The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #123665 Message #2725800
Posted By: Ross Campbell
17-Sep-09 - 11:23 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req/Add: Trawlerman's Requiem (John Conolly)
Subject: Lyr Add: Trawlerman's Requiem
TRAWLERMAN'S REQUIEM
(John Conolly)
In what was once a fishing town
The houses one by one come down;
And now the land lies open to the wind
Where once the smoke curled from a thousand chimneys.
The square of streets close by the shore
Will see the ice-man's cart no more;
And sea-gulls wheel amongst the empty skies
Where yesterday lies close around the corner.
Along the silent fish-dock wall
The ships that knew the Northern Trawl,
Redundant now, lie prisoned to the land;
Like old men clasped in nodding conversation.
And you can feel the men there still,
Who fought the sea with craft and skill;
The oilskinned shades of hidden multitudes -
Blaspheming saints and splendid drunken heroes.
And in the dying of the day,
Their lives are closed and filed away;
By faceless men who worship tidiness,
And never felt the Arctic kiss of winter.
And when we laughed and cried to hear
Their tales of fortune, frost and fear;
We did not dream that they would vanish soon,
And leave us with the singing of their story -
In what was once a fishing town.....
RJC