Often, to amuse themselves, the crew of the deck will catch those vast seabirds, the albatrosses: which idly serve as companions to their trek, when their vessels skim the briny abysses. No sooner than they have been dragged aboard, then these kings of the sky, clumsy and castrated, haul their giant wings across the floor like scurvid oars: flaccid and weighted. Once a free bird, each becomes a circus freak! His grace about the air now makes him look ugly! A crewman butts a pipe into his beak; his mate mimes the cripple: limping smugly! The Poet resembles this lord of the clouds, who haunts the storm and taunts the archer; shackled to the floor—prey to mocking crowds— his flights of fancy are a walk of torture.
Poets from history reimagined for social media