Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight!

Watch from thy pearly throne

Our vessel, plunging deeper into night

To reach a land unknown.

John Davidson

Today

my mother's not herself.

She's

a scuttering mouse,

an ominous clock,

a nervy nibbling snout,

Big Ben.

Her words

tick tock,

sniff sniff,

until, that is,

that seat-edge second

the clock pretends

it's momently stopped.

But it's a wind-up!

There's

a timer on the bomb.

It is

the telltale hush

before the great big clang

that will blast us, mouse and all,

to Kingdom Come.

Now he, my father's

muscling in

with his old rhyme

of Charlie-Charlie-Chuck-Chuck-Chuck

who went to bed

with three white ducks …

one died,

the others cried …

Somewhere outside,

Herr Hitler

in glossy jackboots

is fee-fo-fumming,

clunking down the beanstalk,

smelling blood,

while hickory-dickory's

scuttling mice

and making white ducks cry.

Something's brewing locally.

At Cammell Laird's

the submarine Thetis

is slithering out

on sea trials, trying the depths

of Liverpool Bay

while on the Great Orme's

grey bluff,

Bully Zeus, the Thunderer,

is watching,

spying on

the comeliness

of nymphs

and plotting Troy,

wounds, deaths,

where brave Achilles,

Thetis’ son …

On radio's Home Service

a clock strikes,

a bow-tie London voice

drawls Shortly after three

this afternoon …

Test cock

in number 5 tube

blocked

with bitumastic,

rear door gaping,

bow cap

naked to

the ravishing sea.

Ninety-nine men perished

when she plunged

to the kelp-fluttering seabed,

bumped down

like a muffled bell

whirling sand

in skittish slowmotionings.

Rescuers could hear

tap-tappings,

tock-tockings

in the murky undersea

then silence,

ocean silence

taking the wind

out of Liverpool

filling streets,

a rhyming boy

with ghosts.