Shipwreck
I boarded as a martyr,
not to play with scarlet sins
convinced my way was chartered,
I'd be safe in holy folds
but patient, pregnant umbras came,
their membranes black and blue,
all bred at sea in countless numbers
just to consecrate eternity.
Ripe thunderheads churned buttered skies
and eerie purple dragons bled.
The wise, east wind romanced my mind
with easy whispers; ghostly thin.
The whitecap rhythms preordained
that all was fair on baffled seas,
no wraiths of dry hope could be spared
amidst the love and war aboard
a lonely a ship claimed by the sea.
The captain cares not if I'm dove or gull;
a virgin or a saint, or if I've ever survived
storms before, for waves return a ship to shore,
one warped piece at a time.
Forever seemed too short to have denied
the truth of saying how "I never"
flirted with the bulwark's edge
and cast my fortune out before a pirate's eyes.
A life's too short to remain sober,
an uptight soldier minding angels
camped out upon my shoulders pitching
chaste, apocalyptic angles.
I drank forgotten ecstasy and spilled
confessions sweetly rotten,
stripped my sail and set it free
to be lapped up by sea-serf tongues
above the swells of happy-never-after
that is haunted by the humor of
a million dead men laughing.
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are: It might have been."
John Greenleaf Whittier's poem "Maud Muller" concludes: "If of all sad words of tongue or
pen, the saddest are, 'it might have been"
Copyright © Jean Marble | Year Posted 2009
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