Short Dry Dock Poems

To eat fish as they’d planned
Weeping cries both day and night
Following trucks deep inland
Wingtips black their bodies white
Far away from their native shores

By Robb A. Kopp...

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nineteen-eighty-three
reporting onboard
USS Nimitz
she was in dry dock

Lee’s Restaurant 
in Newport News
was my hangout
in shipyard days

playing pool
making friends
Budweiser

fine food
large tab

nice...

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ship was almost bare'
Christmas Nineteen-Eighty-Three
Newport News dry dock
time was three A.M
there was a flooding somewhere
inport  fire party
disaster no more
duty section back to sleep
no elves were needed...

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If we were the shoes of a man in a blind rage
walking along the sidewalk 
and kicking hard a small piece of stone  
we'd leave his feet right away
thinking his heart is like a sort of dry dock,
saying "You're unbearably cruel" in a high tone
Why?
He may have felt 
a sharp stab of disappointment
and been angry at himself
or somebody else
if so,
all what he does to us 
and a small piece of stone 
shows his true self...

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I’m in a salt and pepper dive called Magdalena’s Den of Sin,
Long overdo for dry dock, with my keel hogged out of line.
I’ve just enough good cheer to ring a single jingle bell.
Outside of that, the climate on the weather deck is fine.
I've got my ducks lined up, soon I’ll be shooting them down
So that I’m ready when those saints come marching in.
I’ll use a few smooth maneuvers to raid the barmaid’s port
In this sailor’s house of worship, Magdalena’s Den of Sin....

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