"foremast" poems
Tentacles twist breaking bow and mast.
Clinging and clinching to the once mighty vessel.
A ship once prized by the Navy
Now prized as a partner for the sea beast.
Each serpentine tentacle tightens,
Around wooden board, and cast iron fastener.
Creaking and cracking the boat dances as the beast leads.
Waves crazed as they are whipped to frenzy,
Matching the mammoth's rhythms.
They struggle to keep the beast contained.
White caps covering the beasts murderous desire.
The ship is his, and as dances do,
This one ends in a flourish.
Cracking crosstrees and foremast,
Collapsing the gangways,
Sails still whipping as the dancer's dress is ravaged.
And as quickly as it began
It stops.
The monster sinks back from where his strike began.
The tired vessel following quickly after.
The water forgets its rhythm and steps.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 10:44 PM UTC
It was not long, a few days at most, before we hit the storm
The first wave hits with ineffable force, knocking me off my feet
A well placed bolt of lightning took out a sizable portion of the ship and her passengers
The second wave carries them away, never to be seen again
Thunder crashes and the foremast falls to the sea
The third wave swallows it up
The captain remains stoic, shouting orders to what little crew he has left
The fourth wave strikes the starboard bow, some men are thrown from the edge
I grab hold of the rail, my grip strengthened by some primal fear
The fifth wave washes over me and I’m torn away
I thrash and struggle up to the surface and fill my lungs with air
The sixth wave takes me under again
Again I make it to the surface and climb onto a passing piece of wreckage
The seventh wave drags what remained of the ship to the ocean’s murky depths
At least the sound of thunder and rain blocks out the screams of drowning men
The eighth wave breaks
I remember how the ship once stood tall and proud
The ninth wave looms over me
I take a breath
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 8:19 PM UTC
They ‘pressed me on His Majesty’s frigate
The H.M.S. Carew,
It only took me a day to find
I was lodged with the Devils’s crew,
The Captain, ‘Black Jack’ Hawkins
Was a gentleman by name,
But on the ship he used the whip
To his undying shame.
I slipped and fell from the foremast arm
When I caught my foot in a stay,
And though a net kept me safe from harm
That wasn’t the Captain’s way,
He said I’d swim for my mortal sin
Told the crew to rope me through,
Then dragged me over the side and said,
‘We’re going to keel-haul you.’
The barnacles on the Carew’s hull
Nearly tore my back to shreds,
My lungs were so close to bursting that
I thought that I was dead.
They hauled me over the side again
The deck was red from my back,
At least I knew I was safe again
From a sudden shark attack.
They rubbed raw salt in my many wounds
Till I thought I was in hell,
While some of the crew had mocked and jeered
The Devil’s own cartel,
They wore tattoos of the skull and bones
It was strange for a Royal crew,
But they themselves had been Impressed
So they hated Hawkins too.
He used to stand on the quarter-deck
Quite close to the starboard rail,
Where he could see any slacking off
While we were under sail,
He’d tie the men to the nearest mast
And would whip, before the crew,
Till every man was inflamed and raw
And would plot what they would do.
It fell to me to devise a plan
That everyone agreed,
We had to get rid of this Devil man
It became our only creed,
So I took a rope when I climbed the mast
That was fixed above his head,
Then swung and booted him over the rail
So we thought that he was dead.
The crew then dashed to the starboard side
And they all looked down and cursed,
For Hawkins floated upon the tide,'
It couldn’t be much worse,
He shouted up, ‘This is mutiny!
I’ll flay that man to the bone.’
But all he got were the jeers of the crew
As the Captain sank like a stone.
David Lewis Paget
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 6:36 AM UTC