The Scrimshaw Man

by John Smallshaw
(London, England)

Carry me off to where daylight begins,
to where tears of new morning break into a smile.
Where I can tarry a while.

My eyesight dims as the years rush on in,
I am a sailor no more,
I am bound by these chains to a life by the shore,
where I can no longer be,
A part of the ocean
A drop in the sea.

Such freedom is the penance,
the price I must pay..
for living my life as a night in the day
and walking wrecked decks of lives gone before,
swearing at Captains as they too once swore.

But the smell hasn't gone..
the scent of the wandering albatross lives on..
in my nostrils it fills the void of not seeing,
Of not being,
On board.