Poetry: 'A Navy of One (After Samuel Taylor Coleridge)' By Marc Woodward

In between and remote: vapour, sky, sea:
the pastel flag of some pelagic nation
whose burnished voyagers wander ghostly
over deep trenches below dark oceans -

chasms reserved for drowned seafarers,
Argonauts and admirals of the fleeting.
Adrift in a purgatory of sapphires
between elements and distant meetings.

Oh Mariner on your relentless quest!
What are you? Bedecked with an albatross?
A navy of one below tattered sails,

compass free, drifting to a dock unblessed
on the shores of all that's been known and lost.
Listen now! Wind chimed, the Kirk-top bell tolls.


By Marc Woodward / Poet / Devon @Marcomando