Southampton

Southampton

The  brass band played

Streamers cascaded

Klaxons blared

We lined the rails overlooking the quay

New York far off,

Distant

Rule Britannia,

 A life on the ocean wave

The British grenadiers ,and ,as we cast off

God save the queen

White gloved stewards fussed

The horn blasted  farewell from the funnels

As we headed for a new life

And Cowes slipped sliding  away

Our bows submerged under grey  green tumult

Until Brooklyn bridge framed a horizon broken by giant buildings scratching at th skies

And Liberty beckoned

Boing

Zeberdee liked to spring in

Mais, Pourquoi tout le monde parle-t-il français ? he asked

Parce que nous sommes en France. Brian replied

Dylan was away, on tour

He was always on tour

He looked at Dougal whose hair needed brushing

He remined him of Boris Johnson, but much grumpier

Florence smiled like Rachel reeves smiles when she days she isn’t going to put up taxes

Brian held  a piece of  paper

Keir Starmer had asked him to put together  a plan to stop boat people

Brian hadn’t thought about it.

 His home was on his back ,  

Why doesn’t everyone do that he thought?

Ermintrude thought that we should be kinder to everyone

Florence agreed

Zeberdee bounced up high again

It was then that he noticed it

Someone had painted a red cross on the Magic Roundabout

Florence looked at it from a ladder

“Some people are so silly” she said

Everyone nodded their heads’

Apart from Dylan

– because he wasn’t there

Unidentified vegetable

Yellow and hairy

Phallic shaped missed and unloved

Something  will turnip

Ocean

I am an ocean, my depths unknown, uncharted

My surface sometimes

A glossy serene sheen,

Other times broken, opaque, restless

My history oblique

Channels, canyons  score me

Some now silted up with time

As if they were never there

Some forming anew

My currents change with the seasons

Warm then cool

Rich then barren

 Everyone,every thing is touched by them

My shallows hide, waters sometimes still, some racing

My boundaries change, eroding, flattening

That which you thought you knew

My centre is the Sea of Tranquillity around which

Tempests  blow

Ebb and flow

Carrying all before

The willing, unwilling and unwary- all succumb to

My relentless, irresistible  tides, drawing you to me

Then dashing you on the rocks

With ceaseless turmoil seething

As if blown upon by a fiery dragon’s breathing

I provide no shelter from the storm

I am the storm

Until you reach, the sanctuary of the beach

Untouched by man

No footprints in the sand

Just ghostly wails of star crossed lovers.