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Shipwrecked (A Poem About Being Shipwrecked)

January 8, 2018 By Bradley Weber

(image from http://flashlarevista.com/content/in-boat-sea.html)

“No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job”

— T. S. Eliot 

The challenge was self-imposed and wholly unnecessary: Write a poem with only ten lines per stanza and only two words per line, any length on any subject.

Here’s the result.

(It should come as a surprise to exactly no one that this piece takes an ugly turn early on then steers into it.)

Enjoy!

 

SHIPWRECKED

By Bradley James Weber

FIRST DAY

Nine men

One lifeboat

First Officer

Now Captain

Eight passengers

One oar

Zero rations

Endless horizon

No compass

 

SECOND DAY

Air: equatorial

Sun: blinding

Tongues: parched

Lips: cracked

Water: none

Less food

Nine men

One wounded

One malcontent

 

FOURTH DAY

No land

No ship

No respite

No rescue

Sunburned eyes

Stomach cramps

Fata Morgana

Madness brews

 

FIFTH DAY

One captain

Eight men

Nine straws

One short

“Why draw?”

The malcontent:

“Kill him.”

The dying:

“Yes, lord.”

 

DAY SIX

Eight castaways

Seven sated

One abstained

“Pure savagery.”

Bloody work

Bloody hands

Bloody sea

One lifeboat

Attracting sharks

 

DAY SEVEN

The malcontent

spreads dissent

“Land ho?

Ship ahoy?

Not likely.

Hunger returns!

Cowardly ‘captain,’

who’s next?

Decide already!”

 

DAY EIGHT

Abstainer dead,

stolen overnight.

Seven straws

Become toothpicks.

Offal overboard

Sharks return

Selene’s crown,

Luminous, enchanting

Storm’s harbinger

 

DAY NINE

Glorious downpour!

Quenching rain!

Huzzah! Huzzah!

Relief stillborn.

Savage lighting

Heavy gales

Rudder useless

“Grab something!”

“Hold fast!”

 

DAY TEN

Three lost,

Four remain.

The malcontent,

Two lickspittles,

The captain––

Badly wounded.

“Die choking.”

The malcontent:

“You first.”

 

DAY FOURTEEN

Sundown, starlight

Waxing moon

Pensive sea

Restless sharks

Three men––

Forward, aft,

Amidships crouched––

Ever vigilant

Entertaining hunger

 

DAY NINETEEN

Human bones

Thrice gnawed

Cracked, sucked

Gnawed again

No avail

Futile, exhausting

“Like prayer.”

The malcontent:

“Abandon hope.”

 

DAY TWENTY

Two remain.

One astern––

Tearless, broken––

Overboard slipped

Midnight’s suicide

Alone together

The malcontent

The other

Battle sleep

 

DAY TWENTY-NINE

S. S. Duneeden

“Captain, sir?

Lifeboat spotted,

Port bow.”

The captain:

“Anyone aboard?”

“Unknown, sir.”

“Best investigate.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

Word spreads

Doctor ’roused

Idle crew

Crowding rails

Captain’s command:

“Engines stop.”

Duneeden drifts

Distance closes

All hands

Holding breath

 

Hopeful silence

Woefully broken

Curses, prayer

Revulsion, despair

Bones bleached

Bloody thwarts

Hunger, madness

Souls abandoned

Horror’s Testimony

Witnessed, notarized

 

Everywhere, everywhere

Fleshy strips

Salted, drying

Nearly cured.

Asleep astern

The malcontent

Charon’s helmsman

Meat–surrounded

Peacefully cradling

Someone’s head.

Filed Under: Writing

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