DRAMATIC Monologue Poem: Grey Shores, by Arran Kearney

Dug in deep, a rotten keel,
And marked with faded letters gold,
A name that now he hurts to feel,
Reads sad upon the splintered hold.

Unmoved, the sky weeps empty tears,
They flood the desert beneath his eyes,
Where mournings spring will not appear,
Sunk deep beneath some earthly lie.

Glittering curves of brine and gold,
Emboss this sunken ship of state,
The lie, a promise written of old,
Stencilled by the good first mate.

Above the sky and below the sea,
It rolls a bitter and longing sigh,
But the bold corsair, so wild and free,
Can no more sail than he could fly.

Valley and vale mark his high brow,
His eyes are sunken inland seas,
Primaeval wilderness is his crown,
And within, an ocean’s memory.

The rain it binds both land and sea,
Grey shores fill an unflinching stare,
Fleeing to hide where Eternity,
Still bats her eyes and braids her hair.

“Eternity” she swore to thee,
“No ending we shall know –
Just you and me, upon the sea,
My captain, how we’ll roam.”

Eternity in painted strokes,
They but hold him from despair,
They keep alive those forlorn hopes,
That the ship might be repaired.

Hewn of oak, the captain stands,
Eyes fixed upon that golden name,
A stunted tree on foreign sand,
Forever to remain.