The leather bound novel
Leo Long 1986 (Durban)
I pull open the cover,
a trap door to the deck.
“Weigh the anchor!”
and with a splash the adventure begins.
”Trim your sails!”
and the curtain flaps behind me.
The bow of Old Salt splits the waves
and I wipe the spray from my glasses.
There’s mutiny aboard the ship.
With cutlasses drawn I hear them charge,
the “pok-pok” of a peg leg
is my dad at the door.
“It’s twelve gone”, he says
and I see them fall to the deck.
In the heat of the action
there’s no time to count the loss!
There’s a shout from the door,
“They’ve scuttled the ship!”
My feet get cold
as the hull fills up.
The water is rising
it dowsers my candle.
The crew is sprawled awkwardly on the still, red-dyed deck,
as the leather bound novel falls from my bed…
Font size:
Submitted by leol.15970 on May 12, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 5 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAX XXXX CXXD XBXX DCXX XXBX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 737 |
Words | 145 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The leather bound novel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/99762/the-leather-bound-novel>.
Discuss the poem The leather bound novel with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In