shapeshifter, son drunk & changing skins. he digs up skeletons of a spanish battalion buried by tigers on the garden key.
suncresent spray of blood & oranges. new-fangled sailors once soaked in madness. now just starvation.
the viking speaks: in limericks of new world poise. his antler woven mask, set nicely upon the shore.
seod, turtle lord of space & time, appears only once every lunar eclipse. bound by treatise to the jellyfish triumvirate. his acolyte, bolivar t. shagnasty, wanders the mainland in search of water or meat of trees.
kindness of men turns to dust & belly worms. forgotten, the plants mutate into root-rich empires of fish & figurine. million year armistice.
dr. samuel mudd, shackled years to tide-slab & fort jefferson. he purifies the island of its yellow shivering death. hospital key.
fastforward hundred plus years through mudd lifeline: battle weary sneakers, spokes sung by strum of card, the bmx stridden boy & his teenage mutant ninja turtle mask.
previously published in Whole Beast Rag http://www.wholebeastrag.org/dry-tortuga-1869/