Hoist me a pint of ale in the old boat house;
Seek shelter from gust and gale in the old boat house.
Wield me a poem, you bardic Procol Harum:
Turn a whiter shade of pale in the old boat house!
Breezes of Laugharne, perpetually fresh!
Nothing ever goes stale in the old boat house!
Jonah me, Moby me, humpbacked and blubbered:
Spend three days in the whale of the old boat house!
Come to the confines of your monastic keep:
Lock yourself in the jail of the old boat house!
Message me in a bottle, lyric lord of Wales:
I’ll send my fan mail to the old boat house.
Let druids rise up from their moss-grown graves
And bless each rusty nail of the old boat house!
Heron and cormorant, he-gull and she-gull
Soar and wade and sail past the old boat house.
I praise your psalm-shed, beer-brawny word-worker:
Hosanna, hurrah, and hail to the old boat house!
You create such vivid descriptions here. I know nothing of a sea-faring life, yet I feel like I’m comfortably listening to old friends remember adventures. They are new adventures, yes, but I can guess at what they entail. Also, you capture the voice of Dylan Thomas effectively. Some of my favorite phrases from this?
“Wield me a poem, you bardic Procol Harum” I love the bold action of “wielding” a poem.
“Jonah me, Moby me, humpbacked and blubbered” Again, what creative verbs you’ve created here.
“Come to the confines of your monastic keep:
Lock yourself in the jail of the old boat house!” It surprised me to think of a seafarer as a monk, yet there are parallels now that I think about it.
“I praise your psalm-shed, beer-brawny word-worker:
Hosanna, hurrah, and hail to the old boat house!” Again, a reference to a more spiritual aspect makes this poem all the fresher and more complete for me as a reader.
Thank you for your kind and generous reading of this poem! I appreciate the thoroughness of your exploration, and am glad that many of the phrases bore a special resonance for you. Thanks again!
Glorious, energetic, rambunctious and packed full of the energy and enthusiasm of life, Dylan Thomas-style. I had to smile (broadly) as I read the lines aloud – the energy that bubbled through the phrases did not ask for a quiet reading. This is a poem which makes one glad to be alive!
Oh, wow, Anne, you’ve made my day! Thank you, thank you!
You’re more than welcome! I’ve been delayed in getting access to the Poetry Marathon website to read more of your poems, but I’m hoping to remedy that in the next day or two!
Nice rendition.