Best Shipwreck Poems
Foreboding of a tempestuous storm,
it blackens as it draws near,
a cumulonimbus in towering form,
extending to the troposphere,
So cast off mooring and slacken the line,
break free while there's still time,
'cause I'll pull you under if you don't let go,
Save yourself and abandon ship,
I'll take on water and sink too quick,
in gales of winds the swells arise,
these waves will break and so will I,
Roars of thunder and screeching wind,
sheets of lightning and pelting rains,
walls of waves will batter within,
until our stability wanes,
So cast off mooring and slacken the line,
untether your heart from mine,
'cause I'll drown us both if you don't let go,
Save yourself and abandon ship,
I'm taking on water and sinking quick,
in gales of winds the swells arise,
these waves are breaking and so am I
Jellyfish
Once I had a wild wish
To be a jolly jellyfish,
A quietly quivering jellyfish
Shivering in the sea.
I did not crave to be a crab,
A sideways-scuttling, crusty scab
In sluggish sludge and dismal drab
At the bottom of the sea,
Nor wish to be a sucking sponge,
Sea-sway drudge of the fathoms' plunge,
Dredging supper from the soupy gunge
In the dungeons of the sea.
I might have wished for shark or whale,
To lord the oceanic trail,
My dorsal fin a regal sail,
Imperial in the sea;
Or dared to dash through the dolphin waves,
Gliding where the wild seas rave,
Dive to a shipwreck's sunken grave,
Sunken deep in the sea.
Instead, I wished for a jellyfish,
A parachuting jellyfish,
A gossamer drift in the seas' vast dish;
That's what I wished for me.
The seas swell
with saccharine sighs
and stir my seaman's obsession
with blonde pleasures,
but treachery’s buried
in treasures feminine-gold.
A flute, a lyre, their voices
nectar-dipped in danger.
Temptation burns with Hades-flames
on sunset waters;
sea-devils, those she-devils
are salt-in-wound and sugar sweet.
Ooh songstress sisters,
please just a taste;
a kiss on lips
that set fire to desires
with your song.
My sailor’s appetite
hungers for your honey,
whet by curves, wet
and flowing with fanned betta fins.
Ship's mainmast in full sail,
filled with your chanting gales
to get there, find you, possess you,
surrender to you.
Lessons of unholy-lore lost
in depths of forbidden allure;
tidal surge drives my male urge
upon damsel-damned rocks.
Scree, with greed
drowns the sinking screams.
Cursed corpses
litter seabed in breath-less murk.
Oh songstress trio,
so fluid,
so corrupt.
Your flute a primal plea,
your lyre a trembling snare.
Soprano hymns
shiver moon-shimmer on water
as wind-songs commit mortal sins.
Fallen angels’, your sea-mist-sighs
are my lyric doom to die.
Black waves
frothy like pints of ale
undulate with serpentine virgins;
weavers of wind
and wave
and spindrift spite.
This sailor’s fate
awaits escape in vain.
My bane, their sunlight-tresses
turned a seaweed tangle.
In temptress threads
I'm wrapped before I’m dead—
cold embrace of death in shallows,
a mariner’s gallows.
Gull, a laughing witness
fades in clouds. Knows my sailor’s
crossed bones will brine.
Opiate of the sea:
my soul’s shipwreck,
their ecstasy.
My blood,
throbbing with lust,
a poor warrior
against sirens’ maelstrom-song
spinning my demise.
The able gave it a generously long wink
as if they did not think
resulting in the captain`s sharp stink
While down went the clueless ship
with the rich captain`s poor sheep
siren's saddest song
a hypnotic lullaby
gulls wade the tide pools
am the one that you corruptly and acidly destroyed I once a country of success and national prosperity hub educational champion, but you politicians ruined me. I was meant to benefit everyone living in me, you exploited me exposed me in ruin. I was the national Anthem of West Africa, because of bad leaderships and excessive of bureaucracy I was designed to benefits all people rather unfortunately I am the captain of poverty and development underdog, architectural blind.
I am stinking with abject poverty chronic sculptures and broken windows, the king liar and acceptors of blame lazy bunch of kindergarten, capable of feeding the nation with myopic thinking, justice is dying in courtyards. You let the people to dream pleasant dreams they wake up to utopia. The country is in abject poverty lotion of thieves, excessive greediness.
Politicians used our blood to write their golden manifestos they flattered us with junks of food. They altogether brainwashed us, we are the rightful and meaningful owners of our destiny. We have been denied justice to serve our country men and women. Sierra Leoneans are proclaiming having lots of minerals all infancy, and surreal.
I am a hamlet where developments are eminent. But corruption have eaten into our hearts destroyed our organs and kidneys like narcotics. Lawmakers enacted laws ask criminals to apply the peace. Beggars are moving around town to mendicant in order to survive in the heart of Freetown, in order to skip the day.
The Statehouse witnesses these painful memories the beggars are finding it too hard to put food on their tables. They move from east to west north to south as if they are intoxicated though they are not, but because too much of pain sucking in their skins, they brought us the Ebola method to subtract the population with Nazi salute.
Bumble bees buzzing hard,
A little girl plays in the yard,
Ivy running amongst the trees,
Don't you smell her disease?
Igloo fit just for two,
Hot chocolate in remembrance of you,
Fourth of July's between the blinds,
Now I can read between the lines,
Siamese cat taken off to jail,
Cadillac car that had to sail,
Brother in law at the door,
Everything was such a chore,
Weight bench, a spotter, and tape in the deck,
Watch as the weather brings on this shipwreck.
By: Sabina Nicole
Shipwreck
Sure fingers grip
Quivering lips caressed by mist
Subversion in an inverse universe
Obtuse life married to a hopeful mantra
Division of these harsh seas I seek
Of this boat captain I am
Water erodes nothing but the iron it's made of
Oxidized severely weakened this handcrafted monster I built is
No anchor or tether
Turn back never
Event horizon and eventuality ring in my ears
Tepid eyes search these hostile waters
Once Id found it
The journey to it was long and egregious
Cast out and banished I yearn for this paradise I'd like to call home
My thoughts are lost in this sea riddled with glass jars
My worst fear
Sunrise illuminates the ferocity of what is ahead
Focus and determination scorch my features
I remember that moment
This hidden paradise eludes me
My vessel Elizabeth
Her vengeance is evident with a glance to my wake
Best for a lasting uncharted effort
Released my grip for another
Firm I grasp
Two clicks
All ahead full
I am contaminated,
As is the sea,
My mind is a ship,
Sunken to the deepest parts
Of my thoughts,
It was a wreckage
That no one has discovered.
Plunging into an ocean of grief,
My lungs swallow the water.
Trying to breathe it in,
I can taste the plastic,
Not the salt.
My thoughts are the pollution
No one tries to clean
I am lost.
I am a shipwreck.
While i sit
In this Damp rotten cave
The cliffs to high
I tried
In vain
Low tide
Lets me see
Outside
For a time
Before breaking waves
Force me
Inside
How many years
I've spent
In this darkness
This dampness
This rotten cave
No seaman
Should suffer
This torturest sentence
I know i am long dead
As the ships that pass
No longer have sail
My body
Now bones
Once strewn about the floor
This cave
The sirens
They come
On a low tide night
As i sit on the sand
Under a moon lit sight
Just outside
My crypt
My cave
My grave
They sing me
swoon me
Call me
To join my brethren
In the watery depths
I resist
The magic of there voices
As i am scared
Scared of what i cant see
Down in the depths
Of this rotten
Tasman sea
Scared
I will loose the memory
Of mum and dad
And the sister i had
The ports of call
The port i drunk
And the girls
Oh the girls
I did flaunt
From Frisco to Sydney
Bombay to Bengal
Tokyo to Hong Kong
I did them all
All the seven seas
And more
But thats all
All in the past
As i sit here
For the last
As i wait
Wait for the sirens
To sing me
To help me
Finally
To pass
Submerged in the depth of the abyss,
motionless nor missed;
the ship is submissive to a fathom's organisms.
Time has lost all realism.
Amid a quiet grave,
its heart pulsates within the labyrinth iron hull.
“Current, bring me the horizon.” It silently whispers.
Slowly ascends through freezing brine,
bow cutting through seawater surface,
waves lap against the floral coral dressed hulls.
It starts to breathe,
tremendous echoing sounds,
creaking,
snapping,
sloshing
as the water draws back washing over its deck.
A shadowy image upon its bow,
feeling the cool caress of bliss salty tears
flowing down her cheek.
A slave adrift,
at the mercy of the turquoise sea.
3/8/2022
rewrite
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"
The ship of dreams, a fragile, drifting thing,
A tattered sail, where love once took its wing.
Arianna gone, a whisper on the breeze,
Leaving only echoes of the heart's disease.
You search for solace, in the fading light,
A lonely figure, lost in endless night.
The memory of her laughter, a haunting refrain,
A phantom touch, a lingering, sweet pain.
I wander aimless, a soul adrift and torn,
By shadows clinging, where love was born.
The world, a canvas, painted shades of gray,
Since she departed, vanished without a trace.
We seek solace, but solace turns to dust,
A bitter taste of ashes, lost in gust.
A flicker of hope, a distant, faint gleam,
Perseveres in darkness, a fragile dream.
Perhaps someday, our paths will intertwine,
And love will bloom, a love truly divine.
We wait, and listen, for her soft refrain,
To mend the broken, and ease the aching pain.
The ship of dreams, a fragile, drifting thing,
A tattered sail, where love once took its wing.
Arianna gone, a whisper on the breeze,
Leaving only echoes of the heart's disease.
Crushing my temples in my hands
I can still harken the echoes following me across the labyrinth,
now louder in one side, now lower in the other.
Roller coasters and horror images come about
along with an incessant hammering like thunder,
muddy ways guard the return
and far beyond the trail, fades itself.
Life breaks on a tenuous shoal
Heartaches vex shipwrecked
soul
Rocky outcrop slashing at
each, bleached sole
In choppy waters, teetering
mast o'er limp body doth troll
Peering into foggy abyss,
undulating currents of angst so
droll
Hope wanes as tearful waves
from calcified funnels roll
Briny mist over resonant
dreams doth scroll
Tides dredge seaweed earlier
missteps did dole
On the horizon, clouded visions
turning black as coal
From a distant, but reachable,
harbor a fog light doth patrol
But encroaching shadows
eclipse as endearing fate doth
cerebrally cajole
Faint sound from a beckoning
barge doth wandering ears
enroll
But the boisterous waves of
doubt resound a dreary toll
Cresting above life's
sorrows, in the distant ocean
a succoring atoll
But shackling cares girdle my
feet pulling me into the
undertow
A dry, temporal sanctuary in
my corroded senses to stroll
Morphing into insane mirage
as the angry torrents
remaining wits poll