Yachtie Doomster

Fixing things, catching fish and battery volts,  

we work beaches burning rubbish and comb back odd things to compensate  

for what we lose overboard from time to time.

Progressively we believe in survival on one’s own

and the lack of our ability to develop anything in the west anymore.

We listen to the news less but tune in otherwise to arrivals to new places

while checking security and updating evacuation plans.

Preparing for the day, we top off the water, hoard food and fill the grab bags.

Doomsday trained.

I lived that day on the Dampier Strait making my safety stop

while grapple hooked to a bommie atop a submarine mound we had just dove.

The current gusted and squalled and flagged my body horizontal.

Above me wind and current at the water’s interface unfocussed the light to green cyan, passing clouds of dense viscous hydro chloro carbon gas .

The waves cast cloud shadows below, their movement in time with the buffets on my air supply.

Below the sand dunes move and storm up grains against my mask.

Quietly content with this apocalyptic vista I lied about my dive computer orders and overstayed my five minutes.

But with only seventy atmospheres of air in my bottle

and no way to make my oxygen machine down here in time

I was bound now to surface and end this trip.

The fear of death lessened by my prevision of our future.