-scream, like a harpooned whale
Begging hunters with an anquish that arouses;
It is gruff in accents and lacks human qualities.
It conveys its message sensitivily loud,
But no light in the harbor makes any rescuing motion.

I am the cat in the apple tree
chased ther by a shaggy-fur mutt.
I am the child coaxed by a stranger on the streets
and mother comes rushing out of cardboard houses
and over garbage pails.

A light appears beyond the pier
To the east starboard a lantern is lit
To catch the culprit disturbing boathome lulla-byes.
I search for the shadowless figure who haunts me
But there is only the glimmer of an alley cat
That helped himself to one of the fish
I had struggled with.
I lean over toward the water
And see the bobber sink uneasily below the surface,
Another struggle to which
The alley cat watches and waits.