The Sighting Is a Portent of Doom

In the age of electricity and oil,

my tugboat ploughs through waveless liquid soil.

Cruising at thirteen knots on a pitch black sea.

There's a strange object on the radars

in front of me. Still nothing I can see.

Just an open dreary sea...

Several attempts to contact that

what appeared to be the size of a ship.

No response 'till I receive

transmissions of hostile nature.

These voices cursing my goddamn name.

Hell, is this witchcraft or am I insane?

All of a sudden a dark silhouette

ascends through ghostlike mist.

While it comes closer, I recognize

the image of an old deserted ship.

I am aghast at the sight of a derelict vessel

sailing this awkward night, appearing like a black

floating cadaver. There's not one single man aboard.

Her torn sails cloaking her like a cobwebbed widow,

posing against this sad nightmarish horizon.

The temperature suddenly dropped.

My great-grandfathers clock, just ticking, now stopped.

I am smothered by a sudden shroud of fear.

For there's a ghost ship 'pon a funereal quest.

With a black bird circling hypnotic

around its rocking empty crow's nest.

Fortunately this atrocious mystery sets sail away from me.

Some sailors claim other seamen beheld such sights.

Most died weird deaths during fog-clad days and nights.

The ship vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

Should I feel fear? Was it even here?