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Captain Cannibal (Free verse) by Lenore

Murder! Have you ever heard the like As they always do in stories of a shipwreck found at night? Where survivors are floating for days on a raft; I remember the ghastly bits on the mast Where the last surviving sailor had helped eat the whole crew; He claimed he was the captain it was a good joke too, Depends on who’s the victim; The point of view counts for a heap in such things, You’d laugh yourself sick to know what it brings Starvation holds water better than your boat, When every plump and tender sailor keeps your stomach afloat No roast albatross for dinner For they gave you the slip, Your only choice left, Potluck or the dip All that last night, He sailed upon sluggish water, Covered with rotting flesh, Rank and stagnant pools of seamen Whispered by ghosts of dead comrades Carried on moonlit currents, All the water black with blood and shadow, Drifting westward homeward bound He came so near to broken, but his soul would not sink down Though he killed them as they lay there, And gnawed upon their bones, The tide of might had risen and brought him safely home

Lenore 26-Jan-04/8:16 PM
How can I be so misunderstood?
Is it so terrible, unthinkable even, to post a poem with the only intent being to share it? That’s not to say that I don’t want or appreciate the critiquing, I do. And admittedly I do get off on watching others chew it up and spit it out or savor its juicy center. It is not that I feel I stand alone as you wrote. It’s that I feel the poem can stand alone or crash and burn depending on the reader. I simply cannot agree that a poet or artist is obligated to make his or her work understood. Is it not enough to paint for the sake of painting? Allowing the meaning to unfold spontaneously and in the end subjectively? Think of Pollock madly lashing at his canvas, painting so fast that there is little time for forethought. Perhaps to some his finished canvas brought order out of chaos and it’s meaning becomes clear. To others it is nothing more than a canvas covered in haphazardly splattered paint. The beauty is lost or found depending on the perception of the beholder. Regardless of it’s intentional presupposed meaning (or none there of). Am I still completely unable to properly describe what this whole thing is all about? I have no plans or expectations for my poems at all and they only exists because it is what I truly enjoy and is probably the only way some brutal hack like me could ever obtain a public stage, such as this.




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