Everlasting

Crashing waves, slashing and salty, redefining my perception. Will there one day nothing I be. What is left of the rock when weathered completely? More than the rock am I. For when mass is destroyed energy is set free.

"Captain K and the Gadget"

My most memorable Captain is stuck in my memory like a bad dream; he was a total Jack _ss! I don't recall his full name, even though I sailed under his command for 80 days. People just called him 'Capt. K'. The Captain was about 47 years old and maybe took 47 baths in his life. He was an old wrinkled Greek man who got his kicks from calling me 'Gadget'. My counterpart, the deck cadet Brian Dudley, would come back to the room and tell me all about how the Captain made him do this and do that. Brian would say that the Captain's body odor smelled like that of an 18th-century sailor. Dudley said he could tolerate the body odor, but his breath was just unbearable. I would die laughing as Brian would explain how close the Captain would get up into his face and start yelling. Capt. K would actually spit on Brian sometimes. I found it quiet amusing that my poor deck partner had to put up with this; but my turn would come.

Being the engine cadet was not too bad aboard the "OMI Missouri". For the most part, the engineers were really good guys and I rarely encountered the Captain. The Chief Engineer liked me. He occasionally dropped by and drank some brew with the rest of us. I always hung out with the 3rd and 2nd. Mike the 3rd came up through the hawse pipe, was a big time womanizer, and had "Easy Rider" posters plastered all over his room. He was about31 years old and owned two Harleys, which he would never shut-up about. Garry was the 2nd and was only about 26 years old. He graduated from Maine Maritime and enjoyed teasing me about Kings Point. We had great times after work bullshitting and drinking ice cold beers.

One beautiful day, things changed when I received a phone call. The person on the other end of the phone seemed a bit upset and it was very hard to understand him due to his accent. The person asked "Is this the engine cadet?" I thought that the voice was that of our Indian cook. I said "Yeah, what do you want?" Then he asked "Did you have your boiler suit in the laundry?" I responded with another "Yeah". There was a slight pause and then I heard many swear words followed by "Get your _ss over here!" My eyes popped out of my head as I realized I had been talking with the Captain.

Before I even got to the laundry room, the Captain had run upto me with a khaki shirt with blue ink stains all over it. He shoved it in my face, saying, "Look what you did to all my laundry. You stupid cadet $@#&$#@$#% !" My face felt like it went thru a car wash when he was done. And his breath nearly knocked me to the deck. The Chief Engineer had been standing behind the Captain the whole time, biting his lip to keep from laughing. The Captain finally left after telling me how I would have to clean the whole laundry room and something about my _ss and hell freezing over! I was a little dazed to say the least. The Chief cleared things up after he stopped laughing at me, by telling me what had actually happened. I guess I had a pen in my boiler suit, which was in the only dryer. The Captain had come along, taken my clothes out of the dryer while still wet, and put his own clothes in. When he took mine out the pen dropped in the dryer. Of course, by now Brian was on the scene, telling me how the Captain called him and how he thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

The whole ship thought it was funny except for myself and the Captain. I had to clean for a full four hours with Easy-off oven cleaner, trying in vain to remove the ink from the dryer. And the Captain had to wear blue clothes. Evidently the Captain only washed his clothes every blue moon, so all his clothes were ruined. We still had 20 days left out at sea and it was a long time for me. Brian told me how all the mates were making fun of his blue spotted khakis behind his back. But my two engineer friends were the worst; they tormented me about the Captain incident. They would ask the Captain if he had a pen or asked me to do their laundry. The Captain and I were instant celebrities. Things were not helped when Mike came up with a new name for me. From then on I was known a Sean Pen.

-Sean Whitney

Cross for a Lamp

The burden of man he puts on himself

-punishing blows of unforgiveness.
Did not Jesus carry the cross?
So put down your cross for God's will be done.
And pick up a lamp to find your way home.
Bring light to the World and not gloom to yourself.
Allow God to be God, just follow his lead.

The Starboard Colour

The Starboard Colour.
One of Rage and Seduction
Hate and Love
Intimacy and Damnation.
It is well that Fire Dances
In this Colour.