Inspired by Alice

A boat beneath the sunny sky
that lingered onward dreamily,
breathing heavy in the hot July
the crew gasped air quite steamily.
Sailing off into the sunny sky.
The three children that nestled near,
listening, watching, silent to hear
the tales of sailors drinking beers
and laughing loud and jollily.
Eavesdropping eyes popping
as the sailor’s tales of sharks and snails
and strange sea people who sing their songs
and sink their ships
on their long and dusty ocean trips
to lands far beyond the horizon’s dip.
Quell and go,
the harbor shields
but what it yields
is nothing without the lofty pea green sea.
The frothy waves and whistling wind
sing a song the tune begin to
sweep the cloudless sunbeam sky,
And moonless nights the stars go by,
the stars be guiding while waves whisper their songs
and wait for the sun to kiss them goodmorning
and the ships on the run with the winds
at their back and Venus giggles happily.
She’s the only one left, for Orion had gone and left her again,
away when all the sea beguiles them.
Leafless, lifeless seas’ October, salty men .
Taken away by the shiny white clouds
on the great open blue
until it rained on all of us giving it a rather grey hue.
The sky grew pale with a heavy gale
that filled our masts and the captains sound
could not keep the angered winds at bay.
Through the winds and heavy hail
the tempest torn our sorry sail
and the foresail to lower away.
and filling us all with the dread of the storm in the dark.
and the snap of the ship and with tears in our eyes
we cursed the stormy, whirling, twirling skies
surrendered our ship to the end of her days.
Once more she has the sea in it’s ways,
cruelly cruelly dooming our days.
They boarded the wreck in the morning,
a dismal sight beheld by all
the captains log and the masts once tall.
Three dead seamen underboard,
fourteen more unaccounted for.
Seventeen heartsick widows weeping
‘curse the sea be, my husband keeping…
keep him safe and warm and dry…
not under where the shadows lie
beneath the waves he had to die grey and cold and worn.’
A tear came to the children’s half-unbelieving eyes,
the tales that seamen always tell,
and all we can do is echo their anguished cries
and weep for them as well.
And as a sunrise doesn’t last all morning,
the tears do not quell the whole night through
for along the shoreside thinking of you
and your return if return you will,
I be here this clam and krill…
Do not listen to the siren song
and do not be away too long…
bittersweet love that cannot die.
Crushed the rocks and made me cry
for one more day you were away forever out at sea.