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