Ocean Souls

A tale of the ocean souls.

“Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, not breath nor motion.

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.”

-          Rime of an Ancient Mariner.

 

An old man stands with a cross hanging from his neck,

As the end of the horizon greets him with a smile.

Nowhere left to turn, he sets foot on the deck,

Unanchored ship; crewmen arrogant and guile.

 

“We set sail for the end of the world,” tells one,

As tranquil storms batters the ships woodwork.

“In search for rainbow’s treasure and the Eagle’s sun,

To find the Netherlands in the mountains of Cirque.”

 

“Where the moon cries for deal souls,

And the stars shower the world in dead dreams.

Not in search of gold or Dead Sea Scrolls,

But where the planetary curtain bursts at the seams.”

 

“You’re all fools,” the old man says, quick and steadfast,

A broken smile graces his pale lips.

“There is no end of the world, just endless seas so vast,

And rainbow waterfalls polluted in nature’s bliss.”

 

“But, as there is all but fire behind me,

I have no choice to join you on your quest of old.”

With seasons all same, they sail the Black Sea,

Off the edge of the world and into darkness; death beholds.

Racing the black sunrise over cold waters of blue,

The grey ship docks on the waterfalls seabed.

One last ride before death’s rendezvous,

To the symphony of sirens, their sea turned red.

The curse of an idle mind can infect any one of us,

While the imagination of dead poets paint the world with oceans of gold.

A sanatorium for philosophers where their tales turn to rust,

The tale of the men who went insane by the seas clock; The Ocean Souls.

Author's Note

Random scrawls at 2am. Not my best work. Inspired by "The Rime of an Ancient Mariner" by Samuel T. Coleridge and Nightwish's "The Islander".

Reviews

[Aventicus]

Took me long enough to do this and I apologize for that. The old man turned philosopher will find man-a-soul looking to set out in search of the same things he once sought for. Knowing of his trials and if his folly, the old man rebukes the foolish sailors, hoping to dissuade them from their perilous journey in search of a treasure that will one day decay to ash in their hands. Even in their ignorance, the old man must embark with them, for he himself has his own mission. Once his adventure had ended, the old man came to the realization that seeking in such ceaselessness for temporal things would only bring him ruin, so he then sought for the philosopher's path, striving after truth. Now the old man, made solemn by the sea and knowledgeable by his journey, must now finish it by teaching the truths he had learned with such strain to those whom it is foreign to.
I hope this was an apt allegory.

[genocide]

very nice very dark thoughts

[FaeryQueen]

interesting thoughts included here!!!!!!!!!

[Rob L]

well done - the images scroll through smoothly and distinctly, framed but not constrained by the rhyme scheme.

[KnightOfAnarchy]

There's a lot I like and enjoy about this poem.
When you start to read it , it feels like an actual story
And reads very smoothly. I espically like the connections
To sailors and the sea, thought it worked very well

[Anastasia Rae]

I really enjoyed this poem, I thought it flowed really nice. I could picture sailors slowly going insane and eventually jumping overboard to end their misery. That was what I imagined when I read it. Very well done, though I did notice a few super minor spelling errors.
--> We stuck, not breath nor motion. Should this be we're? We stuck doesn't make sense.
--> As tranquil storms batters the ships woodwork. There shouldn't be an S after batter.
--> In search for rainbow’s treasure and the Eagle’s sun. There doesn't need to be an apostrophe after rainbows. Rainbow's mean rainbow is, not plural rainbows, and the same with Eagle.
--> “Where the moon cries for deal souls. Also, I don't understand what deal souls are?
--> And rainbow waterfalls polluted in nature’s bliss. No apostrophe after nature.
--> One last ride before death’s rendezvous. No apostrophe after death.
These aren't really big things, just things that will make it smoother to read therefore painting a better picture in the readers head. :)

[Tsubaki Kuro]

It's very nice. I love it.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the horizons that poets sail...the literary world is definitely round...the farther we stretch our imaginations the better, the world is not flat- not black and white...that gray area is much like the wide blue horizon of seas...stretches beyond the anal retentive world that some seem to be comfortable accepting.

really like the analogy i see here.

j.

[Taylor Wentz]

Reminds me of Pirate of the Caribbean; At worlds end... (sorry im a movie buff)

[Wolf_Lord]

As the end of the horizon greets him with a smile. What a great line, you really know how to turn a phrase. I really enjoy your work. Great visualizations. Wolf_Lord but my frns call me Wolf. ,'', ^@@^ ,'',