All through our summer of low comedy –

with knave competing with knave for the

approval of a paltry coterie

of complacent fools and fearful bigots,

justifying thievery and ignorance,

jingoism, contempt and cruelty,

with the Queen finally awarding the prize

to the witless winner then promptly dying –

I have dreamt repeatedly of the French

Blue Riband ’30s ocean liner

the transatlantique SS Normandie,

sailing Le Havre-Southampton-New York.

 

Its suites de luxe were equipped with baby grands

and servants’ quarters. Its first class dining room

was three decks high, and its crew outnumbered

all of its three classes of passengers.

The government borrowed to build the ship

pour la gloire de France. Critics berated

the debt acquired in the Depression.

 

By chance it was docked at Pier 88

opposite the Jersey shore when the Nazis

invaded Poland, and France declared war.

The USA prematurely ‘interned’

the vessel, renaming it USS

Lafayette, with a view to transforming it

into a troopship. Out came the pianos,

the Lalique, the thousands of bottles of wine.

A vast glass mural in a corner

of the Grand Salon ended up at the Met.

But incompetence set the ship on fire.

Water from the hoses turned it on its side.

It was righted in ’43; considered

redundant; and scrapped in ’46.

 

…I am driving on the West Side Highway –

not as it is now but as it was then –

and approaching Cunard’s Pier 90,

where the Lusitania used to dock,

when I see smoke ahead, and crowds watching.

The Chrysler behind me rams my Buick.

The driver gets out. It is The Joker…

…The ship is on its side in the icy mud

of the Hudson. Batman and Robin

are trying to right it. Meanwhile Poison Ivy

is making off with the Art Deco light fittings…

…I have been cast adrift by the Penguin –

and other deranged, illustrious

inhabitants of Gotham City –

in a flimsy craft in the English Channel.

Bearing down on me is Adolphe Mouron’s

iconic poster advertising

the SS Normandie’s maiden voyage.

The elegant blade of the bows –

lit on one side, shaded on the other –

is almost upon me. Silhouetted against

the dark side are thirteen white birds. Their cries

are almost the last I hear except

for the Marseillaise – ‘Aux armes, citoyens,

Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons!‘…