They call him Captain
because, although his old woman is a row boat,
he goes where he orders himself to go
and tends to his love
with the same effort and care
as a full crew of  the descendants of gods.

They call him Crazy
because he uses the moon
instead of a compass,
and reads poetry instead of treasure maps.
Though he is a hermit,
he scrapes together enough money
to travel and dream.

Otherwise, he knows how to survive
on intense, amorous affairs
and treats his women like queens
using only a quill and their bodies for paper.
But he sails alone as if
more loyal to his boat than
a man to his wife.

They call him Spirit
because he comes and he goes,
pulling the high tide with him.
He writes on beaches
where the moon is brightest,
under clear skies and never after sunrise.
Then he shrinks with the waves
and is never seen again by the same individual.

Most often they call him Myth
and on desolate nights
he tells himself that
those who don't know the sea intimately
lack souls.
Then he paints portraits of the old,
exhausted faces of the stars
and speaks epic poems
to crustaceans as he boils them alive
(if he isn't human then he's cruel just like one).

All who know him forget his name,
and he tells them to as they wave goodbye
and the sea sucks him back into her arms,
into her beating breast.
Yet his is not a lonely existence;
not another soul is necessary
to keep him rowing.
It is as satisfying as it is solitary,
because he calls himself Poet,
and a poem is all he needs.