from junior year of college - way on back

a stab at a kind of modified ballad meter in modified sonnet rhyme -

Oh my, old seasick Captain Red,
Out drinking in the park,
Still smashing empty bottles green,
Still draining others dry,
Recall what made your spine go soft -
which sailors left to die
in groaning wooden galleons tossed
in blood and ocean dark.

And what strange lands you may have seen,
and what quaint fables tell
of captives bound with golden chains
at noble ladies' whim,
of fishes gasping empty air
who never learned to swim,
who loved the ocean only once
but claim they know it well.

My iron captain crawled to shore
when water turned him rust.
His salty smile will never speak
of what he understood:
Uncertain feet that roll on land
remember only wood
and fear they'll sink him to his neck
and drown him in the dust.

Oh my, old drunken Captain Red,
still dripping on the shore,
You'll cough up twenty bottles worth,
and - thirsty - call for more.