More of my own writing...

[hsavinien]

Two short pieces written for a Creative Writing class last year.  I was pleased with the way they turned out.
Both G-rated, though Whiskey obviously references alcohol.

Ships

The bay is always full of boats—fishing trawls with glistening butterfly wings of nets, smelling of haddock, rowboats beached along the shore north of the docks, white-sheeted sailboats for coastal travel.  Ships are fewer, though.  The wide sails, crowned by the Union Jack of Great Britain, snap crisply.  Men swarm their decks, scrubbing, shouting, and whistling.  Mother hurries the girls past on the way to the wet-market where the trawls’ catches fill the air with the smell of seaweed and fish guts.  Brid plays sheepdog to Mother’s shepherd, keeping Mary and Nora from wandering away to look at the tall masts and broad decks.  She chivvies them along with promises of fish as big as the innkeeper’s mastiffs and tiny clams piled high like pebbles.  “And the first one to see a red fish gets to ride with Father to Dublin in the autumn,” Mother promises.  All three race ahead, the ships forgotten.

Whiskey

I went down to Dublin City

The cree-awk creak of the wooden sign at the Corbie’s Cry matches its name when the western wind blows of the bay.

Just to see what I could see.

Its windows look out over the quays at tarred boards, tarred rope, and tar-stained sailors fresh off the merchant traders.

There I met sweet Nancy Whiskey

Galway is a good town, Mother says, but people have their sorrows and those they cannot drown out in the clicking of rosary beads are quenched in the Corbie’s Cry.

Nancy put her spell on me.

Staggering, smelling of the sour reek of vomit, Jacob gets ordered out to the barn like Michael before him to learn from Father’s belt why one does not address one’s mother while drunk.