Upon An Islet, In A Voidal Dream

My longest poem yet

*Note, the author is aware that 'voidal' is not a proper word, however it fits the meter just so!

Upon an islet, in a voidal dream,

I rest here languid, contemplate the stream,

Which gently in its tidal motion flows

From this point ever onward I suppose.

 

My outcrop rises from a plain of blue,

An earthly mirror of my inner hue

That sprung from out some deep recess of mind

And manifest to put me in this bind.

 

Wherefore it took me so I fathom not,

Nor how I might egress from off this spot,

It seems the centre of a nowhere realm

With properties contrived to overwhelm.

 

For though I seek to seize along the air

Some line with which to orient my stare,

The vacant distance from this lonely ground

Is strangely masked, with no horizon found.

 

And so, perplexed, I pass into the night,

Again, where marked I changes in the light?

Where are those stars to penetrate the gloom?

Such perfect dark makes emptiness a tomb.

 

Into this solid sable world I gaze,

Bereft of reason, waiting in a daze,

Alone, but for an ethereal zephyr

That murmurs in its mournful whisper here.

 

A sigh of empty age, a dull refrain

Exhaling from the essence of this plain,

Its nature, that of somnolent dispose;

Aloof, it quietly comes and quietly goes.

 

No sooner can I settle on its drone

Before there comes a frightful baritone

A sound from somewhere far beyond my reef,

From gods or sleeping giants underneath.

 

What creature in the darkness makes this call

To magnify my trembling spirit’s pall?

Some dread leviathan of nightmare form?

An avatar of raging sea and storm?

 

I pause here, rigid, waiting for the end

Whatever beast or tempest should ascend,

I wait, but sense no stirring from the seas,

Am struck by nothing but the gentle breeze.

 

But there! If not some mind’s deceit, I wit,

I saw a minute, momentary flit,

An incandescent flicker in the veil,

A light amidst the gloom; a cheery hale!

 

It comes again, and yes, I know it now,

A distant paper lantern I avow,

It glimmers faintly with an auburn flame

And winks to me from out its willow frame.

 

I watch in silence as it makes its course

Toward me, as if drawn by unknown force;

A lonely pilgrim from a place unseen,

Toward my islet in a voidal dream.

 

Awakened by the welcome of its light

I rise to greet this passenger of night,

And hope in meeting with its radiant glow,

This candle may some answer thus bestow.

 

At last, the seeming endpoint of its chart

Brings now the lamp a measly yard apart,

But as I reach, the candle drifts astray

And passes now, indifferent on its way.

 

Much like its elder cousin in the sky

Who gazes bright, yet briefly with an eye

That sweeps the land in orderly review

And leaves as promptly as its hours are due.

 

Though it bestows us some small parting gifts

That twinkle from their far-flung astral rifts

And smile like sequins on a velvet sheet;

They make the fearful dark not so complete.

 

At least, that was the way a normal eve

Would turn to twilight as the sun took leave,

No equal promise does my lamp infer

And only black awaits this hapless cur.

 

I hear again the sound I heard before.

A low and ominous pelagic roar,

Its echoes emanating from the deep

Now cause my very skin to quake and creep.

 

From out the utter black I note a change

Of vaguely coloured tones, a dull mélange

Evolving on that utmost view of mine;

The absent place with no horizon line.

 

Armada! Not of ships upon this sea,

A cavalcade of candles loom on me!

All riding silent in their spectral way

With fire like shining heralds on display.

 

O humbling dazzlement, I am aghast

At this bizarre procession floating past,

Unnumbered paper lanterns hover while

I watch in awe upon my lonely isle.

 

Such is the brilliance of their mingled blaze

That stars, made seaborne, seem the things I gaze,

With constellations forming as they glide;

A galaxy adrift upon the tide.

 

Yet now I note each sun is not the same,

For every lamp has written there a name,

A person marked in gentle loving scroll

As though each one were wedded to a soul.

 

And thinking this, I venture to the edge

Of my small islet’s dull, uneven ledge

To really study now these candle things

And lo! What insight close inspection brings.

 

These flames are not of natural design

They effervesce through fuel of the divine,

And just perceiving, one can see the trace;

An outline there, a solemn spirit face.

 

I scarce believe this ghostly pallid shade

Now floating in a phantasmal parade;

Each candle bearing that which is no more

In journey to an unknown foreign shore.

 

The lanterns fade again into the fog

But I remain, an unsung epilogue

Who, bearing witness to this strange affair

Have still to fathom my attendance there.

 

That is until once more I hear the boom,

The thunderous resound amid the gloom,

It signals something more to yet behold;

I wait, whatever else should next unfold.

 

A final figment comes upon me now,

Its vague distortion grows to form the prow

Of some new vessel on this ocean realm;

I scarcely dare to guess who guides the helm.

 

By shape, I note the fashion of its sail,

A schooner etched in ornament detail

With grave, portentous scripture fore and aft

In mystic spirals all along the craft.

 

And gothic carvings hug the forward mast
From where a hanging lantern’s glow is cast,

A lamp much like before, yet not quite so;

By what divergence here, I cannot know.

 

I dread to see what hand should hold the till

As it now pulls beside me, deathly still

I strain, no muscle moving now, to check
If any figure looms upon the deck.

 

And lo, beyond belief I am the guest

Of an unoccupied Marie Céleste,

It ventured to me of its own accord
And waiting now, compels I climb aboard.

 

Gingerly, with utmost care I grip

The threadbare rungs that hang upon the ship

 And steal over the side to rest awhile,

No longer captive on my lonely isle.

 

 With face upturned toward the perfect night

That lantern on the mast now fills my sight,

Another candle of a spectral sort,
From whose dead visage is this taper wrought?

 

I climb the carvings, desperate to view

The steward that my ship’s beholden to,

Yet as I reach the level of its shelf

I see a mirror there,  I see myself.

I am the lantern on the boat of night,

It is my face that fuels the phantom light,

It is indeed a ghost ship on the sea,

It is a coffin box, it carries me.

 

And all at once my circumstance is clear,

The strange events that I have witnessed here,

The place I am, and where I now must go,

Directed by my paper lantern glow.

 

I take the till and face the blackened veil

That I, like all the dead before, must sail,
Onward forever, following the stream,

From off an islet, in a voidal dream.

Reviews

[wolfshrew]

a poem to float through