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Poetry Magnum Opus

Mystery and Myth


Frank E Gibbard

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Frank E Gibbard

Background research gleaned from the WWW on my subject the ship called Mary Celeste often wrongly named by people by the wrong name Marie.

 

It was 9am on the morning of Friday, December 13th 1872 when people on the waterfront saw a small two-masted sailing vessel entering the Bay of Gibraltar. The ship was the 'Mary Celeste' of New York, a Canadian built 100 foot brigantine of 282 tons registered in New York. The registered owners were James H Winchester, Sylvester Goodwin, and Benjamin Spooner Briggs.

 

Her master, Biggs was known in Gibraltar to be a staunch abstainer and devout bible reader. At the inquiry the ship's main owner James Henry Winchester gave evidence that the Captain was a courageous officer who would not desert his ship except to save his life. The second-in-command, the Mate, was Albert Richardson, who was also considered by Winchester to be fit to command himself.

 

But of the good Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah, two year old daughter Sophia Matilda, and the crew of seven, nothing was to be seen or found ever again. And so begins the greatest of mysteries, or at least it might seem.

 

\/ to my poem penultimate one for April's NPM:-

 

Mystery and Myth

 

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Man adores an intriguing

mystery. Many famous in

record make a fascinating

history. What happened to

The Mary Celeste? Marine

puzzle of her abandonment

never put to rest since 1872

that and a missing crew put

this sailing story in our view.

 

What afflicted that brigantine?

None could say or ever knew.

Vacuum, emptiness, a blank,

a void, a darkness demands

we let in light, mystery shalt

walk the plank, there be sea

monsters and were before a

Bermudan Triangle was ere

to tangle with. Who was Jack

the Ripper? We're unlikely to

get to know, meanwhile those

lists of likely suspects will just

grow and grow. Is there really

an old dinosaur in Loch Ness?

Sasquatches big footing it all

over American wildernesses

or yetis abominably apalling

in Nepal? Or crackpot myths,

just silly sillinesses? I'll tell you

what my best guess is, to this

skeptic, not really a mystery...

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No answers, just questions. That's poetry.

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Gatekeeper

Stories all, we love the stories.

Seems I've heard of the Mary Celeste, can't recall where . . .

 

Maybe you should make up a tale, and a tall one at that!

from the black desert

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Frank E Gibbard

Cheers Marti and Gatekeep for the response

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