Sea friend

 Sea of Is

Sea of mes 

Reflecting in the skies for eternity

Sea of yous

Sea of trees

Sea of wes

Stretching out to infinity

Sea of mirrors

Looking eye to eye

Creation is a mirror

The sea reflects the sky

Sea of mes and sea of yous

What will happen to our sea views

When oceans meet and fuse

Sea of Is sea of yous

You can hold me in your arms

And I can hold you in my palms

Wild breeze blowing out on our seas

Oh sea of yous, sea of mes

Hold the key to ocean floor

Hold me please, so I may adore

All of you and all of me

Sea of you's sea of mes

Hold me then

Don't let me drown

We swimming under the sun's crown

Fisher men search for our souls

Where catch them in part or whole

In the hour of my days

I hold you in the sea of haze 

Something tells me we will meet again

So don't wave good bye

Forever my sea friend

Hush now

 Hush now since the waves are falling white

And the sea is beginning to cave

Hush now since the day is turning into night

And my love it cannot save

Hush now since the coast is pure delight

And the cove it boasts its haven

A safe ground for the boats to moor at night

While about them the storm is ravin

Hush now since the ghost of your father's light

Has visited you in the tavern

And he tells you he knows who cut his throat

While the bats roosted in the cavern

Hush now since the day is turning into night

And the bees are beginning their humming

And cicadas at the motel are spotting in fights

And security guards are bumming

Hush now as the rays are turning white

And the clouds are beginning to open

And the sun comes like a chariot in the morning light

As the sleep spell is almost broken

The sea within

There is a sea of eyes
That look up to the skies
And blink when you look that them
But they never blink at the sun

There is a sea of green,
Skirted by the dark unseen
Shadows and shades of hedges
The black balein bales swim
In the shallow yellow sedges

There is a hill of souls
Filled with little holes
Of shells from ages past
From a sea that did not last

The last sea that was forever
Changed geography
Topography and graph
Of this land
So that no more sea could stand the tide
And to the poles it went to hide
In ice

And it was as some end
When the forces of nature tore
And rend stone, from stone
Crust from crust
Dust to dust
And Ash well to ashes

But in an underwater threshing
It fizzled
And fettered, and threatened
And cajoled
The fish and crustaceans
Into mountains of white gold bone
Which it layered and striated
Fold after fold
And under pressure of time and sand
It turned them all to chalk
Into these limestone caves
And bank vaults locked with calcium
Carbonate
The Mendip hills foot at the gate
More ground down than
And oyster has shined her pearl
The rolls and curls
And ribbons of rock
Stand with words written through them
History
And they stretch on out
Into the estuary

Icebergs Ahoy

Well I guess I must have hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
But hey somedays that's just
The way things go

Well I ran on to the border
And said now I know you heard her
But you said you thought
That I oughta know

Well it happened on my watch
I fell asleep and I did botch
The one job that a sailor
Oughta know

Well I thought I heard it coming
That low and distant drumming
But the night was full of fog
And my eyes were full of snow

Well I guess I must have hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
And the criminal they brought her
Down below

Well the engines they were humming
And the sailors they were bumming
Cigarettes to bet with down below

A black jack game was running
And the thief he had great cunning
And he won his fortune
In the stow

Yes he guessed he might have hurt her
He got away with murder
But somedays, you know
Thats just the way things go

And he was just a passenger
Holding up the messenger
Who was running to tell
The Captain of the ice floe

But they never saw the danger
No they were safe asleep in manger
And it happened on my watch
So I ought know

Yes I got away with murder
I thought my medicine had cured her
And I rang the bells full stop
On the decks below

And they say that natures red
In tooth and claw
And all is fair in love and war
But it happened that her ship never
Reached the shore

And the ship it lurched sideways
And the Orchestra played
My Way
And I thought I saw Sinatra
Sing for sure

As the Ice berg cut the violins
They bounced and jumped upon the strings
And tore great holes in the hull
Of her score

And I guess I must of hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
But now I'm in the water
And nothing's like before

Well I hear the silverware clatter
Collapse, and shake the chandellier
The Piano is swallowing sea water
Like the shore

And it happened on my watch
I was dreaming of my scotch
And before I knew it a mountain
Had come in the door

Well the ship went down near Labrador
The cargo was jettisoned
The luggage was soaking wet on and soon
The passengers in life boats
In the flotsam

And I keep dreaming of America
America, my saviour
Who could save a wretch like me?
I keep swimming for that dream
For the land of the brave and free
Because I got away with murder
At the door

Now that ship has sailed

Well I thought that you had gone to sea
In boat as clear as glass
You unfurled ropes with the windlass
To escape you never failed
And I thought that we might have one more chance
But now that ship has sailed

Well in kind I caught the capston
In kind I held the mast
And in my mind the latches I made fast
But the storm it still hailed
And as I stared out I took one last glance
But now that ship has sailed

Its not enough of oceans
Its not enough to laugh
The pain of my emotions is half
Of when my crucifix is nailed
And I thought that I'd have one last stance
But now that ship has sailed

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 his were tied together

Now his death 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 mermaid (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 had he died

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 upmost haste

Now to you I regale my tale

Of eleven ocean's to which I lay waste

A day to remember

The dog is like a restless moon
Always moving
Always moving
Its out of focus
Gone too soon

And the home we had
Its on the move
The removals men
Are trying to improve

Somme days long ago
In a field
Where the mud twists up
In the weeds
And the elder-flower berries
Are too visceral
To touch in memory

I see
In fragments
This listless beast
It rises
Like the Spanish Armada
On oceans like a bloody
horizon
Where the Sun bleeds
Out its yoke

And the reel ends
I'm back with friends
And the joke
Is on me
As I sit on the straw bale
The wedding has paled
In to the diffuse night
Storms rise in the window
The fires ebb in the hearth

All the dust and showers
Of yesterdays powers
Have lent us their
Forgetting laugh

And tragic is the road
But this is perception
It is nothing so true
As memory

Coal eyes burning

Coal island bound
On the ship
On the rocking waves
I'm on my way
To the black coal face
I will work in the gutters
The shores of respite
Will heal my soul
And my ship will be scuppered
On that island of coal
I've hurt and I've suffered
For the whys and the Hows
The whos and the whats
But if I had to tell
What it was I learned
I can't say a lot
Apart from how and when
To be a fool to myself
When someone rings a bell
I jump
When they start to yell
I slump
Like a puppet on string
Held by you

The puppet island sailors
Are calling now
Writing letters
To the roving butterflies
That are blown across oceans
Whose pupae have squirmed
Chrysalises shake
In the mid Atlantic wake
Of the Ships
That go sailing by