The Gray Poem by Barry Middleton

the gray sky over the Gulf
is the color of a battleship
and it says two things to me

it says there is a storm there
beyond the blank horizon
sea and sky like an entity

I can believe the butterfly
that claims a hand rippled
the waters off Sierra Leone

and the ripples became waves
now churned into a hurricane
by time and heat and neglect

but gray also is the battleship
plying the waters headed east
for perhaps still another war

and battleships spawn storms
and the winds of death blow
far away they circle the world