{Miranda Snaps} The Ship Of Dead Souls: A Poem

I saw the ship
Sitting out at sea
During my morning
Walk on the beach

The sunrise behind it
Accentuating every part
It even looked closer now
Breathtaking, nearly stopping my heart

People aboard
A woman waving at me
She was dressed beautifully
Like some sort of queen

I waved in return
And began to go on
But she motioned for me
To come onboard

Surely my eyes
Were playing tricks on me
It couldn’t really
Be close enough to see

I moved on
But twenty feet up the beach
I saw a rowboat
Coming toward me

Beautiful women onboard
Wearing velvet dresses and jewels
Smiling and waving
“We’ve come for you!”

Wondering just what had been in my morning juice
I looked around, but I was alone
The ship still floated in the sunrise
The rowboat hit the shells onshore, grinding like bones

The queen-like lady still motioned
For me on the ship
The ladies in the rowboat
Showed me where to sit

“You’ve been invited to The Ship of Dreams.”
“Who are you?” I asked
“We aren’t important
Come now while the Queen is masked.”

Nearly in a trance
I walked to the rowboat
Putting one foot into the vessel
I was ready to float

Clouds began to roll in
Casting a great shadow over the crew
They no longer looked friendly
The ship no longer looked new

For a second I saw everything unmasked
Their Queen was rotted and old
This wasn’t a Ship of Dreams
It was The Ship of Dead Souls

I tumbled out of the rowboat
To the creatures, I screamed
“Go back to Hell
You’re not the Ship of Dreams!”

Knowing I saw through
Their carefully fabricated façade
The sun returned and burned brightly
Until The Ship of Dead Souls was gone

Miranda Crites

Miranda Crites is a reader, writer, book reviewer, photographer, and lover of horror from the ghostly woods of rural West Virginia.

The writing bug bit Miranda at a very early age. She was pretty much born with a pen and a camera in her hands. She won the young writers’ contest in first grade and received her first camera as a gift when she was nine years old.

When not writing, Miranda enjoys spending time with her family. She and her family spend a lot of time off the grid where they are building a cabin in the supposedly haunted woods.

Miranda is self-employed. She and her husband create large and small vinyl decals, t-shirts, signs, and a plethora of creative customized items.

Some of her many hobbies when time allows are: making unique crafts and artwork, painting, hiking, and, of course, photography.

She has a diploma for Writing for Children and Teenagers although most of her current work is horror fiction and poetry.

Miranda is a member of Team Kendall Reviews at www.KendallReviews.com where you can find her horror book reviews and her monthly feature, Miranda Snaps, which generally contains horror fiction and photography.

Miranda is one of “The Thirty,” which is a group of thirty authors who are each taking a turn in writing a chapter of an in-progress horror novel.

You can follow Miranda on Instagram Miranda_C_rites

Follow Miranda on Twitter @Miranda_C_rites

You can find out more about Miranda via her website www.mirandacritesreadsandwrites.com