Surf the Apocalypse | Jamming in Prime Time
abracad, · Categories: externally authored, poetryBy William T. Hathaway
Surf the Apocalypse
We stand on doomsday’s beach
watching waves rise and crash,
breathing the brisk and final breeze.
Shiva holds in one of his four arms
a surfboard carved from a bodhi tree,
His partner Durga and their son Ganesh
stand beside him, boardless.
I clutch a battered styrofoam body board,
knuckles white.
Over the waves gallops a white mare –
mane and tail streaming.
Kalki, the last avatar, rides her –
white beard streaming,
blowing his conch and shouting,
“Time’s up!”
Shiva paddles with four hands through the surging surf.
Shivering, I flop onto my board and try to keep up with him.
Durga and Ganesh mount the air and drop onto the waves.
She rides them barefoot on a cushion of kundalini;
he skims them on ivory skates.
The sea swells and circles us,
whirling in rings that seem to rise,
but it’s we who are sinking into them.
The ocean becomes a funnel of fire
that doesn’t burn but caresses in farewell (more…)