NEWLYN HULK: A NEW POEM...

Newlyn Hulk

Tentatively I stepped across uneven damp rock

On an edge of the slipway, weathered

And with care negotiated, 

Navigated

The wet, flattened,

Dark brown, clinging weed,

To reach grim, shallow mud;

Thus I approached, 

Encroached

The hulk, the lolling hull, tethered,

And propped up by the crutch of a quay…

In awe I could only look up and stare

At its red grimy belly’s bloated curve,

Its slimy, muddied redundant rudder

And its mired propeller, now unfit to serve…

Humbled, saddened, yet in total thrall

Of the vessel and its rugged, fishing past,

I gaped at its incapacity, its desertion,

Angled, anchored and by ropes held fast… 

Tentatively I tarried ‘neath the discarded bulk,

Near sturdy nautical chains, glistening, yet rusted

And into low tide’s seething morass buried,

Embedded;

Myriad strewn objects and debris choked

The abandoned reclining deck,

Now straining askew on mud;

And thus depressed, 

Distressed,

I rued this shell, this sullied boat, encrusted

And rotting on Newlyn’s old harbour quay…

Pete Ray

January 2018

Just loved this ailing vessel… 

Felt so small and insignificant beside and below it…

The Ros Na Riogh…