Take you on a cruise

I remember having told the pirate lady about the lack of mail flowing through these currents and the little interest this sailor had in getting any message across. The sea hadn’t been easy for the past few moths and it gave neither rest nor truce, yet she managed to come by into my rusty ship and made some odd but sweet demand: She wished to find some mail. Words were like gold and jewels to her and what could lie between those written lines represented the worth of her sought-after treasures. She’d been buccaneering these waters long before I had. She knew best.

Another night, another sail through, Field Commander Cohen was whistling up to the stars and throwing the occasional howl at that moon, strumming those gentle chords while the old man Bukowski kept sipping white wine with his maids. He pulled them out of the water every now and then. I never cared for what they did; they were a good crew, loyal company. I sensed these men knew and shared something I didn't quite know yet. I wondered, as I sipped my aged rum, about how passionate they were at sailing this one life, their ability to turn disgust into humor, pain into cure and love into hate impressed me. They could go from one extreme to another, departure to arrival, port to port. Like the bravest sailors, these men were able to turn their own ships around. They were trying to teach me something. I struggled with the idea, but then I listened to them hard enough, tried to puzzle it out and as I poured some rum, I came to realize that it was because of their muse, they had a muse. The evocation of all desires, urges and feelings, inspiration, lust and wisdom, all potted into one idealized person, the marriage of body and soul.

But then I self-questioned, where did they come from then? - Suzanne, Lydia, Marianne, Joan...of Arc.., what were their real names? How did we know who they were? - Was it a god's gift to some or all men? I thought “I'm too tired to be asking myself about these brides from Babylon, the goddesses of the mind”. I poured some more rum, the darkness in this little cabin gave an inexplicable sense of wide openness, and then I looked into the dim light and thought: “where's mine?”, “how can it come to this and not know?”... As I wrote these words, I could tell there had to be one out there for me and maybe ignoring this is what made Leonard and Charles different than me. Their muse is their power, their drive, their hunger, their craving; they both had found their own. I'm just yet to start looking for this almighty being, where would she be? - What could she do to me? It all became clear, even in the stillness of this darkness I could see it clearly. The message sat flat in the bottom of my mind. This is just like a new quest, a new change of direction, a world of new places to sail to; maybe there'll even be some mail after all...

One last sip at this Nicaraguan nectar, old but strong, it has aged well I have to admit. Maybe this rum had a muse of its own too? -Who knows? ...the glass is certainly empty now. I think the pirate lady should earn the credit for having shone her charms over this ship, after all it was her encouragement and desire to have something to read what led these hands to type these words... will they make any sense or deserve any worth? - Only a treasure seeker could tell I'm afraid.

“Good night Charles & Leonard, you guys can stay up all night if you wish, just make sure this ship remains on course, the captain is going to sleep.”