Harbor By John Greiner

The boats of the dead

are crowding the summer

season harbor.

I sit on the beach

waiting for a waiter

to arrive.

Instead, I get ghosts

going about willy-nilly.

Samuel Coleridge

orders up a negroni

and watches the birds above.

I enjoy sleeping at the Negresco.

When I wake up at night

I look out on the sea

knowing that Moses.

would never have been able to part it.

In the morning,

when I go to the front desk,

I know that they will tell me 

jokes

about Poseidon's demise.

There are so many pebbles here.

I want to skip them 

all of the way to Morocco.

I stroll the Promenade

in white linen needing a wash.

There’s a stench about me

that says nothing

about my time at sea;

I’m Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

I’ve got my albatrosses,

ravens and white doves.

Land ho!

Bring me God’s good word

and a mojito.

Open up my umbrella

to stave off

sun and storms.

I do not want to set sail again,

Ararat has nothing on the Riviera.

My typing fingers slip on the keys.

My feet suffer traversing the rocks.

The dead return to their ships

steered by the dime a dozen Charons.

They look back at the shore.

There is no envy in their eyes.

John Greiner is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer living in Queens, NY. He was educated at the New School for Social Research.  Greiner's work has appeared in Sand, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Valueand numerous other magazines. His chapbooks, broadsides and collections of poetry and short stories include  Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017), The Laundrymen (Wandering Head Press, 2016), Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press, 2014),Modulation Age (Wandering Head Press, 2012), Shooting Side Glances(ISMs Press, 2011) and Relics From a Hell’s Kitchen Pawn Shop (Ronin Press, 2010).