Epigram

You know by now I am a lost man
Whose search has found an Island
The tempests that rage upon my sea
My heart, a cyclone, hoping to be free.

I

My pagan courtesan haunts my mind,
Ariel sleeps with me in gentle silence.
Her memory spawns day and night
Gale-force winds could tear from sight.
On a ship at sail in a morning tide,
My head in a for from passion’s pride
Wandering the morning the sun at back,
Body soar from ecstasy’s tortured rack
My heart and head divide the night
Sleeping to a silent tempest soul, affright
“Darling Ariel, come to me now
Cold dark wade on shallow bows
Darling, my darling the ache I consume
Hold me this dream- heal my dark wound."

II

“Lads!, lads, the blows come high
The oceans got our wheel at nigh
By way of skull-duggery and masted stern
On coals of fire till our souls have burned
Doves will fly with wings of sticks
As a bear will build a den with bricks."
My mariners sing in mournful cries
I wish the sea would ease and die.
Sweet Ariel, my Ariel, come my sweet
Think of clovers in a gentle heath.
' Gentle tempest with your roar
Go your way and scream no more!'
Lay with me Ariel, the storm's not passed
I sleep like mortis in a tomb of glass.

III

We sailed the ship for a day and a year
We sweated minds and kegs of tears
“Land, land I feel the dirt caress
Palsied hands shake in stern duress.
Land keep me fed till Ariel and I wed
Still my hunger with wine and bread.
Cool the calm before the storm,
I sew a shroud to keep me warm.
Mad! Mad, I stand floating shallow
Across a water deep my marrow cold"
Bleak and bitter upon this hill
My angered and ire, lonely, standing still.
My men graze like Adam in his time
I miss Ariel with this darkened mind.

IV

Like a tornado in a bottle, head in a spin
I’ve lost the dawn in a black whirlwind
Ariel! O’ Ariel! How sweet thy name
I hunt the dawns for your voice in vain
I walk this land and rebuild lost dreams
I drink sweet waters and dam the streams
I mumble in a strange dark tone of voice
I heard a dolphin speak of riddled choice
I laughed like a madman while eating sand
I played and swung on trees a broken man
The sun was out today it meant nothing
I slept restless while the gold moon shone
I saw waves upon the shore drown the sun
Certainly a nightmare-the storm had gone.

V

“Captain, my captain! The dead will rise
To see the day break kind is a great prize”
The trees fell before us, men sang songs
For weeks and hours we built our ship long
We sewed our sails from silken webs
Took our garments and soaked them red
The hull was scaled with fire and blood
Glued with sweat and the rain just bubbled
We hunted days for tar and sap for the hull
She was yare, she was, as long as a whale
My Ariel, sweet Ariel, I’ll come for you soon
Someday the world will sing like birds in June
My love, I feel my storms have not yet passed
We sail with a morning tide on a sea of glass.

. Joel L Young 2002

A traditional style long poem in five sonnets of a captain and his love for a woman of desire.

Featured in my book of Poetic Romances; Love in the Obscure.