Sea Chanteys
poems by
Rush WilliamsISBN 13: 978-1-59948-075-6
102 pages, $14.95
Prologue / About the Author / Sample
These are personal poems. They are based on happenings or people that have become part of my memory, and, of course, as memory may not be precisely accurate in the legal or historical sense. I think, nevertheless, that they must be close to the historical truth, all of them, and for sure, I know they record what I call "emotional truths" for me.The poems are of uneven quality, some approaching doggerel. But I don't apologize for them. They were fun to write and are fun to read, like going to a reunion.
May all who open these pages enjoy what they find here.
I need to point out that the names of all ships (except USS Hope) and all personal names in these poems are fictitious.
Rush Williams
Pinehurst, NC
Rush served aboard a minesweeper in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, with most blue water time in the Pacific. Sea Chanteys are based on his experiences while serving. Most of the other poems in this book are also experienced based, but, of course, not sea duty.
Rush is a native of the Sandhills of North Carolina, a land of sunshine, golf courses, peaches orchards, and until a few decades ago, cotton fields and cotton mills. He is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and lives now in Pinehurst, NC.
Seeing the World in the USN
Our last station was in Newfoundland, Argentia Bay,
where the cold wind required
that I lean to walk,
where snow and rain suckled
verdant forests for the paper trade,
where sallow seamen in yellow slickers worked
the never-warm, never-resting sea
to furnish the tables of Europe and America,
where in the shortest days I axed
ice from our rigging.Now only weeks later
in the way of the U.S. Navy
under a blazing tropic sun
that pinks us rapidly,
we are anchored in an atoll
barely there at all
simply a string of pearly sand bars
none seemingly higher than a strong storm swell
necklacing an azure lagoon
measuring maybe ten miles side to side,
a light speck in a sweeping sapphirine sea,
but a swart and smiling
people live here
and, I’m told, have for generations.A sea-bound Eden, with—till we arrived—
no serpents? Maybe, maybe not:
I can see how for their small census
fish from the lagoon provide meat,
cocoanuts from palms provide fruit,
seaweeds provide a sort of vegetable
with perhaps some help from gardens on higher bars,
palms and flotsam provide wood,
daily squalls provide water,
their small boats provide transport over the glass flat lagoon,
but what among all their close, close cousins
do they do when they want to take a wife?
Sid Says:
Yeah, I used to sell, sold colors,
acid colors, bright as Joseph’s coat,
fast colors, enduring as the rainbow’s,
mordants, azos, vats, nitrosos;a dye drummer, full line, was what I was.
Monday mornings I kissed my wife goodbye;
Friday nights, I kissed her hello again.
I hurried, sweated, pressed, cut prices
and the competition’s throat.They called me Sidney then, or S. D., and
my house sat far back among trees and shrubs
so that traffic noises never reached inside.
It was big enough for my two long cars
as well as my two big boys, my wife, and me.But one weekend I cut up all my credit cards,
resigned from the country club, mailed in
my order book, got me a chauffeur’s license, and moved.Now my two big boys, if they took a notion,
could run down the roof of our trailer and jump
to the roof of our neighbor, and I drive a taxi.Like an oyster feeding in its shell
I take just what fares come my way
and never fight for more. I got black and blue
inside fighting for more when I was selling.My wife says I am now a hermit like St. Anthony
but she smiles when she says it because
I never sleep, like the Saint in the desert, alone anymore.
Old Home Place?
I speed toward
where tales by gray-beard grandfathers
and inked sketches on brittle, dun deeds
attest that those of my lineage
first lived in this land,
hoping to find
in scrollery on head stones
names, ranks, dates
confirming family sagas of
civil war heroes, revolutionary colonels,
and relics testimonial of
manor living, gracious, pride-making.The road runs out
but I trudge on down a hunter’s trail,
or, so ill-defined, only a trail of the hunted,
and come at last upon sandy acres,
having a corrugation gentled by age,
that say this,
though shrouded now by
the deep somber shade of a reborn forest,
is where they tilled.Searching through underbrush,
I find a leaf-covered chimney foot
and scattered pillar stones,
the bare bones of a house, cabin size.
Behind, a sturdy well casing juts up
like a alter of the stone age.
A scuppernong vine
helixing up a hickory
and a shade stunted apple tree
hint of small arbor and orchard.
On a near hilltop
pine and oak roots
reaching to make a final reclaim
tilt small tombstones,
all mossed, all eroded, names,
dates, ranks (if any) illegible.I stand contemplating what I see,
rueful of what I had hoped to see.
A passing canvas-clothed hunter
leans his gun,
draws by means of a pine-fixed rope
a bucket of well water,
dippers a draft and smacks his lips,
grateful for this forest stop,
much esteemed and frequented,
he says,
calling it by our family name.Refreshed, the hunter leaves
and I draw my own draft,
savor the pristine taste.
I look down the shaft
see stones holding
firmly as handset
against the years.
The water mirrors motes
of sun sparkles
that flit through the foliage
as the wind affords.
I savor the pure taste again.
It becomes a gift
direct from ancestors
who dug the well
and laid the lining
using old hand tools.Such a carefully crafted utility,
patronymical among hunters,
and perhaps others,
for lifespan after lifespan
surely provides a truer pride
than tales inflated in each retelling.Refreshed
I fix the pail rope
reverently
back on the pine
and begin my backtrack
through the forest—
strutting.