The Boatmen Have Gone Poem by Tony Adah

There's an old forgotten bay
Where lies old and abandoned boats
Floating in a bloom of water hyacinth
The oars are pinned ashore and idle
Fat old frogs and toads croaking
And rowing the boats in one place
The owners no one knows where
They have gone to.
Little frail waves put a push
That jerk the boats and the hyacinth
In assonance refuse to go
The boatmen have gone to be recruited
Into the army for war
And the war come and gone
The boatmen dead or alive are veterans
Who have forgotten their trade;
And the boats a figment of imagination
Have continued to rot.
Any artist with a brush and canvas
Will leave a memory of this
For soon the hyacinth will swallow the boats.