This concludes the first of the four episodes of this story. I do hope that you have enjoyed the first one and perhaps reflected on your own childhood in the context of were you are today ; and as one gets older it is always nice to revisit it once again from a different perceptive as life seems to recycle some of its insights and perceptions of a time that once was.
Please feel free to let others know about this story. I am sure there maybe some errors in some facts and names, and perhaps not written correctly and hopefully in time these mistakes will be corrected.
The second episode with the working title: The White Porch: Fall of the Father will look at the period from when he arrived in Canada in 1963, so in effect when he stepped off the ship in Montreal and on his onward journey to Toronto, Canada. This period will be broken into two acts which stem from 1963 to 1974 and from 1974 until 1984 – both of these acts will cover the 60’s and the start of the 80’s – each story interwoven with his growth from the coming of age to the embryo of fatherhood. At this time I have only touched on the beginning of this story and the rest is in my minds concubine and this needs to evolve with ideas and of course the time to do it in.
I may add that the third episode is almost complete but needs to be refined, however, that may not be published until the second episode is finished. The fourth is much the same as the second episode – started , but no were completed. So in effect this bloc will be on hold for several months or more before there is a new addition.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story and I hope that you have enjoyed it and that you have been given the taste of the times and the events and experiences of childhood in Liverpool, England and of course a little savory of Ontario, Canada.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A distant steel hulk appeared into the sheer of its knell
Armored in steel
Shielded in black
It came closer
Charging
Under a flapping fiery red cross
Tearing towards each other
Boded under a black shield of flagging light
Bow
To bow
Bow
To spar
Steamed under a flagstaff of fear
Riveted in alarm
Threatening
It tears the veil off a placid sea
In its upheaval
The wavering waves lash out
Tears splash
And whip with churning rage
As the lowering bow cuts through the unlighted night
The opposing ship
Undaunted
Held its course
Unmasking the black night
With its veiled threat
It continued on course with its crusading
Vision
Time to tack
In time
It passed
Reprieved
Eluding the night
It disappears
Into an elusive escape
Leaving
Its spirited bowsprit
In a sea of antiquity
Lost
At sea
The sable night descends
Into lucent light
The ship sails
With its deliverance
The unbound ship sailed on
To its destined port
The Irish Boson
Rolling
Yawing
Pitching
Besotted with the bottle
The Irish Boson
Would anchor his hearty helm
Onto the heaving hatch hold
Buoyant with beer
Seaborne with spirit
He lurched
He tilted
He jigged with a brogue of blarney
Spinning a swaying yarn
Into a staggering story
His moods were like a changing
Weathercock
Vain
With Irish pride
This weather-beaten boson
Kept a weather eye on his ship and crew
When sober
His soundings were sound
But
If you did not gauge the depth
Of his spirited tank
Then you would head into a storm
Your dad
Misread the chart of his moody weathering
Failing to read the depth
Of his soulful soundings
He headed into his heady headwind
Joking and jesting
He called the Boson a soused scouse leprechaun
Dropped
Decked
On deck like a splayed salted starfish
Under a starry sky
Your dad learned a valuable lesson that night
Never pick-a-bone
With an old Irish sea-dog
Sailor, Petula Clark, 1961
The Butterfly of Messina
Lycia
A floating butterfly
Sailing under the sun
Pollinating the ports
With its pollen of cargo
A succulent vesicle
Scented with sweetness
Nectar
Traded
Under a floret of gold
It tramped the Aegean Sea
Like a tireless bee
Returning
To its hold with honey
Brown raisins
Filling the vessels sac
In a hold for honey
Brown raisins
To trade for money
Profiteers
Pollinating the ports
For a honey of a deal
The Lycia sailed across the Aegean Sea
Like a fertilized Queen Bee
The Greek Goddess from Kaliamai
One port
Gulf
One girl
Gulf
Of Messinia
Kaliamai
Vested with sun and sea
Grapes
And citrus
Flowers its fragrance on an olive flowered bay
Deep
With beauty
He met his Greek girl friend
In a small seaport
Kalamata
Nests in the crescent
Of the warm blue Gulf of Messinia
Dark
Almond eyes
In a shell of olive skin
She moved like a gazelle
Hair
Dark
Like a black epicurean olive
Sheen and smooth
Her hair splayed onto her olive skin
Shoulders
Slim and square
With the elegance of a regency chair
A smile
Shelled with sweetness
It would gather you in
Like a suckling to a young inviting breast
It was warm with nectar
Words
Scrambled
Like his mind
The feelings were there
But the language was not
Emotions
Took over
Where language could not
Lead
With a smile
He took her hand
She held onto his
Innocence
Lead
With a smile
She took him home
To meet her family
Down
A yellow citrus lane
A short walk
Enveloped the fragrance
Of the heady citrus groves
Scent
Swept
Form the blue sea gulf
It flowered into a wafting spray of ambrosia
Enticement
Escorted the sweetness of their stroll
Were the shadows of the sun
Followed the fragrance of their trail
Leaving
Laughter in the balm of the balmier
Afternoon
Arriving
With laughter
He was greeted with smiles
Her home
Clean
And simple
Like the warmth that welcomed him
Into her house
He tasted their traditions
Almonds
Raisins
Introduced with ouzo
And welcomed with water
Emotions
Entertained
Gracious hospitality
Was a host to their kindness
Language
Bridged the barrier
With laughter
He was escorted back to the cargo boat
With an evening invitation
To join her family and friends
That Evening
Prior to his invitation
He sat in a jail
Looking rather pale
Hoping to leave
Without posting bail
Why
In jail
Because of a policeman
Who combed the ship
For contraband
To his dismay
None was found
Searching his bunk
He removed some junk
On the sheets
Was a carton of Pall Mall
Give me some
And I will be your pal
Your dad refused
The policeman was not amused
So he left the ship
With a cursing lip
Time to see her family
All toffed up
Like a Christmas tree
Bearing a gift for the family tree
Dressed like Lord Nibs
He hid the cigarettes in his coat
Leaving
The boat
He stepped onto the pier
And who do you think should appear
Stop
I’m going to search you
Taking the cigarettes from his coat
He tossed the cigarettes
Back onto the boat
The carton
Would be confiscated
According to legislation
If he took the Pall Mall ashore
It would be against the law
In a flash
The crew was there
Catching the cigarettes
As they flew in mid air
Not amused
The policemen grabbed him by the coat
And marched him to the police station
Like an unwilling Billy goat
Upset
And despondent
Release was requested
His demands were denied
So he sat in prison
Waiting to be tried
Time
For his date
Now he feared he would be late
Locked behind bars
Looking forlorn
Hoping to be out
Before the rise of dawn
An emissary was sent
To the local jail
Communicating the problem
Was like following a snail
Communication
Was open to interpretation
In the end
A solution was found
Let the boy out
He had made an honest mistake
This innocent boy
Was not a criminal on the make
Out of the prison
He was out of the gate
Bolting ahead
He feared he would be late
His heart pounded
For his anticipated date
Still there
With black silken hair
She stood under a shawl of a sinking sun
While his heart lapped
To the wave of his run
Watching
She waved
With the wind in her hair
Embraced
By the sea
He held onto her
Telling his tale
On the way
He held her hand
As the sun shortened it shadow across the land
After
His visit
With the family of Greece
He told her brothers
About the cigarettes and police
Always
In view
He kissed her goodnight
Next time
The family would be out of sight
Back to the ship
Under a sea of stars
His face shone
Like the planet mars
He goes to his cabin
Finding the Pall Mall
He leans over the ship
And shouts to his pal
Overboard
Cigarettes fly
High in the sky
Hands reach out
The brothers left
With a thankful cry
They had caught the carton
Like a wicket keeper
They had stumped the police
With their little caper
The next day
He would tell his tale
Once the ship was in full sail
He told the crew
About his time in the little Greek jail
Passing
The Greek Islands with caprice
He knew he had fallen in love
With a beautiful goddess from Greece
In time
Letters
Of communication
Were greeted with celebration
But the gulf
Was not open
For interpretation
Leaving
Their love
In state of separation
Footnote
An old shipmate of the Lycia
Told him this tale
In time
The Lycia returned
Without my son
To the sleepy little seaport
On the Gulf of Messinia
Standing
In sweetness
She stood in the shade of the sensuous sun
Waiting
For his return
Watching
The Lycia fade into the melting sun
Tears
Flowed
Onto an ebbing pier
Dressed in a vestal white dress
She braided the waterfront
With the heady waft of citrus
Standing
Alone
On its weeping wharf
She stood in the shadow of the sinking sun
Leaving
Her vestigial shadow in the wake of its wailing wash
She waved
Goodbye
He Never Returned
To the Lycia
He went to the R.M.S. Caronia
The Green Goddess
Before we go on board
Let’s go back to shore
Because this tale will tell us more
About the S.S. Caronia
And the Burns Family
A few houses down the road from our house
Lived a large catholic family
Seven children
All spawning red freckles
Spotted on sallow skin
Marrow thin
With ribs that cave in
Like Aushwic Jews
Their hungry heart was imprisoned
Into the gage of their ribbed skin
Gaunt in cheek
But eyes alive
In pallid pockets
With wafer thin skin
They ran around the street
Like Huckleberry Finn
The children’s father was often on the dole
While the mother stayed at home
Her husband was a Docker
Tall
Frail and thin
With the pallor of parchment skin
His life was scripted from within
Mrs. Burns
Served a smile
On tapioca skin
Red freckles would muster
Onto her steep narrow chin
Too poor for social life
So she read a lot
Evred Avenue Library was her saving grace
And Agatha Christie was her mystery
Her husband died many years ago
But not before he saw one of his boys
Go to college and university
Which is a rarity
From people who come from poverty
Her eyesight is weak
But freckles still abound
On pink tapioca skin
She still serves a smile
From cheek to chin
She still lives
In the same tenement house
Two doors down from us
Changes have been made
The house is clean within
Not filled with the clutter
And the din of seven freckled children
Now on her own
But never alone
Her children visit her every day
And she can’t keep her devoted grandchildren
Away
Because all they want to do is stay
And play with Grandma Burns all day
Her eldest two boys
Were Teddy and Jimmy (the college boy)
And his other mates in the street were
John and Ronny
All older than your dad
And Charley and his younger brother
Tiny
A bunch of boys
A flora of freshness
Flowered with florid faces
Blossoms
Of blooming mischief
But I do digress
Teddy
The oldest boy
And very handsome
Pitch jetty hair
Framed his freckled face
But I must admit
He had few
And none were out of place
Unlike his family
Where the reds run rampant
To form a camouflaged face
Like Ronny
He was a ladies man
The birds and bees
Flew away with the stork
Unlike your dad
He was still looking
Under the cabbage patch leaf
Teddy Burns
Loved birds
Both species
He dated a beautiful tall college girl
And her father races homing pigeons
So Teddy
Had the best of both worlds
Of course
The homing pigeon was in a coop
And his daughter was free to fly
A ravishing college girl
With a wee bit of a roving eye
Often
Teddy would take the pigeons out to fly
Often
Your dad would accompany him
On a red double decker Ripple bus
Much cleaner and smarter than the green buses
Faster too
And fewer stops
On the way
The pigeons cooed
In a wicker basket
Under the bay of a Leyland Ripple red bus
Sitting in front
Top deck
High in the sky
Lords of the land
Touring the countryside
On a red double decker bus
All expenses paid
For a half hour drive
Sixpence for the errand
Two pence for the ride
Watching grayness turn to greenery
Along the countryside
With Teddy
Is hero
Sitting
Side by side
Arriving
At Speak Airport
Teddy placed the wicker pigeon basket on the ground
Note the time
Pick up the pigeon
Cup it in your hand
And thrust your arm straight out
Let it go
Watch it fly
Home
Pigeon
Lands on its loft
Grab the bloody bird
Fast
Strip the ring from its leg
Fast
Pop the ring into the wooden clock time box
Note the time
It returned
From flying from its freedom
It is now cooped into conformity
The father clocked the pigeon in
While the daughter cooed for Teddy’s return
Between flights
Cooing took place
Like two love doves on a high wire
Your dad made a coup
He had ringed the father’s daughter
Coo
Teddy saw the ring doves
Bill and coo
He clipped your dad’s wings that bloody day
And sent him to Coventry for many a day
What’s this got to do with the R.M.S. Caronia
Well the father of the beautiful college girl
Worked in the Cunard Office Building
Educated
With the stature of a toff
He lived on Southport Road
In a bay window house
Detached with a large garden
Back and front
Making our house feel like a runt
Mr. Foulks
Took to your dad
And he knew he was in the Merchant Marine
So he told him about the R.M.S. Caronia
The Green Goddess
Wore a dress of four shade of pale green
It was a sailor’s dream
To sail on this grand cruising liner
She was the only one in the Cunard fleet painted
Green
With envy
Other merchant navy men would die to sail on her
Why
Because it was the only Cunard liner that sailed
Around the world
In ninety days
He would be back
To thank Mr. Foulks
And his lovely daughter
The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Tokens, 1962
Top Bunk
Again
Seven new cabin mates
Same job
But a different ship
One filled with the filthy
Rich
Passengers
Lived in opulence
Cruising the world in luxury
Living the Life of Riley
Not me
Your dad would say
He waited on them
Hand and foot
Dawn to dusk
Wealthy passengers would sail
On a sea of solvency
The novae rich and the moneyed class
Jews
Circumnavigated the world on the sea of plutocracy
David
Befriended your dad
A youthful mush from Southampton
He was also waiter on the Caronia
A few years older than your dad
Much more mature
Sharp with vintage taste
His svelte body wore a label of classicism
A palatable character
Not unpleasant
Sweet
With a tang
He was bold and rich
With vibrancy
His piquancy enhanced his game
For new sensations
Steeped
In knowledge
He brewed with curiosity
Distilled with experience
He decanted learning in a flute of crystal
I met him once
And he tickled my fancy
To your dad
He was a sommelier
Who taught him to taste and smell
The palatable experiences
That life had to offer
Through heightened awareness he could see clarity
While savoring the sample of life’s tasting cup
To enhance and appreciate the seasoning of life’s palate
He must first
Use the Palate
To garnish life with color
Discriminate its rancid bitterness
And to relish its aromatic fragrance
Use the Pallette
To mix life with richness
Dilute its darkness
And squeeze its color into strokes of boldness
Use the Pallet
To store and your shape your sweet dreams
Then move the dreams into reality
Do not let them die a palliative death
Toast the touchstone of its celebration
Not the tombstone of its commemoration
The Wanderer, Dion, 1962
Take the Trip and Turn the Tube
His brave new world
Became an odyssey
A kaleidoscope
Of existing experiences
A turning tube
Inceptive to change
It funneled his life
With unsorted pieces
Odorless
A medley of untrodden experiences
Fall
Like loose pieces
Into a deep-reaching cylinder
Mosaic
Into an angular curvature
Light
Enters its porthole
Like a proverbial beacon
It guides the providential pieces
Into its circular passage
Finding its bearing
It creates
A patterning motif
From its spangled light
A motley of merging pieces integrate
Into an intricate tapestry of introspection
Abstract
In shape
Its form is examined
In life
Each piece is experienced
Time to time
The turning tube
Turns our time
Leaving
Life’s pieces to rearrange itself
From its established pattern
We create change
To survive
The present
We must turn off the past
And reuse our pieces
To build a new pattern for the future
Take the Tube and Turn:
Around the World in Ninety Days
east asia yellow neptune hot wild life mediterranean europe barcelona iceland
canal date line poverty equator bondi beach segregation swimming battleship prostitute midnight sun
panama international junk dance brown safari dead sea communism st. marks square scandinavia
jamaica surf hong kong beautiful aboriginals africa bethlehem october crisis venice white cliffs
apple Hawaii bars carvings sydney bridge indian ocean camel russia adriatic sea casablanca
america pacific yokohama bali australia sea-plane pyramid bosporus dubrovnik braltar
atlantic cable car kami-dana volcano great barrier milford sound red sea istanbul acropolis purpose
eighteen golden gate Buddhism Cantonese port moresby islands black belly dance motorbike bullfight
World Opportunity Religion Language Diversity Pacification Ethnic Art Culture Education
Hands shake
Shattered shards
Pieces of porcelain
Splinter and spatter
Parting
Hiding
Farting fragments
Shrapnel
Pieces of plate
Lost at sea
Search and rescue
Flax
On deck
Under tables
Under chair
My god
On passengers too
Sorry sir
Tripped over the bloody chair
Oops
Picking up the Pieces
By the captain’s chair
The tiger began to roar at him
While the passengers began to stare
With a smile and a whim
Washington’s face was in front of him
Green to the touch and with a grin
A portly passenger befriended him
Back to work
Dressed in a jacket of white
Into the busy galley
What a sight
Rustle hustle and bustle
Pots and pans
The noise of the galley
Is louder than a marching brass band
Face ashen and feeling blue
The chef starts to scream at you
Get that order out of sight
And make bloody sure you have it right
Sweat beads and streams
On a red hot face
Make sure that entrée
Gets to the right place
Top the quail
With a silver hat
Check the grayling
But don’t cover that
Plate on plate
Like a house of cards
Balancing entrees
On the palms of your arms
Passing through a swinging door
With trays that anchor you to the floor
In and out and out of sight
Making sure that the bloody order is right
Bowls of waldorf balanced on each hand
A fitting performance for a Royal Command
There goes the swinging door
Oops he’s stretched out on the galley floor
Waldorf dressed his oily head
Decked to the floor by a swinging door
Leaving
The sous-chef with his echoing roar
Horsd’oeuvre
Followed with clear consommé
Leave
The calamari for another day
Peking duck
What luck
Follow that duck
With chocolate soufflé
Fruit
Cheese and sweet ginger too
Top it down
With a brandy or two
Coffee tea
Liqueur or me
Tired joke
Silly me
Time to clean the table
And set it up for the morning
Do it quick
Before the body goes into mourning
Close to his table
Dressed to the nine
The portly passenger and his wife
Were in conversation while sipping white wine
Winking his blue eyes
He invites your dad over
Where he patted him on the back
As if he was his dog Rover
The portly man
Pressed him a dollar
As the obedient wife
Adjusted her white collar
Tipping his head
With a tip in hand
He left the passengers
To the Lombardo Band
In the course of their meals
They had course to see him
Of course he served them with a smile
Through a course of mayhem
Conversed with humor
And bottled with joy
They took this cheeky boy in
Like a tonic of Beefeater gin
Cruise almost over
The portly passenger wrote down his address
Pocketing the piece of paper
He placed it into his fluffy flotsam nest
Leaving
Him with a hearty handshake
Capsule of Life
Chance
Could a broken piece of porcelain plate
Change the course of one’s life
Chance
Could a providential piece of printed-paper
Survive in a pocket of forgotten flotsam
Experience and Explanation
Could an insignificant event
Become a sequential piece
That would significantly change
The pattern of one’s own life
Reason and Result
And if that chance came
Could you make the right choice
Knowing that change may mean taking a risk
Regrets or Revelation
And if that resolute choice is wrong
Do you have regrets
Or are you a reformative redeemer
Who resurrects from its reflective revelation
And you know what grandma says about regrets
Yes grandma
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
Children
It saddens me to say
That your dad has too many regrets
Of yesterday
Let’s take the tube
And pick up the pieces
I Remember You, Frank Ifield, 1962
Picture postcards
Pretty pennants
Priceless photos
Plumed from the pillar box to my post
Box
Of mementos
Once linked
The memory
Box
Oh his trip around the world in 1962
David
And your dad
Swimming in the dead
Sea
Sand
Drifted dunes
Scroll across a scriptural sea of sand
Tracks
Of laughter mix with salt and sand
As two bold young men sail across the Holy Land
Leaving
The camel in the hump
Mounting the motorbike
Near the Aegean
They roar to Athens
Unlike Spartan slaves they were free
To sight see
The Black Sea
Caught in a crises with Gastro and Cuba
October was no fun
Sight seeing under a Russian gun
Leaving
The Balkans with a triumphant run
Chasing the bulls
Under a Spanish sky
Drinking rum and getting high
Riding waves on a tropical island
Crossing the date line under a trident fork
Climbing a mountain to reach to the sun
Sailing the Sound with eyes on the run
Watching the volcano spew to the sky
Look at the porpoises passing by
Under the straits of Gibraltar they swim
Following the wake with a ship on their fin
Under a bridge built with gold
You follow the yellow brick road
Looking at junks in a sea of poverty
You sip green tea in the lap of luxury
Into the bars in Yokohama
Where geishas practice Karma
You see segregation in Botswana
Where hunters kill their lama
Passing the barrier
In a lagoon of laughter
You surf the sea
Under the golden gate of Sydney
Watch the beautiful girls dance
On the island of Bali
They carve out dreams for you
And me
In Casablanca
… I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Love swept the sand
Under the shade of the afternoon sun
Smiles would surf onto their face
As Jewish girls stretched onto the sand with grace
Time elapsed
With laughter and fun
Time to get back to the ship
Because shore leave was about done
But the sweet girls had a party that night
And it sounded like more fun
Two of his mates went back to the ship
While your dad and David partied on
As time goes by
With laughter and fun
Time to get back to the ship
Because the ship was about to sail on
Out on the dark horizon
Like a floating Christmas tree
The green goddess waited patiently
As the sea craft set out to sea
In a cab with ten minutes to go
Almost there
One minute left and nothing to spare
Out of the cab and run to the pier
The last sea craft had left the dock
And was heading out to sea
Two feet off the pier with nothing to spare
The grew shouted jump if you want to get there
Jumping on the sea craft
With two feet in the air
Just clearing the deck
With not an inch to spare
Made it
With a wave and a smile and a hoot and a holler
The green goddess blows her horn
Waiting for the sea craft to be seabourne
Once on board
The third officer said
No more shore leave for a while
As he turned to his crew with a whale of a smile
Stranger on the Shore, Acker Bilk, 1962
Aside
The brass band played
Under the spangled spray of a paper parade
The green goddess had arrived
In it’s Port of Call
The passengers would embark on a land excursion
To visit the castle that crowned the hill
A Side Trip: On the Boardwalk of Life
On the quiet knell of knob hill
Overlooking the Tory blue bay
The old castle shouts out
To the dawn of a new day
A castle of the past
Restored to the present
It resorts to the rich
By keeping out the peasant
Shade checkered the white board
As the ship berthed the crowd roared
When two elderly gentlemen disembarked the green liner
The warm weather could not have been any finer
Arriving at the historical castle gate
Under a clear blue sky
Two old men settled into a chair in the white-hot square
With a whisky and rye
Drinks almost over
Their order was taken
One left for a pee
While the other gazed out to sea
The brass table had been set
With a checkered cotton cloth
Where two soup bowls sat
With hot steaming broth
At this time
The impoverished eye could see
Two rich men sipping soup
Under a checkered canopy
Looking past the castle wall
Out towards the inlet sea
Two minds once filled with strategy
Now inlaid with pageantry
Sitting like two old rooks
On a crumbled castle wall
Who has pawned in their youth
For a crystal ball
Sitting in a suit of white cotton
Eating portion less prawn
On a table top of marquetry
Tasting life with a toast of Chablis
The king has left the castle
The black night begins to fall
Watching rookie men wrestle
While their summers turn to fall
Passing the cobbled square
While drinking Chinese green tea
The black bishop passes by
While they stare out to sea
In a Queen sized bed
Their wife’s sit and wait
Dessert is now over
Now is the time to contemplate
Cheque
Mate
Telstar, Tornados, 1962
Stories
Galore
But I am too tired to tell you
The grandchildren would implore
More
Tales
Sink and float
In fathoms of ice
Rising to the surface
On rum and coke
Toasted
With friendship
It’s palatable with hope
Dissolved
With laughter
It twists with lemon
Stirred
With spirit
It mixes with emotion
Distilled
In time
It pours with myth
Leaving
The memory to sink
Into a sediment of sanctum
Embarked
Into an embrace
David disembarked
With sadness
He left for Southampton
And your dad returned home
To me
With gifts
Of love
He gave me the world
I Can’t Stop Loving You, Ray Charles, 1962
Home for the holiday
Two weeks of shore leave
Bronzed
And slim
With the body of a Rodan
He dressed like a Yankee
Looked right handsome in a North American way
Into rock and roll
More than before
Now that the Beatles
Had opened the door
Mates
Pubs and Parties
Reveled and revolved into a revolutionary
Year
Ended
With cold and ice
Time to go back to sea
Shore leave
Over
To the Cunard Office Building
To sign back onto the R.M.S. Caronia
This time he wanted a different job
Excited
Another world cruise
But different ports of call
All pepped up and feeling tall
Line up
Sign up
The new job was available
Sign here
Pausing
Your dad left the line
Speaking to his school
Mate
Are you crazy
Get back in line and sign up for the sodden job
Hesitating
He returned to the long line
Speaking to the office
Clerk
Sorry mate the jobs been copped
Without hesitation
He quit the navy on the spot
That was his lot
No job
No money
No plan
No honey
Nothing
Like this had even happened to him
Before
He closed the hatch on the Merchant Navy
Door
Of opportunity
Would open several times more
But not before
He joined the long line to sign
On the Dole
God bless him
He still gave me part of his dole pay
From day one
He was never a selfish one with his moneyAnd he always worked very hard
Not to be idle
He joined the City Council work crew
More pay
If you work the day
That year
The dank bitter breath of winter
Frosted the pavements with cold crusts of ulcerated ice
Unlike Canada
This anomaly would be considered
The Icing on the Cake
Your dad would meet his work mates
At the work yard at:
8:55 a.m.
Onto the lorry and ready to go at:
9:00 a.m.
Arrived on the job site at:
9:30 a.m.
Started work at:
9:45 a.m.
Time for tea at:
10:15 a.m.
Started work at:
10:45 a.m.
Left for lunch at:
11:30 a.m.
Lunch at noon
Left on Lorry at:
1:00 p.m.
Arrived on the job site at:
1:30 p.m.
Started work at:
1:45 p.m.
Time for tea at:
2:30 p.m.Resumed work at:
3:00 p.m.
No lorry pick up
3:45 p.m.
So the weary workmen all walk back to the work yard at 3:45
With tools on their shoulders
They looked like straddling wartime soldiers
Finish work at:
4:30 p.m.
Now your smart children
You do the bloody arithmetic
See how much time they actually
Work
It was a strain
Just to watch them
Pick up their bloody work tools
Never mind using them
All they did was lean on them
And let the divine power wash away their ice
Huddled
Together
And not in prayer
But in a brotherly ring of steam and smoke
Drudging their plodding day
With back breaking news
What are the odds
Today
They were not talking about labor
Reform
Because they had all their backhanded answers
Down pat
Right
Jack
Took to your dad
He had a handle
Not just the brush handle either
Which he always seemed to wangle first
Never a spade or a pick for our
Jack
A calculating father of eight doting children
Loves the children
Allowance
A bricky by trade
Loves the seasonal work
It allowed him to taxi
Into a winter haven
Where he could dole out
His assets with fool’s gold
Jack
Played the Joker
On the work gang he fooled around
With his tomfoolery he was fool proof
Besides
The fact he loved to lean on his idolized brush
He did actually use it
Once
To brush the ice from an old lady’s front step
Charmed
With his kind reverent smile
She rewarded him with a hot cup of Tetley tea
Our artful
Jack was all right
To work overtime at night
It was time and a half
He was on the gravy train
And to report to work at six
Time to trade in the old trick
Our guileful
Jack was still in no rush
But he made bloody sure he picked up the brush
Brushing his way to the old Crown and Thrush
In the dark it was a lark
With a knavish grin and a solidified wink
The workers would soldier on to the brink
To get to the local for a black and tan drink
Each pub on the block
Was appended with the tools of the trade
Outside on their bricked façade
There were appendages of picks and spades
Leaning on the wall
Was the ever ready
Brush
Back the cold of the night
And sweep into the warmth of the local
While the supervisor was out of sight
Knock
Back a few
The night shift is almost over
Time to leave the Red Rover
Pick up the pick
And carry the spade
Use the brush like a baton
And follow the parade
Every man
Arm in arm
Unified
Under a sweatband of nationalization
From a Jack to a King, Ned Miller, 1963
A Piece of History Pulled from
Pockets
Of change
Pulled from the past
A piece
Of paper was still in his old navy blue trouser pocket
By chance
It was the portly passenger’s home address
A thought
Out of the blue
What did he have to lose
What did he have to risk
What did he have to gain
A choice
A decision
So your dad sent a letter to the portly passenger
A man he hardly knew
Lived in Canada
Within three weeks
He received a response
Plus
A one-way ticket to Canada
All expenses paid for by the portly passenger
From the R.M.S. Caronia
Your Dad
Became a passenger on his old ship the S.S. Carinthia
His first ship
In which he slew the Minotaur
Now
Like Britannia
He would rule the waves
As he sailed on a crown crest of golden opportunity
He had made his choice
Thanks
To a serendipitous piece
Of paper and a broken piece of porcelain
Your dad would sail to Canada
As a landed immigrant
He had three weeks to pack up his life
In Liverpool
It was bleak
With little opportunity
For the working class hero
Aside
Enter Into
My revolving door
Barked the brass hat
First floor
The circus floor
Pane
Opaque
Glass smoky doors
Close the commoner
Into a circle of collectivism
One by one
The herd walks into a ring of compliance
Pushing the brass rail
The enclosed circle turns on inertia
One by one
The commoners exit
Into a malleable corridor of controlled conformity
Enter
Into
The ring
Master greets you with his perfidious smile
He will orchestrate the performance
From his commanding loop
He will train his pliant herd to jump like sheep
Through his demagogic hoop
Tipping his pellucid hat with chicanery
He orders the brass band to play with sophistry
Masks
Paint a red smile
On whitewash skin
A masquerade that struggles
With a lion-hearted grin
The herd jumps through hoops of red white and blue
With eyes half shut they avoid looking at you
In chorus
The crowd sways
To the bleat of the band
Putting on their act
The herd jumps to the mediocre clap of the metronome hand
The act is now over
The herd bows to the acquiescent audience
Left
Standing under a limpid spotlight
The herd feigns a smile to the obedient crowd
As the audience roars their approval
With a commanding encore
Your father
Would not become
A common clown in a circus of charade
Nor would he compromise his convictions
For the sake of conformity and commonality
The metronome of his life
Would not adjust to servitude
Nor would it click into collectivism
His pendulum would swing to the sounds
Of individualism and independence
Of course
Authentic freedom
Would come at a cost
Because the looters in the loop
Would sabotage your dad’s career in the future
But that is another story
And I don’t have the time to take you back to the future
You will have to discover that in your own time
Your dad
Seeks his existence
And in his search for it
He hopes to find happiness
Grandmas
Smile settled
Into the white wicker chair
She rocks with the rhythm of her time
My
The pages of my winter
Have flipped ahead of my spring
Let’s fall back
To the summer of his youth
When he sailed into spring
End of March
Just after Granddad’s birthday
Three weeks to go
Much to do
Before he goes
We would give him a farewell party
Besides we thought he would not be here
For his traditional twenty-first birthday party
So we thought we may as well
Give him his birthday bash now
Much to the delight of him and his mates
In the final weeks
Questions floated onto my thoughts
What made him
Not take the job on the R.M.S. Caronia
After all
He did want to go back onto that ship
And why did he still keep that piece of paper
What are the odds
That it survived in his trouser pocket
And that it would bring him to Canada
Pieces
Of paper
And porcelain plates
Piecing the puzzle to picturesque
Gates
Open
To chance and change
We make the choice to turn
Its handle
Will either lock or unlock
The entrance to your future
The decision is yours to enter or exit its revelation
I
Believe
Because
He was naively innocent
Idealistic
Intuitive
Instinctive
Intelligent
And at times
Impulsive
I
Think
That
I
Became before
U and I
And
I
Know your dad had these attributes
And like youth
There is no true authentic reflection
In a mirror imaged with illusion
I
Know exactly what George Bernard Shaw meant
When he said that youth is wasted on the young
My thoughts about him
Leaving
Were not questioned
And therefore they were never answered
And my emotions were never revealed to him
He left
Me
Alone
With his fatalistic father
A tear crystallized
From the softness of her fathomless eyes
She stared into the starless sky
Your dad in his illusive world of idealism
Would in time lose his moment of happiness
We planned for his party
And oh what a party it was
All nightlong
A barrel of beer
Keged with laughter
It was spirited with gaiety
Our little home
Hopped with music and dance
Beer poured
Into a fountainhead of youth
Where we tasted their spirit
With a toast of dreams
The next morning
Out spotless house
Was a blotto of bottled memories
Upstairs
In his tipsy bed
Thirty toes stuck out of one end
While twenty-nine toes hung from the opposite side
Asleep
Under a downy duvet of dulcet dreams
Awake
Under a tartan teacosy of Tetley Tea
Sunny side up
After
The cheeky boys offered to clean up the house
With wit chatter and clatter
I
Washed the dishes
With a dish cloth of tears
I filled the sink with memories
It’s My Party, Lesley Gore, 1963
In two days
We taxied to the Pierhead
Waiting
Like a lady
She anchored the stage
With the presence of a princess
She lauded the stage
In a state of solemnity
Stepping aboard
We toured the Cartesian corridors
Of this Benthamite ship
Searching
Finding his cabin
Diminutive
Two bunks
Of course
Again
Your dad had the top one
The bottom bunk was already occupied
With a white welcoming smile
The young black man greeted us
Much to the chagrin
Of one of your dad’s mates
Later
On in a letter
We learnt that this young black gentleman
Was a civil engineer
Who had procured an engineering position in Montreal
He had befriended your dad
Throughout the entire voyage
He stuck to your dad like a Velcro strap would to a young Child’s shoe
Frank
Your dad’s prejudicial mate
Thought this man was a numberless nigger
Without prejudice
Your dad thought he was a noetic Nigerian
In this tiny cabin
We toasted his trip with tears
And laughter
Spun around the cabin
Like the lyrics
From his portable record player
A precious purchase from his preceding passage to Hong Kong
Bolstered in spirit
His mates sang with the Beatles
Records
A collection of classics
Would be his constant companion
As he crossed the cold Atlantic Ocean
Sounds of youth
Echoed with song
His mates belched with mimicry
As they sang to the words of Little Peggy March’s hit song
I Will Follow Him
With a winking smile
Their eyes met
Pat
At the time
Was your dad’s girlfriend
But only In Dreams
Would she follow him
A record
A cherished gift
A sandman
Of solace and somnolence
Roy Orbison would rock your dad to sleep
On those long lonely summer evenings
In a southern Ontario town
Were he would now sleep in a mansion of dreams
Awakened
Tossed in thought
I can’t get use to losing you
A record
A cherished gift
A sandman
Of solace and somnolence
Andy Williams would serenade Pat to sleep
On those long lonely summer nights
In a northern Lancashire city
She would sleep in a tenement of dreams
Cries
Chilled
For all visitors to leave the ship
The boys hugged their last hurrah
While Pat embraced her last kiss
Granddad
And I
Watched
With withdrawal
We withdrew
With weeping
I
Worded
We love you
Son
In a wake of tears
We left
Him
Alone
For a little while
Pat remained with us
As we stood on the tide line
Of Princess Landing stage
Watching
Widows on a wharf
Waiting
Unable to tear away
The tides of tears
Pat
Welled onto her luminous skin
As she wiped away the shadows of her diluvian sadness
She left
Me with her winsome smile
And with an endearing hug
We touched each other
With a knowing smile
We knew we would not see each other again
Academic and attractiveness
Attracted your dad’s amatory arrows for winning woman
Pat had both
And much more
She had
Love
For your dad
He was left
Alone
On a crowded deck he watched us
The luxury liner decked the night with lights of holly
Dusk descended
Into the dampness of the April evening
Tears
Tissue into mist
While veils of darkness
Drifted into a lace of emptiness
Rain
Drizzled
Into the deathless dusk
Where it pattered the pierhead
With its dappled gray dimness
George
Watched the gloaming
While the Liver Birds shed tears of luminance
Slowly
The steel stern
Pulled away from its metallic darkness
Leaving
The white wake
To separate from its moorings
Casting away
Its black transit bow cut into the transitory river
Where it headed towards the Irish Sea
Leaving
The white wake
Trailing towards the weeping wharf
As the cold bow headed towards the open ocean
Standing
Together
In the lull of the still night
Granddad
And I
Watched the ocean liner
Fade into the fog
With a midst of tears
I
Turned towards your granddad
And I sorrowfully asked him
Did you ever tell him
You loved him
Ferry Cross the Mersey, Gerry and the Pacemakers, 1965
A sudden shout from the kitchen
Shattered the silence of their soundings
The door is still open
And the air conditioner is still running
Someone did not close the door properly
I will make sure it’s closed tight
The music stopped
As the open french door closed
Leaving
The grandchildren’s mother
Inside
Outside
Under sundial shadows
Three young children
Silhouetted the storyteller
As they sat silently together
In the shifting shadows of the declining sun
The lights went out
Darkness descended into a declivity of demise
The white porch is once again
Empty
The poaching prospector
Pulled away from the pollarded shadows
Of the polymorphic porch
Leaving
His own stateless shadow
To touch the moonlit porch
Tears
Tilled his thoughts with a tome of timeless
Memories
A reliving tomb
Scripted and scrolled
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
The road
Remote with warmth
Paved the way with its mellowing moonlight
Turning
To the security of its shadow
He retreated into the rising
Son
Armored in steel
Shielded in black
It came closer
Charging
Under a flapping fiery red cross
Tearing towards each other
Boded under a black shield of flagging light
Bow
To bow
Bow
To spar
Steamed under a flagstaff of fear
Riveted in alarm
Threatening
It tears the veil off a placid sea
In its upheaval
The wavering waves lash out
Tears splash
And whip with churning rage
As the lowering bow cuts through the unlighted night
The opposing ship
Undaunted
Held its course
Unmasking the black night
With its veiled threat
It continued on course with its crusading
Vision
Time to tack
In time
It passed
Reprieved
Eluding the night
It disappears
Into an elusive escape
Leaving
Its spirited bowsprit
In a sea of antiquity
Lost
At sea
The sable night descends
Into lucent light
The ship sails
With its deliverance
The unbound ship sailed on
To its destined port
The Irish Boson
Rolling
Yawing
Pitching
Besotted with the bottle
The Irish Boson
Would anchor his hearty helm
Onto the heaving hatch hold
Buoyant with beer
Seaborne with spirit
He lurched
He tilted
He jigged with a brogue of blarney
Spinning a swaying yarn
Into a staggering story
His moods were like a changing
Weathercock
Vain
With Irish pride
This weather-beaten boson
Kept a weather eye on his ship and crew
When sober
His soundings were sound
But
If you did not gauge the depth
Of his spirited tank
Then you would head into a storm
Your dad
Misread the chart of his moody weathering
Failing to read the depth
Of his soulful soundings
He headed into his heady headwind
Joking and jesting
He called the Boson a soused scouse leprechaun
Dropped
Decked
On deck like a splayed salted starfish
Under a starry sky
Your dad learned a valuable lesson that night
Never pick-a-bone
With an old Irish sea-dog
Sailor, Petula Clark, 1961
The Butterfly of Messina
Lycia
A floating butterfly
Sailing under the sun
Pollinating the ports
With its pollen of cargo
A succulent vesicle
Scented with sweetness
Nectar
Traded
Under a floret of gold
It tramped the Aegean Sea
Like a tireless bee
Returning
To its hold with honey
Brown raisins
Filling the vessels sac
In a hold for honey
Brown raisins
To trade for money
Profiteers
Pollinating the ports
For a honey of a deal
The Lycia sailed across the Aegean Sea
Like a fertilized Queen Bee
The Greek Goddess from Kaliamai
One port
Gulf
One girl
Gulf
Of Messinia
Kaliamai
Vested with sun and sea
Grapes
And citrus
Flowers its fragrance on an olive flowered bay
Deep
With beauty
He met his Greek girl friend
In a small seaport
Kalamata
Nests in the crescent
Of the warm blue Gulf of Messinia
Dark
Almond eyes
In a shell of olive skin
She moved like a gazelle
Hair
Dark
Like a black epicurean olive
Sheen and smooth
Her hair splayed onto her olive skin
Shoulders
Slim and square
With the elegance of a regency chair
A smile
Shelled with sweetness
It would gather you in
Like a suckling to a young inviting breast
It was warm with nectar
Words
Scrambled
Like his mind
The feelings were there
But the language was not
Emotions
Took over
Where language could not
Lead
With a smile
He took her hand
She held onto his
Innocence
Lead
With a smile
She took him home
To meet her family
Down
A yellow citrus lane
A short walk
Enveloped the fragrance
Of the heady citrus groves
Scent
Swept
Form the blue sea gulf
It flowered into a wafting spray of ambrosia
Enticement
Escorted the sweetness of their stroll
Were the shadows of the sun
Followed the fragrance of their trail
Leaving
Laughter in the balm of the balmier
Afternoon
Arriving
With laughter
He was greeted with smiles
Her home
Clean
And simple
Like the warmth that welcomed him
Into her house
He tasted their traditions
Almonds
Raisins
Introduced with ouzo
And welcomed with water
Emotions
Entertained
Gracious hospitality
Was a host to their kindness
Language
Bridged the barrier
With laughter
He was escorted back to the cargo boat
With an evening invitation
To join her family and friends
That Evening
Prior to his invitation
He sat in a jail
Looking rather pale
Hoping to leave
Without posting bail
Why
In jail
Because of a policeman
Who combed the ship
For contraband
To his dismay
None was found
Searching his bunk
He removed some junk
On the sheets
Was a carton of Pall Mall
Give me some
And I will be your pal
Your dad refused
The policeman was not amused
So he left the ship
With a cursing lip
Time to see her family
All toffed up
Like a Christmas tree
Bearing a gift for the family tree
Dressed like Lord Nibs
He hid the cigarettes in his coat
Leaving
The boat
He stepped onto the pier
And who do you think should appear
Stop
I’m going to search you
Taking the cigarettes from his coat
He tossed the cigarettes
Back onto the boat
The carton
Would be confiscated
According to legislation
If he took the Pall Mall ashore
It would be against the law
In a flash
The crew was there
Catching the cigarettes
As they flew in mid air
Not amused
The policemen grabbed him by the coat
And marched him to the police station
Like an unwilling Billy goat
Upset
And despondent
Release was requested
His demands were denied
So he sat in prison
Waiting to be tried
Time
For his date
Now he feared he would be late
Locked behind bars
Looking forlorn
Hoping to be out
Before the rise of dawn
An emissary was sent
To the local jail
Communicating the problem
Was like following a snail
Communication
Was open to interpretation
In the end
A solution was found
Let the boy out
He had made an honest mistake
This innocent boy
Was not a criminal on the make
Out of the prison
He was out of the gate
Bolting ahead
He feared he would be late
His heart pounded
For his anticipated date
Still there
With black silken hair
She stood under a shawl of a sinking sun
While his heart lapped
To the wave of his run
Watching
She waved
With the wind in her hair
Embraced
By the sea
He held onto her
Telling his tale
On the way
He held her hand
As the sun shortened it shadow across the land
After
His visit
With the family of Greece
He told her brothers
About the cigarettes and police
Always
In view
He kissed her goodnight
Next time
The family would be out of sight
Back to the ship
Under a sea of stars
His face shone
Like the planet mars
He goes to his cabin
Finding the Pall Mall
He leans over the ship
And shouts to his pal
Overboard
Cigarettes fly
High in the sky
Hands reach out
The brothers left
With a thankful cry
They had caught the carton
Like a wicket keeper
They had stumped the police
With their little caper
The next day
He would tell his tale
Once the ship was in full sail
He told the crew
About his time in the little Greek jail
Passing
The Greek Islands with caprice
He knew he had fallen in love
With a beautiful goddess from Greece
In time
Letters
Of communication
Were greeted with celebration
But the gulf
Was not open
For interpretation
Leaving
Their love
In state of separation
Footnote
An old shipmate of the Lycia
Told him this tale
In time
The Lycia returned
Without my son
To the sleepy little seaport
On the Gulf of Messinia
Standing
In sweetness
She stood in the shade of the sensuous sun
Waiting
For his return
Watching
The Lycia fade into the melting sun
Tears
Flowed
Onto an ebbing pier
Dressed in a vestal white dress
She braided the waterfront
With the heady waft of citrus
Standing
Alone
On its weeping wharf
She stood in the shadow of the sinking sun
Leaving
Her vestigial shadow in the wake of its wailing wash
She waved
Goodbye
He Never Returned
To the Lycia
He went to the R.M.S. Caronia
The Green Goddess
Before we go on board
Let’s go back to shore
Because this tale will tell us more
About the S.S. Caronia
And the Burns Family
A few houses down the road from our house
Lived a large catholic family
Seven children
All spawning red freckles
Spotted on sallow skin
Marrow thin
With ribs that cave in
Like Aushwic Jews
Their hungry heart was imprisoned
Into the gage of their ribbed skin
Gaunt in cheek
But eyes alive
In pallid pockets
With wafer thin skin
They ran around the street
Like Huckleberry Finn
The children’s father was often on the dole
While the mother stayed at home
Her husband was a Docker
Tall
Frail and thin
With the pallor of parchment skin
His life was scripted from within
Mrs. Burns
Served a smile
On tapioca skin
Red freckles would muster
Onto her steep narrow chin
Too poor for social life
So she read a lot
Evred Avenue Library was her saving grace
And Agatha Christie was her mystery
Her husband died many years ago
But not before he saw one of his boys
Go to college and university
Which is a rarity
From people who come from poverty
Her eyesight is weak
But freckles still abound
On pink tapioca skin
She still serves a smile
From cheek to chin
She still lives
In the same tenement house
Two doors down from us
Changes have been made
The house is clean within
Not filled with the clutter
And the din of seven freckled children
Now on her own
But never alone
Her children visit her every day
And she can’t keep her devoted grandchildren
Away
Because all they want to do is stay
And play with Grandma Burns all day
Her eldest two boys
Were Teddy and Jimmy (the college boy)
And his other mates in the street were
John and Ronny
All older than your dad
And Charley and his younger brother
Tiny
A bunch of boys
A flora of freshness
Flowered with florid faces
Blossoms
Of blooming mischief
But I do digress
Teddy
The oldest boy
And very handsome
Pitch jetty hair
Framed his freckled face
But I must admit
He had few
And none were out of place
Unlike his family
Where the reds run rampant
To form a camouflaged face
Like Ronny
He was a ladies man
The birds and bees
Flew away with the stork
Unlike your dad
He was still looking
Under the cabbage patch leaf
Teddy Burns
Loved birds
Both species
He dated a beautiful tall college girl
And her father races homing pigeons
So Teddy
Had the best of both worlds
Of course
The homing pigeon was in a coop
And his daughter was free to fly
A ravishing college girl
With a wee bit of a roving eye
Often
Teddy would take the pigeons out to fly
Often
Your dad would accompany him
On a red double decker Ripple bus
Much cleaner and smarter than the green buses
Faster too
And fewer stops
On the way
The pigeons cooed
In a wicker basket
Under the bay of a Leyland Ripple red bus
Sitting in front
Top deck
High in the sky
Lords of the land
Touring the countryside
On a red double decker bus
All expenses paid
For a half hour drive
Sixpence for the errand
Two pence for the ride
Watching grayness turn to greenery
Along the countryside
With Teddy
Is hero
Sitting
Side by side
Arriving
At Speak Airport
Teddy placed the wicker pigeon basket on the ground
Note the time
Pick up the pigeon
Cup it in your hand
And thrust your arm straight out
Let it go
Watch it fly
Home
Pigeon
Lands on its loft
Grab the bloody bird
Fast
Strip the ring from its leg
Fast
Pop the ring into the wooden clock time box
Note the time
It returned
From flying from its freedom
It is now cooped into conformity
The father clocked the pigeon in
While the daughter cooed for Teddy’s return
Between flights
Cooing took place
Like two love doves on a high wire
Your dad made a coup
He had ringed the father’s daughter
Coo
Teddy saw the ring doves
Bill and coo
He clipped your dad’s wings that bloody day
And sent him to Coventry for many a day
What’s this got to do with the R.M.S. Caronia
Well the father of the beautiful college girl
Worked in the Cunard Office Building
Educated
With the stature of a toff
He lived on Southport Road
In a bay window house
Detached with a large garden
Back and front
Making our house feel like a runt
Mr. Foulks
Took to your dad
And he knew he was in the Merchant Marine
So he told him about the R.M.S. Caronia
The Green Goddess
Wore a dress of four shade of pale green
It was a sailor’s dream
To sail on this grand cruising liner
She was the only one in the Cunard fleet painted
Green
With envy
Other merchant navy men would die to sail on her
Why
Because it was the only Cunard liner that sailed
Around the world
In ninety days
He would be back
To thank Mr. Foulks
And his lovely daughter
The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Tokens, 1962
Top Bunk
Again
Seven new cabin mates
Same job
But a different ship
One filled with the filthy
Rich
Passengers
Lived in opulence
Cruising the world in luxury
Living the Life of Riley
Not me
Your dad would say
He waited on them
Hand and foot
Dawn to dusk
Wealthy passengers would sail
On a sea of solvency
The novae rich and the moneyed class
Jews
Circumnavigated the world on the sea of plutocracy
David
Befriended your dad
A youthful mush from Southampton
He was also waiter on the Caronia
A few years older than your dad
Much more mature
Sharp with vintage taste
His svelte body wore a label of classicism
A palatable character
Not unpleasant
Sweet
With a tang
He was bold and rich
With vibrancy
His piquancy enhanced his game
For new sensations
Steeped
In knowledge
He brewed with curiosity
Distilled with experience
He decanted learning in a flute of crystal
I met him once
And he tickled my fancy
To your dad
He was a sommelier
Who taught him to taste and smell
The palatable experiences
That life had to offer
Through heightened awareness he could see clarity
While savoring the sample of life’s tasting cup
To enhance and appreciate the seasoning of life’s palate
He must first
Use the Palate
To garnish life with color
Discriminate its rancid bitterness
And to relish its aromatic fragrance
Use the Pallette
To mix life with richness
Dilute its darkness
And squeeze its color into strokes of boldness
Use the Pallet
To store and your shape your sweet dreams
Then move the dreams into reality
Do not let them die a palliative death
Toast the touchstone of its celebration
Not the tombstone of its commemoration
The Wanderer, Dion, 1962
Take the Trip and Turn the Tube
His brave new world
Became an odyssey
A kaleidoscope
Of existing experiences
A turning tube
Inceptive to change
It funneled his life
With unsorted pieces
Odorless
A medley of untrodden experiences
Fall
Like loose pieces
Into a deep-reaching cylinder
Mosaic
Into an angular curvature
Light
Enters its porthole
Like a proverbial beacon
It guides the providential pieces
Into its circular passage
Finding its bearing
It creates
A patterning motif
From its spangled light
A motley of merging pieces integrate
Into an intricate tapestry of introspection
Abstract
In shape
Its form is examined
In life
Each piece is experienced
Time to time
The turning tube
Turns our time
Leaving
Life’s pieces to rearrange itself
From its established pattern
We create change
To survive
The present
We must turn off the past
And reuse our pieces
To build a new pattern for the future
Take the Tube and Turn:
Around the World in Ninety Days
east asia yellow neptune hot wild life mediterranean europe barcelona iceland
canal date line poverty equator bondi beach segregation swimming battleship prostitute midnight sun
panama international junk dance brown safari dead sea communism st. marks square scandinavia
jamaica surf hong kong beautiful aboriginals africa bethlehem october crisis venice white cliffs
apple Hawaii bars carvings sydney bridge indian ocean camel russia adriatic sea casablanca
america pacific yokohama bali australia sea-plane pyramid bosporus dubrovnik braltar
atlantic cable car kami-dana volcano great barrier milford sound red sea istanbul acropolis purpose
eighteen golden gate Buddhism Cantonese port moresby islands black belly dance motorbike bullfight
World Opportunity Religion Language Diversity Pacification Ethnic Art Culture Education
Hands shake
Shattered shards
Pieces of porcelain
Splinter and spatter
Parting
Hiding
Farting fragments
Shrapnel
Pieces of plate
Lost at sea
Search and rescue
Flax
On deck
Under tables
Under chair
My god
On passengers too
Sorry sir
Tripped over the bloody chair
Oops
Picking up the Pieces
By the captain’s chair
The tiger began to roar at him
While the passengers began to stare
With a smile and a whim
Washington’s face was in front of him
Green to the touch and with a grin
A portly passenger befriended him
Back to work
Dressed in a jacket of white
Into the busy galley
What a sight
Rustle hustle and bustle
Pots and pans
The noise of the galley
Is louder than a marching brass band
Face ashen and feeling blue
The chef starts to scream at you
Get that order out of sight
And make bloody sure you have it right
Sweat beads and streams
On a red hot face
Make sure that entrée
Gets to the right place
Top the quail
With a silver hat
Check the grayling
But don’t cover that
Plate on plate
Like a house of cards
Balancing entrees
On the palms of your arms
Passing through a swinging door
With trays that anchor you to the floor
In and out and out of sight
Making sure that the bloody order is right
Bowls of waldorf balanced on each hand
A fitting performance for a Royal Command
There goes the swinging door
Oops he’s stretched out on the galley floor
Waldorf dressed his oily head
Decked to the floor by a swinging door
Leaving
The sous-chef with his echoing roar
Horsd’oeuvre
Followed with clear consommé
Leave
The calamari for another day
Peking duck
What luck
Follow that duck
With chocolate soufflé
Fruit
Cheese and sweet ginger too
Top it down
With a brandy or two
Coffee tea
Liqueur or me
Tired joke
Silly me
Time to clean the table
And set it up for the morning
Do it quick
Before the body goes into mourning
Close to his table
Dressed to the nine
The portly passenger and his wife
Were in conversation while sipping white wine
Winking his blue eyes
He invites your dad over
Where he patted him on the back
As if he was his dog Rover
The portly man
Pressed him a dollar
As the obedient wife
Adjusted her white collar
Tipping his head
With a tip in hand
He left the passengers
To the Lombardo Band
In the course of their meals
They had course to see him
Of course he served them with a smile
Through a course of mayhem
Conversed with humor
And bottled with joy
They took this cheeky boy in
Like a tonic of Beefeater gin
Cruise almost over
The portly passenger wrote down his address
Pocketing the piece of paper
He placed it into his fluffy flotsam nest
Leaving
Him with a hearty handshake
Capsule of Life
Chance
Could a broken piece of porcelain plate
Change the course of one’s life
Chance
Could a providential piece of printed-paper
Survive in a pocket of forgotten flotsam
Experience and Explanation
Could an insignificant event
Become a sequential piece
That would significantly change
The pattern of one’s own life
Reason and Result
And if that chance came
Could you make the right choice
Knowing that change may mean taking a risk
Regrets or Revelation
And if that resolute choice is wrong
Do you have regrets
Or are you a reformative redeemer
Who resurrects from its reflective revelation
And you know what grandma says about regrets
Yes grandma
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
Children
It saddens me to say
That your dad has too many regrets
Of yesterday
Let’s take the tube
And pick up the pieces
I Remember You, Frank Ifield, 1962
Picture postcards
Pretty pennants
Priceless photos
Plumed from the pillar box to my post
Box
Of mementos
Once linked
The memory
Box
Oh his trip around the world in 1962
David
And your dad
Swimming in the dead
Sea
Sand
Drifted dunes
Scroll across a scriptural sea of sand
Tracks
Of laughter mix with salt and sand
As two bold young men sail across the Holy Land
Leaving
The camel in the hump
Mounting the motorbike
Near the Aegean
They roar to Athens
Unlike Spartan slaves they were free
To sight see
The Black Sea
Caught in a crises with Gastro and Cuba
October was no fun
Sight seeing under a Russian gun
Leaving
The Balkans with a triumphant run
Chasing the bulls
Under a Spanish sky
Drinking rum and getting high
Riding waves on a tropical island
Crossing the date line under a trident fork
Climbing a mountain to reach to the sun
Sailing the Sound with eyes on the run
Watching the volcano spew to the sky
Look at the porpoises passing by
Under the straits of Gibraltar they swim
Following the wake with a ship on their fin
Under a bridge built with gold
You follow the yellow brick road
Looking at junks in a sea of poverty
You sip green tea in the lap of luxury
Into the bars in Yokohama
Where geishas practice Karma
You see segregation in Botswana
Where hunters kill their lama
Passing the barrier
In a lagoon of laughter
You surf the sea
Under the golden gate of Sydney
Watch the beautiful girls dance
On the island of Bali
They carve out dreams for you
And me
In Casablanca
… I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Love swept the sand
Under the shade of the afternoon sun
Smiles would surf onto their face
As Jewish girls stretched onto the sand with grace
Time elapsed
With laughter and fun
Time to get back to the ship
Because shore leave was about done
But the sweet girls had a party that night
And it sounded like more fun
Two of his mates went back to the ship
While your dad and David partied on
As time goes by
With laughter and fun
Time to get back to the ship
Because the ship was about to sail on
Out on the dark horizon
Like a floating Christmas tree
The green goddess waited patiently
As the sea craft set out to sea
In a cab with ten minutes to go
Almost there
One minute left and nothing to spare
Out of the cab and run to the pier
The last sea craft had left the dock
And was heading out to sea
Two feet off the pier with nothing to spare
The grew shouted jump if you want to get there
Jumping on the sea craft
With two feet in the air
Just clearing the deck
With not an inch to spare
Made it
With a wave and a smile and a hoot and a holler
The green goddess blows her horn
Waiting for the sea craft to be seabourne
Once on board
The third officer said
No more shore leave for a while
As he turned to his crew with a whale of a smile
Stranger on the Shore, Acker Bilk, 1962
Aside
The brass band played
Under the spangled spray of a paper parade
The green goddess had arrived
In it’s Port of Call
The passengers would embark on a land excursion
To visit the castle that crowned the hill
A Side Trip: On the Boardwalk of Life
On the quiet knell of knob hill
Overlooking the Tory blue bay
The old castle shouts out
To the dawn of a new day
A castle of the past
Restored to the present
It resorts to the rich
By keeping out the peasant
Shade checkered the white board
As the ship berthed the crowd roared
When two elderly gentlemen disembarked the green liner
The warm weather could not have been any finer
Arriving at the historical castle gate
Under a clear blue sky
Two old men settled into a chair in the white-hot square
With a whisky and rye
Drinks almost over
Their order was taken
One left for a pee
While the other gazed out to sea
The brass table had been set
With a checkered cotton cloth
Where two soup bowls sat
With hot steaming broth
At this time
The impoverished eye could see
Two rich men sipping soup
Under a checkered canopy
Looking past the castle wall
Out towards the inlet sea
Two minds once filled with strategy
Now inlaid with pageantry
Sitting like two old rooks
On a crumbled castle wall
Who has pawned in their youth
For a crystal ball
Sitting in a suit of white cotton
Eating portion less prawn
On a table top of marquetry
Tasting life with a toast of Chablis
The king has left the castle
The black night begins to fall
Watching rookie men wrestle
While their summers turn to fall
Passing the cobbled square
While drinking Chinese green tea
The black bishop passes by
While they stare out to sea
In a Queen sized bed
Their wife’s sit and wait
Dessert is now over
Now is the time to contemplate
Cheque
Mate
Telstar, Tornados, 1962
Stories
Galore
But I am too tired to tell you
The grandchildren would implore
More
Tales
Sink and float
In fathoms of ice
Rising to the surface
On rum and coke
Toasted
With friendship
It’s palatable with hope
Dissolved
With laughter
It twists with lemon
Stirred
With spirit
It mixes with emotion
Distilled
In time
It pours with myth
Leaving
The memory to sink
Into a sediment of sanctum
Embarked
Into an embrace
David disembarked
With sadness
He left for Southampton
And your dad returned home
To me
With gifts
Of love
He gave me the world
I Can’t Stop Loving You, Ray Charles, 1962
Home for the holiday
Two weeks of shore leave
Bronzed
And slim
With the body of a Rodan
He dressed like a Yankee
Looked right handsome in a North American way
Into rock and roll
More than before
Now that the Beatles
Had opened the door
Mates
Pubs and Parties
Reveled and revolved into a revolutionary
Year
Ended
With cold and ice
Time to go back to sea
Shore leave
Over
To the Cunard Office Building
To sign back onto the R.M.S. Caronia
This time he wanted a different job
Excited
Another world cruise
But different ports of call
All pepped up and feeling tall
Line up
Sign up
The new job was available
Sign here
Pausing
Your dad left the line
Speaking to his school
Mate
Are you crazy
Get back in line and sign up for the sodden job
Hesitating
He returned to the long line
Speaking to the office
Clerk
Sorry mate the jobs been copped
Without hesitation
He quit the navy on the spot
That was his lot
No job
No money
No plan
No honey
Nothing
Like this had even happened to him
Before
He closed the hatch on the Merchant Navy
Door
Of opportunity
Would open several times more
But not before
He joined the long line to sign
On the Dole
God bless him
He still gave me part of his dole pay
From day one
He was never a selfish one with his moneyAnd he always worked very hard
Not to be idle
He joined the City Council work crew
More pay
If you work the day
That year
The dank bitter breath of winter
Frosted the pavements with cold crusts of ulcerated ice
Unlike Canada
This anomaly would be considered
The Icing on the Cake
Your dad would meet his work mates
At the work yard at:
8:55 a.m.
Onto the lorry and ready to go at:
9:00 a.m.
Arrived on the job site at:
9:30 a.m.
Started work at:
9:45 a.m.
Time for tea at:
10:15 a.m.
Started work at:
10:45 a.m.
Left for lunch at:
11:30 a.m.
Lunch at noon
Left on Lorry at:
1:00 p.m.
Arrived on the job site at:
1:30 p.m.
Started work at:
1:45 p.m.
Time for tea at:
2:30 p.m.Resumed work at:
3:00 p.m.
No lorry pick up
3:45 p.m.
So the weary workmen all walk back to the work yard at 3:45
With tools on their shoulders
They looked like straddling wartime soldiers
Finish work at:
4:30 p.m.
Now your smart children
You do the bloody arithmetic
See how much time they actually
Work
It was a strain
Just to watch them
Pick up their bloody work tools
Never mind using them
All they did was lean on them
And let the divine power wash away their ice
Huddled
Together
And not in prayer
But in a brotherly ring of steam and smoke
Drudging their plodding day
With back breaking news
What are the odds
Today
They were not talking about labor
Reform
Because they had all their backhanded answers
Down pat
Right
Jack
Took to your dad
He had a handle
Not just the brush handle either
Which he always seemed to wangle first
Never a spade or a pick for our
Jack
A calculating father of eight doting children
Loves the children
Allowance
A bricky by trade
Loves the seasonal work
It allowed him to taxi
Into a winter haven
Where he could dole out
His assets with fool’s gold
Jack
Played the Joker
On the work gang he fooled around
With his tomfoolery he was fool proof
Besides
The fact he loved to lean on his idolized brush
He did actually use it
Once
To brush the ice from an old lady’s front step
Charmed
With his kind reverent smile
She rewarded him with a hot cup of Tetley tea
Our artful
Jack was all right
To work overtime at night
It was time and a half
He was on the gravy train
And to report to work at six
Time to trade in the old trick
Our guileful
Jack was still in no rush
But he made bloody sure he picked up the brush
Brushing his way to the old Crown and Thrush
In the dark it was a lark
With a knavish grin and a solidified wink
The workers would soldier on to the brink
To get to the local for a black and tan drink
Each pub on the block
Was appended with the tools of the trade
Outside on their bricked façade
There were appendages of picks and spades
Leaning on the wall
Was the ever ready
Brush
Back the cold of the night
And sweep into the warmth of the local
While the supervisor was out of sight
Knock
Back a few
The night shift is almost over
Time to leave the Red Rover
Pick up the pick
And carry the spade
Use the brush like a baton
And follow the parade
Every man
Arm in arm
Unified
Under a sweatband of nationalization
From a Jack to a King, Ned Miller, 1963
A Piece of History Pulled from
Pockets
Of change
Pulled from the past
A piece
Of paper was still in his old navy blue trouser pocket
By chance
It was the portly passenger’s home address
A thought
Out of the blue
What did he have to lose
What did he have to risk
What did he have to gain
A choice
A decision
So your dad sent a letter to the portly passenger
A man he hardly knew
Lived in Canada
Within three weeks
He received a response
Plus
A one-way ticket to Canada
All expenses paid for by the portly passenger
From the R.M.S. Caronia
Your Dad
Became a passenger on his old ship the S.S. Carinthia
His first ship
In which he slew the Minotaur
Now
Like Britannia
He would rule the waves
As he sailed on a crown crest of golden opportunity
He had made his choice
Thanks
To a serendipitous piece
Of paper and a broken piece of porcelain
Your dad would sail to Canada
As a landed immigrant
He had three weeks to pack up his life
In Liverpool
It was bleak
With little opportunity
For the working class hero
Aside
Enter Into
My revolving door
Barked the brass hat
First floor
The circus floor
Pane
Opaque
Glass smoky doors
Close the commoner
Into a circle of collectivism
One by one
The herd walks into a ring of compliance
Pushing the brass rail
The enclosed circle turns on inertia
One by one
The commoners exit
Into a malleable corridor of controlled conformity
Enter
Into
The ring
Master greets you with his perfidious smile
He will orchestrate the performance
From his commanding loop
He will train his pliant herd to jump like sheep
Through his demagogic hoop
Tipping his pellucid hat with chicanery
He orders the brass band to play with sophistry
Masks
Paint a red smile
On whitewash skin
A masquerade that struggles
With a lion-hearted grin
The herd jumps through hoops of red white and blue
With eyes half shut they avoid looking at you
In chorus
The crowd sways
To the bleat of the band
Putting on their act
The herd jumps to the mediocre clap of the metronome hand
The act is now over
The herd bows to the acquiescent audience
Left
Standing under a limpid spotlight
The herd feigns a smile to the obedient crowd
As the audience roars their approval
With a commanding encore
Your father
Would not become
A common clown in a circus of charade
Nor would he compromise his convictions
For the sake of conformity and commonality
The metronome of his life
Would not adjust to servitude
Nor would it click into collectivism
His pendulum would swing to the sounds
Of individualism and independence
Of course
Authentic freedom
Would come at a cost
Because the looters in the loop
Would sabotage your dad’s career in the future
But that is another story
And I don’t have the time to take you back to the future
You will have to discover that in your own time
Your dad
Seeks his existence
And in his search for it
He hopes to find happiness
Grandmas
Smile settled
Into the white wicker chair
She rocks with the rhythm of her time
My
The pages of my winter
Have flipped ahead of my spring
Let’s fall back
To the summer of his youth
When he sailed into spring
End of March
Just after Granddad’s birthday
Three weeks to go
Much to do
Before he goes
We would give him a farewell party
Besides we thought he would not be here
For his traditional twenty-first birthday party
So we thought we may as well
Give him his birthday bash now
Much to the delight of him and his mates
In the final weeks
Questions floated onto my thoughts
What made him
Not take the job on the R.M.S. Caronia
After all
He did want to go back onto that ship
And why did he still keep that piece of paper
What are the odds
That it survived in his trouser pocket
And that it would bring him to Canada
Pieces
Of paper
And porcelain plates
Piecing the puzzle to picturesque
Gates
Open
To chance and change
We make the choice to turn
Its handle
Will either lock or unlock
The entrance to your future
The decision is yours to enter or exit its revelation
I
Believe
Because
He was naively innocent
Idealistic
Intuitive
Instinctive
Intelligent
And at times
Impulsive
I
Think
That
I
Became before
U and I
And
I
Know your dad had these attributes
And like youth
There is no true authentic reflection
In a mirror imaged with illusion
I
Know exactly what George Bernard Shaw meant
When he said that youth is wasted on the young
My thoughts about him
Leaving
Were not questioned
And therefore they were never answered
And my emotions were never revealed to him
He left
Me
Alone
With his fatalistic father
A tear crystallized
From the softness of her fathomless eyes
She stared into the starless sky
Your dad in his illusive world of idealism
Would in time lose his moment of happiness
We planned for his party
And oh what a party it was
All nightlong
A barrel of beer
Keged with laughter
It was spirited with gaiety
Our little home
Hopped with music and dance
Beer poured
Into a fountainhead of youth
Where we tasted their spirit
With a toast of dreams
The next morning
Out spotless house
Was a blotto of bottled memories
Upstairs
In his tipsy bed
Thirty toes stuck out of one end
While twenty-nine toes hung from the opposite side
Asleep
Under a downy duvet of dulcet dreams
Awake
Under a tartan teacosy of Tetley Tea
Sunny side up
After
The cheeky boys offered to clean up the house
With wit chatter and clatter
I
Washed the dishes
With a dish cloth of tears
I filled the sink with memories
It’s My Party, Lesley Gore, 1963
In two days
We taxied to the Pierhead
Waiting
Like a lady
She anchored the stage
With the presence of a princess
She lauded the stage
In a state of solemnity
Stepping aboard
We toured the Cartesian corridors
Of this Benthamite ship
Searching
Finding his cabin
Diminutive
Two bunks
Of course
Again
Your dad had the top one
The bottom bunk was already occupied
With a white welcoming smile
The young black man greeted us
Much to the chagrin
Of one of your dad’s mates
Later
On in a letter
We learnt that this young black gentleman
Was a civil engineer
Who had procured an engineering position in Montreal
He had befriended your dad
Throughout the entire voyage
He stuck to your dad like a Velcro strap would to a young Child’s shoe
Frank
Your dad’s prejudicial mate
Thought this man was a numberless nigger
Without prejudice
Your dad thought he was a noetic Nigerian
In this tiny cabin
We toasted his trip with tears
And laughter
Spun around the cabin
Like the lyrics
From his portable record player
A precious purchase from his preceding passage to Hong Kong
Bolstered in spirit
His mates sang with the Beatles
Records
A collection of classics
Would be his constant companion
As he crossed the cold Atlantic Ocean
Sounds of youth
Echoed with song
His mates belched with mimicry
As they sang to the words of Little Peggy March’s hit song
I Will Follow Him
With a winking smile
Their eyes met
Pat
At the time
Was your dad’s girlfriend
But only In Dreams
Would she follow him
A record
A cherished gift
A sandman
Of solace and somnolence
Roy Orbison would rock your dad to sleep
On those long lonely summer evenings
In a southern Ontario town
Were he would now sleep in a mansion of dreams
Awakened
Tossed in thought
I can’t get use to losing you
A record
A cherished gift
A sandman
Of solace and somnolence
Andy Williams would serenade Pat to sleep
On those long lonely summer nights
In a northern Lancashire city
She would sleep in a tenement of dreams
Cries
Chilled
For all visitors to leave the ship
The boys hugged their last hurrah
While Pat embraced her last kiss
Granddad
And I
Watched
With withdrawal
We withdrew
With weeping
I
Worded
We love you
Son
In a wake of tears
We left
Him
Alone
For a little while
Pat remained with us
As we stood on the tide line
Of Princess Landing stage
Watching
Widows on a wharf
Waiting
Unable to tear away
The tides of tears
Pat
Welled onto her luminous skin
As she wiped away the shadows of her diluvian sadness
She left
Me with her winsome smile
And with an endearing hug
We touched each other
With a knowing smile
We knew we would not see each other again
Academic and attractiveness
Attracted your dad’s amatory arrows for winning woman
Pat had both
And much more
She had
Love
For your dad
He was left
Alone
On a crowded deck he watched us
The luxury liner decked the night with lights of holly
Dusk descended
Into the dampness of the April evening
Tears
Tissue into mist
While veils of darkness
Drifted into a lace of emptiness
Rain
Drizzled
Into the deathless dusk
Where it pattered the pierhead
With its dappled gray dimness
George
Watched the gloaming
While the Liver Birds shed tears of luminance
Slowly
The steel stern
Pulled away from its metallic darkness
Leaving
The white wake
To separate from its moorings
Casting away
Its black transit bow cut into the transitory river
Where it headed towards the Irish Sea
Leaving
The white wake
Trailing towards the weeping wharf
As the cold bow headed towards the open ocean
Standing
Together
In the lull of the still night
Granddad
And I
Watched the ocean liner
Fade into the fog
With a midst of tears
I
Turned towards your granddad
And I sorrowfully asked him
Did you ever tell him
You loved him
Ferry Cross the Mersey, Gerry and the Pacemakers, 1965
A sudden shout from the kitchen
Shattered the silence of their soundings
The door is still open
And the air conditioner is still running
Someone did not close the door properly
I will make sure it’s closed tight
The music stopped
As the open french door closed
Leaving
The grandchildren’s mother
Inside
Outside
Under sundial shadows
Three young children
Silhouetted the storyteller
As they sat silently together
In the shifting shadows of the declining sun
The lights went out
Darkness descended into a declivity of demise
The white porch is once again
Empty
The poaching prospector
Pulled away from the pollarded shadows
Of the polymorphic porch
Leaving
His own stateless shadow
To touch the moonlit porch
Tears
Tilled his thoughts with a tome of timeless
Memories
A reliving tomb
Scripted and scrolled
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
The road
Remote with warmth
Paved the way with its mellowing moonlight
Turning
To the security of its shadow
He retreated into the rising
Son
Suited in a tux
Your dad looked like a million bucks
One
Day has passed
Now at last
He stood next to a leviathan
The R. M. S. Carinthia
Berthed in black
Hemmed in white
Black and white of riveting steel
Steamed
With power
It was a Tityus
Of limitless length
Stretching to the sea
Like a bastion of iron
Huge
In bulk
It rested
On its sleeping hulk
Whistling with the wind
It snorted
With hoots of hubris
As people embarked
Into the bowels of its cavernous hull
Decked
In white
Decks decked high
Like a house of cards
Not quite as big
As the Queen of Hearts
Stacks
Two of a kind
Rolled in red
On a collar of black
Ringed in white
A towering sight
Seeking the sky
Over twenty feet high
Belching
Smoke
From its cylinder hole
Letting off steam
Before it leaves
Home
Port
Side
Of the Ocean Liner
On the starboard
Aside
The Liver Birds observe
On a perch
In a port over a pool
Overlooking the portentous Poseidon
Watching
With the outstretched wing of Daedalus
And the open love of Thetis
Eyelets
On an eyrie
Eyeing
All the ships that sail on the salt of the sea
Passing
Ships
Waxed with the seal of Levcothea and Palaemon
Passing
Through the eyelet of an estuary
The two Liver Birds watch
On an eyrie
Soon
The propellers of the Poseidon would power the sea
With its trident
It would churn the sea from the depths of its sleep
But for now
Its steel keel would bathe
In the lap of luxury
Napping and lapping in a calming sleep
Waiting
Until the white waves wake it from its watch
Soon
Like Theseus
Your dad would enter into the bellying bowel of its spacious stomach
Dwarfed
With gigantism
He stepped into a labyrinth of steel
Off into its baleful passage of alleyways
Twisting and turning
Into germinal corridors of miniaturized sameness
Mazes
Leading somewhere
But nowhere
Could he find his sleeping quarters
Pistons pounded
Thrusting their belligerent rage
From its ribbed gage
Steam bellowed
While rods pummeled with purging power
Looking
Down
Into its steel ribbed crater
It shook
Its voracious frame
Awakened from its sleep
It roared
Like a Minotaur
With hands to his ears
Your dad stood on the precipice of its coal-black cavity
Flared up
With fired fury
It famished for food
Drooling with steam
It dispensed a stentorian scream
Stoic
In silence
He disposed of its rallying cry
By cutting off its vociferation
With a fleeting yell
He threaded his way back to the opening of its orifice
With relief
He was met with assistance
The ship’s officer escorted him to his cabin
Hived
In bunks
Stacked like shoe
Boxes
Velcroed to the bulkhead
10
Bunks in a cabin
A colony of commoners into a compact of commonality
Always having a room of his own
Now he shared it with nine other boys
He always wanted siblings
Now
He had a bloody clan
And except for his hospital stay
He had not been away from home
Top bunk
For the new punk
In
24
Hours
He had been lost in a labyrinth
Seasick
On the unsuspected head
Of the lower bunk’s occupant
Innate
To the hazing of the sea
To gross
That it would peel the blush off Aunt Queenie
Exposed
To men loving men
And women who think they are men
And men who dress like the women of the night
Confused
It was quite a sight
And to your dad
A bit of a fright
In fact
One of his cabin mates
Was a young angelic looking boy
A capricious sapling
Blooming
Into a flower of gayness
Plucked
Sucked
Of his honey
By two of his Liverpudlian cabin mates
Under the guise of a dare
Which in fact
They lived in a closet
Of masculinity
A skeleton that would not rear their
Head
To the alcoholic world of volatile violence
One too many drinks
From one of his cabin mates
Would turn his unpredictable mood into fearless hate
A bottle broken
Flushed to his face
Was not the bedtime story
Your dad had in place
But his drunken cabin mate
Loved to crack open a coke bottle
And recycle its cutting edge
Into a bookmark of weaponry
Not a sleepy nightcap
For the faint of heart
But let me tell you
One of those nine boys
Could blast out a fart
Duties
Assigned to the boys
Some set up the service for the steward
Others
Would deliver the mail to the passengers
And open the door for dining room visitors
Some would even swab the purser’s deck
And once
Your Dad
Swabbed the young purser’s face
As he kept pushing your dad
To overreach his over demanding working pace
And one young boy
Would make the tiger
Roar
With rage
If you drop an entrée
You cower back to the gallery
In disgrace
Where the chef will dish out love with menus of hate
Up
And down
Open the door
Which floor
Sir
Level four
Watch your step
Sir
When I open the door
Down
Sir
Nice trip
Sir
Good trip
Close the door
Sir
Back to eight
Pick up the Staff Captain
He has a dinner date
So be on time
And don’t be late
Yes
Sir
Part of the trip
Your dad was an elevator boy
Boring
Not for your dad
His spirit was always lifted
With imagination
He was never down with satiation
Bedroom Eyes
Often
An attractive bedroom steward
Would grace his lift
With an excess of fragrance
Classical and slim
In olive skin
Looking like the great Augustan
Pale
Blue
Eyes
Would warrant you with their wanton warmth
Flirtatious
Eyelashes
Curled with a flippant
Smile
Blushed
With rough
Hair
Raven
Black
With humor
And a teasing grin
He would turn to your father
And say to him
If he were much older
He would turn him over
And turn him
Into one of him
He was a glitzy Queen at night
For a man
He was a beautiful sight
But at the end of the day
He was a gorgeous man
In every way
He was good to your dad
In a harmless way
His blue-eyed bedroom steward
Was the man of the day
Worked
Dawn to dusk
During the day
He would take an afternoon nap
While passengers shuffled time
Away
He would go
Into the pitch of the night
After he drank a prohibited pint
Him and his mates would play
Hide-and-go seek
On a moonless deck bay
Under a starlit night
Easy to hide
Hard to find
Lost
Overboard
A person was drowned
Impossible
To turn the ship
Around
And around
The body was not found
Seven story waves
Could whitewash you away
If you dare to play
Hide-and-go seek
On a stormy day
His First
Port
Of call
Quebec city
Canada
Of course
Passengers disembarked
Packed
With pride
It was time to take leave
And to climb to the top
To see the Musee National Desbeaux-Arts Du Quebec
On the Plains of Abraham
So his mates and him
With a wineskin of gin
Climbed the mountain
At the top
With a wolfish grin
He asked the curator
To show them the oil painting
Where Montcalm was done in
The Quebecker
Next day
He had the afternoon
Off
To Quebec City
Where the French girls were so pretty
But
Quebec was cold
And your dad was lost
The climate had changed
From English to French
Cool
With coldness
He entered a Café
Quebeckers
Turned the table
Towards a simmering fireplace
Huddled
Together
Blocking
The warmth of the maple wood logs
Sparks
Splintered
As the Quebecker poked away
The red maple flames leapt higher
As the leafless logs caught on fire
Glowing
In the face of the French
Canadian
I am lost
Can you help me find the way
With a one finger gesture
He pointed
His way
Misunderstood
Your dad turned around
Behind him
Stood a French Canadian police officer
Who took his arm
And directed him towards his patrol car
With an open smile
The officer escorted your dad
Back to the Ship
I Love New York
Stars
Stripes
New York
New York
Standing tall
Arms outstretched
In a torch of light
She pointed the way
Standing for freedom
In Hudson Bay
She pointed the way
A lady of liberty
With a beacon of light
She lit the way
To all that entered
The U.S.A.
Manhattan
Mushroomed
From the deep dark sea
Into the high heavenly sky
Mushroomed
Manhattan
A sharp starched skyline
Forested with steel
Encased in glass
It bloomed
In a greenhouse of floodlight
Upward
Onward
A vertical mosaic
Of native cubism
Dominated the darkness
Into a domino of dots
Stretching the skyline into a Lego of lights
It stands
Alone
In a reflective sea of darkness
It lights up its soul
On an island of dreams
Its marvel
Unfolds like a minted comic book
Crisp with flights of story
It bubbles with imagination
Reaching for the stars
Its super skyline shines
Onto its hopeful horizon
Where it would welcome the world
From the window of its wonder
The next day
He was tall
He stood on top of his empirical world
He was on the observation deck of the Empire State Building
Towering the sky
With its panoramic view
New York
Had become Lilliputian
And he had become Gulliver
His world had now changed
He could view it from a distance
With altitude
He saw latitude
With attitude
He experienced gratitude
He’s Got the Whole World (In his hands), Laurie London, 1958
His World had changed
In New York
He ate at the diners
Shaped like silver submarines
The music surfaced from table box machines
He shopped at Macy's
Through the windows of the world
He took the time
To see the square
He visited the village
Greenwich
With green bottled eyes
Twisting his peppermint stick in rum and coke
Listening to Dylan
And all the village folk
He lounged in luxury
And shopped with spree
Shirts
Slacks
Style
Suited his slim body
Fat had become history
Now that he had joined the navy
A Christmas Story
December
Berthed in the Bay
The liner rested
In New York’s pier 92 on a cold snowy day
Hoisted with cheer
The officers served him beer
It was the traditional way
For the Christmas holiday
Laughter brewed
Over turkey and stuffing
When your dad snapped his fingers
The captain would come running
The day before Christmas
Still on shore
Soon the passengers would board
The ship once more
Set sail
It was Christmas Day
Looking a little pale
After yesterday
Sailing the sea
Follow the star
With room in the inn
The passengers won’t go far
Looking pleasant
Eating pheasant
Passengers opened up their Christmas present
While we worked like a bloody peasant
Slogging in sweat
With a sheepish grin
Watching the passengers
Filled with vigor and vim
Serve a sweet
With tired sore feet
Watch the passenger graze
On their Christmas meat
Sing a song
It’s Christmas Day
Soon the passengers will be
On their merry old way
Look over there
What a din
Three Jews at a table
Drinking gin
There sits Mary
With hair of straw
Cradling her drink
Under the leering eyes of a rabbinical bore
Sitting like a stranger
Sipping through a straw
There sits Joseph
Shepard to the gossip of a prying bore
All around the table
We give em the eye
Time to stop ventilating
It’s time to say good-bye
At last
Like sheep filing out one by one
Thank God
They have finally gone
Sneak a sandwich
The chefs not looking
The passengers have gone
And now it’s time for the crew to party on
To the Pig and Whistle
With cries of delight
Now to celebrate Christmas
Because it’s Christmas night
Jiggle a jug
With a jigger and a beer
Hit the dart board
With a farting cheer
The order was given
The last call was called
The Pig had to close
Right on the nose
Regardless of Christmas
And much to the crew’s chagrin
The officers were summoned
To tap off their gin
Outraged into rage
Time for a revolution
So they mutinied the officers
To find a solution
To the passengers lounge
The motley crew would abound with a mission
Submitting their position
With a protesting petition
Officers arrived
With a compromising position
If they left the passengers lounge
They would fulfill their condition
Leaving
With jeering jubilation
The Pig and Whistle opened up
With a Christmas celebration
The crew had forewarned the boys
Not to be involved
Because they were too young
And the problem has been solved
Landing in Liverpool
The whistle had been blown
The mutinous crew was whistled
Back home
Discharged with treason
Because closing the Pig and Whistle
Was not a good reason
To mutiny the ship during the holiday season
Headlining the newspapers
And the television too
A short Christmas tale
About a mutinous crew
Poetry in Motion, Johnny Tillotson, 1960
Back Home
Two days
Before New Year’s Day
The Carinthia had arrived
Home for the Holiday
In a blue denim button down shirt
And a New York stride
Your dad came back to Liverpool
With a youthful pride
Slim
And handsome as can be
He loaded my arms up with gifts
For his father and me
New Year’s Day
Pub to pub and party up
Kiss the girls at Walton Church
Hug time to Old Lang Sine
Bells chimed
Throughout the night
The next morning
The Dockers were on strike
The ship was in dry dock
That’s like being in jail
The ship was landlocked
And the boys could not sail
Chain Gang, Sam Cooke, 1960
The “Office” Boy
Looking at the Mersey
The Cunard Building stands
Waiting for the boys
To give their dining room a helping hand
Serve the office staff
Until the strike was over
Helping the kitchen girls
To run like rover
The young girls were in charge
Of this rowdy bunch
Teaching them to serve tea
For the office staffs lunch
Out of the dining room window
Looking out to sea
The boys could see the Mersey
While pouring out the office staff tea
In the dining room
In the kitchen
Scrubbing dirty floors
The boys were assigned those horrible chores
For the girls it was fun
To keep the boys on the run
But in time
Their helping hand got out of hand
Eight thirty
Still not here
Nine thirty
Not a sign anywhere
Help
The lazy boys would turn up
Late
The lazy boys were to start at eight
Pour me a cup of tea love
It was a hard day’s night
The boys and me got into a fight
Now my head feels like shite
Keep on working love
While I keep on talken
Thanks for the tea
Clears the shite out of me
Sitting on a stool
Like the Lords of Liverpool
Toast and tea and the jam of the day
Flirting with the girls and hoping for a lay
8:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Chatting away
Eyeing the young girls
As they work away
9:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Chatting up the girls
As they work away
Wondering which one would be the catch of the day
10:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Join us love
And bring us a fresh pot of tea
Then take a break and sit down with me
11:00 a.m.
Set up the table
Work is about to begin
The lazy office workers
Will soon be coming in
Noon Serve the staff
With a smarmy smile
Leave the birds for a little while
Too bloody busy running the Banister mile
1:30 p.m.
Lunch is over
Time for the girls to clean up the mess
Time for the boys
To take a well deserved rest
2:00 p.m.
After lunch
The exacerbated girls would clean up
As the dilatory boys drank tea
The frustrated girls would steep in hostility
2:30 p.m.
Kitchen all clean
Chores are done
Thanks to the girls
Now it’s time to have some fun
3:30 p.m.
Time for home
Watching
The girls elbow their hot sink
The risible boys would leave with a wink
4:00 p.m.
I don’t care a tuppence
Those boys will have their comeuppance
Cheeky and comely they may be
But I am sodden well-tired working like a bloody worker bee
While they wink and wank
And tap my arse
For a bloody cup of tea
The next day
The boys were brought to task
Time to work and clock in
Said the office brass
In awhile
Time marched on
The crafty little buggers got their office mate
To clock them on
The strike was over
The lovable lads would fetch like Rover
Serving the lassies with glee
They poured them a thankful pot of conciliatory tea
Leaving
Like a wolf
With a whistle and a wink
Watching the lovely lassies bend over the kitchen sink
Pat em on the arse as you pass them on
By
Bye
My lovely one
Runaway, Del Shannon, 1961
All aboard
Aye Aye
Said the children
Were about to sail
With another tale
On the R.M.S. Lycia
Your dad’s next ship
Was a cargo boat
Lycia
A compact to the sea
Not puffed with pomp and power
Not potbellied with poundage and piston
Not a titan
But a dinky
Toy
With the idea that King Neptune
Would use this boat as a bathtub
Toy
With the idea that Ederia or eoeria
Would use this boat to fill the grottos of your dad’s unschooled mind
A watershed
Where the waves of history would wax and wane
Wakes
Of the past would be piloted into the present
Following
His compass
Would point to the future
He set sail
To the Aegean Sea
An odyssey
To the Mediterranean Sea
A seasoned edge
With six weeks at sea
The Minateour was dead
He was a potholer who could now navigate
Around the elfin engine room
Like an un-scoured Scotsman
His spirit was level
As he walked through a maze of moving steel
The bridge was open
To the expanding horizon
All he could see
Was the vastness of an emancipated sea
Holding onto the ship’s steering wheel
He steered the ship
With struggling calmness
His course was charted
Now in control
Of his own compass
He was free to charter the open sea
Decked with uneasy confidence
He would climb the formidable masthead
Clinging to the rigging
He would reach the topmast
The sky was endless
The sea was ceaseless
Cradled
In a nest
He trembled with awe
His vista was telescoped through an inverted lens
In reflection the view retroverted himself into his own lens
He felt he could pass through the eye of a needle
Because he was just a mote in a sea of sky
Small
In a magnitude of sea
Adrift in a universal ark
Sailing on a covenant of faith
Navigating his antithetical view
With the changing tides of time
He would rediscover his new world
Sea
Waves
Air
Waves
Ship-to-shore
Operator
Shore-to-ship
Manning the radio room
All day all night
You could hear the waves transmit their frequent sounds
Dispatching the sea and air with informatory
All through his enlightened voyage
Your dad would communicate with the chatty man who ruled the waves
Britain
Never never never
Shall be slaves
Tell that to your dad
He was a thalamian on a trimeme
Chained to the sea
Scrub the alleyways
Hands and knees
Scrub the toilets
Hands and knees
Clean the cabins
Hands and knees
Serve the officers in their mess
No knees
Just hands
Clasped together
Praying on knees
No more bloody work
Please
Please
Me
Accommodation
Amoebic
Two in a cell
His world
Encircled
In Brass and Glass
Porthole
To portside
He could see the sea
Top bunk
Once again
Lower bunk
The Assistant Cook
Starched in white
He slept on sheets stained with shite
Pissin in the washbasin
In the middle of the night
Too lazy to go to the washroom
To piss and shite
Your dad would be awakened
To the trickle of the night
The small cabin
Was a living ashtray
Surrounded with smoke and stenched with smell
The small cabin
Reeked
With the breath of hell
Sweat
Piss ash
And shite
The cook rolled and snored
Breaking wind
He would pong the night
Tossing and turning in sheets of shite
To top it off
He was also the dessert cook
Needless to say
Your dad would not have the dessert of the day
Fed up
Your dad offered to clean the cabin
For a pound a week
He kept it sheke
Making damn sure he knew
When the frowzy cook took a leak
The Brothers Grin
Three stewards
Served the ship
Two stewards
Were brothers
Unlike the grim brothers
These two looked after your dad
The chief steward
Was the older of the two
A raconteur
Who parted his fine red hair
Like the red sea
It was broad and barren
As the wave departed
It left a sediment of sparse hair
On the pink terrain of his balding head
Always a smile
Under a pair of diamond almond eyes
Sharp
As a tack
He wore his smarts
Under a slick top hat
Tricks of the trade
Was his art
A cunning master
With a velveteen heart
The sorcerer’s brother
Was his young apprentice
Lots of hair
Curled into a yellow wave of silver surf
Eyes
Cobalt blue
Saddled on sanded skin
With a waddle
That dangled under a rounded chin
Leaving
A blarneying face
That rippled into a tide line grin
Unlike Peter
From the brother grim
The brothers
At the end of the trip
Packed a black hamper
Of fresh market meats
Curtsey of the Cunard
The enterprising brothers sent this package
Home to me
It was their blessing from the sea
And it was very nice
To have a large leg of roasted lamb for our Sunday tea
On the Hatch
Under the stars
Over the sea
Waves
Lap and leap
High jumping the tenebrous sea
Over hurdles of luminosity
The burnished orb
Descends
Into dimness
Dipping
Into darkness
It bows
Its shimmering crown
Disappearing
Into a golden memory of gilded sunlight
Lost
Horizon
Is in harmony
When light
Meets darkness
All is one
When the line is gone
The lucent stars will guide the way
Until the silver moon
Replaces the golden sun
Like a comforting sister
The western moon shone
Leaving
The horizon to emerge
As one
The circle of life
Has cycled the sea
Leaving
The human race
To dissolve in thee
Once again
On the batch
The leisurely crew would sit
Outside
On deck
Sweeping tales
Under a shadowing flag of spangled stars
Mixing
Laughter with hops and suds
Together
One for all
All for one
Singing shanties under a starlit sky
Lounging
And lurching
With the waves
That waltzed on the surface of the sea
It was a night like this
That your dad befriended
Joe
A young blackie
Besides his Asian friend
This was the first black person your dad had encountered
Not one to be blinded with color
They soon became good friends with each other
Ebony and ivory
Sailed the sea
In a key of harmony
They were in key
Black
Was his skin
Black
Was his work
A stoker
He worked in the hot lowering bowels
Of a darkling stokehold
The boiler room
A living crematorium
Fed with fire it was a furnace
Filled with flame and fury
Bathed in sweat
Steamed in grease
Stoking
Cleaning
The stokeholds of hell
Joe
Was the undertaker of the coal-black sea
Dispersing the ashes
Into a dispensing sea
He was the black stoker
Living in purgatory
Aside
A short tale about stoking Joe
One Sunday
Passing his porthole on the poop deck
He saw Joe
Brown eyes all a gleam
With a swelling smile and a panting grunt
He was wanken away
At a girlie magazine
His large black hand was a pumpin
Like a humpin piston machine
When the dirty deed was done
And the cream did cum
He saw a spy
From the corner of his eye
He knew someone was there
So he clasped his black hands and knelt in prayer
Aha
Man
It was a climatic finish
To a gripping performance
Laughter
Lingered
Blow-by-blow
Tales
Swilled and distilled
The spirit
Was rinsed
In the tide of time
Blowheads
Would hoot and fart
Leaving
Their tales to dry
In the break of their wind
One more drink
Down the hatch
And of course one last fart
As they talked about the local tart
Halfway to Paradise, Billy Fury, 1961
Ships that Pass in the Night
The night
Fog descended
Into a recess of voidness
After licking off the mist
The waves lapped into a motionless sleep
Calmness
Laced the moonlight
Into a purl of stillness
Lost
In a low ebb
The ship
Became a specter
It moved
In silence
Through the windless waters of a soundless sea
Outlined
In an unstirring mist
It was cloaked
In a leaden cape of darkness
In its nebulous lull
It sleepwalked
On a haze of softness
Moving forward
In a cationic motion of caution
Lost
Cutting
The blackened sea with its deadened bow
It displaced the stygian sea
Into ripples of throbbing pain
A film of fog descended
Onto its whimpering bow
Crying
Under a gauze of mist
Its incessant horns haunted the Elysian sea
Drudging
Droning
Warning
Others who tread the wilderness waters
With fractured pain
It resonated
Across its whispering surface
Lost
Suddenly
It appeared
A phantom
Silhouetted into reality
Carved
Into a cameo of darkness
Its lurid shape surfaced into view
Rage
Spewed from its steaming funnel
A battle of horns
Shattered the submerged silence
Stealth
In a dressage of darkness
Your dad looked like a million bucks
One
Day has passed
Now at last
He stood next to a leviathan
The R. M. S. Carinthia
Berthed in black
Hemmed in white
Black and white of riveting steel
Steamed
With power
It was a Tityus
Of limitless length
Stretching to the sea
Like a bastion of iron
Huge
In bulk
It rested
On its sleeping hulk
Whistling with the wind
It snorted
With hoots of hubris
As people embarked
Into the bowels of its cavernous hull
Decked
In white
Decks decked high
Like a house of cards
Not quite as big
As the Queen of Hearts
Stacks
Two of a kind
Rolled in red
On a collar of black
Ringed in white
A towering sight
Seeking the sky
Over twenty feet high
Belching
Smoke
From its cylinder hole
Letting off steam
Before it leaves
Home
Port
Side
Of the Ocean Liner
On the starboard
Aside
The Liver Birds observe
On a perch
In a port over a pool
Overlooking the portentous Poseidon
Watching
With the outstretched wing of Daedalus
And the open love of Thetis
Eyelets
On an eyrie
Eyeing
All the ships that sail on the salt of the sea
Passing
Ships
Waxed with the seal of Levcothea and Palaemon
Passing
Through the eyelet of an estuary
The two Liver Birds watch
On an eyrie
Soon
The propellers of the Poseidon would power the sea
With its trident
It would churn the sea from the depths of its sleep
But for now
Its steel keel would bathe
In the lap of luxury
Napping and lapping in a calming sleep
Waiting
Until the white waves wake it from its watch
Soon
Like Theseus
Your dad would enter into the bellying bowel of its spacious stomach
Dwarfed
With gigantism
He stepped into a labyrinth of steel
Off into its baleful passage of alleyways
Twisting and turning
Into germinal corridors of miniaturized sameness
Mazes
Leading somewhere
But nowhere
Could he find his sleeping quarters
Pistons pounded
Thrusting their belligerent rage
From its ribbed gage
Steam bellowed
While rods pummeled with purging power
Looking
Down
Into its steel ribbed crater
It shook
Its voracious frame
Awakened from its sleep
It roared
Like a Minotaur
With hands to his ears
Your dad stood on the precipice of its coal-black cavity
Flared up
With fired fury
It famished for food
Drooling with steam
It dispensed a stentorian scream
Stoic
In silence
He disposed of its rallying cry
By cutting off its vociferation
With a fleeting yell
He threaded his way back to the opening of its orifice
With relief
He was met with assistance
The ship’s officer escorted him to his cabin
Hived
In bunks
Stacked like shoe
Boxes
Velcroed to the bulkhead
10
Bunks in a cabin
A colony of commoners into a compact of commonality
Always having a room of his own
Now he shared it with nine other boys
He always wanted siblings
Now
He had a bloody clan
And except for his hospital stay
He had not been away from home
Top bunk
For the new punk
In
24
Hours
He had been lost in a labyrinth
Seasick
On the unsuspected head
Of the lower bunk’s occupant
Innate
To the hazing of the sea
To gross
That it would peel the blush off Aunt Queenie
Exposed
To men loving men
And women who think they are men
And men who dress like the women of the night
Confused
It was quite a sight
And to your dad
A bit of a fright
In fact
One of his cabin mates
Was a young angelic looking boy
A capricious sapling
Blooming
Into a flower of gayness
Plucked
Sucked
Of his honey
By two of his Liverpudlian cabin mates
Under the guise of a dare
Which in fact
They lived in a closet
Of masculinity
A skeleton that would not rear their
Head
To the alcoholic world of volatile violence
One too many drinks
From one of his cabin mates
Would turn his unpredictable mood into fearless hate
A bottle broken
Flushed to his face
Was not the bedtime story
Your dad had in place
But his drunken cabin mate
Loved to crack open a coke bottle
And recycle its cutting edge
Into a bookmark of weaponry
Not a sleepy nightcap
For the faint of heart
But let me tell you
One of those nine boys
Could blast out a fart
Duties
Assigned to the boys
Some set up the service for the steward
Others
Would deliver the mail to the passengers
And open the door for dining room visitors
Some would even swab the purser’s deck
And once
Your Dad
Swabbed the young purser’s face
As he kept pushing your dad
To overreach his over demanding working pace
And one young boy
Would make the tiger
Roar
With rage
If you drop an entrée
You cower back to the gallery
In disgrace
Where the chef will dish out love with menus of hate
Up
And down
Open the door
Which floor
Sir
Level four
Watch your step
Sir
When I open the door
Down
Sir
Nice trip
Sir
Good trip
Close the door
Sir
Back to eight
Pick up the Staff Captain
He has a dinner date
So be on time
And don’t be late
Yes
Sir
Part of the trip
Your dad was an elevator boy
Boring
Not for your dad
His spirit was always lifted
With imagination
He was never down with satiation
Bedroom Eyes
Often
An attractive bedroom steward
Would grace his lift
With an excess of fragrance
Classical and slim
In olive skin
Looking like the great Augustan
Pale
Blue
Eyes
Would warrant you with their wanton warmth
Flirtatious
Eyelashes
Curled with a flippant
Smile
Blushed
With rough
Hair
Raven
Black
With humor
And a teasing grin
He would turn to your father
And say to him
If he were much older
He would turn him over
And turn him
Into one of him
He was a glitzy Queen at night
For a man
He was a beautiful sight
But at the end of the day
He was a gorgeous man
In every way
He was good to your dad
In a harmless way
His blue-eyed bedroom steward
Was the man of the day
Worked
Dawn to dusk
During the day
He would take an afternoon nap
While passengers shuffled time
Away
He would go
Into the pitch of the night
After he drank a prohibited pint
Him and his mates would play
Hide-and-go seek
On a moonless deck bay
Under a starlit night
Easy to hide
Hard to find
Lost
Overboard
A person was drowned
Impossible
To turn the ship
Around
And around
The body was not found
Seven story waves
Could whitewash you away
If you dare to play
Hide-and-go seek
On a stormy day
His First
Port
Of call
Quebec city
Canada
Of course
Passengers disembarked
Packed
With pride
It was time to take leave
And to climb to the top
To see the Musee National Desbeaux-Arts Du Quebec
On the Plains of Abraham
So his mates and him
With a wineskin of gin
Climbed the mountain
At the top
With a wolfish grin
He asked the curator
To show them the oil painting
Where Montcalm was done in
The Quebecker
Next day
He had the afternoon
Off
To Quebec City
Where the French girls were so pretty
But
Quebec was cold
And your dad was lost
The climate had changed
From English to French
Cool
With coldness
He entered a Café
Quebeckers
Turned the table
Towards a simmering fireplace
Huddled
Together
Blocking
The warmth of the maple wood logs
Sparks
Splintered
As the Quebecker poked away
The red maple flames leapt higher
As the leafless logs caught on fire
Glowing
In the face of the French
Canadian
I am lost
Can you help me find the way
With a one finger gesture
He pointed
His way
Misunderstood
Your dad turned around
Behind him
Stood a French Canadian police officer
Who took his arm
And directed him towards his patrol car
With an open smile
The officer escorted your dad
Back to the Ship
I Love New York
Stars
Stripes
New York
New York
Standing tall
Arms outstretched
In a torch of light
She pointed the way
Standing for freedom
In Hudson Bay
She pointed the way
A lady of liberty
With a beacon of light
She lit the way
To all that entered
The U.S.A.
Manhattan
Mushroomed
From the deep dark sea
Into the high heavenly sky
Mushroomed
Manhattan
A sharp starched skyline
Forested with steel
Encased in glass
It bloomed
In a greenhouse of floodlight
Upward
Onward
A vertical mosaic
Of native cubism
Dominated the darkness
Into a domino of dots
Stretching the skyline into a Lego of lights
It stands
Alone
In a reflective sea of darkness
It lights up its soul
On an island of dreams
Its marvel
Unfolds like a minted comic book
Crisp with flights of story
It bubbles with imagination
Reaching for the stars
Its super skyline shines
Onto its hopeful horizon
Where it would welcome the world
From the window of its wonder
The next day
He was tall
He stood on top of his empirical world
He was on the observation deck of the Empire State Building
Towering the sky
With its panoramic view
New York
Had become Lilliputian
And he had become Gulliver
His world had now changed
He could view it from a distance
With altitude
He saw latitude
With attitude
He experienced gratitude
He’s Got the Whole World (In his hands), Laurie London, 1958
His World had changed
In New York
He ate at the diners
Shaped like silver submarines
The music surfaced from table box machines
He shopped at Macy's
Through the windows of the world
He took the time
To see the square
He visited the village
Greenwich
With green bottled eyes
Twisting his peppermint stick in rum and coke
Listening to Dylan
And all the village folk
He lounged in luxury
And shopped with spree
Shirts
Slacks
Style
Suited his slim body
Fat had become history
Now that he had joined the navy
A Christmas Story
December
Berthed in the Bay
The liner rested
In New York’s pier 92 on a cold snowy day
Hoisted with cheer
The officers served him beer
It was the traditional way
For the Christmas holiday
Laughter brewed
Over turkey and stuffing
When your dad snapped his fingers
The captain would come running
The day before Christmas
Still on shore
Soon the passengers would board
The ship once more
Set sail
It was Christmas Day
Looking a little pale
After yesterday
Sailing the sea
Follow the star
With room in the inn
The passengers won’t go far
Looking pleasant
Eating pheasant
Passengers opened up their Christmas present
While we worked like a bloody peasant
Slogging in sweat
With a sheepish grin
Watching the passengers
Filled with vigor and vim
Serve a sweet
With tired sore feet
Watch the passenger graze
On their Christmas meat
Sing a song
It’s Christmas Day
Soon the passengers will be
On their merry old way
Look over there
What a din
Three Jews at a table
Drinking gin
There sits Mary
With hair of straw
Cradling her drink
Under the leering eyes of a rabbinical bore
Sitting like a stranger
Sipping through a straw
There sits Joseph
Shepard to the gossip of a prying bore
All around the table
We give em the eye
Time to stop ventilating
It’s time to say good-bye
At last
Like sheep filing out one by one
Thank God
They have finally gone
Sneak a sandwich
The chefs not looking
The passengers have gone
And now it’s time for the crew to party on
To the Pig and Whistle
With cries of delight
Now to celebrate Christmas
Because it’s Christmas night
Jiggle a jug
With a jigger and a beer
Hit the dart board
With a farting cheer
The order was given
The last call was called
The Pig had to close
Right on the nose
Regardless of Christmas
And much to the crew’s chagrin
The officers were summoned
To tap off their gin
Outraged into rage
Time for a revolution
So they mutinied the officers
To find a solution
To the passengers lounge
The motley crew would abound with a mission
Submitting their position
With a protesting petition
Officers arrived
With a compromising position
If they left the passengers lounge
They would fulfill their condition
Leaving
With jeering jubilation
The Pig and Whistle opened up
With a Christmas celebration
The crew had forewarned the boys
Not to be involved
Because they were too young
And the problem has been solved
Landing in Liverpool
The whistle had been blown
The mutinous crew was whistled
Back home
Discharged with treason
Because closing the Pig and Whistle
Was not a good reason
To mutiny the ship during the holiday season
Headlining the newspapers
And the television too
A short Christmas tale
About a mutinous crew
Poetry in Motion, Johnny Tillotson, 1960
Back Home
Two days
Before New Year’s Day
The Carinthia had arrived
Home for the Holiday
In a blue denim button down shirt
And a New York stride
Your dad came back to Liverpool
With a youthful pride
Slim
And handsome as can be
He loaded my arms up with gifts
For his father and me
New Year’s Day
Pub to pub and party up
Kiss the girls at Walton Church
Hug time to Old Lang Sine
Bells chimed
Throughout the night
The next morning
The Dockers were on strike
The ship was in dry dock
That’s like being in jail
The ship was landlocked
And the boys could not sail
Chain Gang, Sam Cooke, 1960
The “Office” Boy
Looking at the Mersey
The Cunard Building stands
Waiting for the boys
To give their dining room a helping hand
Serve the office staff
Until the strike was over
Helping the kitchen girls
To run like rover
The young girls were in charge
Of this rowdy bunch
Teaching them to serve tea
For the office staffs lunch
Out of the dining room window
Looking out to sea
The boys could see the Mersey
While pouring out the office staff tea
In the dining room
In the kitchen
Scrubbing dirty floors
The boys were assigned those horrible chores
For the girls it was fun
To keep the boys on the run
But in time
Their helping hand got out of hand
Eight thirty
Still not here
Nine thirty
Not a sign anywhere
Help
The lazy boys would turn up
Late
The lazy boys were to start at eight
Pour me a cup of tea love
It was a hard day’s night
The boys and me got into a fight
Now my head feels like shite
Keep on working love
While I keep on talken
Thanks for the tea
Clears the shite out of me
Sitting on a stool
Like the Lords of Liverpool
Toast and tea and the jam of the day
Flirting with the girls and hoping for a lay
8:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Chatting away
Eyeing the young girls
As they work away
9:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Chatting up the girls
As they work away
Wondering which one would be the catch of the day
10:30 a.m.
Sipping tea on a typical day
Join us love
And bring us a fresh pot of tea
Then take a break and sit down with me
11:00 a.m.
Set up the table
Work is about to begin
The lazy office workers
Will soon be coming in
Noon Serve the staff
With a smarmy smile
Leave the birds for a little while
Too bloody busy running the Banister mile
1:30 p.m.
Lunch is over
Time for the girls to clean up the mess
Time for the boys
To take a well deserved rest
2:00 p.m.
After lunch
The exacerbated girls would clean up
As the dilatory boys drank tea
The frustrated girls would steep in hostility
2:30 p.m.
Kitchen all clean
Chores are done
Thanks to the girls
Now it’s time to have some fun
3:30 p.m.
Time for home
Watching
The girls elbow their hot sink
The risible boys would leave with a wink
4:00 p.m.
I don’t care a tuppence
Those boys will have their comeuppance
Cheeky and comely they may be
But I am sodden well-tired working like a bloody worker bee
While they wink and wank
And tap my arse
For a bloody cup of tea
The next day
The boys were brought to task
Time to work and clock in
Said the office brass
In awhile
Time marched on
The crafty little buggers got their office mate
To clock them on
The strike was over
The lovable lads would fetch like Rover
Serving the lassies with glee
They poured them a thankful pot of conciliatory tea
Leaving
Like a wolf
With a whistle and a wink
Watching the lovely lassies bend over the kitchen sink
Pat em on the arse as you pass them on
By
Bye
My lovely one
Runaway, Del Shannon, 1961
All aboard
Aye Aye
Said the children
Were about to sail
With another tale
On the R.M.S. Lycia
Your dad’s next ship
Was a cargo boat
Lycia
A compact to the sea
Not puffed with pomp and power
Not potbellied with poundage and piston
Not a titan
But a dinky
Toy
With the idea that King Neptune
Would use this boat as a bathtub
Toy
With the idea that Ederia or eoeria
Would use this boat to fill the grottos of your dad’s unschooled mind
A watershed
Where the waves of history would wax and wane
Wakes
Of the past would be piloted into the present
Following
His compass
Would point to the future
He set sail
To the Aegean Sea
An odyssey
To the Mediterranean Sea
A seasoned edge
With six weeks at sea
The Minateour was dead
He was a potholer who could now navigate
Around the elfin engine room
Like an un-scoured Scotsman
His spirit was level
As he walked through a maze of moving steel
The bridge was open
To the expanding horizon
All he could see
Was the vastness of an emancipated sea
Holding onto the ship’s steering wheel
He steered the ship
With struggling calmness
His course was charted
Now in control
Of his own compass
He was free to charter the open sea
Decked with uneasy confidence
He would climb the formidable masthead
Clinging to the rigging
He would reach the topmast
The sky was endless
The sea was ceaseless
Cradled
In a nest
He trembled with awe
His vista was telescoped through an inverted lens
In reflection the view retroverted himself into his own lens
He felt he could pass through the eye of a needle
Because he was just a mote in a sea of sky
Small
In a magnitude of sea
Adrift in a universal ark
Sailing on a covenant of faith
Navigating his antithetical view
With the changing tides of time
He would rediscover his new world
Sea
Waves
Air
Waves
Ship-to-shore
Operator
Shore-to-ship
Manning the radio room
All day all night
You could hear the waves transmit their frequent sounds
Dispatching the sea and air with informatory
All through his enlightened voyage
Your dad would communicate with the chatty man who ruled the waves
Britain
Never never never
Shall be slaves
Tell that to your dad
He was a thalamian on a trimeme
Chained to the sea
Scrub the alleyways
Hands and knees
Scrub the toilets
Hands and knees
Clean the cabins
Hands and knees
Serve the officers in their mess
No knees
Just hands
Clasped together
Praying on knees
No more bloody work
Please
Please
Me
Accommodation
Amoebic
Two in a cell
His world
Encircled
In Brass and Glass
Porthole
To portside
He could see the sea
Top bunk
Once again
Lower bunk
The Assistant Cook
Starched in white
He slept on sheets stained with shite
Pissin in the washbasin
In the middle of the night
Too lazy to go to the washroom
To piss and shite
Your dad would be awakened
To the trickle of the night
The small cabin
Was a living ashtray
Surrounded with smoke and stenched with smell
The small cabin
Reeked
With the breath of hell
Sweat
Piss ash
And shite
The cook rolled and snored
Breaking wind
He would pong the night
Tossing and turning in sheets of shite
To top it off
He was also the dessert cook
Needless to say
Your dad would not have the dessert of the day
Fed up
Your dad offered to clean the cabin
For a pound a week
He kept it sheke
Making damn sure he knew
When the frowzy cook took a leak
The Brothers Grin
Three stewards
Served the ship
Two stewards
Were brothers
Unlike the grim brothers
These two looked after your dad
The chief steward
Was the older of the two
A raconteur
Who parted his fine red hair
Like the red sea
It was broad and barren
As the wave departed
It left a sediment of sparse hair
On the pink terrain of his balding head
Always a smile
Under a pair of diamond almond eyes
Sharp
As a tack
He wore his smarts
Under a slick top hat
Tricks of the trade
Was his art
A cunning master
With a velveteen heart
The sorcerer’s brother
Was his young apprentice
Lots of hair
Curled into a yellow wave of silver surf
Eyes
Cobalt blue
Saddled on sanded skin
With a waddle
That dangled under a rounded chin
Leaving
A blarneying face
That rippled into a tide line grin
Unlike Peter
From the brother grim
The brothers
At the end of the trip
Packed a black hamper
Of fresh market meats
Curtsey of the Cunard
The enterprising brothers sent this package
Home to me
It was their blessing from the sea
And it was very nice
To have a large leg of roasted lamb for our Sunday tea
On the Hatch
Under the stars
Over the sea
Waves
Lap and leap
High jumping the tenebrous sea
Over hurdles of luminosity
The burnished orb
Descends
Into dimness
Dipping
Into darkness
It bows
Its shimmering crown
Disappearing
Into a golden memory of gilded sunlight
Lost
Horizon
Is in harmony
When light
Meets darkness
All is one
When the line is gone
The lucent stars will guide the way
Until the silver moon
Replaces the golden sun
Like a comforting sister
The western moon shone
Leaving
The horizon to emerge
As one
The circle of life
Has cycled the sea
Leaving
The human race
To dissolve in thee
Once again
On the batch
The leisurely crew would sit
Outside
On deck
Sweeping tales
Under a shadowing flag of spangled stars
Mixing
Laughter with hops and suds
Together
One for all
All for one
Singing shanties under a starlit sky
Lounging
And lurching
With the waves
That waltzed on the surface of the sea
It was a night like this
That your dad befriended
Joe
A young blackie
Besides his Asian friend
This was the first black person your dad had encountered
Not one to be blinded with color
They soon became good friends with each other
Ebony and ivory
Sailed the sea
In a key of harmony
They were in key
Black
Was his skin
Black
Was his work
A stoker
He worked in the hot lowering bowels
Of a darkling stokehold
The boiler room
A living crematorium
Fed with fire it was a furnace
Filled with flame and fury
Bathed in sweat
Steamed in grease
Stoking
Cleaning
The stokeholds of hell
Joe
Was the undertaker of the coal-black sea
Dispersing the ashes
Into a dispensing sea
He was the black stoker
Living in purgatory
Aside
A short tale about stoking Joe
One Sunday
Passing his porthole on the poop deck
He saw Joe
Brown eyes all a gleam
With a swelling smile and a panting grunt
He was wanken away
At a girlie magazine
His large black hand was a pumpin
Like a humpin piston machine
When the dirty deed was done
And the cream did cum
He saw a spy
From the corner of his eye
He knew someone was there
So he clasped his black hands and knelt in prayer
Aha
Man
It was a climatic finish
To a gripping performance
Laughter
Lingered
Blow-by-blow
Tales
Swilled and distilled
The spirit
Was rinsed
In the tide of time
Blowheads
Would hoot and fart
Leaving
Their tales to dry
In the break of their wind
One more drink
Down the hatch
And of course one last fart
As they talked about the local tart
Halfway to Paradise, Billy Fury, 1961
Ships that Pass in the Night
The night
Fog descended
Into a recess of voidness
After licking off the mist
The waves lapped into a motionless sleep
Calmness
Laced the moonlight
Into a purl of stillness
Lost
In a low ebb
The ship
Became a specter
It moved
In silence
Through the windless waters of a soundless sea
Outlined
In an unstirring mist
It was cloaked
In a leaden cape of darkness
In its nebulous lull
It sleepwalked
On a haze of softness
Moving forward
In a cationic motion of caution
Lost
Cutting
The blackened sea with its deadened bow
It displaced the stygian sea
Into ripples of throbbing pain
A film of fog descended
Onto its whimpering bow
Crying
Under a gauze of mist
Its incessant horns haunted the Elysian sea
Drudging
Droning
Warning
Others who tread the wilderness waters
With fractured pain
It resonated
Across its whispering surface
Lost
Suddenly
It appeared
A phantom
Silhouetted into reality
Carved
Into a cameo of darkness
Its lurid shape surfaced into view
Rage
Spewed from its steaming funnel
A battle of horns
Shattered the submerged silence
Stealth
In a dressage of darkness
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Take them home
And mutilate them
With his savaging taste
He would cut them up
Into slicing silvers of raw flesh
Fried with their own fat
He would boil their bloodying ligaments
Into a cauldron of curdling blood
Needless
To say
Five guarded children did not want to go
Across the killing fields
So with caution
And with fear
The children ran
Across the light tight field
Bodies trembled
With reluctance
They headed towards the raven iron fence
A six-foot high fence
Bordered Walton Hall Park with its forest of black steel
Stoic
Steel
Stood
In a long column of silence
Sharp
Spiked
Still
The shadows shifted their silhouetted spears
Across the sobering field of a stable sky
Dimness
Flickered across its shield
Like the deadened light of a dimming candle
Stooped in terror
The fretting file of fearful faces
Climbed the cold steel fence
Columns
Of black bodies clamored and lumbered
Over skewering spears of piercing steel
Haunted in horror
Flinched with fright
Four out of five
Escaped
Into the satanic night
Over the fence
Leaving
One
Paralyzed with fear
Your fearsome dad was skewed to steel
Pants impaled
Stuck to steel
He shook on the fence
With the frozen face of an ashen marshmallow
Abandon
He was left
Alone
With the murky memories of a macabre murderer
Stranded
On a spire of steel
He was left
Alone
Dangling
Rooted on the spot
With mortal malevolence
Hovering
He hung in horror
All alone
In a putrid pool of petrified piss
The others had left him
In the heart of darkness
He clung to his cross of steel
Tears emerged
With hymns of help
Darkness
Enveloped
The spineless sounds
In the distance
The fair lights dimmed
With despair
The music was muted
The lights were extinguished
Time was endless
Hanging in the dark
Haze hovered onto a mist of faceless tears
Suddenly
The darkness cracked
To the daunting sounds of distant footsteps
At first
The sound stopped
And stalked with silence
Step by stop
It encroached with caution
Closer and closer
It would advance with weakness
Pressing
Forward
Into the vegetative leadenness of the dead mask night
It would motion
Forward
Into the watchful night
The faint sounds of silence
Would resonate like the rhythmical beat
Of a mythical warrior
It crept
In a crypt of darkness
Close
Very close
It stopped in a full breath of miasmic air
A quick
Touch
Crawled
Across the blackening
A smooth clammy hand
Spirited a cold finger across the thigh of his leg
Perspiration poured
It trickled down his saturated pants
Tearing away
It pulled at the ankle of his shivering leg
Looking down
With a provident of misgivings
Cold sweat
Tortured his failing heart
Missing a murmur
He froze with transfixed terror
Looking up
A crescent-shaped smile
Mooned the night
With a peppersdent grin
It was Ronny
He came back
To help your dad
The children had gasped
With relief
The eldest granddaughter asked
What ever happened to Ronny
Ronny
Like I said
Had become a qualified driver for Scott’s Bakery
A few years
Into the job
He talked to your dad about the possibility
Of joining the Merchant Marine
In time
He joined
Later
Drink and drugs
Drowned with depression
He was in and out of the lunatic asylum
Ending his life
At the end of a rope
Suicide
His house of cards had folded
At peace
He left a small piece of himself
Locked
And linked
Into the interlocking time of the past and present
His memory remains
In the archives of your dad’s puzzle
Perhaps
Not as important
As it once was
But still important
As it is now
Heartbreak by the Number, Guy Mitchel, 1959
James
A typical workday
With your dad delivering bread
By coincidence
His bread route was in the same district
We lived in
Stopping off
At the corner grocery shop
Close to his grandma’s house
He heard the news
About Jimmy
James
PERSONified youthfulness and confidence
He was the consummate adolescent
He embodied innocence and sincerity
Which is why we love
Jimmy
As your dad would call him
James
Lived in Lind Street
Next Street
To my mom’s house on Ismay Street
Your dad’s cousins lived on Lind Street
So when your dad visited his Aunt Queenie
He would often play with James and his cousins
Jimmy
Was also his school chum
They were in the same class
Together
They would often play football
In the school playground
James had one younger brother
And his name was
Frank
PERSONable in nature
With two outstanding physical traits
He had bright red hair
Which glowed like an orange beacon
And a stammer
That could stretch across the River Mersey
In fact
His stuttering could be coupled
Onto a slow moving train
And it would still go on and on
If you missed what he said the first time
You would never ask him to repeat it again
As it would be like missing the last bus
You would have to wait a bloody long time
For it to come again
Often
The naughty boys would take Frank to the corner chippy
Then they would give him the money
And tell him to order the chips
This is the way the order came out
Ccccould I haveeeee th th th three pppennney wwoorth off f sh sh shit innnn tthe ppap eer pplleease
Of course young Frank
Meant chips not shit
Poor little sod
His face would turn as red as his carroty hair
You may laugh
I know those boys
Did not mean to be mean
But the cheeky little buggers
Thought it
It was all in good fun
James
A very handsome young boy
Who would engage life
With an open smile
He would always greet you
With his gentlemanly custom
An athlete
To emulate
He was on all the school’s sports teams
And his PERSONality played well
With his admiring school chums
James was the captain of the school’s football team
Respected
With envy
But never with malice
Nor sourness
Your dad would of loved to have been
On the school football team
He had the skills
But lacked the stamina
The long football fields puffed his breath away
So he played on the street
With
James
He played on the school playground
Jimmy
Was a school prefect
A perfect PERSON for this position
Fair
And honest
The boys respected him
The girls adored him
But no one
Loved him more
Than his devoted mother
Her
James
As she would call him
Loved
Her
Son
Would set
And shine
In her eyes
He was the sun
He had no shadows
And if he did
She would step in
And block out his darkness
Your dad was over the moon
When he was selected to do a school puppet show
With Jimmy
He got to practice
In his house
He was on center stage
With Jimmy
He was a musketeer
And a puppeteer
Ha ha
He he
Silly old Joey
Can’t see me
These acting lines still play across
The stage of your dad’s memories
James
Left school
At the age of fifteen
One school term before your dad did
He got a job as a clothing department salesman
It was Blackler’s Department Store
The same store
In which George Harrison once worked in
In fact George may have worked with James
Back
To the news about
Jimmy
Had been poorly
For some time
Now
He stayed home all day
Bedridden in the downstairs parlor
Weak
His frail body
Blanched into an emaciated shell
Pale
And pallid
His sallow skin sank into the ribs of his skeletal shell
Fading away
He was sent to Walton Hospital
Leukemia
Struck
With sadness
Your dad was devastated
He wanted so much to visit him
But he was not allowed to
His health had dropped
Like a landslide
All too fast
And much too sudden
An avalanche
Of emotions fell upon your dad
Hopeless
And helpless
He could do nothing
But send him wishes and gifts
With the condolence of his heartbroken mother
To whom he did visit
In time
A short time
After
He died
At the young age of sixteen
Your dad touched death
For the first time
He stepped into Thompson’s Funeral Parlor
Viewing
Jimmy
All he could recall
Were his sallow hands
Porcelain
Motionless
In white satin
Clasped
Sculptured with relief
Translucent
Albescent
Resting hands
Embossed onto the top of a charcoal dress suit
A cameo of carrara
Halcyon
Veins
Becalmed
Under the hyaline surface of his marble skin
Silence
In motion
He sleeps
In a satin shroud of silken solitude
Resting in an open casket of ashier gold
At peace
The lids closed
On his grief-stricken mother
Grieved with abandoned pain
Lost
In an abyss of vaulted darkness
Never
Ever
Did she recover
From the youthful death
Of her beloved
James
Mrs. Person would spend her remaining days
Living
And dying
In a mausoleum of memories
Photographs of James
Walled her tomb with living death
Each day was celebrated with sadness
When her dear James died
She died that same day
With a broken heart
Years later
Young Frank
Still stood in the shadow of James
But the unseen son
Would always be at his mother’s side
A piece
Of James
Remains with your dad
Jimmy’s box may have been small
But his pieces were large
The lid had closed on James
But his life was illustrated with love
Jimmy did not have many pieces in his small puzzle box
But with the few
He touched many
And his piece
Will always be larger than life
In time
The lid will close
On all of us
The last piece of the puzzle will be placed
Leaving
Death to fill in the void of its completeness
Resting
It serves time
In the solitude of silence
Where it waits
To be opened once again
Children
We do not determine
The number of pieces we will get in our lives
Nor do we know how many pieces
Of the puzzle we have been given
We do define the content
By shaping the events
We fill in the spaces of our own lives
Creating
Uncharted vignettes
Into the context of time
We fill the voids with living memories
You
Are also pieces
Of someone else’s puzzle
Paramount
Or in sequential
You would have touched
Someone else’s life
So touch
With love
And forgive
With understanding
Because you are a piece of their puzzle
Cherish
And cluster
Those special pieces
And place them into your life
With love
Interlock their memory
With the present
Treasure it
Seize the day
Because you cannot return
The pieces you were given
Those pieces will always remain with you
Only in death
Will we see
The cover of our lives
So remember
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
Theme from a Summer Place, Percy Faith, 1960
The Navy Boy
Five
Months had passed
He had packed his last loaf
And delivered his last round of bread
Cheers
A toast
A round for his mates
He had packed in the bakery
And he is off to see
The world
Not a loafer
He had risen to his quest
A Horse is a Horse of Course
With voice
Unbroken
He would harness his handicap
Using horse sense
He saddled his voice
Until he was hoarse broken
Nagging the navy recruiter
To get off his high horse
And make some allowance
By weighing in the fact
The odds were good
For a boy like that
His voice may sound like a gelding
But he has the spirit of a purebred
Forget his handicap
And let the young lad run his lap
Scratching his balding head
While licking his flowery lip
Moving his blinders
He reigned in the whip
Side saddling the issue
Because of the young lad’s hearty plea
And himself once a former steward
Having gone to sea
He felt that this lad could be a winner
So I will enter his plea
So take it from the horse’s mouth
Back up your bags
Because Seabiscuit you’re off
To sea
Victory
At the age of fifteen
He was off to sea
Thanks to the Jockey
He was in the position
To join the Merchant Navy
Six
Weeks had passed
He had finished his training
Now a commissariat
And mutilate them
With his savaging taste
He would cut them up
Into slicing silvers of raw flesh
Fried with their own fat
He would boil their bloodying ligaments
Into a cauldron of curdling blood
Needless
To say
Five guarded children did not want to go
Across the killing fields
So with caution
And with fear
The children ran
Across the light tight field
Bodies trembled
With reluctance
They headed towards the raven iron fence
A six-foot high fence
Bordered Walton Hall Park with its forest of black steel
Stoic
Steel
Stood
In a long column of silence
Sharp
Spiked
Still
The shadows shifted their silhouetted spears
Across the sobering field of a stable sky
Dimness
Flickered across its shield
Like the deadened light of a dimming candle
Stooped in terror
The fretting file of fearful faces
Climbed the cold steel fence
Columns
Of black bodies clamored and lumbered
Over skewering spears of piercing steel
Haunted in horror
Flinched with fright
Four out of five
Escaped
Into the satanic night
Over the fence
Leaving
One
Paralyzed with fear
Your fearsome dad was skewed to steel
Pants impaled
Stuck to steel
He shook on the fence
With the frozen face of an ashen marshmallow
Abandon
He was left
Alone
With the murky memories of a macabre murderer
Stranded
On a spire of steel
He was left
Alone
Dangling
Rooted on the spot
With mortal malevolence
Hovering
He hung in horror
All alone
In a putrid pool of petrified piss
The others had left him
In the heart of darkness
He clung to his cross of steel
Tears emerged
With hymns of help
Darkness
Enveloped
The spineless sounds
In the distance
The fair lights dimmed
With despair
The music was muted
The lights were extinguished
Time was endless
Hanging in the dark
Haze hovered onto a mist of faceless tears
Suddenly
The darkness cracked
To the daunting sounds of distant footsteps
At first
The sound stopped
And stalked with silence
Step by stop
It encroached with caution
Closer and closer
It would advance with weakness
Pressing
Forward
Into the vegetative leadenness of the dead mask night
It would motion
Forward
Into the watchful night
The faint sounds of silence
Would resonate like the rhythmical beat
Of a mythical warrior
It crept
In a crypt of darkness
Close
Very close
It stopped in a full breath of miasmic air
A quick
Touch
Crawled
Across the blackening
A smooth clammy hand
Spirited a cold finger across the thigh of his leg
Perspiration poured
It trickled down his saturated pants
Tearing away
It pulled at the ankle of his shivering leg
Looking down
With a provident of misgivings
Cold sweat
Tortured his failing heart
Missing a murmur
He froze with transfixed terror
Looking up
A crescent-shaped smile
Mooned the night
With a peppersdent grin
It was Ronny
He came back
To help your dad
The children had gasped
With relief
The eldest granddaughter asked
What ever happened to Ronny
Ronny
Like I said
Had become a qualified driver for Scott’s Bakery
A few years
Into the job
He talked to your dad about the possibility
Of joining the Merchant Marine
In time
He joined
Later
Drink and drugs
Drowned with depression
He was in and out of the lunatic asylum
Ending his life
At the end of a rope
Suicide
His house of cards had folded
At peace
He left a small piece of himself
Locked
And linked
Into the interlocking time of the past and present
His memory remains
In the archives of your dad’s puzzle
Perhaps
Not as important
As it once was
But still important
As it is now
Heartbreak by the Number, Guy Mitchel, 1959
James
A typical workday
With your dad delivering bread
By coincidence
His bread route was in the same district
We lived in
Stopping off
At the corner grocery shop
Close to his grandma’s house
He heard the news
About Jimmy
James
PERSONified youthfulness and confidence
He was the consummate adolescent
He embodied innocence and sincerity
Which is why we love
Jimmy
As your dad would call him
James
Lived in Lind Street
Next Street
To my mom’s house on Ismay Street
Your dad’s cousins lived on Lind Street
So when your dad visited his Aunt Queenie
He would often play with James and his cousins
Jimmy
Was also his school chum
They were in the same class
Together
They would often play football
In the school playground
James had one younger brother
And his name was
Frank
PERSONable in nature
With two outstanding physical traits
He had bright red hair
Which glowed like an orange beacon
And a stammer
That could stretch across the River Mersey
In fact
His stuttering could be coupled
Onto a slow moving train
And it would still go on and on
If you missed what he said the first time
You would never ask him to repeat it again
As it would be like missing the last bus
You would have to wait a bloody long time
For it to come again
Often
The naughty boys would take Frank to the corner chippy
Then they would give him the money
And tell him to order the chips
This is the way the order came out
Ccccould I haveeeee th th th three pppennney wwoorth off f sh sh shit innnn tthe ppap eer pplleease
Of course young Frank
Meant chips not shit
Poor little sod
His face would turn as red as his carroty hair
You may laugh
I know those boys
Did not mean to be mean
But the cheeky little buggers
Thought it
It was all in good fun
James
A very handsome young boy
Who would engage life
With an open smile
He would always greet you
With his gentlemanly custom
An athlete
To emulate
He was on all the school’s sports teams
And his PERSONality played well
With his admiring school chums
James was the captain of the school’s football team
Respected
With envy
But never with malice
Nor sourness
Your dad would of loved to have been
On the school football team
He had the skills
But lacked the stamina
The long football fields puffed his breath away
So he played on the street
With
James
He played on the school playground
Jimmy
Was a school prefect
A perfect PERSON for this position
Fair
And honest
The boys respected him
The girls adored him
But no one
Loved him more
Than his devoted mother
Her
James
As she would call him
Loved
Her
Son
Would set
And shine
In her eyes
He was the sun
He had no shadows
And if he did
She would step in
And block out his darkness
Your dad was over the moon
When he was selected to do a school puppet show
With Jimmy
He got to practice
In his house
He was on center stage
With Jimmy
He was a musketeer
And a puppeteer
Ha ha
He he
Silly old Joey
Can’t see me
These acting lines still play across
The stage of your dad’s memories
James
Left school
At the age of fifteen
One school term before your dad did
He got a job as a clothing department salesman
It was Blackler’s Department Store
The same store
In which George Harrison once worked in
In fact George may have worked with James
Back
To the news about
Jimmy
Had been poorly
For some time
Now
He stayed home all day
Bedridden in the downstairs parlor
Weak
His frail body
Blanched into an emaciated shell
Pale
And pallid
His sallow skin sank into the ribs of his skeletal shell
Fading away
He was sent to Walton Hospital
Leukemia
Struck
With sadness
Your dad was devastated
He wanted so much to visit him
But he was not allowed to
His health had dropped
Like a landslide
All too fast
And much too sudden
An avalanche
Of emotions fell upon your dad
Hopeless
And helpless
He could do nothing
But send him wishes and gifts
With the condolence of his heartbroken mother
To whom he did visit
In time
A short time
After
He died
At the young age of sixteen
Your dad touched death
For the first time
He stepped into Thompson’s Funeral Parlor
Viewing
Jimmy
All he could recall
Were his sallow hands
Porcelain
Motionless
In white satin
Clasped
Sculptured with relief
Translucent
Albescent
Resting hands
Embossed onto the top of a charcoal dress suit
A cameo of carrara
Halcyon
Veins
Becalmed
Under the hyaline surface of his marble skin
Silence
In motion
He sleeps
In a satin shroud of silken solitude
Resting in an open casket of ashier gold
At peace
The lids closed
On his grief-stricken mother
Grieved with abandoned pain
Lost
In an abyss of vaulted darkness
Never
Ever
Did she recover
From the youthful death
Of her beloved
James
Mrs. Person would spend her remaining days
Living
And dying
In a mausoleum of memories
Photographs of James
Walled her tomb with living death
Each day was celebrated with sadness
When her dear James died
She died that same day
With a broken heart
Years later
Young Frank
Still stood in the shadow of James
But the unseen son
Would always be at his mother’s side
A piece
Of James
Remains with your dad
Jimmy’s box may have been small
But his pieces were large
The lid had closed on James
But his life was illustrated with love
Jimmy did not have many pieces in his small puzzle box
But with the few
He touched many
And his piece
Will always be larger than life
In time
The lid will close
On all of us
The last piece of the puzzle will be placed
Leaving
Death to fill in the void of its completeness
Resting
It serves time
In the solitude of silence
Where it waits
To be opened once again
Children
We do not determine
The number of pieces we will get in our lives
Nor do we know how many pieces
Of the puzzle we have been given
We do define the content
By shaping the events
We fill in the spaces of our own lives
Creating
Uncharted vignettes
Into the context of time
We fill the voids with living memories
You
Are also pieces
Of someone else’s puzzle
Paramount
Or in sequential
You would have touched
Someone else’s life
So touch
With love
And forgive
With understanding
Because you are a piece of their puzzle
Cherish
And cluster
Those special pieces
And place them into your life
With love
Interlock their memory
With the present
Treasure it
Seize the day
Because you cannot return
The pieces you were given
Those pieces will always remain with you
Only in death
Will we see
The cover of our lives
So remember
Regrets are the tombstones of the heart
Theme from a Summer Place, Percy Faith, 1960
The Navy Boy
Five
Months had passed
He had packed his last loaf
And delivered his last round of bread
Cheers
A toast
A round for his mates
He had packed in the bakery
And he is off to see
The world
Not a loafer
He had risen to his quest
A Horse is a Horse of Course
With voice
Unbroken
He would harness his handicap
Using horse sense
He saddled his voice
Until he was hoarse broken
Nagging the navy recruiter
To get off his high horse
And make some allowance
By weighing in the fact
The odds were good
For a boy like that
His voice may sound like a gelding
But he has the spirit of a purebred
Forget his handicap
And let the young lad run his lap
Scratching his balding head
While licking his flowery lip
Moving his blinders
He reigned in the whip
Side saddling the issue
Because of the young lad’s hearty plea
And himself once a former steward
Having gone to sea
He felt that this lad could be a winner
So I will enter his plea
So take it from the horse’s mouth
Back up your bags
Because Seabiscuit you’re off
To sea
Victory
At the age of fifteen
He was off to sea
Thanks to the Jockey
He was in the position
To join the Merchant Navy
Six
Weeks had passed
He had finished his training
Now a commissariat
To the Casaba
Heads held high
In search of birds
Flying by
Care for a dance luv
Lucky me
She said she’s free
Start with a hop
And finish with a bop
Thank-you-love
Got to fly
I see a cute little bird
Passing by
Start with a stroll
And dance the walk
Jive to the music
With little talk
End with the monkey
And ring the chicken
As they no longer exist
Because we now rock
With the peppermint twist
The Twist, Chubby Checker, 1960
Into the night
Rock groups would come
And go
Like the Casaba and the Jacaranda
Dance clubs
Orbited the city
With budding stars
But
It was
Eighteen stone steps
Down
Into a cellar full of noise
Four Silver Beetles
Sang with a stellar of stars
Breaking away
From their cluster
Exploding
Into a Supernova
They poured their soul
Onto the world of music
Leaving
The carnivorous core of its cavern
The four Beatles
Broke out of their metamorphosis
And climbed to the toppermost of the poppermost
Up
Eighteen stone steps
Into a magnitude of starlight
From silver to gold
They became the super stars
Of their generation
Love Me Do, Beatles, 1962
Turn to the Sea
To fined a job
So why not join the Royal Navy
Passed all his exams
Which was a surprise for him
But he failed his eyesight examination
A lazy left eye had done him in
So why not join the Merchant Navy
Passed all his exams
Which was a surprise for him
But he failed his voice examination
At fifteen his voice had still not broken
So they told him to return
When his voice had cracked
I think they were crackers to refuse him for that
Just fifteen
His little heart was broken
Back to the house
A tear or two
I held onto my squeaky little mouse
Oops
I mean my soft spoken scouse
Four months more
Soon he would be gone
Out of the door
Leaving
Me
I didn’t mind
He needed to be free
From the choking grind of the Mersey
From A Jack to a Queen, Ned Millar 1957/62
Ronny the Wild Card
Knock
Knock
Who’s there
It’s me
Ronny
Looking through the window
Door
Of opportunity
Hair black
Like a dirty spade
He stood in the doorway
Like a leading Knave
His steel blue eyes
Would trump your stare
With a Joker’s smile
He was standing there
Decked with charm
And a gorgeous face
He dealt out love
With a poker face
Bidding
For attention
With a winning face
He held out his hand
With raising grace
Standing
In a black suit
Of swaggering pride
His face was flush
Like a blushing bride
With an opening line
He bridged a smile
Stacking
His thoughts onto an assembly line
Teeth
Stacked a smile of vanity
As it glossed over his insanity
Where it hid into the darkness
Like an undiscovered cavity
Slim
And slender
Like the King
He aced the boys
With his brooding swing
To the girls
He was a five-star stud
Striping them down with a naked eye
He would melt their hearts as they pass him by
Socially
He shuffled himself to suit your style
Bluffing you
For a little while
Staking your heart
With his cutting smile
Leaving
You stranded in a vile of bile
School
Was not for him
A dummy to his kin
A brain
Addled in a bottle of gin
Wild
At times
He dealt out anger
With the sudden bang
Of a Guy Fawkes banger
Work
He didn’t miss a trick
Bright as a diamond
Sharp as a spade
He would ante up his job
With the switch of a blade
Ronny
His mate from next door
Later on
I will tell you more
About Ronny
The boy next door
He was quite a lad
He got this job for your dad
The Baker’s Boy
Like your dad
Ronny worked at Scott’s Bakery
The largest bakery in the city
Fleets of red vans
Would section off the city
Delivering
Loads of loafs
That had risen much earlier
Up at five
Not much fun
Running for a bus
With your stomach half full
They’re at six
What a rush
All to catch a bloody double decker green bus
Six days a week
Start the day
The robotic way
Sort the bread
Into an empty tray
Stack the tray
Without delay
This way
No
That way
Eight feet high
Twelve feet deep
Nine feet wide
Stack the tray
Side by side
Three sections wide
Tray by tray
Close the door
Now for the ride
Plant your seat
On the passenger’s side
Key to the ignition
Throttle the floor
Rattle the wind
Through the large bakery door
Up in the morning
Before dawn has cracked
Its yellow baked head
Assisting the driver
To deliver fresh bread
Shop to shop
With sleep in his head
All before the dew
Had penetrated the dead
Out goes the red van
Dark out there
Had no time to pee
And it’s already six-thirty
Time for delivery
Wearing a long overcoat
Of regimental tan
Draped to his knees
Looking like Desperate Dan
The Dandy man
A short ride
By the driver’s side
No time to daydream
On the passenger’s side
Out of the van
Quick as a flash
Roll up the door
Pick up the bread
And into the store
Ten white loafs
Two of rye
Stacked in your arms
Four loafs high
A nod of the head
A smile on your face
You enter the store
With a semblance of grace
Loafs
Dropped off
One on the floor
Quick
Pick it up
Fast
And out of the door
Back on the van
Running on the board
Sorting out the bread
Looking rather bored
Next shop
Needs a lot of bread
Takes a lot of sorting
Boggles his head
With all the different types
Of bloody white bread
Different shapes
Different makes
Lots of room
To make mistakes
Don’t forget the pastries
On the side of the van
Got to be kidding
He’s not fibbing
Stacking sweets
Filled with jam
Cream puffs for the old fat man
Look around
He can’t see me
Scoff a sweet
For afternoon tea
Next door
This shopkeeper complains a lot
The bread is stale
You’re late today
We need baguettes
Right away
Don’t just stand there
Get yourself off
Yes Mr. Shopkeeper
(Why don’t you sod off)
Next shop
And the one after
Much the same
Different order
Different name
Van half-empty
Time for tea
And let’s not forget
Time to pee
Next stop
With a wink or two
The deferential driver
Gets to service her
Out in the back
In a little cozy corner
He pulls out his plum
Waiting for the shopkeeper to come
Tea for two
With a little flirt
Who loves to pull up
Her little mini skirt
Sugar please
With a little tease
She’s all already
To drop on her bended knees
So easy to please
These tartly little tease
Peak around the corner
At little Jack Horner
Such a crumpet
Is little Miss. Moffat
Tucked in the corner
Sitting on her tuffet
Servicing Jack Horner
Astride in the corner
Jack was nimble
And our Jack was quick
When she lit up
His candlestick
Out of view
He sees you
Out you go
With yesterday’s bread
Waiting for your driver
Getting a head
While you get to sort out
Day old bread
The driver comes
You’re ready to go
Time to move on
Stop after shop
Shop after stop
Repetition was repeated
Until all the bread was depleted
Back to the bakery
Into the loading bay
Finishing the daily day
With the stale bread of yesterday
And that was about it
At the end of the day
It was not bad pay
For an eight hour day
Better than a bloody Joiner
Any old day
I’m Sorry, Brenda Lee, 1960
Aside
Pieces of the Puzzle – A Jigsaw Past
Life
Is more than a box of Black Magic chocolates
It is a puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle
We are given a box
Four corners
No pictures
On the lid
We must provide our own picture
But we have been given the pieces
Each individual piece
Has an irregular shape
Depending on the size of the box
We may have many large pieces
Or very small pieces
Each defined
By illustration
Shape
Size
Each unique
With purpose
And each to suit the challenge we are given
The number of pieces will vary in each box
Locked
Together
The pieces will create
Life
A partnership of related pieces
Filling in
The void of our emptiness
The four corner pieces
Form the foundation
Which supports and structures
The stability of our life
Is guided by the edge piece
Each edge piece determines the boundaries of our life
The link piece
Defines our life
By creating meaning
From emptiness
Life
Abuts into shape
As it interlocks
Into the philosophical belief
That the parts make the whole
And the whole makes the parts
Pieces are positioned
Onto a panoramic board
Unchecked
In their scaped view
The pieces are moved
And placed into existence
In time
The piece will become
Relative
To those it touches
Pieces
Start to become
Vignettes
Clusters of illustrations
Interrelated
Into time and space
Its relevance
Is contingent on meaning
And its importance
Is illustrated into the continuum of its contextual space
Locked in
It becomes a memory
Where the events of life
Shape into the pieces of
Time
Touches our emotions
As each unique piece interlocks
Us
With the past
It locks us into the present
Grandma
Stopped in silence
Peerless eyes focused
Onto the hallowed horizon
Eyes
Lowered
And set
Onto her favorable grandchildren
Grouped
Together
In her guileless orbit
Reserved
She observed
And watched
And with farsighted luminance
Distant words resonated
When you think of your father
Put all the different pieces together
Isolated
Would serve little purpose
If
Your mind is open
All the pieces will fit and form
Together
The view will be true
The lid of life maybe closed
But the reflection of it will be illustrated with meaning
Each piece
Would be defined
And it will provide a better understanding of his whole
Life
With sadness
The grandchildren reflected
By asking the question
How will we know
When the puzzle of life has been complete
Grandma
Life
Is over
When the last piece has been placed
Into the void of time
Then the puzzle of life would have been completed
Echoing
Shadows of ephemeral childhood
Fading
But
Leaving
Its lasting imprint
Onto the landscape of time
Pieces
Locking the past
Into the present
We piece the future
Three Steps to Heaven, Eddie Cochran, 1960
Back
To Ronny
I told you
I would tell you more
About Ronny the boy next door
Ronny
Was one of a kind
A piece
Of the past
Since the age of three
He had befriended your dad
And in doing so
He was part of his puzzle
A charming catholic boy
With a chalice full of caprice
A little older
A bit bolder
But in the range of play
Together
Your dad and Ronny
Would romp through play
On a sunlit sidewalk of a summer’s day
Two of a kind
In a bubble of trouble
They would gum up the works
Like two perky Turks
Stuck together
In a bubble of fun
Chewing the breeze
Under a bursting hot sun
Often
Their bubble would burst
With Ronny’s fighting fit
Leaving
Your dad to limp home
With a bloodied lisp
Petrified
Terrified
Locked away
Under an umbrella of horseplay
Home
Alone
In his empty dark house
Trapped
In Ronny’s bedroom
Like a caged mouse
Teased
And tormented
With tortuous taunts
Ronny
Laughed
With his sweet peppermint smile
Yelling
Crying
He opens the locked door
Running away
Your dad runs to me
Leaving
A trickling trail
Running to me
He left Ronny
In a pool of pee
But most of the time
The boys would get along fine
Ronny
Worked
Hard
Like your dad
He was also a part time butcher
Boy
He worked hard
In Ray’s barber shop
Sweeping up fallen hair
Cleaning the shop from here to there
For a bob or two
He would chop up firewood
And bundle it up
For kindle wood
For a bob or two
He bred hens
In his old air raid shelter
Where he would choke of their cackle
For a half-a-crown a head
Like your dad
He was a Baker
Boy
To man
He became the driver
Of a Scott’s Bakery van
At Fourteen
He met Eva Bean
A big bosom dream
Little smarts
But a tarty bean
Got pregnant at the age of fourteen
Sad to say
Ronny
Was the dad
Of the day
At Fourteen
The friendship dwindled off
A little hello
A little chat
A bit of this
A bit of that
After all
Ronny
Was the boy next door
But let me tell you one thing
More
About Ronny the boy next door
Blood
Brothers of the street
Would enjoy the spirited times
Of post war England
One of those simple pleasures
Was to visit the annual fun fair
At
Walton Hall Park
At night
Of course
When it was dark
In the park
Erected
In a large open field
Tents stood
Frosted like white minted cupcakes
Illuminating the darkness
With candles of yellow
Light
Flickering
Under a canvas cavity of magical moonlight
Riveted to their seat
In a world turned upside down
Down
The children spun
With eyes orbiting the ground
Looking
Down
At the merry-go-round
As the white horse turns
To the timeless sound of the Merry Go Round
Up
And
Down
As the white swan turns
On a carousal of sound
Round and Round
Up
And
Down
Soon to be replaced by the Sputnik
Sound
Up
And
Down
Swarming the fair
In a chain of silver
The Teddy Boys were there
Boys and girls
Back to back
In a sea of black
You swarm the fair
Cadging a penny
To win a teddy bear
Penny
Arcade
Pop in the penny
Flip the ball
Find the hole
Bingo
The prize is yours
Lost
In a carnival of merriment
The children had danced onto a carousel of song
Skylarks
A lark in the park
Flying around the fun fair in a flight of fantasy
The night had spun its floss of sweetness
Into a web of darkness
The children left
Their tented womb
Entering the world outside
Their imaginations were pitched
Into the darkness of the night
Virtually
The light had vanished
Into the void of a vacuum
Leaving
A veiled vista of black velvet light
Now
Plugged with aversion
It was a formidable field of monographic blackness
At the time
It was rumored
That a heinous murderer
Stalked the dusky parks at night
Where he would lure unsuspected children
Into his hideous hands
Once caught
He would place them into his coal sack
Take them home
Heads held high
In search of birds
Flying by
Care for a dance luv
Lucky me
She said she’s free
Start with a hop
And finish with a bop
Thank-you-love
Got to fly
I see a cute little bird
Passing by
Start with a stroll
And dance the walk
Jive to the music
With little talk
End with the monkey
And ring the chicken
As they no longer exist
Because we now rock
With the peppermint twist
The Twist, Chubby Checker, 1960
Into the night
Rock groups would come
And go
Like the Casaba and the Jacaranda
Dance clubs
Orbited the city
With budding stars
But
It was
Eighteen stone steps
Down
Into a cellar full of noise
Four Silver Beetles
Sang with a stellar of stars
Breaking away
From their cluster
Exploding
Into a Supernova
They poured their soul
Onto the world of music
Leaving
The carnivorous core of its cavern
The four Beatles
Broke out of their metamorphosis
And climbed to the toppermost of the poppermost
Up
Eighteen stone steps
Into a magnitude of starlight
From silver to gold
They became the super stars
Of their generation
Love Me Do, Beatles, 1962
Turn to the Sea
To fined a job
So why not join the Royal Navy
Passed all his exams
Which was a surprise for him
But he failed his eyesight examination
A lazy left eye had done him in
So why not join the Merchant Navy
Passed all his exams
Which was a surprise for him
But he failed his voice examination
At fifteen his voice had still not broken
So they told him to return
When his voice had cracked
I think they were crackers to refuse him for that
Just fifteen
His little heart was broken
Back to the house
A tear or two
I held onto my squeaky little mouse
Oops
I mean my soft spoken scouse
Four months more
Soon he would be gone
Out of the door
Leaving
Me
I didn’t mind
He needed to be free
From the choking grind of the Mersey
From A Jack to a Queen, Ned Millar 1957/62
Ronny the Wild Card
Knock
Knock
Who’s there
It’s me
Ronny
Looking through the window
Door
Of opportunity
Hair black
Like a dirty spade
He stood in the doorway
Like a leading Knave
His steel blue eyes
Would trump your stare
With a Joker’s smile
He was standing there
Decked with charm
And a gorgeous face
He dealt out love
With a poker face
Bidding
For attention
With a winning face
He held out his hand
With raising grace
Standing
In a black suit
Of swaggering pride
His face was flush
Like a blushing bride
With an opening line
He bridged a smile
Stacking
His thoughts onto an assembly line
Teeth
Stacked a smile of vanity
As it glossed over his insanity
Where it hid into the darkness
Like an undiscovered cavity
Slim
And slender
Like the King
He aced the boys
With his brooding swing
To the girls
He was a five-star stud
Striping them down with a naked eye
He would melt their hearts as they pass him by
Socially
He shuffled himself to suit your style
Bluffing you
For a little while
Staking your heart
With his cutting smile
Leaving
You stranded in a vile of bile
School
Was not for him
A dummy to his kin
A brain
Addled in a bottle of gin
Wild
At times
He dealt out anger
With the sudden bang
Of a Guy Fawkes banger
Work
He didn’t miss a trick
Bright as a diamond
Sharp as a spade
He would ante up his job
With the switch of a blade
Ronny
His mate from next door
Later on
I will tell you more
About Ronny
The boy next door
He was quite a lad
He got this job for your dad
The Baker’s Boy
Like your dad
Ronny worked at Scott’s Bakery
The largest bakery in the city
Fleets of red vans
Would section off the city
Delivering
Loads of loafs
That had risen much earlier
Up at five
Not much fun
Running for a bus
With your stomach half full
They’re at six
What a rush
All to catch a bloody double decker green bus
Six days a week
Start the day
The robotic way
Sort the bread
Into an empty tray
Stack the tray
Without delay
This way
No
That way
Eight feet high
Twelve feet deep
Nine feet wide
Stack the tray
Side by side
Three sections wide
Tray by tray
Close the door
Now for the ride
Plant your seat
On the passenger’s side
Key to the ignition
Throttle the floor
Rattle the wind
Through the large bakery door
Up in the morning
Before dawn has cracked
Its yellow baked head
Assisting the driver
To deliver fresh bread
Shop to shop
With sleep in his head
All before the dew
Had penetrated the dead
Out goes the red van
Dark out there
Had no time to pee
And it’s already six-thirty
Time for delivery
Wearing a long overcoat
Of regimental tan
Draped to his knees
Looking like Desperate Dan
The Dandy man
A short ride
By the driver’s side
No time to daydream
On the passenger’s side
Out of the van
Quick as a flash
Roll up the door
Pick up the bread
And into the store
Ten white loafs
Two of rye
Stacked in your arms
Four loafs high
A nod of the head
A smile on your face
You enter the store
With a semblance of grace
Loafs
Dropped off
One on the floor
Quick
Pick it up
Fast
And out of the door
Back on the van
Running on the board
Sorting out the bread
Looking rather bored
Next shop
Needs a lot of bread
Takes a lot of sorting
Boggles his head
With all the different types
Of bloody white bread
Different shapes
Different makes
Lots of room
To make mistakes
Don’t forget the pastries
On the side of the van
Got to be kidding
He’s not fibbing
Stacking sweets
Filled with jam
Cream puffs for the old fat man
Look around
He can’t see me
Scoff a sweet
For afternoon tea
Next door
This shopkeeper complains a lot
The bread is stale
You’re late today
We need baguettes
Right away
Don’t just stand there
Get yourself off
Yes Mr. Shopkeeper
(Why don’t you sod off)
Next shop
And the one after
Much the same
Different order
Different name
Van half-empty
Time for tea
And let’s not forget
Time to pee
Next stop
With a wink or two
The deferential driver
Gets to service her
Out in the back
In a little cozy corner
He pulls out his plum
Waiting for the shopkeeper to come
Tea for two
With a little flirt
Who loves to pull up
Her little mini skirt
Sugar please
With a little tease
She’s all already
To drop on her bended knees
So easy to please
These tartly little tease
Peak around the corner
At little Jack Horner
Such a crumpet
Is little Miss. Moffat
Tucked in the corner
Sitting on her tuffet
Servicing Jack Horner
Astride in the corner
Jack was nimble
And our Jack was quick
When she lit up
His candlestick
Out of view
He sees you
Out you go
With yesterday’s bread
Waiting for your driver
Getting a head
While you get to sort out
Day old bread
The driver comes
You’re ready to go
Time to move on
Stop after shop
Shop after stop
Repetition was repeated
Until all the bread was depleted
Back to the bakery
Into the loading bay
Finishing the daily day
With the stale bread of yesterday
And that was about it
At the end of the day
It was not bad pay
For an eight hour day
Better than a bloody Joiner
Any old day
I’m Sorry, Brenda Lee, 1960
Aside
Pieces of the Puzzle – A Jigsaw Past
Life
Is more than a box of Black Magic chocolates
It is a puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle
We are given a box
Four corners
No pictures
On the lid
We must provide our own picture
But we have been given the pieces
Each individual piece
Has an irregular shape
Depending on the size of the box
We may have many large pieces
Or very small pieces
Each defined
By illustration
Shape
Size
Each unique
With purpose
And each to suit the challenge we are given
The number of pieces will vary in each box
Locked
Together
The pieces will create
Life
A partnership of related pieces
Filling in
The void of our emptiness
The four corner pieces
Form the foundation
Which supports and structures
The stability of our life
Is guided by the edge piece
Each edge piece determines the boundaries of our life
The link piece
Defines our life
By creating meaning
From emptiness
Life
Abuts into shape
As it interlocks
Into the philosophical belief
That the parts make the whole
And the whole makes the parts
Pieces are positioned
Onto a panoramic board
Unchecked
In their scaped view
The pieces are moved
And placed into existence
In time
The piece will become
Relative
To those it touches
Pieces
Start to become
Vignettes
Clusters of illustrations
Interrelated
Into time and space
Its relevance
Is contingent on meaning
And its importance
Is illustrated into the continuum of its contextual space
Locked in
It becomes a memory
Where the events of life
Shape into the pieces of
Time
Touches our emotions
As each unique piece interlocks
Us
With the past
It locks us into the present
Grandma
Stopped in silence
Peerless eyes focused
Onto the hallowed horizon
Eyes
Lowered
And set
Onto her favorable grandchildren
Grouped
Together
In her guileless orbit
Reserved
She observed
And watched
And with farsighted luminance
Distant words resonated
When you think of your father
Put all the different pieces together
Isolated
Would serve little purpose
If
Your mind is open
All the pieces will fit and form
Together
The view will be true
The lid of life maybe closed
But the reflection of it will be illustrated with meaning
Each piece
Would be defined
And it will provide a better understanding of his whole
Life
With sadness
The grandchildren reflected
By asking the question
How will we know
When the puzzle of life has been complete
Grandma
Life
Is over
When the last piece has been placed
Into the void of time
Then the puzzle of life would have been completed
Echoing
Shadows of ephemeral childhood
Fading
But
Leaving
Its lasting imprint
Onto the landscape of time
Pieces
Locking the past
Into the present
We piece the future
Three Steps to Heaven, Eddie Cochran, 1960
Back
To Ronny
I told you
I would tell you more
About Ronny the boy next door
Ronny
Was one of a kind
A piece
Of the past
Since the age of three
He had befriended your dad
And in doing so
He was part of his puzzle
A charming catholic boy
With a chalice full of caprice
A little older
A bit bolder
But in the range of play
Together
Your dad and Ronny
Would romp through play
On a sunlit sidewalk of a summer’s day
Two of a kind
In a bubble of trouble
They would gum up the works
Like two perky Turks
Stuck together
In a bubble of fun
Chewing the breeze
Under a bursting hot sun
Often
Their bubble would burst
With Ronny’s fighting fit
Leaving
Your dad to limp home
With a bloodied lisp
Petrified
Terrified
Locked away
Under an umbrella of horseplay
Home
Alone
In his empty dark house
Trapped
In Ronny’s bedroom
Like a caged mouse
Teased
And tormented
With tortuous taunts
Ronny
Laughed
With his sweet peppermint smile
Yelling
Crying
He opens the locked door
Running away
Your dad runs to me
Leaving
A trickling trail
Running to me
He left Ronny
In a pool of pee
But most of the time
The boys would get along fine
Ronny
Worked
Hard
Like your dad
He was also a part time butcher
Boy
He worked hard
In Ray’s barber shop
Sweeping up fallen hair
Cleaning the shop from here to there
For a bob or two
He would chop up firewood
And bundle it up
For kindle wood
For a bob or two
He bred hens
In his old air raid shelter
Where he would choke of their cackle
For a half-a-crown a head
Like your dad
He was a Baker
Boy
To man
He became the driver
Of a Scott’s Bakery van
At Fourteen
He met Eva Bean
A big bosom dream
Little smarts
But a tarty bean
Got pregnant at the age of fourteen
Sad to say
Ronny
Was the dad
Of the day
At Fourteen
The friendship dwindled off
A little hello
A little chat
A bit of this
A bit of that
After all
Ronny
Was the boy next door
But let me tell you one thing
More
About Ronny the boy next door
Blood
Brothers of the street
Would enjoy the spirited times
Of post war England
One of those simple pleasures
Was to visit the annual fun fair
At
Walton Hall Park
At night
Of course
When it was dark
In the park
Erected
In a large open field
Tents stood
Frosted like white minted cupcakes
Illuminating the darkness
With candles of yellow
Light
Flickering
Under a canvas cavity of magical moonlight
Riveted to their seat
In a world turned upside down
Down
The children spun
With eyes orbiting the ground
Looking
Down
At the merry-go-round
As the white horse turns
To the timeless sound of the Merry Go Round
Up
And
Down
As the white swan turns
On a carousal of sound
Round and Round
Up
And
Down
Soon to be replaced by the Sputnik
Sound
Up
And
Down
Swarming the fair
In a chain of silver
The Teddy Boys were there
Boys and girls
Back to back
In a sea of black
You swarm the fair
Cadging a penny
To win a teddy bear
Penny
Arcade
Pop in the penny
Flip the ball
Find the hole
Bingo
The prize is yours
Lost
In a carnival of merriment
The children had danced onto a carousel of song
Skylarks
A lark in the park
Flying around the fun fair in a flight of fantasy
The night had spun its floss of sweetness
Into a web of darkness
The children left
Their tented womb
Entering the world outside
Their imaginations were pitched
Into the darkness of the night
Virtually
The light had vanished
Into the void of a vacuum
Leaving
A veiled vista of black velvet light
Now
Plugged with aversion
It was a formidable field of monographic blackness
At the time
It was rumored
That a heinous murderer
Stalked the dusky parks at night
Where he would lure unsuspected children
Into his hideous hands
Once caught
He would place them into his coal sack
Take them home
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