One balmy day on a cold stormy night,
Two sunken catamarans each sailed with a port green light.
They reefed both lazy sheets in a flat sea gale,
And tacked straight windward with no wind and a bulging sail.

Two hulls they had, yet sailed on the one,
With left starboards half-sunk, their course was begun.
With seized running engines and the fuel long gone,
Their lone rusty props slowly cavitated on.

The helmsman stood while lying down,
On a course due east, towards the sun sinking down.
With silent blaring horns and anchors set a-lee,
They moored adrift in a bottomless sea.

A mute old skipper gave a voiceless cry,
As a fast phantom ship drifted in under the starlit sky.
No hands aboard, no sails on hoist
Just shadowed shapes and a whispering loud voice.

They hauled up chain with a broken rope,
And swabbed the deck with clean bilge and soap.
The compass spun its steady course,
While a headless cook tapped SOS in Morse.

 As cannonballs flew, light as lead.
They passed broadside, portside to head,
They fought in peace ‘til dusk at dawn,
With halyards blown and raised sails torn.

 No cries, no wounds, no smoke, nothing burned
Just echoes adrift, with none that returned.
They feasted on rations that never were,
With forks lashed tight to an old sail spur.

With journey long and distance short,
They anchored shallow where no depth could report.
So raise a glass to truth and tales,
Where ghost ships roam, and logic fails