The midnight to four AM watch can sometimes be a long lonely one when you're alone, your companion is asleep and no other vessels are in sight.


Night Watch

Vertigo
The stars are a mad diamond carpet
Seas waves of luminescent moonlit clouds
My vessel sails upside down
Riding the moon struck sea clouds
While I glance below at the stars
Defying the limits of density

What horizon there is offers no
Hint of up or down
No other light pierces the
Night to orient me
No comforting red and green

Time ceases to function here
The bells offer little solace
Time gives no
Hint of its passage save the subtle
Movement of constellations

The compass is my anchor
Holding me binding me
To the moments reality
Uneasily aware that the dream is real

Seven bells
30 minutes till my vertiguous reverie is
Tempered by a light in the companionway
And an outstretched hand with black coffee




Poetry by josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 673 times
Written on 2016-08-02 at 19:28

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Jamsbo Rockda The PoetBay support member heart!
wonderfully expressed. I understood fully the first stanza of reflections in the water and it was so great. I am usually pretty dumb at picking those things up. And the rest of the piece was just as good. I suppose it is like being in limbo or maybe in an event horizon. I enjoyed this :)
2016-08-04


Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Delightfully atmospheric, Joe. You put me there.
2016-08-03


Bibek The PoetBay support member heart!
yeah, it must be painful when you are lonely. but see you've romanticized it and created something beautiful
2016-08-03


one trick pony The PoetBay support member heart!
The key word in this poem, for me, is "uneasily." For all the grace and beauty and love of solitude afforded, there is a sense that the sea and sky are vast, and you are small (ish) : )

I love these poems.
2016-08-03