Artwork (above): Joseph John Racano

Pirates Cay

Welcome me hearty to the Pirates Cay
Where lingering spirits of olde come to play
The canons are rusting and menace no more
Their swashbuckling captains lay on the sea floor

How did ye come here to this Pirates Cay
For once through the breakwaters here ye must stay
And when the moon rises the locals join in
Skeletons glistening and stinking of gin

Come climb aboard leaving sword in its scabbard
Forgive us the dead if we look a bit haggard
You’re soon be to meeting our specter of wenches
They deep as we down in Davey Jones’ trenches

Never the matter ‘tis too late for leaving
The curtain has closed on our widows for grieving
Find a good bunk and hold fast for the swell
Welcome aboard it’s a long way to hell

Joseph John Racano
©@JosephJohnRacano/12/17/2020

Ghost Ship

We were three years waylaid hope gone from our hearts
Marooned on an island never mentioned on charts
Come a pea-soup fog rolled in with the tide
On a wave of stench like to something had died

I leaned me forward on a blistered knee
Peering o’er whitecaps stretching out to sea
When a crows-nest broke above a bounding main
For the first time in years heard that creaking again

In days gone past she just sailed on by
Now I spied a front mast through my spyglass eye
Limped off the beach and retreated to jungle
Hobbled from a leech-lorne toe gone fungal

The tide came in and the fog spread like syrup
A Galleon floated in like the kind built in Europe
Me mateys in the bush watched a shadow come about
The shadow wore a beard and he gave a mighty shout

Argh, lady dancers, all ashore and with a will
And bring along a shovel for there’s gold enough to spill
Twice ‘afore and this one more we’ll now have buried three
Seven paces inland to the right and ‘neath a tree!

We heard chains a-clanking and doubloons in the sand
I saw matey coughing but caught it with my hand
The cap’ns eyes were fire and his teeth golden rot
What pirates hell spawned him the devil I knew not

The hole at last covered they turned and strode away
Hopped in a row boat and made for the bay
And we sit here ‘next morning on gold fit for kings
With only to spend it on the gulls tomorrow brings

Now dreams come easy of long pleasured craft
Enow to hold gold would not fit my raft
If Neptune sees fit to strand us you and I
Know this, those I miss- as a rich man I die

Joseph John Racano

Clambering onto foreign shores
Claiming lands that weren't yours
Salten shore to weeping willow
Claim for Spain the land Cabrillo

Check the outcrops, search the cays
Find the gold within these bays
Less a route and more a maze
I don't care if it takes days

Native people, native tongue
Took it from the very young
Horrid history malevolent maps
Bombardeta guns with violent caps

Up the rivers, down the streams
Hoist a sail atop those beams
A place of beauty so it seems
I remember from my dreams

No small wonder no one cried
Six months later when you died
On the Catalina sands
Buried by some old deck hands

Search the bluff tops, scour the hills
I don't care how much blood spills
I am wounded hot with chills
Lay me down address my ills

One last sail to Catalina
There to Avalon Bay Marina
Find her there in the cantina
One last kiss from sweet Salina

Now he sails through history
Remembered for the snake he be
Who claimed it all for Mother Spain
Nevermore to come again

Joseph John Racano

Hold, King Neptune

Great King Neptune, stay thy sword
Smite us not, thou briny lord
Give us but a cause to fear
Fair warning that the end draws near

Blue Poseidon hold thy Trident
There’s no call to be so strident
Long the years have passed since when
Your maelstrom was unleashed on men

Not all people share the blame
for Turtles in the Gulf aflame
Many know as well as you
Of Fukushima’s toxic brew

Father Ocean, please be kind
some were young when stricken blind
Born with no love in their hearts
evolving slow, in fits and starts

Not all men deserve your wrath
Reverent always of your bath
Lash your swells both taut and deep
Reserve Hell’s judgement lest good men weep

Joseph John Racano

Captain’s Folly

Twixt Aurora borealis and the Aleutian chain
Where the sparkling of the ice became Titanic’s bane
A crook-built captain stood lashed to the helm
Carving last initials in American Elm

The sea spat foam on a slippery deck
Where the ship’s last captain had broken his neck
Out on the horizon rose a turbulent wave
Ridden by a mammoth come a watery grave

Already been a giant when the captain was born
Back amidst the sunshine of a Nantucket morn
Screaming to a whaler’s wife and no good mother
Handed off to live with some stranger or another

The cards proclaimed his destiny when they were read
‘Ye shall smell of land, an isle of white’ they said
‘Beware to poke the devil fish for this be folly
Leaving ship and captain to be melancholy’

Back at hand the smell of land was overpowering
High above the gunwales giant flukes were towering
Power slapping boatswains into sharpened splinters
Scattering brave men who would see no more winters

Now around amidships came the whirlpool cyclone
Surface of the water now a dim gray sky tone
Overboard and sinking fast a harpoon whale gun
Ocean water lapping o’er the deck and then some

Rats began appearing jumping ship in number
Salt and briny water had awoke their slumber
‘Cap’n,’ yelled the first mate from the after-steering
‘We’re sinking!’ but the captain was deceased, unhearing

Soon enough the white behemoth turned and left
Nothing broke the water save a ship bereft
Scattered on an island beach the good ship’s mail
Was all they ever found to tell the captain’s tale

Joseph John Racano
©@JosephJohnRacano/10/17/2020

Artwork by: Escaffi

Fate of the Mary Celeste’

The Mary Celeste was a study in mystery
One foot in folklore the other in history
Found hard adrift with no crew off the Azores
None left behind save the bunks and the bedsores

Eleven years after the ship was commissioned
A brigantine vessel supplied and provisioned
Galley abandoned, a sink full of dishes
Plenty good reason to be superstitious

Ten days the ship’s log sat fallow and empty
No trace of where anyone of them could be
But some of the saltier sea hag persuasion
Quiet opined they were took by contagion

Whilst others with knowledge of these local waters
Crossed themselves twice and again for their daughters
They knew the stories of man-eating kraken
Spawn of the devilfish, kin of the dragon

But none of them knew, not a person on Earth
In all of the shipping lanes Boston to Perth
What really happened to that ship and crew
One night in November, 1872

The whale-oil lantern's light blurred in the rain
Crew members shouted a final refrain
Sucker-disc tentacles plucking good men
Drawing them down to their doom and their end

Joseph John Racano
©@JosephJohnRacano/10/25/2020
Artwork by the author

The Legend of Narwhale

The Nordic seas roiled with a hate for the Viking
Black waters boiled not much to my liking

Lashed to their oars sat a hundred strong row men
Low in the sky the red moon was an omen

Down below decks and in chain kept the wenches
Merciful rains washed us clean of foul stenches

Nary a star to be found in the sky
All navigation thus blind to the eye
Barrels of lard rolling oe’r the side

Spread ‘cross the swells as though something had died

Sharks oceanic did gather to feast
When lookout at starboard was first saw the beast
He of the criss-crossing armour-plate scales
Poisonous barbs at the end of three tails

Tentacles suckers come sneaking aboard
Dragging men back down to their briny lord
Serpentine kraken to bulkhead held fast
Finally snapping the ship’s central mast

Slurping the crew members one and by one
Wenches below prayed out loud for the sun
Master at arms raised a harpoon on high
Aiming to thrust iron barb to the eye

Hurling with force striking flush on the horn
That’s how the legend of Narwhale was born

Joseph John Racano

©@JosephJohnRacano/09/22/2020

Artwork by: SigBjorn Pederson

Beast of the Azores

A thousand miles West of the Azores that morn
Our final supplies a half-barrel of corn
The water ran out and we kept the crew wet
By wringing the sails of what moisture could get

With no sign of land, not a dally of wind
The crew’s jealous loyalty near to rescind
Me leg on the wood side kept slipping on salt
The one on the good side kicked open the vault

And showed them the treasure would soon be their own
If we could keep hold of our minds ‘till we’re home
And almost it worked ‘till that black fateful day
When we run aground in a mountain of spray

The crew was lain flat on our backs to a man
Up in the crow’s nest yon pointed his hand
And down was he pointing to places below
But thar was no whale for the white caps to show

And rose from the sea come from some other realm
Tall as the main mast and rained on my helm
A scaly behemoth with dancing fork tongue
Fresh from maternity eating its young

The wires were slapping the ropes they were snapping
The deckhands rolled overboard those been caught napping
A scream from the crow’s nest with lookout been seized
Was not flesh enow be the monster appeased

Now finally the wind by King Neptune’s good graces
Gave heave to our backs with the beast at our faces
And down went the serpent to gather a drink
Soon to return with attack I did think

But though he did rise like the sixth plague from hell
Our galleon ship had advanced very well
And soon we had many large miles of sea
Twixt the behemoth, a riddance to he

Joseph John Racano

©@JosephJohnRacano/09/02/2020

Artwork: Daniel Govar

Below the Isabella

In the days of Magellan on a turbulent sea
The Galleon Isabella struggled hard to break free
Some unknown force held her mighty in check
Twisting out of sorts with a torque on the deck

The captain and commander ordered a sounding
‘Aye’ came the reply lest the good ship risk grounding
The crewman knew these darkened waters, good and deep they were
But quartermaster fearing disaster, called to his captain, ‘sir!’

'Somethings come betwixt the hull and keel of Isabella
Larger than the galleon’s beam and shaped like an umbrella'
They loaded starboard cannons and the sails were raised to full
Called on good Poseidon that his strongest winds give pull

And there at the aft of the large wood craft a demon broke the surface
Had the old black seadog yapping all the crewman nervous
The ship broke free to the captains glee and they left those haunted waters
Still to this day Isabella’s bulkheads display giant sucker marks on her hind quarters

Joseph John Racano
©@/4/4/2021

Vikings of Valhalla

The wind is awoken and fain set to blow
Lay shields to the wedges through the straits we go
Three hundred raiders on board row the Draken
Bound for Valhalla and dam to the kraken

Leaving behind any kindness and mercy
Only fresh blood on the sword honors Sertsey
Feather the oars let the wind fill our sails
Lightning and Thunder God Thor provide gales

Down to the deck every oar with its handles
Those who will perish shall the rest provide candles
Steer now the rudder aim straight for the fog
Cloak our approach as we kill maim and grog

Now to the river bank those first ashore
Lighten the bow, pull us shallow to moor
Trade in the oars for a good and broad sword
We take what is ours and return to the fjord

Joseph John Racano
©@JosephJohnRacano/1/1/2021