NAPOWRIMO #9

Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Prompt #9 - Your Mission

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FRAGMENTS of the MUTINY DREAM

The world turns upon a gold doubloon.

We dream ourselves dressed as gods—beaver hats, velvet suits, pocket watches—ladies of leisure resting against our loins, their lips pursed.

We begin the mutiny when the stowaways, the Captain’s private whaleboat crew, are discovered.

Our hypnotic thrall is broken, our coin lost upon the deck.

Jugs of spiced rum and other spirits are taken from the hold, passed around from man to man, until all are fairly bruised by liquor, inhibitions massaged away.

Small glass jars of jam are discovered in Captain’s quarters. One of the harpooners opens a container, scoops two of his fingers within, withdraws them coated in a viscous smear, removing it with the scrape of tooth and tongue. In mere moments he promptly vomits upon the deck, retching violently, revealing his supper of barely digested pebbles of pumiced hardtack.

We wade through the thick blubber smoke of the try-works, to light lamps for the court, a luxury of additional illumination upon a ship with a lesser eternity of whale oil.

The trial is brief, the verdict is guilty, the judgment is swift.

Captain tries to limp away, but we nab him just the same, remove his whalebone leg for its ivory, and cast him into the waiting maw of the sea, food for sharks and octopi.

“You marionettes of misfortune,” Captain screams as he attempts to tread water.

We slather the timbers of the main and mizzen masts with pail upon pail of whale oil and light them aflame, torches sailing through the night.

The sudden squall we encounter trims the flames, allowing only a charring of wooden skin.

We cut the rigging and cast it out onto the waters, applauding our ingenuity, welcoming the weeks and months of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We crowned ourselves in death, thinking it the kingdom and the power and the glory.

Remember this is business, we tell ourselves.

The sails of our bone ship are naught but fringe, yet still we drift toward the end of time, the edge of the world, the battle between giants and gods in the final winter.

We hear the sweet calls of crows, then the flap of their wings, shortly before their shapes alight upon the upper yards.

There is an iridescent sheen in the sky, a rainbow bridge, a promise.

Shore is near.

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The mission was to:
*Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker;
*Include something that tastes terrible;
*Include some part (from a few words to several lines) of a previous poem that didn’t quite pan out; and
*Include a sound that makes you happy.

The italicized portions are from my failed poem "Minor Explorations." The cawing of the crows is the sound that makes me happy.