Keelhaul

 Don't you baste me ,

or bawl me out,

berate me,

or call me down,

I'm just trying to be a sailor man

There's no need to Keel haul

Oh don't you castigate me,

chastise me,

or chew me out,

I've been criticised

And I'll chew you up

And spit you out

Oh captain don't you

dress me down,

Or flay me

With a cat o nine tails

Of my nine lives

I've had eight

I'm not ready to go to the

Pearly gates

So there's no need to Keel haul

Don't you hammer me,

or jaw me,

Might as well hang and draw me

Because if all I'm good for

In the ocean's waste

Is just for you to lambast or lambaste

For more pace less haste

But just don't you keelhaul

Oh but you can lecture me,

rag me, or rail at me,

I'll turn student and learn the ropes

I'll learn one end of a yardarm

From a sergeant at arms with hope

But you may rant at me,

rate me, ream out the Ship of State at me

I just ask this if you don't hate me

No need to keelhaul

Oh, go ahead rebuke me Make me sick and whale fluke me

But if they approach will you reproach me

For crying "Whale Ahoy!" firstly?

Will you scold me with a fiery tongue Or brand me to know the score That you tongue-lash me

"It's for your own good, son"

Oh just don't keelhaul

Yes upbraid me, or downgrade me

Send me to the lower quarters

Get me to scrub the decks

Like the dreaming brows

Of your fair faced daughters

Oh bang me to rights

Or bang me up

Lock me in tight

Or in the stocks

Call me brass monkey

Let me carry shot

But just do not

Keel haul

Ocean's eleven -or Rhyme of the ancient mariner Revisited

I set off for eleven oceans

After I'd sailed seven seas

Four more I could not fail

I thought it would be a breeze

I was a lonesome vagabond

in search of riches, tourism and drink

But on that eleventh ocean

was where my ship did sink

A-drowning I was ship-wrecked

my raft it was marooned

upon the shore of a far off Isle

by a whale I had Harpooned

For where is this poor countree

that ye have towed me to?

He said well lonesome vagabond

I've towed ye to Peru

Peru I said and startled up

Where canst a man walk home?

Neigh dear lonesome Mariner

For too far have ye now roamed

But Lo what Majestic sky turned out

When I did turn me Head

For Heaven displayed a plethora of stars

One if followed must home me led

To orient I fixed the whale

Again out on the ocean

And told him hence to beat his tail

And thus from this dark Isle we shall give motion

And so on the crew of one did wend

It's starlit toiling passion

For the sea was as green as a wild monster

Calling my heart's courage to ration

Never a boat had thus put sail

Upon these treacherous seas

Nor chart or map to orient

Our pathless way to ease

We journeyed on without rainfall,

Our mouths were parched as sands

And the rats which fled from my raft

The searing heat they could not stand

Then to me appeared a visage of a friend

One I had known but now long lost

A man I had betrayed in love

And now before me visited his ghost

Accusing eyes they pierced me

And cut me to the quick

That I should live, while he had died

No candle burns a faster wick

Then flames in cohorts filled the scene

And seemed to set a light the timber

And in each flame a visage appeared

Of a man who was my crew member

They called to me and cried still worse

Why have you forsaken your brothers?

Because your life and ours were tied together

Now our deaths will be your curse

So, on I fled, crying “take me away from this guilt”

And soon from the air came a wandering dove

The evil which gave voice to these spirits

Had been dissolved by a face of love

The dove joined my vessel and led the

Whale towards dark cliffs,

“It is land “I cried

And so grateful was I

That no line written could tell of my bliss

Thank you said I, but then down did he die

Exhausted upon the deck

My future still lay in the balance, so for luck

I wore the bird around my neck

The Island was old and grey from a distance

But with speed became more familiar

It was the very spot I had sailed from

In June fifteen long years past clear

The wedding guests had arrived and there

I went with utmost haste

Now to you I regale my tale

Of eleven ocean's to which I lay waste