From salted lakes

And brackish ponds

Comes wash and water

With tethered swans

From raging seas

And blackened mere’s

Comes stories of long lost souls

And forgotten lives

Of all and nothing

All at sea

In tales of messaged bottles

Passed on from hand to mouth

From ear to ear

In winning sounds

From clucking hens

Words and letters

Some of regret

Some held back

Never sent

Lost and torn

Ripped on sodden tide

Floundered on hidden rocks

Where by changing light

And changeling moon

Stories are given

Of monsters, mermaids

And those others at the deepest depths

Amid a swirling cauldron of despair

As dark as hell itself

Ever ready to consume

Where men cast away

Discard all that cannot be kept

The deed of dead men’s bones

In the hope that all that’s left

Is the tale itself

Of what might, could or should have been

A yarn

Of wishful idle thought

Leaving just the merest hint of doubt

Did he fall or was he pushed.