15/30

You’re green, boy, so I’ll tell you
Cain killed Abel on the first Monday in April
So we don’t leave harbor while the blood’s still wet
No women on deck, lest she’s carved of pine
And has her tits out, to shame the sea to calm
Keep your whoring for port
This tub’s your woman now

You’re running from something, sure as salt
Anyone who’d go to sea without a reason
Would go to hell for a holiday

Jonah, put your right foot first, and never trust the left
Lest you want it to buckle under you
Put a silver coin under the mast
Pour wine on the deck
Stay clear of the captain when he’s drunk
Hammer in a stolen piece of wood
And she’ll go faster, if she’s got a reason to run

Never throw a stone in the sea
No plants in the wheelhouse or she’ll seek bottom
Don’t you never whistle
It calls the wind and the rain up with it
Don’t bring flowers or you’ll give em to the dead
Priests and redheads are bad luck
but a black cat will bring you home
it’s backwards here, someways

Never kill a gull, even when he steals
They are sailor boys washed over the side
And you can hear em screaming, of a time
It’s lucky if a petrol shits on you
Don’t cut your hair or nails till we make port
they are for the dead queen
Down in the dirt
Never wear a dead man’s clothes
Don’t fix a flag on the deck,
lest you want us to wrap you in it

if you go over the side, every day after is borrowed
and she’ll take you when she’s ready

There’s a fish out here big enough to house a man
There are whole cities on the bottom
And the churchbells ring in the storm
But if you hear em, you’re bound for the locker
Same as saint’s fire round your head

Watch the rats and leave when they do
Stow everything tight, and mind your business
Leave the duck-fucker in the kitchen
Or he’ll take a taste of young one like you
Never say the curly tailed fellow’s name

After fifty years, if you go
You’ll go to fiddlers green