Poem: Ghosts of the Seven Seas

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I’m linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog where she hosts Six Sentence Stories and everyone is invited to write a story or poem constructed of six sentences based on a prompt word.

This week’s word is Horizon

 

Ghosts of the Seven Seas

O lover of mine, O Lily my love, I sail to thee across the sea

‘Neath a gown of stars twinkling in a mannequin sky,

O’er tumbling waves to the beckoning lantern

Of a lighthouse tall on a distant horizon.

 

I pass Christmas islands and frozen shores,

Cross coral reefs as pink as your lips and blue as your eyes,

To find you my love, O Lily my love,

I’m so sorry I’m late – but I have been to war.

 

A war which wounded me yet claimed without success my beating heart;

For each battle with invaders, charlatans and thieves,

Each duel with a demon and dance with a devil,

Did but strengthen my love and desire for thee.

 

Is it too late? I call out across the waves to the pirate breeze,

For I feel I am a ghost upon a ghost ship,

Sailing to deliver the gold ingots of my soul,

And all the trinkets and treasures of my pining heart.

 

Is it too late? for the lips of Lily to press mine in tender kiss,

For our arms to embrace, for our fingers to caress?

Is our love so far, so stretched, so tempered, so drowned and diluted

By all this sea which cruelly divides us?

 

Replies the pirate breeze: Ye poor fool captain upon the deck

Of your vessel bereft of direction and crew,

Ye seek the kiss of your living lover? Well, let me tell you the cold truth:

Your Lily died while you were at war, and is nought but a ghost

The same as you.

 

***

Poem: by Ford.

Image: La Tartane by Francis Bergèse. Heller catalogue 606. 1979. France.

PS: I love you

PPS: **if they smile at you thru sharpened fangs*and no matter how much they dress up their lies with fake gold*know that the truth will always sting*know only you can set yourself free*and see beyond the misery of what they want you to be*question everything*question it all**

PPPS: Look after my star

24/12/20.

25 thoughts on “Poem: Ghosts of the Seven Seas”

  2. Pingback: 29 – Sea – Beach Walk Reflections: Thoughts from thinking while walking

  7. Had me, (as UP would say), at the painting of the sailing vessel braving the ocean.*

    *how much do I, as a clark, enjoy the internet?
    Glad you asked…. a lot!
    damn, in the course of writing this comment, I just had to find out more about the painting… so I search, but….but!! the first page was all in French!!**
    Well, all I could do was…. turn on the universal translator1 and here is what it said (translating one reference):
    “Against Captain Gaud, commanding the Tartane the Souls of Purgatory; sieur Claude Laroche his surety, appellants, anticipates & defendants. [Roux, lawyer. … 2009 The construction of model ships / Francis Bergèse / Rennes: Ouest France, DL 1976 Le Havre-de-Grâce and its ships.
    The only reason for this citation is the ‘(the)Souls of Purgatory’ line.
    Very cool

    Good Six… ‘cellent pome

    ** good SEO, your site showed in the top third of the page
    1) thank god I’ve developed a writing jones, otherwise I would not recognize Google Translate as a manifestation of the rhetorical device, ‘the unreliable Narrator’
    …whew!

    Like

    Reply ↓

    • Hiya D. You’re right about reaction and feeling. This one brought a lump in my throat when I read it back. But no matter how I jiggled the ending I couldn’t express quite well enough the emotions / force / impact I wanted.
      It’s a bit like trying to write how music can lift your spirits, I mean, like – really make it soar to heaven! And how one can cry tears at a melody or lyric, and the hairs of the skin raising, the back of the neck tingle thing… for me it remains one of the most elusive ‘states of being’ to put into words. Tried to write it often but it always ends up meh, lol. (maybe some things can only ever be ‘felt’ rather than described?)
      And romantic, me? Yes, born that way I’m afraid.
      Thanks, dear D :)x

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • Well, myself and everyone who reads your work V, enjoys your efforts 🙂
        Right with you on trying to write about an emotional reaction to music. I tried writing about it years ago at Girlie. I failed miserably, lol. Methinks reactions to music are the domain only of body and soul.
        Merry Christmas, V 🎄

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Picture this Shaman dearest;
    The Sun as a spring day warm, a coffee , some celtic tunes…and here comes your Mariner!!
    Life can be good ( when that b@tch is in a fair mood).

    ” I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
    I fear thy skinny hand!
    And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
    As is the ribbed sea-sand.” STC

    L & h.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

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