Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE EXCURSION: OR: O COLUMBUS!, by THOMAS MCGRATH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE EXCURSION: OR: O COLUMBUS!, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This morning is the morning when mrs. Murphy's treasure chest opens
Last Line: And the seas fill up with the sharks of auld lang syne
Subject(s): Explorers; Travel; Exploring; Discovery; Discoverers; Journeys; Trips


This morning is the morning when Mrs. Murphy's treasure chest opens.

All the ladies of the town get out of bed: naked:
Except for their life-preservers -- it's a Significant Day!
They put their brassieres on backward.
Then: oilskins. And: rubber boots --
Using old garter belts for the proper nautical effect --
And they shinney up their husband's mainmasts to get a brief look at the
weather,
Singing a stave from Brecht's poem "Ballad of the Pirates":

"Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous winds, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!"

Then just as husband is trying to box the compass, (surprising
Weather, he's having) or get a bead on the sun,
The women are off! In marine splendor! They are going Garage
Sailing!

Sometimes on lakes, sometimes on rivers, sometimes
In ditches, and latecomers surfing on the last of the morning dew!
Tacking and turning seaward to scud the bright blue briny!
A beautiful day for garage sailing!
And the bay is full
(Or has its fill) of them. And they are so joyful!
Splicing their mizzens and shivering their delicious timbers,
And contriving, by Great Circle lingo, to thwart their neighbor's avasts!

And what garages! Ranch types, terraced with cows and their cowboys;
The Bide-a-wees: vinecovered, their roofs cloudy with Datsuns
Mewing in Japanese against the perilous flood!
There are Swiss chalets, chateaux and simple salt-boxes
Confounding the whelming tide with that good old Puritan jazz,
And the cineramic Protestant rectitude of Increase and Cotton Mather!

Some, captains of gothic garages, are ringing their bells and gargoyles,
While others, late starters, only now, on the meadows of plankton,
Are reviewing their troops (or Old Salts as they may be called),
While the Earlies, Msss. Flotsam and Jetsam, in pelagic disaster areas,
Are seeking the spangled lamp whose dome is deeper and darker
Than any drowned dingle or oceanic boudoir or sea chantey,
Or trying to catch or ketch a bald hornacle on a plate of blue fish,
Or snatch the black pearl of desire from the dens of the iniquitous Deep.

But Mrs. Murphy's treasure chest has long -- alas --
Been emptied: by early lovers, couth and uncouth, by kith and kind,
By kindred candid and unkind, by talking heads, heedless
Of her need or nod or now't or naught or nix or nonesuch:
And so the poor woman's bereft -- a soul in the dark night
Sailing toward Nowhere among the long black boats of the dead.

Still, here's a drowned dictionary, everything illegible
Except for the words water and salt. But, as they say,
Who needs it?
The ladies mount their garages.
They sail
Back to their homes in Plague Harbor.
Meanwhile the dictionary
Dries.
And the word "salvation" appears in the margin!
Hot

Damn! It's Mrs. Murphy's map to the Enchanted Isles!
But the ladies have gone home again to their own treasures:
Beer cans, children, husbands, mortgages, bills, adultery --
Home Sweet American Home!
The garages are no longer sailing
And the seas fill up with the sharks of Auld Lang Syne.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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