A Vulture's Man

Too long I have roamed these lands
To ask someone to lend their hand
To fill sand in virtue’s well
And desert this living hell

The splinters of a ship
Smashed by a cannon ball
Are held aloft like diamonds
Against the sun
That ship cannot sail
And the water is all but dry
But that glint in your eye
And the driest of smiles
Says you stopped being
Your mother’s child

Like a leper you crawled
Out of this moment
Always to look back
At your guinea sack
Where you and your memories
Spread disease and lust
For all that wasn’t to be

I fill this well with sand
And leave the land
To quench my thirst with blood
And die a vulture’s man.