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…
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Submitted by leol.15970 on May 12, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
5

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

Leo Long

Leo Long is a part-time poet, you can view my professional profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-long-%F0%9F%8C%8D-%E2%99%BB%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%8C%B2-3268433b/ more…

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    "The leather bound novel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/99762/the-leather-bound-novel>.

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