Ode to a Box of Cap'n Crunch

How come I to call this breakfast?
Did I buy it in a dream?
Did this bright blue, red-fram'ed Image
of a happy cartoon Cap'n turn my course from truer food?
So it would seem;

(I am too noble to eat oat! I am the captain of my boat!)

How many mornings have I habit-stuffed my gullet
on these sugar cubes that crash upon the teeth
like champagne bottles on a liner's hull?

I am at sea, rot-teeth full of poison.
Below deck are the ship's stores, stocked
with cases of this stuff that gnaws
my innards as I haply crunch it down!

I'd set different course, but there's
scant wind to fill this withered sail...
Other foods go down hard; they taste
like Castor oil over canned sardines
to my Cap'n Crunch-calibrated tongue!

I always thought the shores of some warm island
would embrace me surely, once the mothering sea
decreed an end to all my wandering lusts.

But though each seven years did yield a port of call,
I found no lover true to land me long.
And glad I was, to set my sail again
for some new sunset,
Crunchy mouthfuls there at easy reach.

But now I know the sea's no mother.
Could she speak, I fear she'd rail
At all the wasted years she carried me;
Her angry words
Would fill my ears as aimlessly I sail.

It is too late. I'm ill-equipt
for prayer, it rings so empty in the hold...
Before my voice returns my eyes unfix
their gaze and scavenge for an easier thing.

Night calls. I'll have a final bowl
of Cap'n Crunch before I hit the hay;
Alone, with sweetness on my tongue,
I'll curl up warm, and turn my back on day.

REVISED 12/12/93