Our friends seem to have too much time on their hands and a dangerous curiosity over current events


XI Ethiopia? ... The laird Jake

Pilar's port engine was running hot
Mac checked the pump but all for naught
There was nothing else left to do
But shut her down to see what's up

We were thirty miles east of the jersey shore
A stary night with easy swells
We turned to starboard took Pilar in tow
An easy trick with Jake's new power

Cape May light was up ahead
McDuell's wharf was there Rick said
They'd haul Pilar are fix her quick
They owed a few to our friend Rick

Seems Fog and Hem hit it right off
With Rick adding spice to the pot
They talked philosophy and such
With a salt and pepper of current events

Hem he was adventure prone
Rich was up for anything
Fog the thinker was fueling their fires
Between them it was plain to see
Something would be hatching there

McDeull lifted Pilar out
Mac found a bit of seaweed stuck
Within The diesel's cooling line
Once cleared she ran without a hitch

Back off shore we set our course
One eighty true we set up the watch
Both Jake and Pilar had bunkers full
So we planned a long run just offshore

In twenty four hours we were off Platt shoal
The Oregon inlet being flood
We put in with the tide to push
And rounded up behind Hattaris

We anchored off the weather fine
And rafted up to gam a while
The talk was easy the rum was smooth
Sam's cooking was a treat as well

That night Pilar'radio was tuned
To the BBC for the latest news
Mussolini had started a brushfire war
With a small country without just cause

The fight was trumped up because Il Duce
Wanted a state to call his own
There was none other that was free
Africa had been carved up for colonies

But Ethiopia was still its own boss
With a fiery little king Hali Salassi
Who fought to keep his kingdom free
Against the might of Italy

With half a million men in arms
Against fifteen thousand without modern guns
The fight was unfair to be true
So the talk on board was what to do

Fog led the talk with his belief
That helping out was only fair
But what could any of us do
A thousand miles from here to there

I piped up we were just small fry
Without much clout or means at hand
To make a change of any kind
Just six quixoties with help in mind

Jim said yep you're right of course
But had we the scratch how would we
Help these African guys to save
Their land... Hypothetically

Hem says he felt he'd had to go
And travel there to report the war
He was writin then for the Toronto Star
But he'd have to first get there somehow

Mac was a bit unsure he said
Its a long way off and not my fight
Let them deal with it all toe to toe
And leave us be to sail our way


Rick and Sam were sittin quiet
Taking in the discussin sure
Rick pipes up and Sam just sighes
Says Boss are you getting us involved again

Rick looks at Sam and smiles a bit
Then takes the cigarette from his lips
You boys saw the trunks we brought
When came on board to sail on Jake

My boss was head of the Jewish mob
In New York City there's rival gangs
My boss was gunned down by the Ities
Hs family and all except for me

We were ambushed in a bar
Just us two with his family upstairs
We got six before the boss got his
I got out when I shot the seventh

I used to run his speaks for him
We did real well till the Ities moved in
Sam worked for me and saved by hide
He picked me up when I ran outside

We went upstairs when it was clear
The boss's wife and daughter there
Gunned down to make the job complete
We took the cash and left real quick

That cash in there is plenty large
To get us started in some place far
Away from crazy NYC
And the mob The Sons of Italy

I'm not real good with words like Fog
But I like his line and he's not wrong
Those african guys deserve a break
I've dealt with the Itie mob before

Mussolini's guys are a nasty bunch
At least we should try to even the odds
Those trunks are full of my boss's cash
We were going to use to start again

I know a guy who has some guns
We can buy real cheap with ammo too
Their war surplus but not yet fired
Their worth a lot to Ethiopians

We could help Salassi and the African boys
To kick Benito off their land
Its the least we can do
As we seem to be some straight up guys.


Well the story's gettin a bit complex
I need some time to clear the decks
You just wait while I have a sip
We'll startup again after my little nip

















Poetry by josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 906 times
Written on 2013-10-11 at 23:03

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Ferenc Inigo Beck
Excellent historical Joe. I wonder if anyone living today (except the "secret circle"),(9/11,Battleship Maine,Reichstag fire,Pearl Harbor,Kennedy drama),knows what it's about.
2013-12-02


ngaio Beck
" Il Duce". In the wrong place at the wrong time. Selassie,(The Lion of Judah) resisted the "New Roman Empire"and was rewarded How? Excellent piece Joe. What's old is new.
2013-11-19



Love it!
2013-10-14


Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Oh, I don't like where this is going, across the Atlantic and around the Cape of Good Hope, and for what? A few guys with a few guns up against the Italian army? Cuba sounds much better to me.
2013-10-13


countryfog
Wow . . . "gettin a bit complex" indeed, tacking off in a direction not even on our charts, the masterful connection between The Sons of Italy and Mussolini's Fascists. Hem is a war correspondent and has his reasons, but is Fog just being altruistic and naive? . . . these are interesting times.
2013-10-12



I love it, a history lesson as well as a yarn. Or, maybe not a yarn. Benito in Ethiopia, I never knew.

It's not our fight,
But right is right.
2013-10-12