The acoustics of a double-bottom tank
or smokebox top are Caesar’s
Palace to his Sinatra,
his shift-long repertoire
from Nancy to My Way,
his applause the chipping-hammer.

‘Cleaner’ is his euphemism,
paraffin and cotton-waste
his daily bread. Filthy,
he crouches beneath floorplates,
bales out the bilges
with a found tin.

He sweats, without change of costume,
through encores, singing to no-one
else listening until, in perfect time,
his cabaret ends with the four o’clock day.
In his bathroom tonight he will cut out
a new best-singing single.


In British naval parlance, a bilge-diver is a slang term for a sailor or stoker 
assigned to the dirtiest, most claustrophobic job on a ship: climbing down into the bilges—
the lowest, foulest compartment of the hull—to inspect, clean, or repair equipment.