Search just our sites by using our customised search engine

Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

Click here to get a Printer Friendly PageSmiley

Poems from Jock MacKenzie
The Royal Oak


Eight hundred men lie below
in the oily water of Scapa Flow
long have they shed their coats of flesh
only the bones look white and fresh.
Down at their stations the frameworks lie
where fate and the Hun decreed they die.
Alone they are the skeleton folk
who lie forever on the Royal Oak.
Let them lie, let them lie without curious glance
it could be you but for wandering chance,
who ended all in fire and smoke
and drowned to death on the Royal Oak,
who shed their flesh and passed no seed
who lie in the depths where fishes feed.
Up here men laugh and women joke,
there’s never a smile on the royal Oak.
At Scapa Flow where the waters boil
there’s nothing left but a slick of oil.
Cut off lives where white bones soak
eight hundred men on the Royal oak.

(From ‘Seal Woman’ Jock MacKenzie, pub 2001)


Return to Jock's Index Page


 


This comment system requires you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator has approved your comment.

comments powered by Disqus

Quantcast