Auckland Poetry.com

A Shanty.

I will walk to where the open mass grave of
bleached sandstones is, the grave is flanked
by sober olive trees, which have silvery leaves
and in the breeze remind me of the Black Sea.

I was on tank-ships walked on iron decks and
dreamt of sandy beaches, when ship docked
miles of pipes and oil refineries was on offer,
and lights of cities were always too far away.

Badly paid and far from home this was not
a song of a “Youngman Jansen’s life; a loss
of time if you ask me. The slam of an engine
door a watch over, the sea was isolation.

Ashore together fearful of wolves that circled
us looking for the weakest in the flock, drink
up it’s midnight the last launch back to our ship
in the bay is leaving now, yes, lost was time.

Deep shadows in the vale trees are green again
as breeze dies, I’ll leave my past where it belongs
in the cupboard of the forgettable, I’m free now
and no longer a prisoner of the sea.

shadows and echoes silhouetted amid weeds
on well-dressed windows, hindering, the view
of stripped auditors with CEOs, in the introverted night-light,
the fading moths in the shadows, a satiated cat, in the meadows,
the factory, a raven lacking in wings, eager to take off ,
wind bouncing off unhinged tin sheets shrieking a howl of grouses
in a stunning spasm akin to a fake frisson, the inexplicable insides
murmuring an old contraption’s stutter;
crunched credits lay side by side
with unwashed linen in a bunch,
among bank badges,
‘wrenching’- hooks, ‘black holed’ sledge hammers, mindless and tainted
among pledged stocks ; salt-rubbed , branded goodies, abandoned,
oiled, greased and tattered skirts, under the table,
skeletons of a skirted albatrosses in the neck,
culpable fallow rubbers, inflatable, making a child’s innocence afloat,
lingering, lacy longings unvoiced among the umpteen pads of invoices.
the silent phone with saturated giggles,
the corroded columns, like so many phalluses,
incomplete, pending stimulus.