A Ship In A Bottle (Poems by Neil Stewart McLeod Book 1)

 The call of the sea and the mystery of foreign lands has drawn sailors and travelers to risk all and venture forth. The inspiration from the experience drove many to make all kinds of models to record and preserve the details of the vessels and among the array you will find the ship in a bottle. Neil McLeod traveled by sea to and from Africa, and his grand parents went on sailing ships to New Zealand. The poems in this anthology capture the essence of ships and the sea and the ports of call.

Available on Amazon

Of Ships and the Sea

 I have long loved sailing ships, and stories and movies about them. I have even spent a few months designing and making a couple of models to erect inside bottles. Fascinated with the subject, I empathize with the men who built them and the men who sailed in them. It was a tough life on the sea, but with great craft and skill ships that could ply the waves were built and our world discovered as a result.

Sing me a song of fine old ships,

Of fine old ships and the sea,

With hulls that ply the rolling waves

Like a claymore flying free;

And bulkheads that can bear the strain

All built of wood and steel,

That rise up like a cathedral

From a massive bolted keel.

 

Sing me a song of hardy men,

Who toil in the shipwright’s trade,

Who bend their backs from dawn ’till dusk

By whom these ships are made.

For months on end with saws and nails,

With red hot bolts and steel,

They build a ship from bilge to deck

On a massive bolted keel.

 

Sing me a song of men that sail

In ships on the seven seas,

Who ride the waves in storm and gale

And laugh with the ocean’s breeze;

Who man the decks in rain or shine

In ships of wood and steel,

With hulls that rise like a great church roof

From a massive bolted keel.

 

From massive bolted keels they rise,

These ships of wood and steel,

Built by men who toil all day,

With muscle, sweat and zeal.

Built with the shipwright’s craft and skill

For the lads who sail the seas,

Who ply the foam in a hull for home,

And laugh with the ocean’s breeze. 

On Apple Musichttps://music.apple.com/us/album/a-ship-in-a-bottle/1279490716