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Home / Terry Stephen Driscoll / Shadow Over the Shanty

Shadow Over the Shanty

by Terry Stephen Driscoll

old manTell us a tale
oh swan of the sea,
With your wind sweeping
feathered white hair,

A beard that has harboured
the salts of the earth,
And hands, by the rope,
stripped bare,

Teach us of pirates
and far away lands,
Of smugglers
that sailed upon high,

Cutthroats
and maritime plunder,
And Jacks drinking
rum barrels dry,

Of gruelling
tempestuous sea states,
Of violent
intolerant gales,

The pitiless task
of a timber cut bow,
Of dolphins,
of marlin, and whales,

No tales
of the merciless oceans,
Or yarns of the sea
will I spin,

My tongue holds
respectful in silence,
For the hearts of forever
lost seafaring kin,

The Swift, The Medina,
The Rosemary-Ann,
Took passages
bound from this port,

And each fall of night
I walk the old wharf,
Where hearts bring the losses
of loved ones to thought,

When a shadow’s cast over the shanty,
The skin of Poseidon is burned,
By a moon that rises in memory,
Of ships that will never return.

Copyright © 2002 Terry Stephen Driscoll • All rights reserved.

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