Poems By Simon Beechinor

Mine is a tale of wonders untold, From Ko Tong Ha Yeung in China, Of two young knights, fearless and bold Named Batman and Robin Boy Wonder,   Long before the Penguin and Joker, Batman mauled the banded krait, Red-necked keelback and hooded cobra, Oh, how that brave knight could fight! Robin ne'er feared the stinging viper, The python, foul millipede or bullfrog, He shed no childish tears when bitten,  On the bum, by Fang, the village dog. But holy pawpaws, I must be mistaken, That was their loving mum, my wife - not them! Who cares? Not one of them was shaken,  So, all three are my superheroes, then! Photo: Author

This non-rhyming poem is based on my short memoir, ‘The Evening Watch’. It is largely written in iambic pentameter. However, I have tried to vary the metre significantly in several places to allow for a change of rhythm and musicality. As I beheld the fading light of day, The trade winds gathered from the south and east, White-crested waves broke hard against the hull, To cast cascades of spray upon the breeze. A scattered flight of calling migrant birds Bore witness to our steady progress south, And called me from my watchful solitude, Beneath the blushing pinks and gold of dusk. The unruly breeze brought sooty terns to feed And seek their prey among the dancing waves, Then soon, the albatross came soaring by, In silhouette against the twilight sky. As heaven’s amber hues gave way to night, In gusting wind, that pilgrim stayed beside The ship, to fly within my widest reach, And hold me fast with watchful gimlet eyes. With skill and stately grace, our pilgrim Discerned her path across

This poem describes the dawn as seen from the bridge of a ship in the narrow China Strait that leads to the island of Samarai in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea.  The China Strait is about four nautical miles long, but only half a mile wide. The proximity of navigational hazards is such that it requires precise and faultless navigation. Many of our sailors came from the islands of Milne Bay in the Louisiade Archipelago, and if time allowed, we would stop and drift to allow the men to pass trade goods to their ‘wantoks’ and hear the news from home. The structure of this poem is inspired by the villanelle form of poetry, it borrows the nineteen-line structure and the concept of refrains, and uses literary devices like repetition of sounds and imagery to create a similar effect. Dawn I closely watch that labyrinthine pristine coast, For the misted shores where the bush and waters meet, Enshroud a world of secrets hidden by the night. The muddy waters of ancient mangroves glisten, In the subtl

This poem is dedicated to my wife. It is written in iambic pentameter to give the poem a contemplative tone. ‘Beyond my reach’ refers to the sun passing below the horizon. The words ‘I survey six’ refers to my choosing six stars to ‘shoot’, to obtain a position using a navigator’s sextant.  Dusk The sun descends beyond my reach to yield, And leaves the cooling ashes of the day, The most sublime of hues are now revealed, A worthy aspect for some aspiring Manet. I stand my lonely watch beneath that sky, Across that calm and tranquil sea, we plough, With none to witness our sailing by, Except for distant, cargo-laden dhows. The twilight lifts her sheer, translucent veil, And brings my constant, faithful friends to me, And from among that host, I survey six Blessed stars to guide me, west across the sea. The full moon bathes the ship in silvered light, And I reflect upon my passing day, Among those fleeting shadows of the night, My longing thoughts of Anne ne’er far away. Photo: Rafael Gar

This poem depicts a navigator at sea and aims to describe how the sun's movement creates a challenge for navigation. Lines 1-4: The time on shore (represented by the "landsman's mark" on a clock tower) is irrelevant to the sailor at this moment. The sun is on its daily journey (diurnal path) rising towards its highest point in the sky (zenith). This moment is not 12 o'clock but varies daily, subject to the ship's longitude and the local time observed on the ship. Lines 5-8: The sailor struggles against the rough seas (unruly heaving, pitch and roll) and the wind. Despite the challenges, he must use the sextant (a navigational instrument) to observe the sun's position (hold her in my sextant's eye). Lines 9-12: He follows the sun's steady movement (stately progress) towards its peak (summit of the day). He can calculate his latitude by observing the sun's altitude at its peak (crossing his meridian). This is a crucial step in celestial navigatio

This poem is deliberately written in somewhat archaic language. I wanted to see how such language might work in a relatively modern maritime environment. I served three tours on board 'Pacific Constructor' in the early 1980s. We rarely went into port and joined and left the ship by helicopter. At the time she was one of the most sophisticated ships afloat and employed several emerging technologies. This poem attempts to describe the onset of the southwest monsoon, which occurs between June and October each year, over the Bombay High oil field, situated 100 miles off the west coast of India.  We continued working on diving and heavy lift operations until one or two days before the monsoon finally broke. Thereafter, when it became too rough for helicopters to fly and even for most supply vessels to reach the field, we spent the many weeks of the monsoon on 'Rapid Intervention', providing some sort of safety cover for the entire field. They were long and arduous months. Ou

A rage of hideous screaming stirs and hastens me below, The cook babbles and pleads in a banshee’s cry of dread, He wears a hair’s breadth line of blood beneath his fleshy jaw, The heedless, hell-bent riot of sailors soon will have him dead. ‘Drop the butcher’s cleaver before you harm him more!’ The cook’s bloodied neck now caused me great alarm, ‘He steals our food, I’ll carve him into meat and bone!’ ‘Is it true, Cook? Speak man, before you come to harm!’ ‘Tonight, the crew have prawns, and all men eat the same!’ The cook now starts to argue, which the sailor’s cleaver quells, ‘He’s a damned and cursed liar! You might have the prawns, This thieving bastard cook feeds us the heads and shells!’ Photo: Chris Pagan on Unsplash

The girl in the pale blue dress stood alone, By the mountain’s crest amidst the snow, Glittering like diamonds in spring’s chill air. On that mountain, my aching heart awoke, To her bright eyes sparkling with kindness, And luminous smile that warmed my soul. As saxifrage emerged from her winter’s bed, Beside the stream that to the fjord flowed, I stood in contemplation as if entranced. I yearned to know the measure of her feelings, Would they echo mine as truly as the fjord’s Reflection of the mountain, snow, and sky? She was a glorious constellation all her own, Would my aspiring and tender heart suffice, To win her affection and warm embrace? The mountains knew but held their breath, That if she would be with me, as I hoped, I might find love as sweet as ever known. Photo: Author

The master craved our worshipful acclaim, Yet, set no course to win his men's respect. To master’s rank, he'd a rightful claim, But how his pretensions did run unchecked. He stood radiant, clad in tropic white, His skin blushed red by the Gulf’s fierce glare, And epaulettes glittering gold and bright, Did gild his image with a prideful air. The master like an aged goat, would bleat, To lead his herd, his orders to convey. Oh, he bleated loud, such was his conceit, To earn his disrespectful soubriquet. ‘Whisper’ preened like an aged Wanchai whore, Proud and smiling among his hapless crew, To satisfy himself with all he saw, Yet blind was he to fault his retinue. He ignored the butts of careless smokers, In spaces marked ‘Danger of Gas - No Smoking’! He did not see the host of cock-roaches, That foully seethed within our victualing. When old Whisper idled, oft did he call, For ‘Someone! Someone!’ to do his bidding, Like some fag in an ancient college hall, Our names expunged amid

This poem, written in free verse, describes my first year at my senior school. I have recently found supporting evidence for my (clear) memories in the diaries mentioned below. Needless to say, I produced my '...worst ever end-of-year school report...'. It seems not to have occurred to those ostensibly responsible for my welfare to drill down and find out why a previously exemplary student failed so dramatically. My second year was equally traumatic for different reasons, but that is a story for another day! She said I “must get away from” him. Now, fifty years later I’m reading his diaries, page by page. Perhaps I’ll find out soon why I needed to escape. My new home, a boarding school, was ‘character-building’, they said; perhaps you know the type? Regimented and authoritarian. Our spartan, cold dormitories reeked of sweat-stale boys, or suffered the wild west wind, blasting through uncurtained windows. Our cold and cheerless walls echoed with the relentless clatter of shoes o

This poem is my first attempt at writing in contemporary ‘free verse’. I believe poetry written without a form of control is like music written without order, and it becomes a mess.  The poem is completely unstructured with no metre or rhyme; instead, I have tried to create a readable poem by using sentence structure, punctuation, language and the natural flow of the spoken word. We must go to school somewhere, and mine was an idyllic island, of unbounded childhood joy. A bulwark of English tradition amidst the social upheaval, the anarchy, perhaps, of the ‘60s, with a progressive outlook, if one was of the Edwardian era, for it was a training ground for the Guardians of Empire. And I loved it. I was steeped in its timeless values:  of fair discipline,  academic excellence, and sporting prowess. Our gaggle of ancient and venerated teachers, all veterans of wars past, of Ypres and the Somme,  Normandy and the Yangtze Kiang, tried to shape my impressionable mind. They did better than my