The Long Voyage

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The voyage across the Indian Ocean has lasted long,
my ship is old does only eight knots,
still six more days before we dock in Bombay.
Books, old newspapers and well thumbed magazines are read,
what’s left is playing cards in the crew’s quarter,
talk bawdily about women and manly laugh,
or sit on deck watch the calm sea and dream.