Poetry & Fiction: Two Poems

The smooth glass could not lie,
 so he knew that he was do die.
Could such a blow to kind mortals fall?
 Must he so soon, hear the reaper's call?

For minutes into hours, he thus remained,
 stricken at his face so suddenly stained.
Yet dark despair was not his to know,
 until he saw the home to which he no longer could go.

For the brothers would kill him if he but tried,
 to again venture without, into the outside.
Nor of his own will would he have them share,
 the horrors he beheld in his own unerring stare.

Behind him his wife slept on as before,
 hereafter hidden by an impossible door,
She would have him open knew she the fate
 that would so swiftly steal her life's only mate.

He watched as his eyes gushed gory red,
 inhuman and foreign were the tears he now bled.
And the near bursting crimson that now filled his cheek,
 taught him despair and a brief death to seek.

So it was upon the vile morn,
 when between light and dark the world was yet torn,
that the wretched widowed wife woke to the day,
 to find that her friend had died, of the plague.

As I listen to the full force gale,
 slapping the waves at full sale,
I begin to ponder in awe and wonder
 how many like ships has she sank under.

Falling prey to the wild breeze,
 some devil or god taking life as they please.
And wondering aloud as madmen do,
 whether she'll choose to sink this one too.

If I be carried ever and on,
 into the deep which I sail upon,
May I fall into a cove or a knell
 and within its darkness continue to dwell.

And if you, my love, hear nothing of this,
 of my fate down in the abyss,
May your sorrow not last long,
 but write and sing of me in a song.

As I consider the merciless tide,
 it occurs to me and I shudder inside,
That you will not see the tears I have cried
 and will not even know that I have died.

You may think that I have sailed away,
 to another, to a brighter day.
But then you will know for you knew me better
 and one day in a bottle you'll find this last letter.

Oh, woe is me, as another wave crashes
 and splinters and tears my sail and sashes.
And tied to the mast with the tightest of lashes
 that perhaps I will not be returned to ashes.

Rmember, my love, that I was true to the last,
and while speaking your name overboard was cast.
Nothing feebler could keep me from you,
we'll meet in heaven when your time comes due.

And then you will know that my love was true
 and in eternity, I'll still love you.

©Copyright 2003 by AlternativeApproaches.com