Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2019 | Page 103

The thunder blanketed their screams,
As invisible binds pulled them down into the water through the boat,
Smashing through the splinters of wood,
Their heads thrusted back, eyes looking around frantically,praying to the gods above.
The ship rocked, the Emperor’s treasures ricketing down below,
And BOOM.
The ship exploded without any bombs,
Gold, Jade and Emeralds flew everywhere, and with a plop ,
Landed into the roaring sea,
Where waves swallowed them,
And sailors begged for it to stop.
But of course, it didn’t,
The unseen lasso clasped even tighter,
For the evil sorceress wanted the Gold, Jade and Emeralds
For herself,
And no one else.
She swooped them out of the water, hands gleaming,
Her mouth a-beaming,
And the left for the sailors to suffocate.
A yell came from the distance,
It was covered by fog.
A second ship, from the voyage
Heard screams and hastened to locate the source.
A fellow sailor saw the sorceress,
His mouth gaped.
But the sorceress only smiled and placed a finger on her lips,
As she poured a soft curtain of purple fog
And over the severed first ship,
It slowly draped, leaving
No trace of any ship.
Now that’s the tale of the first voyage,
Where hundreds of noble men
Some younger than ten,
Succumbed at the hands of a sorceress.
The first Ming Voyage,
As you can tell,
Was no more successful,
Than a fat house cat
Attempting to capture a mouse.