Off To Rockaway - Full Speed Ahead

May 7
Seven months in New York
Like a marooned sailor
Like Richard Burton
The Nile explorer
On the beach in Trieste
Ships sailing away on the Adriatic
Burton going nowhere
Like me yesterday.

But
Today I stand on
I
On a Wall Street Wharf
Spring
75 degrees
Sunny
On a Wall Street Wharf. Catching the 12:17
To Rockaway.
Not many passengers aboard.
Diesel engines reverse on the slack tide. The ferry pulls out
Into the East River
On time.
12:17

Full speed ahead
Past Battery Park
Across the Inner Harbor
Past the Statue of Liberty
Coasting between Brooklyn
And Staten Island
Under the Vertanzano Bridge
Into the Outer Harbor.
Calm waters
Barely a ripple.
Escape on a white wake Full speed ahead.

Ahead To the south
Between Breezy Point and Sandy Hook
The open ocean
The Atlantic spanning the horizon
Rising as a cliff
At the end of the world.
Calling me
Calling my blood
A siren song in my marrow. My family once sailors and whalers
Now landlubbers
I feel the pull The tug of tides
Down to the sea. Full speed ahead.

The ferry turns away from the ocean.
Into Jamaica Channel Ashore one lone person on the beach
A few boaters fish the tide.
Beneath the Gil Hodges Bridge.

My soul sings an ancient sea song.
Words lost three generations ago
My soul hums the shanty.
We are meeting an old friend.

Not seen in seven months.
The Atlantic.

The captain slows the ferry
Docks without a bump
Two score passengers off load
Some walk to the beach
I catch a bus to Riis Park
The nude beach.

Seven people on the beach
I
Lie Alone
Naked on the sand
The sun on my skin.

An ocean breeze
Filling my lungs with longing
To be one with the sea
To float beyond the waves
To drift toward Montauk
Maine
Gaspe
Like a drowned passenger from the Titanic Drifting
Arctic bound.
I rise to my feet
Walk into the shallow eddies
The sea North Atlantic cold

Waves
The music of the ocean
So good to hear
Rockaway Beach
The Ramones loved it here.
The Atlantic calls
From all points of eternity.

Seven months since my last swim In this sea
At this beach
Late October
Here
I strip nekkid
Stride into the sea.
Up to my ankles
Up to my knees
Up to my thighs
Brrrr
A wave licks at my groin
XXX cold.
The Atlantic wants more from me
Mermaid sirens sing
Be one on the current
Singing The call of the Wild. I go no farther. A man. Alone is no match for the sea. Even if the blood comes from the sea Today A landlubber I be Tomorrow maybe not The sea was is will always be Full speed ahead.