Mystery Ship In The Bay Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Disappearance
It was a hot afternoon when a big bulk carrier left a harbour
on the coast of Bengali bound for Sydney, Australia, with a cargo
of scrap iron of ships that once had ploughed the seas that had
a retreat for some and work for others.
Then the sea parted the ship fell into timeless zone where life
repeats itself the cook is making soup and the captain studies
a map of ocean currents and lived in the now.

150 years passed, a convulsion through the zone and the ship
was back on the sea surface again and the cook served his soup.
The captain called up the harbour authorities needed a birth for
a ship no one had heard of, but its manifest stated, Sydney,
they let the ship birth on a disused pier far from the city to
the disappointment of the crew who had wanted to go ashore.

When the pilot left he was pale and shaken he felt as he had
been talking to the ghosts through layers of yesterdays.
The official from shore found quantities of cigarettes and whisky
products that had been illegal for the last sixty years in the chief
stewards store, only marijuana was legal, good for the health if
smoked in moderation.

The crew was arrested send them to a camp for interrogation, but
it was clear they were brainwashed not even water torture helped.
Then it was noticed the crew of the ship were getting older first slowly
then rapidly, nurses were called for, to look after men who could no
longer walk and many were incontinent suffering advanced Alzheimer
disease and chronic heart failure.

One morning nurses found skeletons, dark in colour and very old,
like waterlogged wood that had been thrown ashore by an irate
Storm and onto the strand of time by. This was the same time
as the ship they came in sank and broke into pieces of rusty iron.
There were rumours in Sydney about aliens, those who knew were
forbidden to speak, and experts could continue to talk about how
a ship sank so suddenly and disappeared in the sea of Bay of Bengal
on a hot afternoon 150 years ago.