Happy Feet - He Must Not Flote Upon His Watry Bier Unwept! The Emperor Penguin Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

We Asked The Waves, And Asked The Fellon Winds, What Hard Mishap Hath Doomed This Gentle Penguin?

In this Monody the Authors bewail a feathered Friend, unfortunately lost in his Passage from Campbell Island to Antarctica in the Southern Ocean,2011.

[by John Milton and Elaine Martin, with a bit of help from Keith Johnson]

Bitter constraint
And sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due
For Happy Feet is dead
Dead ere his prime

The wind blows hard,
The temperatures plunge,
The sky is dark,
The waves rampage,
I'm tossed.

My flippers are weak,
And my energy's gone,
I've struggled so far,
And had nothing to eat,
I'm lost.

I'm all alone
In a foreign place,
The sand's too dry,
Stones have no taste,
I'm beached.

Before I know it,
I'm surrounded,
Human's concern
Here abounded,
I'm blessed.

Weak and helpless,
I don't enjoy it,
The stares, the fuss,
The skill, the focus,
I must rest.

I'm going home,
I heard them say,
For me these people,
go all the way,
I'm stoked.

Bugger!
Next, I’m on a ship
Tossing in the briny
What a bloody trip,
I chucked.

Then the bastards
Put me on a slip
And poke a pole
To make me slip,
I’m arse over tip

Don’t call me happy
As I hit the tide
Bloody hell it’s cold
Can I come back inside?
I’m freezing

Alas, they’ve left
And I’m alone
Just endless surf
No sand or stone,
I’m all at sea

At 51 below
So far to go
And months to swim.
Is that an undertow?

I’m gutted!

Look homeward Angel now
And melt with ruth:
And, O ye Dolphins'
Waft the hapless youth.