NEMESIS

NEMESIS

You are the great white whale of legends
That Ahab longed to kill and keep,

Gnawing at the ship’s great hull,
Enough to make a grown man weep.

You wait for me, teeth white and gleaming.

I walk the plank, barely dreaming,
Shaking in my wet suit and my plastic fins.

I try to keep the muscles loose,
But they stiffen like some stubborn corpse,
And I limp like Egor in the lab, flunking chemistry course.

Such a bitter and unpleasant sceme, stripped of all my dopamine.

A living death and a crying sin,
Closer to the edge than I’ve ever been,
To losing hope and falling into your vast impressive jaws.

The strength behind your mighty grip is enough to give me pause.

And falling futures, landslides grim,
All that’s left the murder and mayhem
Of your stiffness and your shaking,

Wheelchairs in the rear view mirror,
Youth and beauty for the taking.

You are the great white whale of legends
That haunted Ahab’s troubled sleep,

Gnawing at the ship’s great hull,
My nemesis in the briny deep.

-BRUCE POTTS
COPYRIGHT 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED