Introduction - 0 View from above upon arrival - 1 First Akbar door - 2 Gear - 3 Meeting the Division - 4 First Communion at Akbar - 5 Shepherd - 6 Lights out - 7 Vultures - 8 Get h’on Parade! - 9 Bandy - 10 Wakey–wakey! - 11 Smartening rig - 12 Economy Star - 13 Poetry Club - 14 The Writer - 15 The Skipper - 16 Boating - 17 Seamanship - 18 The Skipper's Kippers - 19 Moot Court - 20 Dirty Mary - 21 Cross–country - 22 Sailorboy - 23 Church Parade - 24 Fellini fragment on Jildy - 25 Deckscrap - 26 Cinderella Days - 27 Long Tom for 'Dead Men' - 28 Waiting for Podmore - 29 Akbar - 30 The Path - 31 Lights Out Lying in regulation beds Neatly cornered with Dutch folds Kit laid out in measured squares The rough tough lads lie still and fear to dream While the New Cock thinks of running bowlines Bladderwrack dripping on an anchor–chain Sunsets out on the open waters of the world. He lies and loves the reek of Stockholm tar Picks with his mind's fingers at rope oakum Pours the hot pitch in pictures of his dream Raises his heart at the clank of capstan Dreams how the strong wind toys with sails Catches and plumps the willing cloth— Sails out beyond sleep's headland to raw seas. Behind his dreamship floats a shadowed deck A flotilla of boys who cannot follow him Moored by their dearth of imagination.

© Bill Meilen & Ravensong International 2007.