The Sea Captain's Log Poem by Cody Simpson

Setting forth on a rugged journey,
Feelings bottled in my chest like
Lost treasures of forgotten cultures,
I look deep within and find no
Odysseus to guide me o’er sea.

Wave-tossed, my crew is weary of wind
And water. Glory! We sail into
A harbor, silent, abandoned, a
Victim of the trade winds. “No more goods
To pawn off on hapless passersby? ”

What a sad state, but we sail on, past
Scylla and Charybdis, around
My neck the albatross, seabound, no
Land to be seen, miles of salt and
Stench. A cry goes up from all the men.

Ghosts appear on the waters, floating
On white plumes of smoke. Who dies to-
Day shall be a ghost tomorrow. We
Already appear dead to any-
One watching. Haunted, these spectral hours.

On our fifth day without food, through the
Mist, see a mysterious island.
We can smell death, see bones on its shore.
What choice do we have? In a rowboat,
Old and worn, we close in on our fate.