NAUTICAL POETRY

[KG]

NEW AND OLD POEMS ALWAYS SOUGHT:

[KG]

Lucky to Survive ??

"They told me I was so lucky to survive" "I believed them because I was alive ".

The U-boats found us in those frozen seas, and cold freezing wintery blasts, Leaving your mangled bodies in sea, oil, blood, and ice, floating past.

"They told me I was so lucky to survive" "I believed them because I was alive"

Yet when I look around the country today
everything seems in such a disarray,
Truth, freedom, honour, and integrity, for
which they fought and died

Now mocked, spinned, trashed, and
contemptuously despised.

My memories grow old and weary in
the dim distant past

"Oh" how I long for that comradeship
once in our grasp

"They told me I was so lucky to survive"

If those words are really true, Why do I long for that distant haven with all of you?

Poem by Tom Pim.
Submitted by Tom Pim, found on the net – C. 2003
Reproduced out of respect.

[KG]

For All Seafarers

Even in peace, scant quiet is at sea;
In war, each revolution of the screw,
Each breath of air that blows the colours free,
May be the last life movement known to you.

Death, thrusting up or down, may disunite
Spirit from body, purpose from the hull,
with thunder, bringing leaving of the light,
With lightning letting nothingness annul.

No rock, no danger, bears a warning sign,
No lighthouse scatters welcome through the dark;
Above the sea, the bomb; afloat the mine;
Beneath, the gangs of torpedo-shark.

Year after year, with insufficient guard,
Often with none, you have adventured thus;
Some, reaching harbour, maimed and battle-scarred,
Some, never more returning, lost to us.

But, if you 'scape, tomorrow, you will steer
to peril once again, to bring us bread,
To dare again, beneath the sky of fear,
The moon moved graveyard of your brothers dead,

You were salvation to the army lost,
Trapped, but for you, upon the Dunkirk beach;
Death barred the way to Russia, but you crosst;
To Crete and Malta, but you succoured each.

Unrecognized, you put us in your debt;
Unthanked, you enter, or escape, the grave;
Whether your land remember or forget
You saved the land, or died to try to save.

John Masefield

[KG]

CONVOYS 1939 – 45

Rolling Home in Convoys five miles wide or more,
Our hardy Merchant seamen await the night in store,
A crawling speed of eight knots from Halifax to home,
Escorts interweaving, darting through the foam.

The wolf pack will be lurking, waiting in advance,
To shoot a damn torpedo when they get a chance,
These men that run the gauntlet are wary all the time,
Hoping that their own ships avoid the firing line.

Keen to get the cargo through but sitting like a duck,
Trusting to the Navy boys and large amounts of luck,
Fearing of forsaken ships and fires that light the sky,
Foretelling of the danger as fine men sink and die.

Counter measures not so good against the U-boat’s tricks
Resulting in foul carnage and spreading oily slicks
Staunchly sailing on, through the weeks of dread
Keeping lifelines open while flying flags of red.

Some steaming back to Liverpool and also to the Clyde,
Freighters bound for Barry and Avonmouth`s big tide,
Tankers make for jetties all around our shores,
With extra miles zigzagging making wide detours.

Still they run the risk, of colliding with a mine,
Or bombing from a Kondor patrolling over brine,
Plus the usual hazards known to all seadogs,
Hurricanes and storms or blinding ghostly fogs.

When and if they sail through, after trips of trial,
Seamen don a brave face with grim or cheery smile,
They’ll endure the war, `till victory bells are rung,
Then carry on seafaring - bravery unsung.

J.S.Earl Oct.09

[KG]

LIFEBOATS

Many thousand seamen were sunk by diverse means,
In wartime by a bomber or more likely submarines,
Perchance to reach a lifeboat amid the death and strife,
Hoping to be picked up conserving precious life.

With a ship abandoned (the Owners stopped your pay)
In truth the only real chance was rescue right away,
Survivors of such numerous crews were cast adrift at sea,
Not knowing of the end result whenever that would be.

Mal de mer was commonplace, in the troughs and peaks,
Exposure and the trauma went on for days or weeks,
Misery intense with sunburn and the thirst,
Hypothermia, overcrowding, or weather at it’s worst.

No comfort on the wooden thwarts, feet were always wet,
Capsizing or plain madness an ever constant threat,
Salt water boils so painful in unrelenting spray,
And the need for bailing, constant every day.

The usual fare were biscuits a bit too dry to munch,
Unless crushed up with tinned milk, pulping them for lunch,
Perhaps if they were lucky there was Bovril pemmican,
Or Horlicks formed in tablets issued to each man.

Still not enough for voyages with survival at the fore,
Firm energy required for handling of the oar,
The wooden boats unwieldy, difficult to sail,
And progress near essential for ending their travail.

Fantastic feats of seamanship and courage went unsung,
Even after wartime when victory bells were rung,
Providence would play her part in this longest war,
In a vast and angry ocean a long way from the shore.

Joe Earl Nov. 2009