Best Merchant Navy Poems

Without doubt a small isle but one of natural beauty
Such a tranquil emerald place, the Isle of Innisfree
Set in Irelands Lough Gill in the County of Sligo
And holds for me fond memories of so long ago. 

I met my first love at the loughs shore,...

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The Flag of the British Merchant Navy 

The Battle of the Atlantic

We’ve heard of the famous Mighty Hood that was sunk by a Bismarck shell
We know how many men were lost and the Skippers name as well
We’ve seen the Battleship Barham rolling on her side...

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I am building a boat.
Full of dreams.
Glossy wood and caulked seams.
Figure head, sharp bow.
Cutting the waves, like a plough.
Generous beam, shaped like a dream.
Sheer, such beauty never seen.
The hull, like the female form.
Handles any storm.
Billowing white sails overhead.
Across the sky, around my head.
The wind, a...

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The Uniform
When I grew up if you came from a poor or austere home, 
the joining of the merchant navy could be a rescue, 
if you kept your nose clean and went to a navy academy 
you could become an officer and got to wear...

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The Right Gift. 
When he was fifteen, a man, he had packed his bag
ready to join the merchant navy. His mother had two
parcels in her hands asked him to choose one and 
not open it before he got old. 
 Since he liked to travel...

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The Loss of Innocence

At a school sports day I was running 60 metres,
 I wanted so very much to win, could taste blood
didn´t quite make it but got a bronze medal,
 which I wore on my lapel with pride. 

When I joined the merchant navy...

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Not Romeo and Juliet 

Sea green, her eyes and long red hair 
that shone like bronze towards twilight.
Her laughter, a peel of utter delight;
In my mind she was Irish.  
She refused my adolescent passion 
I was too young for her.
And I said: if you...

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The Cake Shop 
There was a small cake shop near the bath-house
If I had money went in there for a coffee and a cake
the girl behind the counter smiled I fell under her spell
and my heart beating too fast made me dizzy
Her name was Berta...

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The Catering officer
Once upon a time, I was a seaman; I began as a galley boy
and after six months was promoted to the second cook,
What dizzying height. At home, I went to a catering school for cooks
 and later on, a course to become a...

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The Beatles (strawberry fields forever)

Once in the Liverpool cavern I saw the Beetles perform, before 
fame made them impossible to reach. Walked down dirty steps 
into a room filled with cigarette smoke, we all smoked back then. 
I liked their music it was young and...

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Bin -Men 
In the late sixties there was a down turn in shipping 
 I was broke and unemployment, benefit meager.
From I was fifteen I had always been in catering and
before that I was milking cows, and now I got a job 
as a bin...

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Biography 
 
I have tried to make a biography of myself
I managed three pages and found my life was so boring
it was not worth the effort.
I began fantasizing I had been a general in the foreign legion
worked in central Africa as in security agent
finding out...

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A war´s Aftermath. 

After the war flats was hard to get, but when mother´s 
uncle Adolf hung  himself in the kitchen that had cement 
floor and sun stayed away as to tell us something about 
the nature of hate. Mother´s uncle believed in new...

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Suits
I started work in an office, wore a suit that was cheap 
and too small. They stuck me in a backroom that had 
mustard coloured walls and no sunlight.  
I sorted and filed bills that had been paid, and I never
understood the point of...

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The pay inequality 

So Serena Williams had a meltdown 
and in the furore called the umpire a thief
this meltdown was quite entertaining
but didn’t stir me into action.
What shocked me was learning
Randi Toksvik made forty % less than her
Pre- presenter, the odious Stephen Fry made at,...

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