The doldrums.

[billy]

The wind abandoned the sails;
fled west with a sullen sun.
A sun that daily returned
to haunt the shadows
of slack canvass
draped like dead flesh.



Eight bells, first watch, sixteenth night:
It centred the light pool
a tall spindle of a boat
poking through the surface, it stood.
single poled, Half naked
adrift on a wet new moon

Its pleated skirts, windless
hung upon the fir mast.
Their ropes coiled like serpents
ready to bite a prevailing easterly
should the canvass bloom.
Lay in wait on the lifeless deck.


Sea In The Moonlight by Caspar David Friedrich-1830.