The Sea by George A. Bradley
The Sea
If you put it to your ear… maybe you can hear the sea
I’ve had salt flails crack my broken back
I’ve had ghost ships die in me
But you, my dear, are the wandering sphere
That tossed inside my iris
Your bottle green, it’s innards gleamed
In place of a holy chalice
If my lips should taste too salty…I shall never kiss again
But shall hold you on my wave tops
Carry you back safe to land
And should your Moses come, I’ll hold my tongue
As he cuts me to my deep
Then I’ll drown the world! Engulf the world!
For rage and love of thee
For if together we might brace my storms…I’ll crawl my way ashore
There my reach shall conquer mountains
Carve my name for evermore
And if hearts may live, my heart I’ll give
In reflections with the moon
In seashells, whales and crashing surf
You’ll hear me follow you
***
George A. Bradley writes fiction and, on rare occasion, dabbles in poetry. He lives somewhere in the Rustbelt in a house with his wife, son, and ghost of a dead grandfather trapped in a clock. Influences range from Edgar Allen Poe to Alfred Hitchcock to the Coen brothers and everything in between. ‘The Sea”‘ was composed on a cellphone on a rainy day a thousand miles from the ocean.