This week’s Poet’s Corner contribution is from Calum Hines.
Here I rest with sailors plenty,
The bottom of the ocean, the age of twenty;
A service to a country, I knew and loved,
The ultimate price, I paid in blood.
I’m lost at sea, beneath the waves,
A bitter end, a watery grave.
For I was never meant to live past twenty;
Now at rest, with sailors plenty.
For the seas I sailed encase my tomb,
In a watery grave I lay at rest;
From the war-torn trenches I remained free,
No soaking mud, nor shells that scream,
I remain on watch, forever at sea.
There shall be no welcome home, no marching band,
My family left, with a sole telegram;
A sense of duty made me fight,
To leave my home and lose my life;
For one last time, I left the pier,
Never to return, no future years.
Forever on patrol, yet finally free,
The lads and I, succumbed to the sea;
A life cut short, but a life well spent,
My time is up, this is my end;
Crashing waves and the ocean blue,
This is my time, adieu.
Calum Hines, born in Tasmania and living variously around Australia, currently resides in the Swan Coastal Plain region of Western Australia. With an interest in English since his school days, he enjoys the writing of both poems and short stories, particularly as ideas come to him on work trips and flights.