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This Medusa had no power to turn us into stone
but when she ran aground over Poseidon's throne
his anger stirred, and into the sea the crew was flung.
On a raft urgently built of salvaged timbers we clung.
A hundred and more escaped before the frigate sunk
and after four days adrift, our number had shrunk.

With naught but salted sea to sate our massive thirst
I vowed not to give in. I swore I'd not be the first
to yield to temptation and drink myself to death
though feverish from the intensity of the sun's breath.
On the eighth day, hunger turned men into savages,
feasting on flesh in a moment of rapacious ravages.

Bloated bodies bobbled like apples off Africa's coast.
I contemplated my fate to become what I dreaded most-
being tossed off the raft, into a shark's clamping jaws.
To survive, no one had agreed to abide by man's laws.
I'll not forget the look of fear in the eyes of others,
sailors who once proudly called themselves 'brothers.'

Each of us clutched and clawed for an inch of the raft.
The feeble ones cackled as though they'd gone daft.
Arms and legs entangled among the living and dead,
as an alabaster corpse pillowed a sun-blistered head.
The demented swam away, flailing arms in roiling waves
until they perished in the depths of their turbid graves.

Alas the day, two weeks in, a ship sighted on the horizon.
Fifteen survivors with charred skin, lean and wizened
rescued from death's grip in a morbid human experience.
Men who'd given up on hoping for a timely deliverance,
their bodies emaciated, and their clothing, threadbare,
destined to relive the catastrophe in gruesome nightmare.


August 4th 2022
2022 Marathon mile 11 Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney

NOTE: In June 1816, the French frigate Medusa, ran aground off the coast of Senegal. Because of a shortage of lifeboats, some 150 survivors embarked on a raft and were decimated by starvation during a 13-day ordeal, which descended into murder and cannibalism. Only a handful remained when they were rescued at sea.
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