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Famous Reporter 37
Currajah |
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- ANDREW PLUNKETT
- Man Overboard
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- Scanning the white-seamed water
of the bay,
- A vessel punches its grainy
outline
- Into the dark Derwent River
horizon.
-
- From the milky spume rises
- My grandfather, Wilfred,
- Naval stoker-turned-wharfie:
- Face blackened with soot,
- Hands rough as his unshaven jaw.
-
- I think of all he survived,
- And all he did not...
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- I think of that other sea that
swallowed his soul
- Amid stifled cries of "man
overboard"
- And spat out the shivering mess
- That sat before me so many times
as a child.
-
- That other sea.
- Surging, swelling,
- All-consuming.
-
- I think of that slow, graceless
decline,
- His hand still waving for help
- As he sank further into himself,
- His lips pursed, gasping for
breath,
- His head bobbing above the water
line.
-
- Only fish and alcoholics
- Can drown out of water.
Andrew Plunkett
is a part-time poet in his 20s living in Southern Tasmania.
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