Slow Boat To China

I was born in a landlocked getaway town Where all the colors were black, gray, or brown. Jobs at the steel mill were ratcheting down. It was not in my future to stay. So, I took a long walk off a very short pier, An unschooled, untraveled recruit buccaneer On a quest to cross Neptune’s vast salty frontier. Hopped a slow boat to China one day. Underway on the Crescent City, it seemed The ocean was wider than I’d ever dreamed. A ship load of sinners, our souls unredeemed Steaming west toward whatever there was. Keelung told Hong Kong to call Singapore. Subic Bay badgered Mombasa for more. Sea legs, as always unsteady ashore, Even more so with liquor and drugs. Bilge water sloshed in the depths of the hold. The mizzen mast learned what the typhoon foretold. I was sea duty tempered and Shell Back enrolled; Wasn’t nothing but maritime norm. I was born in a hard luck blue collar town. Half the way broken and half the way down. But time gifts its renaissance scepter and crown To a jack tar who’s weathered the storm.