Queen Mary 3 (Gunning)
This host afloat became our home with all its gaudy figures that boast allegiance to the rule: what's big proceeds to bigger. Our scheme was work a season, save, and make away like bandits. The seasons changed and here we've stayed for incremental handouts here aboard Queen Many 3 whose sway has occupied our memories, evicting terra firma to our dreams until all we know is Queen Mary 3. White gloves carry trays of canapés, champagne, and vino through national pavilions, shopping malls, and bright casinos that lit my wide and youthful eyes when first I set a heel here but now I squint on my sad sprint to my shift as a dealer here aboard Queen Mary 3 whose sway has occupied our memories, evicting terra firma to our dreams until all we now is Queen Mary 3. Let's roll back the seasons now and sift through the confetti. We'll find and wear the shoes I wore when I was young and ready here aboard Queen Mary 3 whose sway has occupied our memories, evicting terra firma to our dreams until all we know is Queen Mary 3.

On Their Dime (Gunning)
“If you see a player getting rowdy or upset, continue dealing. There's a two-way mirror up above your green felt table by the ceiling. Do not flinch or frown, just stay composed and keep your lips like Mona Lisa's. He may soon break down but they don't yet sweep up the leaning tower of Pisa.” This is the rhythm, this is the rhyme when I am dancing on their dime. “They will dream away on boats they'll steer with hope on blue and turquoise rapture. We will let them stray with bloated spirit, chasing islands ripe for capture. You wait on the land and wave them into shore then, once you have them strapped in, just reach out your hand, unload the chips, and please don't chit chat with those ‘captains'”. This is the rhythm, this is the rhyme when I am dancing on their dime. “If a player's sobbing, head in hands, and mutters ‘hit me' tired and muffled, the mantra of the job is customer is right, don't let it stilt your shuffle. If they look from their cards at all, those players stare off vacantly and past you. It may seem awful hard to ditch a timeless bond but you will learn that fast, too.” This is the rhythm, this is the rhyme when I am dancing on their dime.

No Bounds, no Curfew (Gunning)
I leave my shift and I ditch my nametag, I find some party at a distant wing. I drop a couple of my chips for my drinks and entrance, hope to silence this employment ring. I smell a cutting cloud of man-made citrus that's jetting from a silver phallic device. I see a gaggle of bikinied women wrestling on a giant pepperoni slice. This place has no bounds, no curfew; I'm weaving through it with safari drive. Through novel colours, sounds, and perfumes that keep me feeling real and feeling alive. In a room lit with wild projections of fighting, panic, and exploding things, I hear a pitch-corrected troupe of kids and dogs on stage with go-go boots and platinum wigs. This place is boiling with a mob excitement but still I notice there's a few unsold. I chat it up with some curmudgeon staring in his drink who says, "This fucking show is growing old". This place has no bounds, no curfew; I'm weaving through it with safari drive. Through novel colours, sounds, and perfumes that keep me feeling real and feeling alive. There's just a couple of my chips remaining, I know this night's escape has got to end. I'm at a disco at as corner of this endless palace after many hallway turns and bends. What's in the air these gorgeous flirty women keep walking by holding the same beer brand. What's with that wire from the ear of the punker on the wall? He's sending signals cross the room with his hands. This place has no bounds, no curfew; I'm weaving through it with safari drive. Through novel colours, sounds, and perfumes that keep me feeling real and feeling alive.

Fluorescent Glare (Gunning)
Fluorescent glare on pots and pans, the lineal motion of the cooks and washers hands and I, like a wandering antebellum child, standing with white-gloved waitstaff weaving wild, on those by whom those glove are worn, with faces from, it seems, all spirit has been torn. They load up their trays with cocktails clinically and quick with a lifeless type agility. Fluorescent glare on this huge hall that must be miles by miles if one square inch at all, on shrimp-peeling crews all hunched with heads hung down and plate-scraping gangs discarding oily mounds, and on my failing, folksy chat that, but for one near cook, is falling really flat. He answers sweet but short and dutifully. That glare sees our relation truthfully. Fluorescent glare as mean as math, negating all interpretation in its path and spotlighting every move and shape below. No storied corners or romantic glow.

Mal de Mer (Gunning)
It's getting hard to overlook the pallor and the hunches, the passengers in fetal curls or seeing off their lunches. The deck is spick and sterilized, the food run through inspection. Are these random incidents or some wildfire infection? The deck staff come refreshing cups, the medics fill prescriptions up. Diagnose? - I wouldn't dare but no one mentions mal de mer. It's getting hard to overlook the driven, aimless wander, the wild limbs and empty eyes, the minds that have gone yonder. The staff discreetly tame their will, the medics dole the proper pills. Diagnose? - I wouldn't dare but no one mentions mal de mer. For all the safety and selection that has been afforded, some folks still won't swallow like the rest of us aboard did. One declared, “this chocolate pill just tastes too sweet and waxy” then hailed then jumped the rails into an absent water taxi. The deck staff come to wipe that spill, Receivable adds up his bills. Diagnose? - I wouldn't dare but no one mentions mal de mer.

Silhouettes (Gunning)
On the deck in the dark at a secret hour, over gates, under chains, between columns I am struck by a scene of such sickening power. I watch drunk, I stare shocked, sunk and solemn. Smoking men manning lines, pulling these aboard: bucking cows, spinning barrels, dangling people - hoisted up to be dropped in a gnarly horde where machines pluck the weak from the feeble. Silhouettes are out of reach and they're said to be deceiving because they tend to take the shape of what their witness is believing but silhouettes are all I have so this story is evolving and I've grown certain now that no illumination would absolve these silhouettes. The salty cranks were correct when they said to me, "Things aboard aren't all hunky dory" and anyone who'd dare say that they are should be made to watch these silhouette's rotten story. Silhouettes are out of reach and they're said to be deceiving because they tend to take the shape of what their witness is believing but silhouettes are all I have so this story is evolving and I've grown certain now that no illumination would absolve these silhouettes. A history of silhouettes carry us ahead. I see now how they skulk all around us. So the grace, kings and queens, as we break our bread, should go to the silhouettes that have crowned us.

Take the Hook (Gunning)
The clingy fabrics, they slide and ruffle on thighs and ass that bump and shuffle to the right. These wolves in heat seem all set to mate now but even these bowed walls seen straight now in this light. Never mind the loneliness that may reside behind each dress and never mind a closer look. I just want to get fucked up and take the hook. Rap on Black Caesar and Captain Cook, too. Spit out those rogue tales that we look to in that slang. We'll dance ourselves from what we've been stuck in and overlook that both those buccaneers were hanged. Never mind autonomy of this brand's only make believe, just go on reading from that book because tonight I'll never mind and take the hook. Never mind the rum required to let these juvi dreams transpire and send my cabin into spins, my evening sloshing around within. Never mind how my bruised brain, while shuffling through the breakfast train, will realize what I mistook for stepping out, as I'm reeled in, was just a hook.

Jetsam Tale (Gunning)
"Limbo lower now", an intercom commands. The rosy limbs respond, the daiquiris change hands. Are they happy on portside to just lay back, enjoy the ride or leashed with leis led by that programmed calypso? In the smoke and shade, the starboard cranks converge to fight that echo with their sour, contrary dirge, then they toast to their resolve that of this ship they are absolved. This cruise line's cups they all raise up to their lips, though. And still this ship won't turn. The wake's a line astern. I watch the steady dump at back of our conflicting artifacts. No moral to this jetsam tale: a rambling gush of no avail. Resist of wind in hair and hands across their brows, what do the stately see ahead for us at bow? They talk with grandiosity about the perils on the sea, "we'll take aboard and free the have-nots from out there". At the slot machines, the buffets and the bars, they hide in flimsy hopes, in medicines, and lard or down in steerage sucking screens that soothe with supersonic screams and swift, disjointed scenes until they're without care. And still this ship won't turn. The wake's a line astern. I watch the steady dump at back of our conflicting artifacts. No moral to this jetsam tale: a rambling gush of no avail. The facts and figures that have been released into the air are swept like litter when they fall in null and neutral pairs. The clever ones arranging things in strange configurations while we all doubt the power of our natural observations. No moral to this jetsam tale: a rambling gush of no avail.

I Want a Wave (Gunning)
Whose voice speaks soft below conflicting monologues, the engine's chronic drone? Whose hand won't land a blow while siblings scuffle on in heedless, grating tones? Not the bearded man we know from oil paints and chiseled stone but I wish that it were because I want a wave to wash this mess away. Who's watching high above the processes and roles that make this vessel run? Whose golden rule of love was left out of the mold that needs to be undone? Not the man, when pushed to shove, who wiped away the web we'd spun but I wish that it were because I want a wave to wash this mess away. Can I still hope to find, within this calloused shell beyond the pleas I've made, past that brute king in mind who stoically would quell this voyage of the strayed, the true but fading glow that slides into my fury's hungry shade? I want a wave to wash this mess away.

I Can't Swim (Gunning)
I am not a captain who must zig and zag within our rut around and through 'ifs', 'ands' and 'buts' and I am not a crewman wrenching in the puddled, grimy guts. I hope they tighten all the nuts. As we continue on the water, seams get leaky, engine hotter. There's word that our deck isn't trim but I can't steer and I can't fix and I can't swim. I am not a pirate. Deep inside the walls of law I stay collecting booty with my pay and I am not a fisherman who meets the sea with boisterous play but I can eat a mean filet. As we continue on the water, seams get leaky, engine hotter. There's word that our deck isn't trim but I can't steal and I can't fish and I can't swim. I shuffle here, the hours passing, moving chips that won't be cashed in then I'll depict this vessel's sin. I can deal and I can bitch but I can't swim.

Morning (Gunning)
The ray that parts the smog and clouds to warm our turned and stony cheeks feels like a parents' reach of love and sorrow, a soft and cautious stroke of hand while father's lungs restrain a speech and mother prays this phase will end tomorrow. Like tokens snuck to bedside stand with vested hope of breaking through, the dew yet wiped by crew shines on the railing but gifts get lost in messy rooms and we who once were children grew to teens on which this sentiment is failing. Still these runaways rush in, stock dreams in eyes and chins up smug. They dart on tile and rug to their new cabins. But in those cells of painted steel, they'll ponder nightly how they tug but can't release those dreams from what they're trapped in. But here now in this morning's light and taken by its misty air whose gusts that brush my hair are soft and even I am a humbled child again who fled and fell, returned and there his parents were, forever to receive him.

Disgraceful Place (Gunning)
Confetti cannons like a geyser - seemed so random but I'm wiser now. I can predict where every flake will land with this flat and lukewarm cocktail cradled in my hand. Call me sour or a sulk but let me state my case: we're one and all too graceful for this damned disgraceful place. I weave and shuffle, eyes-a-tearing, through the bustle for a pair they know. Those that they don't, they'll dodge or look right through. These days I am lucky if they catch a pair they do. Remember when we find two on an unfamiliar face: we're one and all too graceful for this damned disgraceful place. We're sardonic, we're facetious, dry and caustic - you should see us go: thorough lampoons designed to vindicate this band that craves the soothing bond of dissidence and hate but we should know when we condemn or draw lines in our haste: we're one and all too graceful for this damned disgraceful place. Jingles jangling, blips and bleeping, I've been angry but I'm weeping now. These festive sounds are rattling my nerves, my greasy paper napkin piled with salty, stale hors d'oeuvres. Just look around, we're children here whose parents left no trace. We're one and all too graceful for this damned disgraceful place.

Law of The Jungle (Cummings/Gunning)
Here but still not present, I open and close my eyes. There's a phantom crescent and bars break the amber sky. With the others asleep, quiet thoughts I will keep. What will still the whirlwind? The sigh? The cry? With a grinding sameness, the calm ushers in the din. The gawking crowds are nameless and soon they will trickle in. Shall I pummel the wall? Shreik my obsoletes call? The routine awe and wonder that I win's wearing thin. Law of the jungle's "might is right" - is that right? - Or was it "strongest survive?" From this wrought iron bungalow I see the flight. The seagulls swoop and they dive. Don't even beat my chest now. I can't take the 'ooohs' and 'aaahs'. Don't need to jump through hoops now to dodge their inane applause. I just fix icy stares with the same eyes as theirs. On scattered, wilted lettuce watch me gnaw on the straw. Law of the jungle's "might is right" - is that right? - Or was it "strongest survive?" From this wrought iron bungalow I see the flight. The seagulls swoop and they dive.