we lived in days
among soaking wet, whipping sails –
and black nights
in darkness and pouring water –
we wore our hands to bones
on stone-hard, biting ropes –
and the muscles fought in despair
with arms-thick, steel-cold chains –
then we laid hibernating for an hour
like soaking wet, shivering cloths,
dreaming of women and sunshine
and forests and peacefully idyll –
then we were thrown out by the next ones
to the water and the darkness again –