Brigands Of The Ocean Voids: Toroa - The Mollymawks And Southern Royal Albatross Of Foveaux Strait Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Out from Oban on a fishing charter
Bound for a rocky islet in the whale-way
We are suddenly tracked and mobbed
By pitiless hard-eyed white-skull-cap marauders
Strait-troopers of the Sub-antarctic Empire:
A formation of Mollymawk albatross
From the deep spaces under the Southern Cross.
Death star interlopers from the roaring forties
Bound to intercept rogue vessels for the empire
Hunting down harbour break-outs and forays
In the name of Blue Cod carcasses and tidbits.

After the catch is hosed and the landlines stowed
The malevolent cloned conscripts of the sea-wastes
Gather to their piracy - and the plunder they exact.
In the lee of the harbour buoy, the gutting commences
And the squad squabbles for heads and rib-cages
In wave-breaking dives into the bloodied jetsom
Knowing no other restraint or discipline than is imposed
By their commander, the sole Southern Royal Albatross
The first order leader of the distant-rover cohort
Who rules by fear of force and steely-eyed supremacy
These brigands of the ocean voids and island galaxies.