The funnel sings the blast of parting. Burma's on the jaw.
Turban'd and white toga'd Sikhs and sari'd Hindus squat.
Pondicherry Lady - seven dozen in her cot.
She doesn't mind the lullaby. She's heard it all before.

Eighty-four hot human beings sailing east-north-east:
one's the captain, one's the pilot, six more are the crew,
sixteen are the galley staff preparing vindaloo
for sixty hungry passengers who want a sailor's feast.

An English-speaking fakir tells me, "Vindaloo's a dish
introduced by Portugese three hundred years ago
and not exactly Indian in origin, you know.
We never used to eat hot chilli peppers with our fish."

This English-speaking Indian talks on without a break.
I fall asleep and wake again at nearly half past five.
My lecturer's still at it: "Now when Gandhi was alive
I used to cook for twenty-two complete with bread and cake."

And so the days went rolling by with Mr X and me.
I never got the chance to ask his name though he knew mine.
The best release from boredom was a rather splendid wine
which seemed to be in great supply, along with eggs and tea;

but best of all was how I rested, healthy was my phlegm.
After all that dust and thirst, the break was utter bliss.
The ardent sun each evening gave the ocean's lip a kiss
and entered her for re-nativity at four a.m.

It's strange how childlike one becomes when time slows to a crawl.
At first you chat, you tell your tales, you put the world to rights
till, finally, the talking's done; you've scaled the depths and heights
and so you play some children's game and pointlessness is all;

for Mr X and I, who had been talking low and high,
eventually concluded there was nothing quite like chess.
"This game began in India," so Mr X would stress.
"All things began in India," was my polite reply.

When Burma's topmost mountain dandruff rose up from the sea
the final score was 30-26 to Mr X.
I'd lost but I declared that chess was far better than sex -
a notion I dismissed as soon as I stepped on the quay.

You see, a fit young man who hasn't anchored on his way,
who hasn't seen a likely lass for nigh on fifty days,
will spy that girl who shackles down the long limbs of his gaze
and little in this world will keep his jolly rig at bay.

This busy city, old Rangoon, to me was not yet reached.
Burma for me was suddenly a woman and her flesh
and you could call it China, Blighty, Chad or Bangladesh -
no harbour holds a sailor till the locks of lust are breached.

And with the dawn, Rangoon awoke to carts and clams and clay.
I felt much better than before. I'd crossed the famous Bay.
Manoron was closer now - southward my journey lay,
and so concludes this sailor’s log. There's nothing else to say.