From The Captain's Quarters Poem by Noah Smits

My future is vague at the flux of this trouble—
a puddle, it ripples with each splashing drop—
fear locks me in place yet my eyes dart and swivel
at muddled gray middles of converging chance—
my gaze finds a path! a fleet arrow that flees on
a brash spree of freedom which just urged my stance—
but lines in their patterns—those arrows and clamor—
makes cavalier morrows, beseeching, seem bland—
for the vexating rubble from where I call trouble
forms patchwork so subtle I ere had not scanned.

—stopped short! —
what strange role I play!
a selector of outcomes so far from my sight!
—caught awed! —
why, this rolling day
is a ship of such mystery I captain through the night!

what bergs? what land?
what progenite shore?
do I near as commander,
as naïve explorer?

—sweat coats my hand
—hot ice fills my core
at reality's candor.
Beauty is horror.