Caught unaware on
the blackest night
by a demon force
of a thousand frights.
Thrown and tossed,
dashed and smashed,
grim waves upon
our trapped ship crashed.
Sending dark, cold waters
swashing over, and into,
bilges full of ocean
sinking at the screws.
Man the pumps,
start them everyone
or lost we be, come
the morning sun.
A frighted crew, weary
to post, tied to deck and rail,
clung fast to ship, for life
from the horrendous gale.
A crack, a boom split the air
heard ‘bove the pounding roar
our life boat cut clean in half
by knife-like wave, ’twas no more.
Taller grew the waves as
stronger, faster blew the wind,
eighty feet and growing
while we were trapped therein.
Towering over ship and down
the waves smashed it all,
rafts, nets, and tools, in
the ocean they did fall.
Wallowing in the troughs,
teetering on the crests,
deadly close to capsizing,
confronting the ultimate test.
Dark fear of doom and death
in the watery sea so gray
now filled thoughts of men,
nothing left to do but pray.
Past three-hours-ten the
deadly storm slacked grip,
clenched so tight on our
beaten, broken ship.
First light revealed the vessel
painted a crystalline white
by salt on bristle of wave
throughout the raging night.
An eerie ghost-like image
of ship once strong and free
stripped of its grand colors
by a tormented, angry sea.
We rode the weather down
with courage, great care,
yet know not how, nor why
our tiny ship was spared.
Lekatt
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