S.o.s.
(They found her body right under the stairs
Where it had lain for twenty years,
The neck was broken, I heard folks say -
'Too late! ' was the verdict of Gallows Bay) .
* * * *
I'd heard dark things of Samuel Pell,
He drank too much and was far from well,
But he walked the beach in the early morn,
Especially after a gale, or storm.
He checked the flotsam as in it swirled
Into the bay from the seas of the world,
All the jetsam he'd pile up high,
And check each mark, with many a sigh.
But never a word did I hear him speak
From the crack of dawn to the end of the week,
And then he'd hurry on home once more
Where he'd bar his window and lock his door.
He lived in a three-roomed beachside shack
With a lookout room that he'd built out back,
And up to that room he would creep at nights,
With the curtains drawn, you could still see lights.
Red lights, yellow, and some were green
They'd blink and change with a squeal, a scream,
And over all was a dreadful hum
As the world swirled through his solarium.
Towering over the roof, at last
Was a big, old fashioned radio mast,
And folks would grumble in Gallows Bay
'Old Pell's up talking to Mandalay.'
The folks who knew him from times before
Would shake their heads, but would say no more,
For everyone knew that his only son
Was lost at sea when the war was on.
And Pell had been on the Ham that day,
An S.O.S. from a world away
Came tumbling over the ocean's swell
From His Majesty's Ship, the 'Camberwell.'
So Pell had alerted the Naval Base
As the tears streamed over his cheeks, his face,
His fingers flew on the dit-dit-dit
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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