Drop anchor, sailor, drop anchor!
Like a message beamed from a lighthouse,
I would write you a poem;
I would cut a sweeping scythe
of ruthless brilliance
from the heights of my obsession,
but the poor lighthouse lamp is disconnected,
o sweet mariner!
There is no intelligence working aloft,
where the mirrors and lenses sleep away
the lonely hours,
untouched by mind or moon.
O, drop anchor, my love!

Has the lighthouse-keeper abandoned the light?
At this moment, is he raving below,
in the unlit depths,
crashing into tables in the dark,
intoxicated by the salted stink of the night?
Are his ear-drums pulsing with the
mindless thrust and crush
of the waves gnashing on the headland?
See, now, where they collide and disintegrate
on the murderous slabs?

O, sailor!
just when you needed it most,
the lighthouse-keeper's light sleeps like a djinn
inside its impotent urn.
Do you suppose the guardian of the rocks
fumbles like a hollow-eyed madman
in the velvet bindings,in the thonged bondage...

O, drop anchor! sailor, beware!
...the lighthouse-keeper
wrestles down there,
inside the light-absorbing pelt
of the rabid animal that is the night.