Mutiny Poem by Rod M.Peters

Vain pleading gone awry;
The hands of the mutineers
Yanking limp sails from the masts,
Tearing them to pieces.
Angry mallets smashing the rudder,
As if it were the backbone
Of a maligned beast,
The ship now stalled
In the middle of an ocean grey and pitiless.

Having ignored all protestations,
Turned a deaf ear to all complaints,
Ruling with iron fist and whipping cane
Brooking no dissent,
My armored obstinacy now breached.
Slavish hands turned into menacing claws,
Tearing shoulder straps from the frock-coat
Snatching the tricorn hat from my head.
The last tokens of my station surrendered:
My polished buckle shoes, my gilded sword.

Forced to descend from the haughtiest
Mahogany bridge and step
Barefoot, empty handed,
Onto the coarse plank board deck,
An inhospitable wind-swept tundra
Dotted by an angry fauna
Of scowling, weathered faces, ugly and
In every detail the mirror-image of my own
Except for their eyes,
Alien, unforgiving dull beads drowning
In seething pools of rancor.

For once my own voice denied
After its last breath muttered
To the howling winds that sequestered
The declining phantom of pride:
‘A plea for my life'.