An Adventure.. Michael James

        The ocean liner Niew Amsterdam, flagship of the Holland-America line, came off the weighs in the shipyard in Rotterdam in 1937 and displaced 36,000 tons. The ship undertook sea trials in the North Sea, passing with flying colors, surprising all concerned by its performance. It was clearly going to be competing with the best, England’s Queen Mary, and the beautiful Ile de France  on the transatlantic run. Although the ship was not at all designed with troop carrying in  mind, she was appropriated by the allies when she sailed to the USA after Holland fell to the Germans, and she was so fast as to easily outrun any submarine, so was able to sail alone.

  In 1947 she returned to her shipyard, was refitted at a cost equal to her original construction, and rejoined the Atlantic trade  shortly thereafter where she performed most profitably to her owners until the aeroplane sent all liners either to the scrap yard or to the cruise business. The Niew Amsterdam met her end in Taiwan in 1974.

The side of the hull rose before me, as I stood on the dock, like an enormous black wall shutting out half of the sky. I craned my neck to look up at the gleaming white superstructure, the bridge from which the officers managed the ship, the rows of portholes for the cabins, the large windows of the saloons and dining rooms. Then I hurried back to the place where passengers entered through a sort of gateway up a flight of stairs. My ticket, purchased only two weeks before with money borrowed from one of my high school teachers, was for a second class cabin to be shared with one man. I had been too late for the less expensive third class, and as it turned out, I was happy about that. 

Boarding was orderly and steady, with quite a lot of excitement on the part of passengers, and I was soon following the stream of people into the cavernous interior of the ship, a place where several staircases met corridors from every direction. Crewpeople were glancing at our tickets and directing us to the corridors or staircases that would lead to our cabins, where we would find our luggage already in place.

When I arrived at my door, a young man several years my senior, introduced himself as my steward for the voyage; I should call him for anything I needed. He led me into the cabin, showed me my bunk, the lower of two to the right of the door, the lockers I was to use, and mentioned my cabin mate whom he expected momentarily. I unpacked rapidly, stowed my suitcase, and looked around the cabin. There was a small bathroom, a single bunk opposite mine, a couple of chairs at a small table between the bunks: functional, small, and home for the 

next week. 

A knock at the door and the steward entered with my room mate in tow. He was a burly man in the prime of life, average in height, close-cropped fair hair, who introduced himself as a Canadian returning home after a stint in the Middle East with one of his country’s consulates. He struck me immediately as genial and light-hearted and we soon got on well together. Some of the  joys of traveling second class, he pointed out, were the amenities offered: the dining facilities, the lounges, the bars, and the outside decks were well worth the difference in cost. At his suggestion we immediately went in search of the dining room which we found nearby; I marveled at its crisp table cloths, crystal ware, general air of luxury, and hoped my stomach would allow me to enjoy it all fully and continually for the entire voyage. As lunch was several hours away, our steward, who spotted us, mentioned snack food in a certain bar whither we repaired for my introduction to the world of mixed drinks. 

It wasn’t long before my inexperience with alcohol had me needing my sea legs at once, though they were unavailable; I remember sliding down the main staircase of the ship, giggling all the way, unable to find my footing in the increasing tilting of the floor. My roommate helped me up at the bottom and directed my steps toward the dining room where food helped me regain equilibrium, at least for the time being. But once the ship got out beyond Ireland, it encountered heavy weather and those of us prone to sea-sickness sought solace in our bunks. I soon lost the delicious dinner I had enjoyed so much and spent a miserable night retching.

In the early morning light of the second day all I could see outside was flying spume and rain. As the light increased, I wanted to go outside to clear my head and to walk around the deck but found the doors to the outside locked and was told it was too dangerous for anyone to be outside since waves were breaking clear over the ship. I could see the ocean through the big windows of the promenade deck and I tried to anticipate the ship’s rise and fall to prevent my stomach from being caught off guard. 

One day more, and though the weather got even rougher, I became well enough to be able to stand in front of a door at the end of the promenade deck overlooking the bow. There I stayed and began to enjoy the ferocity of the storm which was picking up waves so huge the ship appeared to be a toy boat caught alone on a windy sea. As the ship rode up the incline of the oncoming swells, whose crests looked like snowy mountain tops ahead, it would slow down appreciably. Then as it fell over the top, the propellers would lift out of the water and spin so fast the whole ship would shake. The fall down the back of the waves would be a giddying sleigh ride with an almighty crash at the end which threw up spray clear over the whole ship as the bow plunged into the another swell.

The next day, sitting in the recess of a big porthole in a lounge on the starboard side, I would look up to the crest of the wave ahead of us and wonder what it would be like as the captain on the bridge, with waves breaking against his plate glass window, responsible for the huge ship and for the well-being of hundreds of people. Later I got to see the damage that had been done to the balustrade around the first class lounge one deck below that bridge: it appeared to have been crumpled by a gigantic fist.

On the fifth day, shortly after breakfast, I found the door out of the promenade leading forward to be unlocked; I at last had access to the bow. Gauging the  plunges of the ship carefully, I timed my dash to the bow to avoid getting drenched by the spray it threw up as it hit the front of each wave, and I reached cover behind the tall balustrade almost dry. There I clung to the flat top of the hull and pulled myself up to look over the very point of the ship down to where it was cutting through the seas. Each time a wave top approached, I ducked down behind the balustrade and the water went over my head. I can’t say now what the distance was between those wave crests, but judging by the length of the ship, they had to be two miles apart.

Finally there came over the din of crashing water, the crackle of a loudspeaker advising the gentleman in the bow to go back inside. The voice was not unkindly, so as I reluctantly turned my back on the awesome spectacle to go inside, I looked up at the bridge and waved a cheery salute to the anxious face looking down. The crewman waved back and I went inside. 

       We had passed through the worst of the hurricane, which I Iearned later was among the first to be given the name of a woman, in this case Edna, spawned over the Lesser Antilles on September 14th, whose winds reached 115 mph as it passed just north of Bermuda on Sept. 18th. The storm dissipated west of Ireland after two more days, by which time I had landed in New York where I was to catch a train for the West Coast. I bade goodbye to the magnificent ship which had brought the nineteen year old boy to the new world.

 

A True Story  John Field

Flaps his arms with the winged exuberance                                  
Of a baby bird and shouts “Geronimo!”                                      
As he flings himself off the high board,                                       
His skinny little body flash-frozen like a popsicle                             
The instant it strikes the water. 

Reads The Stranger when he’s nineteen
And feels locked in, windows barred, ashes in the fireplace 
His inheritance. Refuses to live for the plot’s sake,
Drops out of college and moves to LA, 
Sunshine his second language now until he gets burned    
By his girlfriend’s bonfire of blazing red hair.

Trapped in his shallow hell between her beauty and the door
He embraces his love affair with unrequited pain.      
Knows the perfume she wears is so rare it has an unlisted number
And that she hardly ever catches her expression unawares
Because her reflection rarely strays out of the range of a mirror.

Is also familiar with the fact that her wet-dry-samurai-eyes
Bright as massacres are blank checks waiting to be filled in
And doesn’t care. Plays the fool in his own way
Each time she picks his twenty dollar bills like lettuce. 
“Always we!” he cries. “O let me in!
To whom can I talk big if not to you?”  
“Never me!” she replies as she gives him her famous
Let’s-get-this-comedy-over-with-look. 
The next day discovers with surprise
That her vanishing has made his room more beautiful.

Decides that only the dead are nice 
Until he meets his future wife 
And suddenly hundreds of little butterflies    
Flutter like tiny heart attacks in his chest 
Each time she smiles him, her soul the bait, 
His SOS the hook, her touch the necessary yes oh yes of it,
His happiness so compressed  it keeps expanding into old age   
And then too much increases into even more.

Wills his shaky hands to steady what’s left of it 
In reverent benediction--as if it were a glass
Of very expensive wine--and so far hasn’t spilled a drop.  

HOMEBODY - Fran Dayan

Even though she was hauntingly aware that we were being "fracked" and coal fired to death and that our environment would not last in this particular exquisite form into the distant future –

She still couldn't help loving the heat of the sun 

and how it warmed her and everything it touched

Or the flowers outside her window radiating 

yellows and Fuchsia,

How her cats would climb on her body, nesting in her, 

keeping her warm and adored,

Or the wind and the rustling leaves along the creek 

just outside her door, waiting for her to come into it

And how she loved the music that plays

steadily inside her head the words capturing what was 

on her mind and what was happening around her.

And her lover who took in his arms and held her.

 She thought "maybe death will forget we are here"

Wishful Thinking – Robyn

When I reach a state of mindful reflection

I grasp the sky

Wrap myself in the clouds

And let go of earth's suctioning clay.

Rottenness in the world

Is shucked like ears of corn

The silk choking off the fuel

That drives the cruelty and obsession.

I'd like to stay awhile in this place

With this incredible sensation of lightness of being

It doesn't seem like just a mystical vision 

It has the feeling of ecstasy.

Rastas Michael James

You struggle to get on your feet from the floor these days, your back legs kicking and sliding away from where you place them to give you traction. I remember when you used to rise in a unified movement from sitting on the driveway to the bed of the pickup, tail wagging in anticipation of playtime. You were half the age then that you are now, and the years have brought you down slowly to the age of arthritis, overweight, fatty tumors everywhere, reduced hearing and eyesight, weak hips. But still you growl at a wayward puppy, a pushy youth, and even at a misguided adult dog who gazes too intently at your toy.

You accept the changes as natural, your lot in life not to be gainsaid, the Tao of Dog. In you I perceive the wisdom to accept what is beyond your ability to alter without being depressed or even resigned, let alone frustrated. It is an attitude we humans would do well to emulate, if  only we could. But we let too much pride and thinking get between us and the nearest path. “Teaching” us the benefits of your wisdom to perceive change as being the fundamental nature of the universe, may be your last, greatest gift.

But we fight it all the time. We want permanence, period!  We have no use for constant change, for we see it all around us going on and on. And out pets are vivid reminders in case we allow our attention to wander for a moment, as when we swallow some religious fantasy about immortality or an unchanging deity. Of course those who prey upon our desire to run from constant change know exactly which promises best bait the hook that will catch us, and they dish them up through all the channels.  

Another of your lessons has to do with dignity. You possess yours as you wear your thick, hairy coat, not to be cast off for any reason. It shows clearly when I have hurt your feelings, for instance by refusing to take you with me when I use the car. I may think the weather too warm for you to go with me; and though that may be true, in not letting you decide, I hurt your feelings. You react by stomping upstairs and sulking on your bed. And if I come immediately to soothe you, you won’t have it. Yet when I return after an hour or more, you are all sunshine and forgiveness. That’s class! Your dignity doesn’t fail you.

Though you are accepting of endless changes, like a true Taoist, you are also a creature of habit or rather routine, making me wonder at the apparent contradiction. You like your supper to begin at 4:30 p.m., your breakfast as soon as I rise, and bowls of cool, clean water in between morning and evening playtime at the park. Variation in those hours is difficult for you. Since a satisfying meal is the high point of your day, anything that detracts from it you rebuff by not eating at all. Ultimately, you’d rather hunger than put up with what you consider a major insult: someone monkeying with you victuals.

Another constant in your life is your love of humans closest to you. Someone said you and I are connected at the hip; at the heart may have been more accurate. You want to be with me at all times and my going off without you is worse than a scolding to you. I look for you everywhere I go, especially when I come home expecting your greeting. There will be a gaping hole in my doorway when you are gone. 

Insomnia John Field

Insomnia dehydrates 

Each sip of your breath

My parched ears drink.

A bus snores up our street

Plowing its headlights

Through our curtain.

“False dawn,” the streetlights crow.

Why did you say no?

At midnight the tapping begins,

Softly at first,

Fleeting pains in my belly and chest,

Fear of death. 

At two the tapping grows louder,

My heart thumping like a rat on speed

Banging a tiny tin drum.

If I had a knife I’d cut off its paws.

Three-thirty stretches and yawns,

Then veers away and disappears

Somewhere north of outer space.

At four I get out of bed,

Stand in front of the window

And stare at the moon,

A silver sleeping pill

Bathing the garden

In a soft decaffeinated glow.

Exhausted, I crawl back in bed

And feel your fingertips

Gently stroke my arm

Seconds before I fall asleep.