Here wood buckled alongside the
coming of a new day.
Water jaws swallowed splinters whole,
spat out sheets of paint,
red fading to brown.
Dried blood bobbing on the surface.
Teeth, hungry, shattered chains,
the fragments heavy sank down to the stomach
where they lie, still reaching for their brothers,
trying to piece themselves together.
Blind in the dark.
Here the starlight eyes strained to stay awake,
eager to see the spectacle of an
unevenly matched fight.
One by one they had given in to the dawn
lulled by the warmth spreading over them
like a bed sheet
that burnt with silent rage against
the screeching cries of engines.
The sea attacked savagely,
relentlessly stabbing fresher and fresher wounds,
making ribbons of sails
decoration for hair.
Cogs and wheels struck dead with rust
tossed aside, useless, by hands
that strangled,
choked masts with ease.
Then satisfied it paused for breath
surveying littered corpses as they basked in the newborn sun.
Here, now there is nothing but ghosts.
Translucent spectres that shine faintly in the dark,
the last remaining sign of a life once lived
as tools, organs of a ship,
once strong now chained to the ocean’s feet.
Once powerful now a playground for the coral life.
Danielle Gerrish
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-shipwreck-at-dawn/
