Poetics and Ruminations

Hornpipe Epithalamium

HORNPIPE EPITHALAMIUM

For World Oceans Day 2016

Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem, "Hornpipe Epithalamion"

 

The sea blows high and the wind blows cold,

       The Hornet sails out to sting.

We bellbottom boys are bully and bold,

Young at the moment but growing old,

And it's no damn good that I bought Jean a ring,

       I bought pretty Jean a ring.

 

The Gunner's Apprentice is cute as a pin,

       The Yeoman can really swing.

Those almond-eyed girls all know how to sin

To make your eyes swivel and your head spin —

But I had to go buy Jeannie a ring,

       A yellowish diamond ring.

 

Davy Jones flirts with the mermaids below.

       Down there where Neptune is king

The seacows come swimming along in a row

With nothing more on than a green weed bow

While the drowned sailors gather around in a ring

       And dance till the fathoms ring,

 

For each wooed a maiden of iron and steel,

       Then took her out for a fling.

She had a pert hull and a lovely keel,

But one day she just wouldn't answer her wheel —

I wonder if Jeannie's still wearing her ring,

       That beautiful bargain ring.

 

The wind blows cold, the sea blows high;

       I stand here trying to sing,

But the salt spray rises to spit in my eye

Till I'm ready to kill and fit to die

While Jeannie sits home and stares at her ring,

       For I gave sweet Jean my ring.

         

"Hornpipe Epithalamium" was originally published in Curses and Laments (by "Wesli Court," pseud.), Stevens Point: Song, 1978, and gathered in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4, jacketed cloth; ISBN 1-932842-01-2, trade paperback, copyright ©, all rights reserved by Lewis Turco, may not be reproduced in any form anywhere without the written consent of the author. Also available from Amazon.com in a Kindle edition.

Trading Post

TRADING POST

by Lewis Turco

          I was driving on the eastern outskirts of Dresden, Maine, coming from Wiscasset, when I saw a sign I'd not seen before that read, "ABE NAKI TRADING POST." Because I love a good trade I stopped and went in where I saw a man standing at the counter. I walked up to him and asked, "Are you Abraham?" 

          "Abraham?" He replied with a quizzical look in his eyes.

          "Yes, ‘Abe.’"

          "Who's Abe?"

          "Aren't you? I assumed it was short for 'Abraham.' Aren't you Mr. Naki?"

          "Mr. Naki! Are you a wise guy or something?"

          I was nonplussed. "Me? Why do you say that? You look sort of Japanese to me, at least Asian of some kind. Isn't 'Naki' a Japanese name?"

          A change came over him, especially his eyes. "Get the fuck out of my store," he said as he came around the corner of the counter. He picked up a hatchet as he came toward me. 

          I backed away. "What did I do?"

          "Do?" He asked. "Do? You're too stupid to DO anything except misread 'Abenaki,' the name of my tribe, for some Japanese guy named 'Abe Naki.'" As I dived into my car he said, "New York plates! I should'a known," and he kicked my fender as I sped away.

 

Copyright © Lewis Turco 2016, all rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.

 

A Week in Retirement

Claudette McFang and I left Dresden, Maine, yesterday at 9:20 a.m. and headed  out for our regular fall month in Oswego. New York. Jean stayed behind because  she caught our granddaughter Jessima's cold and was too sick to drive: she takes two days to my one. Claudette was very good in the car. I fixed her cage so she  could see me in the driver's seat, and she hardly protested all the way. It took  our regular eight hours to do the 500 miles. The trip was uneventful except for  the time when some moron in a pickup decided to cut me off. For a few minutes I thought how lucky I was NOT to have a gun in the car. I slept long and hard and woke up this morning in fair fettle. Claudette slept   on my belly part of the night, but she was too excited to get much sleep  herself. She prowled the house floor to attic most of the night. I have just gotten my computer set up and discovered that the Fall 2012 issue of  the fine on-line periodical Per Contra is up. It contains my poem titled "A Week  in Retirement," which I think some of you, if not most, will enjoy reading: http://www.percontra.net/issues/29/poetry/a-week-in-retirement/