THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE MENISCUS

This, for all its simplicity, is an expensive area

All this skill and money

to keep us perched here on the right side of the meniscus.

Each year many ships like this vanish

Sucked out of the world with no trace

Sometimes in weather like this

Imagine the surprise

the refusal to believe

sucked under to lose this sky forever

feeling that if you can only hold events for a reasonable pause

the mistake will be recognised

registered

rectified.

IT WOULD BE GOOD TO CAPTURE THE DAWN

It would be good to capture the dawn

But time has become so fluid

Each day adds another hour

that it is too hard to predict

Perhaps not necessarily even at the day's beginning

out here where time has other meanings

ONE DAY ON A SEA LIKE A MIRROR

There was a ship sailed out of Hamburg , a round trip to the West Indies , month in, month out, five weeks without a night ashore.

In the loneliness of the ocean, on each voyage the crew came to see another ship very much like their own: five hundred feet long, fifteen thousand tonnes. They would pass always thousands of miles from land, where there are no birds or dolphins, only flying fish skipping out of the bow-waves. Sometimes they would be plugging into the teeth of a north-easterly gale and they would see the other ship easily rolling down its fair wind. Next time they met the positions would be reversed.

Over the months the crew began to look forward to these meetings as much as they did the sight of islands that brought signals to the mobile phones giving each a glimpse of home. In their disturbed shipboard sleep each came to dream those who sailed on the other ship – a crew of quiet women, golden people with a cargo of contentment, or the mirror image of themselves. These fatigue dreams and hopes invaded their days, building walls between them, reducing each to preoccupied stillness.

This ruined the running of the ship. Rust bloomed and things began to rattle. The captain called a meeting of the officers and crew on the aft hatch covers, leaving only the bridge machinery to keep watch. They agreed that at the first opportunity they must attempt a rendezvous with their twin vessel.

The next time they met was in a storm, and the time after was at night, passing distantly green to green on reciprocal courses.

Months passed.

Then they came upon the ship one day on a sea like a mirror, the sky calm and clear, trade-wind vapour flowers blooming both sides of the horizon, as though the world held its breath and the ships hung suspended in nothing.

The Captain ordered signal flags hoisted, requesting a meeting. Both ships slowed as they approached, and carefully steered to achieve parallel courses a few dozen yards apart. But then each shuddered and veered sideways, exercising gravity on each other like twin suns in some unseen galaxy. The sky seemed to darken and let in space as they accelerated in vortices that could only have one result for both ships and crews – to be lost in this distant nowhere, in deaths without meaning, without graves, with nothing for loved ones to burn or bury.

When it was almost too late, the ships permanently locked in a sexton embrace to dig their last hole in the sea, the captain rammed the telegraph to 'full speed ahead' and threw the helm to port. Slowly the ship tore away from its mirror, which was soon lost in the growing darkness astern.

SKIN COMPLAINTS AND TROPICAL DISEASES

skin complaints and tropical diseases

for the first time I feel involved in world-class travel

inter - continental

the realisation of this overwhelmed me at first

but the human can drown the big picture in details

though that takes some work here

where there are few demands

because the fact is this is luxury travel

though it neither feels nor looks that way

but like a job I am avoiding

and the work that has brought me here -

am I doing it?

I don't know

I have had to adopt the character

getting to film the interesting

by creating the impression of filming everything

so my significance is forgotten

or drowned in a sea of disdain

this makes a virtue of the prying professional

big eye and furry gear

by turning it into a label

'camera prat'

unbridled enthusiasm helps

and big headphones

lets hope it works on island and isthmus

and they don't see through me

and take me seriously.