text: A whirling whisk of rotor blades stirs the puffy batter of string-shaped clouds, its lifting force, a dragging weight to the metal rotaries that flap a pair of windswept wings. The skies sense a certain groan, unmistakable, in the wavering flight of unsteady airfoils that seem mistakable for unsuspecting onlookers who shall be left unnamed. Directionless, the angles bend at the swipe of a sudden gale , its drafts thieving the helpless craft amid tussling, tossing drafts of flowing current, brash and shaken, rattled and brazen. ᅠ The lonely sea reaches out, demanding that we part with our 3,000 feet of altitude, but we weren't given much of a choice on whether the height we drifted in was ours to cede, for the ruling of the higher spheres have always claimed the reigns up here and while we sway and steer, despair knows, somehow, exactly where to find us. The hierarchy of control starts and ends at the hands of nature, whether we deem it true or not. There is no escape in the limits of mankind, but ─ we can damn sure try , at least... just not today. We are stranded, standing beside the haplessly heart-clenching mound of a flying vessel ─ though now, it should be renamed a dying vessel , because the enkindled crate of scrap, and flickering heap of shredded junk, still latching on to its final moments of solidity before its vital signs on the heart-beat monitor flat-line into a dredged-up bed of chips and flakes strewed and dispersed, sunk and submerged by the granular and gritty shore, the field of grain stained forevermore; but the funny thing is, before it was swallowed by flame, and before it had crumbled to ash, the useless carrier seemed almost a sermon before the burial site of the soon-to-be-dead party of victims to Mother Nature , soothing us into a state of acceptance for our entombment. My only hope is that future explorers stumble upon my gravestone and really read its carving: "If I am found intact, make it so I am no longer that, and let me dip and meld and ebb away into the rolling quilt of salty foam so that it may envelop me whole, like the under-watery inhabitants of sea: the quiet offscourings." It'll be quite the lengthy message, so I ponder starting it now, scrawling the writings into stone before I lose my life and no one thinks to save me an urn ... but desperate times call for desperate measures and so I'll have to settle for a jar. Farallon, a member of the luckless team, extended his hand and broke my train of thoughts. See ─ I signed up to an air touring agency to be taken on a scenic flight around the world, and now the pilot is somewhere swathed by swelling waves and spilt cascades. The service allowed for a maximum of five sightseers at a time, to not bombard the weight of the chopper, but suppose it falls anyway? What are we to do now? I haven't even learned the names of the crew of people I'm now stuck with on an island just off the coast of whoknowswhere. But I know who takes charge of the situation. The 'leader' of a pitiful pack, shall we say. Even from having just met the guy, it wasn't hard to tell Farallon always had something to say ~and at times like these, a little speech of encouragement really goes a long way~ in tricking the band of dopey twits into thinking we will actually find a means out of here without the slightest trace of normalcy or state of things not quite so kindly enough to win in our favour; smack-dab, the test of patience wears me out faster than the dread that sprouts its set of roots across the loam and soil and clay that hides the bones that don't decay, while the layered sediments that shelter limbs and flesh and meat all meshed into one, the soil, a hoarding miser, relishing its handy traps and gimmick ploys to put stuck souls like me to bed, to rest, to croak a rushed finale of meaningless words in an attempt at wishing away the world with a proper adieu despite the soundless sigh that will arise and fall back to the floor without another ear to catch its drip and trip and limp and dip into the dust where it belongs. Oh spare me the cruel net of catacombs clipped like a gentle, swaying pair of arms from Death herself, and so, bear me my load, I ask the crust of earth to brace itself a bassinet, in advance, for I must warn the heaviness of burdened minds, like that of mine, will otherwise surely capsize, thus I implore the sand and stones and dunes and bones to cushion up their cradle propped and build a bank that won't be flopped, a crib of slit that I can't topple over and dismantle, for who knows the damage I could cause? What more can the subsiding shore and tide take from the slumping weight of a sorry state and tempter of fate, and can it really last, provided, that the landmass left behind is blighted, for it isn't I that ends lopsided. Quivered breaths thrum out in prayers, in shaken soughs matched by the woeful, wafting wind, the mutterings of "hail mary's" unlike myself, the spells I cast existing by themselves; the sleepless night that drones us by has us getting ahead of ourselves. I used to scoff and scorn at hopeful speech givers like him ── but after facing what I had faced ──on the subsequent days of treachery and near-death experiences, the spear with which Farallon had used to strike the tirelessly thirsting tiger that fought its way through foliage and forestation to usurp its dominance in this meager isle, abandoned and stripped of delectable, writhing morsels such as I to take easy pickings off of and haul onto the rigidity dinner table of cobbled slabs on gravel mountains that protrude like pedestals, or totems, only beasts are fit to stand upon, for the ravening brutes of the brutal biomes, barbaric, bellicose, too busy brawling to buy into blessings of mercy or weak links to soft things that humans like too much: out here, the frail of hearts will blacken into steel-cold blood, without enough warmth ― the waning buds of fear, and doubt, and gloom, all close-knitted and matted and coiled, bodaciously, fittingly fueled and spoiled by the bleak feedings of an emptying mind, seemed... now ... things of the past. It was then, at the wisp's end of life, the threat of a flimsy thread coming apart in the silent snip of a split -scaring me stiff- in its fluttery flitter, almost slips from the sultry slick sweat of my soggy palms, the fluttering wire, not so thin anymore. A sense of powerlessness is plucked from out of my perpetual pit of pessimism. And I owe it all to Farallon. - - - - ~ poetic rendition ~ {specially composed format) - - A whirling whisk of rotor blades stirs the puffy batter of string-shaped clouds, its lifting force, a dragging weight to the metal rotaries that flap a pair of windswept wings. The skies sense a certain groan, unmistakable, in the wavering flight of unsteady airfoils that seem mistakable for unsuspecting onlookers who shall be left unnamed. Directionless, the angles bend at the swipe of a sudden gale , its drafts thieving the helpless craft amid tussling, tossing drafts of flowing current, brash and shaken, rattled and brazen. ~ ~ The lonely sea reaches out, demanding that we part with our 3,000 feet of altitude, but we weren't given much of a choice on whether the height we drifted in was ours to cede, for the ruling of the higher spheres have always claimed the reigns up here and while we sway and steer, despair knows, somehow, exactly where to find us. The hierarchy of control starts and ends at the hands of nature, whether we deem it true or not. There is no escaping the limits of mankind, but ─ we can damn sure try , at least. Just not today. ~ ~ We are stranded, standing beside the haplessly heart-clinching mound of a flying vessel─ though now, it should be renamed a dying vessel , because the enkindled crate of scrap, and flickering heap of shredded junk, still latching on to its final moments of solidity before its vital signs on the heart-beat monitor flat-line into a dredged-up bed of chips and flakes strewed and dispersed, sunk and submerged by the granular and gritty shore, the field of grain stained forevermore; but the funny thing is, before it was swallowed by flame, and before it had crumbled to ash, the useless carrier seemed almost a sermon before the burial site of the soon-to-be-dead party of victims to Mother Nature , soothing us into a state of acceptance for our entombment. ~ ~ My only hope is that future explorers stumble upon my gravestone and really read its carving: "If I am found intact, make it so I am no longer that, and let me dip and meld and ebb away into the rolling quilt of salty foam so that it may envelop me whole, like under- watery inhabitants of sea: the quiet offscourings." It'll be quite the lengthy message, so I ponder starting it now, scrawling the writings into stone before I lose my life and no one thinks to save me an urn. ...but desperate times call for desperate measures and so I'll have to settle for a jar. ~ ~ Farallon, a member of the luckless team, extended his hand and broke my train of thoughts. See ─ I signed up to an air touring agency to be taken on a scenic flight around the world, and now the pilot is somewhere swathed by swelling waves, and split cascades. The service allowed for a maximum of five sightseers at a time, to not bombard the weight of the chopper, but suppose it falls anyway? ~ ~ What are we to do now? I haven't even learned the names of the crew of people I'm now stuck with on an island just off the coast of ─ whoknowswhere ─ but I know who takes charge of the situation. The 'leader' of a pitiful pack, shall we say. ~ Even from having just met the guy, it wasn't hard to tell Farallon always had something to say ~and at times like these, a little speech of encouragement really goes a long way~ in tricking the band of dopey twits into thinking we will actually find a means out of here without the slightest trace of normalcy or state of things, not quite so kindly enough to be in our favour; smack-dab, the test of patience wears me out faster than the dread that sprouts its set of roots across the loam and soil and clay that hides the bones that don't decay, while the layered sediments sheltering limbs and flesh and meat all meshed into one, the soil, a hoarding miser, relishing its handy traps and gimmick ploys to put stuck souls like me to bed, to rest, to croak a rushed finale of meaningless words in an attempt at wishing away the world in a proper adieu despite the soundless sigh that will arise and fall back to the floor without another ear to catch its drip and trip and limp and dip into the dust where it belongs. ~ ~ Oh spare me the cruel net of catacombs clipped like a gentle, swaying pair of arms from Death herself, and so, bear me my load, I ask the crust of earth to brace itself a bassinet, in advance, for I must warn the heaviness of burdened minds, like that of mine, will otherwise surely capsize, thus I implore the sand and stones and dunes and bones to cushion up their cradle propped and build a bank that won't be flopped, a crib of slit that I can't top- -ple over and dismantle, for who knows the damage I could cause? What more can the subsiding shore and tide take from the slumping weight of a sorry state and tempter of fate, and can it really last, provided, that the landmass left is blighted and it isn't I that ends lopsided. ~ ~ Quivered breaths thrum out in prayers, in shaken soughs matched by the woeful, wafting wind, the mutterings of "hail mary's" unlike myself, the spells I cast existing by themselves; the sleepless night that drones us by has us getting ahead of ourselves. ~ I used to scoff and scorn at hopeful speech-givers like him, but after facing what I had faced, ── on the subsequent days of treachery and near-death experiences, the spear with which Farallon had used to strike the tirelessly thirsting tiger that fought its way through foliage and forestation to usurp its dominance in this meager isle, abandoned and stripped of delectable, writhing morsels such as I to take easy pickings off of and haul onto the rigidity dinner table of cobbled slabs on gravel mountains that protrude like pedestals, or totems, only beasts are fit to stand upon, for the ravening brutes of the brutal biomes, barbaric, bellicose, too busy brawling to buy into blessings of mercy or weak links to soft things that humans like too much: out here, the frail of hearts will blacken into steel-cold blood, without enough warmth ── the waning buds of fear, and doubt, and gloom, all close-knitted and matted and coiled, bodaciously, fittingly fueled and spoiled by the bleak feedings of an emptying mind, seemed, now, things of the past. ~ ~ It was then, at the wisp's end of life, the threat of a flimsy thread coming apart in the silent snip of a split, -scaring me stiff- in its fluttery flitter, almost slips from the sultry slick sweat of my soggy palms, the fluttering wire, not so thin anymore. A sense of powerlessness is plucked from out of my perpetual pit of pessimism. And I owe it all to Farallon. ─ ─ - ─ ── - ──