'Sailortown Ix' Poem by Marty McKenna

he's got mastery at chiseling rhyme,
rolls a smaller and smaller rock up
mountain each time. ink in his bones, rock
grows to the size of a sharpening stone.

such sweet refrain brings us again
and again into the heart of his craft,
all this for the loading of spuds onto
the caroline raft. and the wit; to strand a

shoeless sailor on the quay as his ship
sails off, deep in sea. he stands by all
those he named, who put in fast graft,
ghosts now, time makes us all the same.

clock's gone forward on sailortown dock
a.i. writes their poems now, a laughing stock.

first published by 'writing in the real world'
appears in the pamphlet 'seven sonnets for sailortown'