Billy Ulysses in Crab County

On the first day of the year he dumped the company car

in a back alley opposite the Marine club, Lime Street,

shaved his head, masturbated, sent his wife and kids

a postcard from the front-line of his torment

and hitch-hiked to Crab County

land of saints and rugged coasters,

mereolyte hard-rock men fed granite from the womb.

“I am alpha, I am omega, I am the beginning, the middle,

the badly bitten tongue.

I have found my many moons, I have found my many moons...”

Three trawlermen told this story in the snug

of the Severn Stars, how a stranger, Billy Ulysses

chucked it all in

stripped himself naked, was crowned

King of the Dead-Nettles and garlanded

with hawthorn by a mermaid off Trevose Head.

The story was told twice - once for the foreign couple

and once for their friends who laughed.

The bar fell to silence.

I'd heard the story before, told by an old man named East.

“Look long and hard and you can see Billy Ulysses.

Look long and hard within yourself

and you can feel Billy Ulysses. Look long and hard

at all men and you can hear Billy Ulysses

singing beyond the harbour, nestling between the great cones

of ocean, hidden in a golden oyster.”

This story was told twice by three trawlermen in the snug

of the Severn Stars.

The second time the children began to cry

and all eyes turned to sea.