[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Bird keel, boat keel,
Slice the wind and water.
Listen lad, you’ll rue the day,
You kissed Poseidon’s daughter.

Leeward, leeward
Scud before we gets you
Now you’re in the cuddy boy
There’s no one to protect you

Dark hair, sweet lips
Lookee lad what’s grew.
We’ll take our turns at what we lost.
We once was young as you

[Glenn Wright]

Rhythmically, this is a delight to read aloud, Jan. It dances like a hornpipe.
I confess to having only the most rudimentary knowledge of nautical jargon, so I had to look up “scud” (to move quickly in a straight line because or as if driven by wind). Actually I have only heard this before as an action performed by clouds, but here, I think the old sailor is telling the newbie to turn the sail leeward in order to catch the wind. I wondered whether turning it windward might not have worked better, then I remembered about tacking. I also had to look up “cuddy” (a small room or compartment, especially on a boat). Okay, the young guy is trapped below deck. Now the last six lines suggest to me a pretty sinister scenario involving a lonely, menacing, old sailor and a young, inexperienced seaman. Please tell me I’m wrong.

[Carl Copeland]

I’d lose the comma after “day” in S1 and add a few commas and periods in S2 and S3. I didn’t get as far as Glenn did with the nautical jargon, but my general impression matches his. A scurrilous ditty, but we likes it.

[Julie Steiner]

Oooooh. Spell-like and hair-raising.

I second Carl's comma requests. Otherwise, this is perfectly creepy.

[Alexandra Baez]

Wow, Jan, this has such a mythic chantlike quality. The surefooted meter is a delight. And I love your soundplay with “keel,” “leeward,” “sweet,” and “lookee,” as well as “scud” and “cuddy.” You’ve very convincingly taken on the role of your ruffian narrator.

“The day you kissed Poseidon’s daughter” is such an evocative, poetic way to say “went to sea.”

I agree with Carl’s punctuation notes. I wondered for a moment what a “bird keel” would be, but translating boat to bird parts did the trick. You give a beautiful play between the two, both in meaning and in sound. I didn’t know what “cuddy” was, but the word has such color, and context got me in the right direction, and the poem is good enough to motivate a lookup.

I wonder about the “we” at the end. Is the n speaking for a group of cronies or is he fancying himself as a royal “we”? I sense it’s the latter, in which case the “take our turns” gives a great sense of the n’s unhingedness. Anyway, this poem is oh so sinister, especially that last stanza. I love the poignant psychology you’ve built into the last two lines. You do such a great job of conveying so much, indirectly and concisely.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Glenn's ear is my ear: I hear a hornpipe. I hear the damp wood creaking. Beautifully evoked, darkly imagined sea chanty. It gives the word "nautical" a perverse meaning. It sings in an unblinking voice to sunken spirits, to youth scuttled.

I think (not sure) that you could do away with most of the punctuation (with the exception of the commas after "keel", "lad", "leeward" and "hair") and it would flow to be pure lyric. You've already chosen to capitalize the lines which makes punctuation optional at the end of lines, imo (not sure).


Bird keel, boat keel
Slice the wind and water
Listen lad, you’ll rue the day
You kissed Poseidon’s daughter.

Leeward, leeward
Scud before we gets you
Now you’re in the cuddy boy
There’s no one to protect you.

Dark hair, sweet lips
Lookee lad what’s grew
We’ll take our turns at what we lost
We once was young as you.


.

[Simon Hunt]

Hi Jan--I love the sound of this and its steadily increasing menace. I don't have any suggestions, really, except making the punctuation consistent. Jim's punctuation-lite version basically works for me, but I might add a cpmma after "cuddy"--less because it's correct (though it is) and more because I didn't know cuddy before and so wondered momentarily if it were not a noun but an adjective modifying boy. Putting a comma there, though, might warrant commas around lad earlier; it's a slippery slope. Fully punctuated, it might look like the below. Would that disrupt the flow?

Bird keel, boat keel,
Slice the wind and water.
Listen, lad: you’ll rue the day
You kissed Poseidon’s daughter.

Leeward, leeward,
Scud before we gets you.
Now you’re in the cuddy, boy.
There’s no one to protect you.

Dark hair, sweet lips,
Lookee, lad, what’s grew.
We’ll take our turns at what we lost.
We once was young as you.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Would an old salt say Poseidon instead of Neptune?

I'm getting an x-rated Freddy Bartholomew here. What dialect says "grew"?

[Paula Fernandez]

Jan--

This is pretty brilliant. I love the simple rhyme and meter and how efficiently this poem makes its impact.

Like some others, I had to look up "scud" and "cuddy", but I don't think that's a problem because it gives authenticity to the narrator as an old man of the sea.

I did feel a little ambiguity around the "scud before we gets you". It feels, at first, and also at last, that the speaker is friendly to the "lad" to whom the poem is addressed. But this line actually feels like the speaker is a threat to the lad. I'm not sure if that was intended.

Also, and I hesitate here... the phrase "we'll take our turns" actually did evoked rape for me (and I may be the only one). Understanding that "Poseidon's daughter" is just the sea, and not a real (or mythic) girl, still that turn of phrase disturbed me. Not sure if that's the intent you had. If so, the poem still works, but it's quite dark.