Best Fitzgerald Poems
The Great Lakes Engineering Works built a new boat
S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald, t'would soon be afloat
The people that owned her needed a name
President of the company was given that fame.
One of the largest boats to sail on the Great Lakes
Was a solidly built boat and had what it takes
September twenty fourth nineteen fifty and eight
Was her maiden voyage, laden with freight.
The 'Mighty Fitz' was the nickname they gave her
'Titanic Of The Lakes', sadly that would come later
For years she shipped freight from town to town
Crossing the Great Lakes, left, right, up and down.
The lakes weather worsened in the month of November
Ferocious storm's that would pull ships asunder
That fateful day 'The Fitz' took a route
Sailing to Detroit from a port near Duluth.
A hurricane force storm was heading their way
Other ships took refuge in Whitefish bay
Captain McSorleys last message, " We're holding our own"
What happened thereafter isn't quite known.
The storm battered the boat with thirty foot waves
And sent all her crew to their watery graves
November the tenth, nineteen seventy five
The 'Mighty Fitz' sank, no one did survive.
Lake Superior was where the tragedy occurred
When the news got out, church bells could be heard
The Reverend Ingalls twenty nine times he did toll
For the crew of 'The Mighty Fitz' every lost soul.
A memorial service is held once a year
The bells are tolled, they pray, shed a tear
Stories have been written, and a ballad too
Dedicated to the men of 'The Mighty Fitz' crew.
A Noteworthy Ship Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Robert James Ligouri
Written 18.12. 2017
And there for one brief moment
Was our light
Shining strong
And shining bright
Bringing us new signs of hope
With courage
And the gift to cope
He left us when he's needed most
Returning to the Blessed Host
With caring grace
And love of man
This leader came
Did all he can
All must remember what he gave
His dreams for us
Are what we save
“Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early” – Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Balladeer,
from The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald
A song by Gordon Lightfoot I would hear
in 1976, my newborn daughter’s year.
S S Edmund Fitgerald was the ship,
and Lightfoot’s song described its final trip.
I thought that Lightfoot had made up the tale,
like Melville did about a great white whale!
Not having heard the news of it before,
I’d taken the song’s lyrics as semi-ancient lore!
Since having learned the truth, to my surprise,
one year before was that poor ship’s demise!
The ship was wrecked in 1975,
and not one man on board was able to survive.
The night it wrecked came gale-force wind and snow.
The ship in half did break and deep down she did go.
Twenty-nine doomed men – death they could not cheat.
Into the lake they sank five-hundred feet.
In Lake Superior, tenth of November
occurred this wreck the song makes us remember.
Next to the Titanic, this shipwreck I
am most familiar with . . . and why?
Because of Gordon Lightfoot’s famous song!
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” shall live long.
I cannot match that brilliant balladeer,
so the ship’s tale (as he sings it) you really have to hear!!
Nov. 7, 2021
For Robert James Liguori's A Noteworthy Ship Poetry Contest
Lake Superior, Gitche Gumee
November winds, fear starts boiling.
The ship creaks, groans, twists, water spumy;
Thoughts of loved ones waiting on shore pushed aside.
Evil eye of the storm is coiling
And springs to release twenty-nine souls into the debris.
The church bell twenty-nine times is tolling.
Edwrd Fitzgerald a gentle manner
translated Omar Khayyam
These quatrains known asrubaiyat
so novel hedonistic &stansaic
The Edmond Fitzgerald was a tanker bold, twenty five thousand tons
of cargo, she held in her hole.
A crew of twenty seven sailors, a captain and a mate sailed the stormy waters
of a Michigan Great Lake.
She cruised out under a clear blue sky: they stood on the decks
as the waves slipped by.
They saw the sea birds turn away and saw the flags flutter
and the tackle swing and sway.
Sailing in the haze of the coming night, dropped her tug at the last buoy
light, trimmed her speed and headed for the south, took the wind on her bow
and a bone in her mouth.
Her radio was warning danger when came the first morn, from
out of the northern waters roared a winter storm.
The first of the season with rain and thunder, with her hole full
of cargo, she threatened to go under.
Fearful was the squall that struck her straight away and bowed
her down to her waterway.
She rose and fell on foamy swells that swept her deck
clean in a roaring hell.
The sailors below and no time to dress, she clashed and clanged
In her tangled distress.
She wallowed and floundered in a deadly death roll and
broke apart at the number six hole.
It took only minutes for the storm to take her down;
not a trace of her passing was ever to be found.
The Edmond Fitzgerald was never to be seen again, a testament
to the power of a Lake Superior wind.
Today, would never be elected!
He'd be run out of rooms.
How dare he ask us:
"Ask not what your country can
do for you, ask what you can
do for your country."
I remember being so moved by
that statement.
But our country has taken a new
direction.
And we scratch our heads, oh really?
Asking why there is so much dereliction?
Re-think JFK's question.
Stop listening to the pinheaded
supplications for renumirations.
And demands to fulfill all our
supplications.
When did we become such cry
babies and rabble rousers?
We need to stop wearing diapers
and find our trousers.
Become adults, not crabby
frowners.
June 16, 2019
10pm PST
In memory of the SS Edmond Fitzgerald
November 10, 1975
Seventeen miles Northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan
Lake Superior
Twenty-nine crew men are cradled
in a watery grave
no distress calls were ever heard
no bodies ever recovered
the gales of November turned fierce
as the 729 foot ore carrier
plummeted to her final resting place
530 feet below
Lake Superior holds too many secrets
and leaves to many mysteries
It's unforgiving of sailors, yet
catches every tear from the families and friends
of the SS Edmond Fitzgerald