Poetry thread

[in_vino_vomitus]

I wonder how far this will go? Every forum needs a poetry thread and try as I might I couldn't find one on here.

Anyway, This is by a guy called Alan Ross, who served on Destroyers in WWII and was involved in the Battle of the Barents Sea. I found it in an old school textbook that was being used as decor in a theme pub in Preston. Since the function of books is to be read, rather than to decorate, I viewed lifting it as more of a rescue than theft......



The sky rinsed as a blue-jean collar,
And the train, on this April Monday, idling
with nothing better to do than to follow
The curves and windings of sidling
Rivers, and, sniffing marsh air, at snail's
Pace clank through the flapping
Washing, proud as Potemkin -

Swans glide in flotillas on lapping
Waters, and the estuaries hang up their sails
Indigo rust and cerulean,
And clouds like transfers, soak
On surfaces of inlets where beached boats
Vamp the sun on a morning that floats.

Hamble Halt, Bursledon, Bitterne -
We edge through rushes, inhaling the paint
From upturned houseboats, ketches, yawls
And hear soon the first faint
Siren notes from Pompey harbour - the train crawls
Past old Landing Craft, their flaking keels
No longer chipped after raking patrols,
But flopped on the mud like veteran seals,

And I am suddenly returned there,
To a crumbling shore and a barracks where
- Was it in the same lifetime? -
We dawdled between ships, without rhyme
or reason filling in each day
Awaiting the signal that would sever
The links, and whisk us from the bay
For an unknown time that might be forever

Once more I am prey
To this dockyard smell, so that I crick
My neck to lean from the train,
And feast my eyes on the derricks
That line the quays among bollards and cranes,
And catch a glimpse, as they ride at anchor,
Of two destroyers, a frigate and tanker,
My eyes lingering on them (as should they meet
Old lovers, not often remembered).
This morning of rusting dismembered
Vessels, languishing here from an ailing fleet,
Takes on fresh tenderness for me -
Longing for faces I shall not again see.

Alan Ross