The Mariner’s Spectral Tryst

There stands a mariner, his name long lost,
Whose hands, once firm, now tremble at the wheel.
His eyes, two coals aglow with fading fire,
Survey the chaos that no heart can heal.
“O cruel abyss!” he cries unto the gale,
“What sin hath bound me to this liquid jail?”

Three fortnights passed since land withdrew her grace,
Since verdant shores dissolved to spectral gray.
The compass spun, unmoored from reason’s law,
Each wave a tomb, each cloud a judgment day.
No albatross his burdened soul doth curse,
Yet Fate’s cold hand directs this phantom verse.

Lo! Through the mist, a shape doth coalesce—
A figure draped in robes of seafoam spun,
Her tresses kelp-kissed, eyes like drowned emeralds,
A siren forged from storm and midnight sun.
Her voice, a chord ‘twixt dirge and lullaby,
Sings solace sweet to bid the damned draw nigh.

“O weary wanderer of the wand’ring main,”
She croons, her breath a zephyr’s poisoned balm,
“What seek’st thou in this labyrinth of woe?
What port could harbor thee from chaos’ calm?
Come, lay thy brow upon my breast of brine,
And trade thy mortal coil for dreams divine.”

The mariner, ensnared by honeyed lies,
Doth lean toward the phantom’s cold embrace,
Yet in his breast, a spark of memory stirs—
A hearth long quenched, a beloved’s vanished face.
“Speak, wraith!” he shouts, “What trickery dost weave?
Art thou my doom, or but a brief reprieve?”

Her laughter rings, a chime of shattered glass,
As waves ascend like towers clawing sky.
“I am the echo of thine own lament,
The shadow cast when hope’s last embers die.
Thy heart hath summoned me from coral caves
To guide thee through the sea’s unmarked graves.”

A pact proposed beneath the judgment stars:
She’ll still the waves, unveil the hidden shore,
If he consents to yield his fleeting breath
And dwell with her in depths forevermore.
“Choose swiftly, mortal—tempests tire of sport,
The hourglass drains; thy vessel comes to port.”

His soul, a moth to grief’s entrancing flame,
Doth waver ‘twixt the living and the lost.
He visions gardens where his love awaits,
Her hands outstretched, her voice by time embossed.
Yet in those depths, her eyes are glazed and cold—
A puppet strung on seaweed, limp and old.

“Nay, specter!” roars the mariner, renewed,
“Though waves may rend my flesh and salt consume,
I’ll ne’er forsake the sun’s transcendent kiss,
Nor seal in briny vaults my earthly doom!”
He seizes oars that mock his waning strength,
And strikes the wraith—she melts to mist at length.

The sea, enraged, doth vomit forth her bile,
A maelstrom born of scorn and wounded pride.
The ship, outmatched, submits to Ocean’s will,
Her mast a cross where martyred dreams abide.
The mariner, lashed fast to splintered wood,
Beholds his judge: the vortex’s gaping hood.

Down, down he spirals, through the sapphire void,
Where leviathans chant in tongues unknown.
The pressure mounts—a lover’s last caress—
His vision fades to pearls and bone, bone, bone…
Yet ere the dark claims sovereignty complete,
A flash! Her face—not wraith’s, but mortal sweet.

His long-lost bride, who perished by the shore
While waiting for his sails to kiss the bay,
Now floats before him, radiant yet sad,
A star misplaced within the blackened fray.
“Forgive,” she sighs, “the tides that stole thy years,
And drink this draught of love, distilled from tears.”

Their lips meet not as flesh, but merging shades,
Two spirits twined in salt and sacrament.
Above, the storm retreats, its fury spent,
The sea, appeased, resumes her blandishment.
Where once a ship dared challenge Nature’s whim,
Now silence reigns—save whispers, faint and dim.

Thus ends the tale of he who braved the main,
Whose heart, though brave, could not outpace the tide.
Let wanderers heed the moral etched in foam:
Each soul must choose its chains, its keeper, guide.
For in the end, ‘neath waves or vaulted spheres,
We drown not in the sea, but in our tears.