Jens Nicholas Jebsen- Two Poems

Twilight Shift

When night falls, the ship heads back to harbor with it's catch of fish

Dusk silhouettes the mountains, and sunburned tourists vacate the beach

We head home, slicing through the bay like a ten ton human and fish-gut petri dish

As I swab the bloody decks with industrial grade dish detergent and bleach

By the stern, assorted sea life is filleted and placed in chests of icy slush

Creatures that once rocketed like swallows through a salty sky now wait in pieces to be consumed

Cigarette butts, tobacco spit and bait have all congealed on the deck into a foul smelling mush 

And after a breath of fresh air from the bow and the exchange of a vile joke, my toil is resumed

I swab my way back to the stern where their fresh skeleton's lie

Then as I'm folding burlap sacks, despite myself, I feel somewhat sad

And I wonder, how does a fish feel when it knows it's destined to die?

Does it have regrets or visions, the way people who have died surely had?

I lookout towards the shore as darkness envelops the sea and the west side

Smog boils overhead, traffic hums to the tune of the cities collective strife

Beer swilling men mill about laughing, and their few intrepid spouses nap around the galley inside

All merry as can be, obliviously enchanted by the ecstasy of life.

Hallow

Some men are men, others are simply matter

Pastiches of atoms swirling, calculated yet unfeeling

Between light and darkness, a rat will gravitate towards the latter

Hallow shells live among us, never really concealing

The emptiness that lies within. This is of course self-evident

In the world we live in; run by the gilded mules of the smartest thieves 

Those poisoned by a lust for power, the most insidious malcontent
Reap what they sow in the end; meanwhile Jerusalem grieves.

 

 

Jens Nicholas Jebsen is a poet from Los Angeles. He is a devout lunatic with a penchant for the subversive.