The Western Ocean Man

I’m a Western Ocean mariner and I’ll tell you if I can,
Of awesome winter weather encountered here by man,
The seas build up with fury over miles of storm tossed waves,
Hulls of ships are pounded and steering mis-behaves.

Clouds are tattered rags amid the frequent squall,
Merging with the streaking peaks many storeys tall,
The air it feels like buckshot in the form of spray,
Wind is banshee howling, through rigging in the way.

A `hogging and a `sagging we ride the raging main,
Fore and aft with shaking mast the vessel wracks with strain,
Rolling and a pitching in vast and lengthy swells,
Thundering seas crashing down filling up the wells.

We dare not run before it - we’d poop our stern asunder,
We must not run along it - we’d roll ourselves right under,
The motion of a corkscrew she spirals up and round,
Crashing into head seas with a `whoomping` sound.

Half a mile from crest to crest in rolling hills of brine,
Ship trembling now but climbing - only just in time,
Arriving on a summit, we take a diving plunge,
Dropping down into a trough with stomach churning lunge.

The stern would lift, engine race, the screw would clear the water,
Speeding in it’s freedom - vibrating through the quarter,
Shovelled up the hawse pipes, a green sea thumps the prow,
Shooting tons to leeward off the flooded bow.

Battened down and hove-to waiting out the weather,
Standing tricks and watches working there together,
A sturdy ship beneath me and doughty crew beside,
A Western Ocean seaman takes it in his stride.

J.Earl July `05