Anything could come from it
That black mass
It could speak to you with the voice of the dead
Or call you persuasive into its covers
Reach out a wet hand to take you
Sing as choirs
Speak as great masses
Trumpets
And orchestras
One woman's voice
But as you grow familiar
With its night-time depths
You come to fear,
To expect,
Less and
Less.
1630LT:
Posn: N33 45 W42 41
Course: 49deg
Speed: 19.8Kt
Moonlight on water
tricks you into knowing where you are
you've seen it on rivers
on the quiet of an August evening
romance and ideas of placid beauty
here in the middle of an unknowable ocean
you find yourself in an old song.
LAND RATS AND LONGSHORE SHARKS
In the shadows - scuttling sounds
excited by his potential -
land rats and longshore sharks
all of which feed off the seaman
once he surrenders the innocent ocean
The night time ocean
Is a well in which to shout
Echoing and lapping round walls of darkness
So empty we can not know it
Turn back
Back to the lights
No matter how dim.
1815: I was on the roof of the wheelhouse just now filming an artistic deck lights/ moon combination, and when I came down the First Officer asked me not to go up there any more when the radar is in operation.
In other words, "Oi! Get down off that roof!"
The ship will be intolerable if I can't go up there.
1610: At 1430 I was on the wheelhouse roof and I saw something red a distance ahead on the port bow. Binoculars revealed a red and white navigation buoy freely wandering the oceans! We left it about 150yds to port.
I wonder where that has come from. It would have made a nasty mess of a yacht. Imagine if it was a bell buoy too.
The weather is intermittently sunny but mainly grey.
(There seems to be a strong smell of garlic in this room.)
It is hard motivating myself to write more about the journey and there is too much noisy work around the ship to do anything much involving sound, and too little privacy. The other day when I was recording wild sound of the ship's wake on the stern deck I suddenly became aware that the Chief Steward was standing on the raised walkway watching me. How come? Had one of the crew summoned him?
I think the various forms of production phase might be nearly over. But boredom threatens to take over....
I hope we see the Azores. That would be a tonic.
0650: I got 5 straight hours sleep from midnight. I awoke convinced we were moving very slowly. Every night there is something like this. Once I became convinced in the night that the engine had stopped.
The swell is bigger if anything, but dead astern now and with fewer breaking crests. I can't feel any wind but it must be approximately 22Kts SW because the exhaust smoke is blowing slightly forward. I wouldn't like to be heading into that.
The radio expired yesterday - the tuning mechanism seized up. It is the pot rather than the Heath Robertson linkage.
out here where all things are
must be the places of transition
where tropical grace
succumbs to the scorn of a harder world
where kind days and the warmth of the all-round sun
can no longer carry into the territories of the enemy
this war moves around the oceans
and the battlefields on the places of dregh
where mists move to block the light
piecemeal blocking of the sky.
around the creeping horizon
are phantom dark islands
in the corners of your eyes
lies of sight.