Adrift

No captain steers the ship that we’re aboard;

We’ve floated past the now forgotten beach,

And hipsters mock where once the lion roared,

And stupid teachers kill whom they should teach.

I need an ogre in my soul to keep

The mindless hordes from cutting out

My heart to feed it to the dogs that leap.

I need an ogre in my soul to doubt.

Beneath the surface swims the waiting shark.

The ocean everywhere – which way to row?

The water leaks in, soon will sink the barque,

And Yeats’s centre gave up long ago.

In five-twenty-nine AD did they know

The lamps that lit the world were burning low?