A black shape sits on deck in a red glistening puddle,
sobbing and shaking, curled up in a huddle.
The shape of a man amidst silence and slaughter,
clothes torn and drenched in blood and salt water.
"His fortune to dust, his fortune to dust!
His triumph in vain, his triumph in vain!
Riches to ashes! His tears lost in rain!"
A ship made of mist like quicksilver thread.
This skeleton vessel sings songs for the dead.
To take a deep breath and set his mind back in motion,
he stumbles upright and fumbles to the prow.
His eyes now closed to hear his dear ocean,
he feels the world has altered somehow.
Deafening silence, the ocean seems gone.
Hardly a whisper nor notes of wind song
"His fortune to dust, his fortune to dust!
His triumph in vain, his triumph in vain!
Riches to ashes! His tears lost in rain!"
In a final attempt to end this bitter roam,
he looks at the stars with their comforting glare.
But the lights above that once guided him home,
scattered and shattered, are no longer there.
Now dawning upon him like rays of the sun,
his state and his fate cannot be undone.
The captain now trapped on this skeleton vessel,
adrift on the void in a black floating castle.
Chained to a twilight and bound to his boat,
swearing his vengeance on others afloat.
Lights at the end that have the world in their grip.
He shall have his conquest
as death came through a phantom ship!