My life ebbs and flows

My life ebbs and flows

With the passing of days,

Skirting a rolling sea

With its taunting roar

Its gentle splash,

Never the same from one day unto the next.

The shoreline, strewn with seaweed

And the reek of rotting fish

A high tide mark

Ground into the sand like a scruffy schoolboy’s

Struggle with puberty,

Snotty-nosed and pimply

With an aroma of yesterday’s undies

And nocturnal emissions.

Sea birds laugh girlishly

Waiting to pick up the pieces

As a trawler rolls by

The heavy thud of its oily engine

Carried across the bay

On a breeze

Filled with the whispers of fishermen

Who never made it home,

The old songs, long forgotten.

The Quayside is empty

There are no fishwives

To do the filleting

It is a cutthroat business now,

Scouring the sea until it is dead.

The sand is a gift for the playful dog

Set free of a lead,

They love a Seastar which used to be called a Starfish,

Worrying it like a dead mouse

Before adopting the doggy squat to defecate

Too far away from its owner to stop

Another bit of business on the side.

Strollers and health freaks pick their way through,

Watching each step

“This is not a dog beach.” someone calls

But nobody seems to care

As another stick is thrown into the air

And a Jack Russell becomes a retriever

Just for the day.

Jolly Jack Tars’ from the Seamen’s mission

Sit together in the rain, wrapped in waterproofs

Sharing stories and weeping silently

At the memory

Wondering when they will ship out,

Their lives always focused on the next trip

The rising tides,

Another voyage beyond the far horizon

A Viking funeral,

Waiting for the moon

To rise above the water.

What a wonderful sight it will be

As they sail into the backdrop,

Never content to be just another passenger

Captains of their own destiny,

Even in an electric wheelchair.