Grimbeau

Anchor cleaning: orders of the day.

Not too windy to drift.

Up after dog watch thinking on the charts.

Took a row across the harbour.

Thought about the little snob I was; how I hated them,

not for what they were,

but what they had to become…

Oedipus was a rich kid, so was Little Hans.

Give them a chance not a choice, a chance to be like you, boss?

No thanks, I couldn’t handle it.

Not this way.

I drift…

…away off down to the cabin is where I drift

to and thereafter, the galley for thick, honey porridge,

with rustic ripped banana hunks and chocolate in stick and heart form.

Feeling a queer unease I patient on the thick, night green socks, intake a Handel

organ frill, damn the rococo, and headaloft thinking gothic tea cozies, shaking violently with warps,

sucking crumbs of welshcake from the hidden gulleys…