The Aberdeen Poems by Alain English
The Aberdeen Poems by Alain English
Girdle Ness
On the bench
I land myself
Some flowers placed
Beneath my feet
The white horse skips
Along the bay
It gallops past
As I give way
Surrendering at last to fate
My fingers grasp at heaven's gate
With weariness
I come to rest
Upon the rocks of Girdle Ness
A Life At Sea
The muddy rocks of Stewart's Shoal
The deep ravines of Devil's Hole
Awash with herring, cod and sole
Langoustine prawn
To haul them in - a skipper's goal
The hunt is on
A young lad out to prove his worth
Sets out to find himself a berth
The skipper with his ruddy girth
Will brook no hassle
Before you step from off the earth
To board his vessel
The skipper in his wheelhouse knows
To keep his crewmen on their toes
So they will never come to blows
They know their station
No matter where his vessel goes
There's trepidation
That's faced with banter as they graft
And grind until they've nothing left
The humour gives them all a lift
And helps them manage
To land a catch on every shift
On every voyage
For trawling is a real man's work
It's not for those who like to shirk
And drive the crewman all beserk -
They're in the way
A ship needs men who want to work
To get a pay
The broken nets are needing spliced
The hauled in fish cleaned up and sliced
And when that's done they're boxed and iced
The graft is endless
And many crews with death have diced
The sea's relentless
A storm comes in, the waves will thrash
And down upon the deck they crash
Against the wooden beams they smash
The boat asunder
A lad goes over in a flash
He's been pulled under
And back at port, they say a prayer
The families are in despair
For life at sea just isn't fair
It's unforgiving
To brave the sea and bitter air
To make a living
Across the rolling sea they roam
And through the waves and salty foam
The waters are a skipper's home
Alive and free
A life apart, a life alone
A life at sea.
Inferno
On the rig,
Alive with heat
A flock of scattered white hats
Race towards the sea
Hell erupting at their feet
In the galley
Men wait cautiously
Their white masks
Stifling their voices
As the smoke seeps under the door
Landing in the blackness
Surfacing in a grill
Flames rolling across the sea
As the workers wrestle
With the searing waves
Towards fragments of hope
Shrouded in smoke
Sailing back toward the shore
Piper Alpha
A set of clay figures
Hazed in roses
Stand upon a granite block
Their names etched in gold
One figure faces east
Towards the sea
One hand clenched
Beside his head
In steadfast defiance
The other hand open
The fingers wilting
Afraid to say goodbye
The Highlander
However old I get
No matter where I go
I cannot forget the ghosts of those
Who never made it home
A mess of skin and bone
Carrying rock down Hellfire Pass
The guards prop us
Throwing stones at us
To pass the time
As we haul our load up the hill
Digging ditches for the timber
Suppressing our past lives
Sentiment kills
As we dig our own graves
Taking rifle butts to the face
Taking a beating
The more we wilt
The more we cower
The greater pleasure they take
In lording it over us
Feeding us rice
Rice, rice, and more rice
Rotted with weevils and lice
Men cram inside the sleeping shacks
Piling up on the floor
A smorgasbord of sweat and skin
As bedbugs emerge from the cracks
To dine on our thinning blood
Our flesh rotting
As we're herded like used cattle
Onto the cargo ship of doom
This is the hellship
Hell is the darkness
Sucking the air
From out our shrunken lungs
The humanity from out
Of what is left of our bodies
Crowded together
Wading blindly through
Human waste and flesh
Unsure which is which
And not caring
We're starving
Animalism takes over
Animalism reverts to vampirism
Vampirism to cannibalism
Devouring each other
The devil dances in an empty stomach
In this black hole of insanity
Salvation comes
In the form of a torpedo
Hell sinks
As we scramble to the surface
Where we list on the waves
Abandoned
The ablutions of Satan
Waiting for a miracle
We somehow land ashore
To be told the war is over
But we were damned if we knew better
Waiting and recuperating
Until the great and good
Shuttle us quietly back to where
We came from
Our shattered souls
Our broken bodies
Cannot interfere with politics
No, not at all
At home, I sleep in the chair
For fear of choking my wife
Tearing the clothes off my back
Remembering the times I couldn't fight back
The flesh returns
The scars heal up
The anger still remains
Never be a hero
They die fast, or they go mad
Patriotism is a lie
We were not fighting for Queen and Country
We were fighting for our lives
Baby Cry Room
The sun glows
Through the golden windows
In the worship hall
A pompous aura of solemnity
Interrupted by a random wailing
An infant trapped in purgatory
A contrite mother
Covers the child
And takes her into a small chamber
For the very young
Tantrums and prayers are the same
In this Citadel of peace
God is the silence of a sound-proofed room
Across the Dee
The river rushes
Towards the bay
The granite stones
Arch across
Too cold to burn
Deep within the city
I hear the bagpipes croon
Will ye no come back again-
And soon!”
Memory Swings
Punting the ball
Down the fair, deserted grass
Past the trees
A pool of blue baize
Rimmed with twinkling silver light
The grey, shifting sky
Breathes on my face
A dream of home
As they say, finish on a song -
The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen
