Ghosts Haunt This Ship

That evening the dusk would awaken and stirred darkness all around me
The fog was a cloudy settled steam that brushed against my face
And a shadow's looming veil I know I've walked through lingers
I heard their voices board and eyes that saw the gray of storm unsheathe
The realm of sea mist settled and fell gently on the deceptive waves
While waters underneath caress the ship's underside like spidery fingers
Slowly the dull worn decks seem strangely white
Rails disappear for the gaze of unknown plight
A voice of welcome may feel dark while being light

The shrouds of mist within fill the skies, and the skies they become
Escaped from a solid side to a haze softer than that of steam
And when the feeling of fear arises, silence settles the waves
Where we've sailed immortality is fate and to it we have all succumb
A shadow of ship's outline and eyes you think you see in a dream
Misguiding illusions have been so strange, footfall on the staves
I'm just another soul, and a single hand I cannot grip
From memory a cup of pleasing warmth and of it to sip
Among the unawares not knowing ghosts haunt this ship

An ocean's island wooden terrain and the night drifts in silent corridors
Scrolls have mapped the points of travel through depths unclear
Echoes bounce off of a heavy door as I stray on its other side
I heard a crew shouting back to a ship nearby coming across open doors
Slightly opened skies and bridge door ajar invited the captain to steer
Someone sounds an alarm of warning and dread, I feel I must hide
I once saw a mammoth shark swim close by
I saw the strange colors of a long ago sky
Once a spirit abundant with happiness and life

Sailors walk into cabins where once there were other lights and laughter
But the sun of tides and ocean is different now and it speaks
There is a gloom that will cloud the hall and settle on the decks
Rolling waves below the stern beat against the hull with measure hereafter
Uneven courses to the bow as the storm stirs up this part of the seas
With mingled curiosity another crew appears and brings back the vortex
They speak of the captain who sent them aboard to turn about
To lead this ship back to living lands was bidden to allow
We are here and have been, though, you know not how

Drifting beneath a blanket into sleep my soul is lifted like the air
But my heart is heavy as oceans many leagues deep
I had wandered onto the vessel seeking passage to home
Hours are not known to me anymore and comes on with despair
Like deep shadows in abandoned harbor the waves did sweep
Cold floors and long halls sailors free of rigid duties roam
They seem to know but go about as usual in their way
But sometimes I hear a distant call beyond this day-to-day
Wondering if my name was called in fear ere they pray

I want to sail these waters for memory and into an endless fog I slip
Against these colors nothing is as it seems
A tale speaking of sailing and legends of me
If any among many know the truth, ghosts haunt this ship
Forever the routes of time go, it's the signal in dreams
Forever to them is time, but it's the empty mirror I see
A fate too dark to read, the waves crashing, and desperately plead
And the sorrow that they were obligated to board and follow lead
But no return with ship in tow failing to be more brave against greed

So let the darkness cloud the sky, without age, without hours or warning
No counting of days, only whispers from the waves
The silent, ominous ship steals away without questioning why
Stillness hovers as if already too late, as echoes drift of mourning
But let it slip away, pass with the day o'er watery graves
Mortal silk and beads I once wore, sadly certain fate comes by
Maybe though I seem distant, I'm near when signals sound
Carried by the winds from a height to night many fathoms down
That wise words heeded would speak to make haste for ground
Where gathers mists of sea, the ghosts stir quietly, frightfully, one is me



©Iggy 1989/1990
Reworked 2017
The Saga of the Derelict Ship & The Ghosts

One Winter In Your Radiance

I cannot say if I dream awake or if I glimpse paradise undying
In silence I remember how it appeared and in echoes I find it alone
Knowing by heart a place of summer's phrases, where gulls were flying
All there is, all that was, oddly found on similar paths of vine and stone
And the imagery of sun, moonlight, snow and sand, branch and bone

At the will of storm's cloud mass, it may give no warning to crumble walls
A maze of leaves surround small fountains, mirroring the slowing rains
Tempest seeks a way through, gathering strength to knock over stone halls
To keep sharp so it doesn't dull with the sudden foggy wisp of time's terrains
Endless the legend it forged, and forged by hand are the roads and chains

Twinkling twilight, a misty mystical weaving myth in a shapeless brume
Breeze and blue granted by sky, never captured, windy wings flutter by
Calling with the same sonance, but broken and dusty amid webs of gloom
An air of beyond and ages woven together, brings another uncanny minuet
Pausing to listen, as one is an instrument of truth and one is a silhouette

The pages of seasons from a beginning far away and almost hidden
Of the long sought for, recalled in memory alive, aurora curtains afloat
From numinous sunlight the turn of night's sleepy sending of rains bidden
The wind's direction, a pattern, but always uncertain as pages had wrote
Bring day where there is night and there in faint waves, awaits your boat

Ocean tides sweep from undersea onto scarred cliffs and splinter away
In sleep reeds stir, then moments later fall, the reflection again will recur
To melt your reason and muffle your words, the season favors soft gray
Distance of the stone's throw reach over like an arch, a chirr in the remote
Unseen and unexplored by eye and scope, in my realm I bring forth my boat

What cloud is kept in long ribbons of time's gold dust where nothing is lost?
Known by name, and by mind's eye, you travel at will but why, why not I?
I cannot say if I dream but this I speak, a time is passed that began with frost
The music will ring, sweet air lingering of phrases back to green
A step back to a recalled past but ahead for life and the between

The wind that would take down standing stones and flow through pinewood
Settled for the beckoning of storm and spoke of roots, uttered under its breath
I may, perhaps, never seek the explanation for the interval even if I could
It was always sudden, but long expected in a way, this, the season of death
But a faint shine not too harsh, breaks on shaded ground where calm had set
And there, I spent one winter in your radiance

On the soft red glow of the sun's curvature of flame I saw you on high
You spoke of a white cold, pure and stark, blazing again and sure as fate
In the distance watching silently, a murmur beside me of an echoed sigh
Unleashing the seas racing away from the Hyades, opening a gate
Telling tales of the smallest scattered shells and of mass ages predate

In the bluest waters the greatest whales in the icy cold offer their phrase
In middle forest, hidden oak tops of deep wood surrounding arcane chorus
I wished the shooting star to slow in its course for a moment, then it stays
A lucid fable being woven into mythical dreams that I once forgot
A reminder again that the season will turn until the time it cannot
I spend one winter in your radiance



© Iggy 1988/1989/1990
Reworked 2017