Inspired by Frank Wilbert Stokes' painting, The Phantom Ship

gobbled ten years ago  
by greedy gales and warped waves  
the SS Wilbert lay somewhere
off the Grand Banks  

forgotten by all save
one sailor’s widow, who yet wandered  
the sands, daft they said, to wait
for the ship’s belated return    

no resurrection would occur
its oaken beams, cargo, and sad ******
on the ocean’s black floor, fodder
for creatures without eyes, ears  

yet she swore she saw
its billowed masts, its hardy hull
riding ready waves on a blue horizon,
dark, but safe from tempest

white caps, near her shore
nothing more--those and voices
in the breaking waves

she alone hears,
as code deciphered,
their scribe, she is

faithful to the crashing
rhythm, in which she reads
the dance of the dead  

countless fishes' swishes,  
harpooned whales’ wailing, myriad men
mourning, as vessels foundered

white caps, waves, sand
symphony she alone hears, sees, smells
and understands as dirge

what did he miss most?
the whip of wind on his face
the unbridled buck of life between his legs
the scent of the saddle
the lathered beast?

the fast pass of the satchel
to the next eager rider, the covenant
he carried in the saddle bags; the one he made
with the Almighty to keep him safe
from the red devils?  

a new century dawned, two score
years since the hot rides were quick
made obsolete by the iron horse, the poles
and lines that brought Morse's magic,
ticking time electric

what did he miss most?
perhaps the deep, unperturbed sleep
after the ride--slumber filled with liquid dreams,  
gifts bestowed by a condign contentment
from his brutish labor

her parents would have nothing to do with the z,
naming her Elisa Beth

which few got right in her 65 seasons, for their habit
molded an EliZabeth every time  

we presume it mattered not to Elisa, Elisa Beth, because she was
born blind and deaf

her record of birth got it right, but her social
security card did not,

the checks were cashed by caretakers, who cared not
whether the letter snaked or zagged

her parents' obits also claimed they were survived by
an only daughter, EliZabeth

when she "met her reward," some two years past
there was no legacy in print

save a death certificate, which again blasphemed
her appellation with the alphabet's final figure

but on her gravestone, curiously, she was Elisabeth once more,
though what flat, mute slab could even such a score?

grub worms, grave gravity,
failed romances, the fate of the Great Auk,
a death too young, a silent sacred dance
of butterflies

all flow behind my eyes
song lyrics whose melodies
never quite reach my ears, so
I plop verses on a page

an elder adolescent sage  
writing in riddle, sometimes rhyme, committing
the crime of filching grist born of life's abundant mill,
and bastardizing it, carelessly, at will

he sighted
a ****** of crows
lined on a dead oak branch  
he could see only silhouettes
against a gray dawn sky    

he closed one eye
pulled both triggers
on grandpa’s old gun;
all of them save one fell
from the lifeless limb  

the sole survivor
looked down on him,
but did not move, not an inch
not even when he reloaded,
aimed and shot again

he saw carp in the reeds
cats, whiskered bottom feeders, were there too,
deeper in the green waters

he wormed his hook, thanked
the good lord for the river, for tonight Christ's bread
would be fat fish, fast fried

thirty days and thirty nights,
he had eaten the sour beans, the gruel,
his stomach growled now like a lion

ready for the hot white flesh
but the fish were slow to bite--by noon he had but two carp;
neither longer than his hand

he decided God hadn't heard
his entreaties; he shouted out to the white sky
where he believed the lord lived

“let these fish find my line
fill my belly before I'm caught, drunk again
on the devil's broth in the town square”

but God didn't hear, for
three scrawny swimming sinners were all
he caught by a hungry sundown

leaving him eager to find
the old still, and barter with its master, for he was
more generous than the Almighty

who created all things that
swam in the rivers, who tempted him with bounty
but denied a red reaping