My grandparents, Marguerite Louise (Kik) Kinney and D. Jack Kinney, were laid to rest many moon ago. Here's a little ditty I wrote in honor of their 70 years together. It's about two ships--the imperiled freighter D.Jack and a once fancy schmancy old ghost yacht the Marguerite L. The ships are named because my grandpa was a workaholic, like the mighty lake Michigan freighters. And my grandma loved expensive things. And could have posed as a figurehead!
It is ironic that in the poem, she saves him. Everyone always called Grampa the romantic Galahad, the rescuer, the savior all of which he was. Grandma appeared the frail lightweight but was in fact tough as a battle axe and 10x more incisive.
It is set in Lake Michigan, where my Grandpa and I swam and walked many miles over many years (while Grandma stayed home and read Architectural Digest). This poem is for my father D. Jack Kinney II, who knew all there was to know about the ships of Lake Michigan and who liked a good story.
The Good Ship Marguerite L.
stranglehold cold wind
mutes dull foghorn moan
banshee storm-ghoul's shriek
deafens warning groan
weakened lighthouse beam
struggling to sustain
snuffed in fog-clogged night
and vision-dimming rain
Embattled Freighter D. Jack
seeks safe, havening moor
refuge from the storm
heads blindly toward shore
solid blank stare fog
lightless night darks drear
no moon marking rocks
sailors think all's clear
no fog gong foretells
dimmed lighthouse mocks
no death- knell warning
sailors off the rocks
beamless empty sky
deadly barrier ahead
ships smashed to bits
tale ends with all dead
blame the deafening blind fog
curse the storm that rent the night
sing of D. Jack's end and gloom
blame the waning of the light
but tale's end is not yet writ
fate not sealed in lake tomb
sad's the song that ends too soon
ill's the wind that blows but doom
there is another verse to
this sorrowful rhyme
in the wings a heroine
is waiting for her line
within rock walls is calm
without tempest's brewin
bony schooner, Marguerite L.
sleeps moored in brooding ruin
by good fairy or bad sprite
Neptune's guide or Hades' shade
sends storm ripples into port
rouses ghost ship to their aid
sleeping beauty wakes again
hears the S.O.S across the wave
though old, frail, falling apart
there are sailors she must save
with bump-booms, banging clangs
plays hornpipe on rusted chains
grind-jangle, rattle and clank
screams louder than the rains
by happy stroke of luck
or black magic rune
D. Jack harks danger
in her warning tune
The rocks are avoided
The freighter finds a way
round the hidden breakers
ghost yacht has saved the day.
what genius loci possessed
Marguerite L. that night?
to rise up from death bed
and take up the good fight?
sailor is a brother,
to seamen in all clime
Do some come back to warn
just in the nick of time?
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