POEM TITLE The Mariner of Blackness
POEM His chin jutted out like the promontory rock
on which the castle stands; the outlander’s
silhouette darkened a window at The Lobster Pot.
In between shots of whisky and rum, the mariner’s
tales captivated his audience, drawing in a crowd
as sirens once lured sailors. A bonnie local lass
caught his roving eye. With a smile he vowed
she would be his bride...’til her da said, ‘Avast!’
To and fro, the couple danced with the Spring tide,
carefree. Flirted with the breakers, daring
the water to devour them. Under moonlight, satisfied,
they lay. Voices interrupted silence. Despairing,
wide-eyed, he fled her father’s wrath. She pled
to go with him. Her hands grasped for his, skin
smooth as drift glass. Betraying sands revealed
their footprints, not yet consumed by the ocean.
Back and forth, she searched all of Blackness
on Sea, watching the horizon for a sign, a mast.
Cast out, she earned her keep mending nets
and sails. Five cycles of the moon had passed.
Like the waves, she swelled. One night, hands
rough as hewn oak, covered her eyes. Pleasure
coloured his face as he discovered, with a glance,
her cargo, more precious than any treasure.
Flotsam, hostage of the ebb and flow, a harbinger
of doom: ships –sailors – never to see port again.
Some nights sympathetic mermaids would sing her
lad a shanty; susurration of the seashore. Then,
hands, coarse as a barnacled hull, surprise
her! They cling to each other like drowning souls
to wreckage. The boy with a pirate’s eyes
stands beside them. Together, ‘til the sea calls.
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