The Liverpool-Belfast Ferry Poem by Leslie Philibert

A black sea; lights made redundant by distance;
the smell of diesel from the lower decks;
metal vibrating as chains leave cold water.
Leaving; arriving; it`s all the same.
Trapped over the night waves stars loop anyway.
The ship a stinking intruder; beer, piss and salt.
Faces washed-out by neon, corpse-like on warm plastic.

Stretched between two pools of light; a lost ship
between Scylla and Charybdis: the carrying of homeless
waiting for the hydraulics and the first new lights,
half in the night. And half in the dawn.