There was almost no better day

than that in which I told the old sailor,

some called traitor

to the flag, some called much worse,

and that’s not for me to remark upon,

to get the fuck out of my pub,

his brand of high seas, glassy eyed leering debate

was not wanted in amongst the beer

and the stains in which he passed his greasy

fingers between the glasses ready to be cleaned,

washed and scrubbed as he waited with

a vile lop sided grin for me to shake

his hand.

 

The old sailor’s face was one in which even

the children of the town were frightened of,

no genial Captain Cat this man, no worthy

seamen dropped in vain as the shout of man

overboard

was heard and the splash of  a dead man drowning

in this landlocked county was

ushered quietly via the back door into the

sailor’s rubber dingy

and the menace of the high seas

ready to attack any one eyed monster that

came his way.

 

“Come on down boys, I’m dead…”

not the words of the Welsh Bard

but just the look of the man

to whom I may as well have slapped

with the price of a pint before

I asked him to leave and too whom

as he struggled to get his faux

indignation, a war hero after all,

running towards the main door,

I couldn’t help but glad to see the back of

as the smell of oily fish departed

with him,

the stain of the day firmly entrenched on my mind.

 

For E.H.

Ian D. Hall 2015