In Just an Old Sea Dog and Other Poems mariner Beetashok Chatterjee offers 52 lyrical poems steeped in the salt and spirit of the sea. With the beat of waves and the lilt of verse, these ballad chart a course through longing, adventure, hardship, disaster—and moments of pure joy.
The Ice Queen of the Arctic
Polar bears for centuries have roamed Arctic waters
Gambolled in the ice with their sons and their daughter
But come summer, the sun now brings company
They watch the arrival of steel monstrosities!
The Ice Queen of the Arctic with growing alarm
Watches Man’s inventions come to do her harm. . . .
The ice around North Pole is shrinking every summer
The icecaps are melting, the Poles are getting warmer
The pristine Arctic beauty—abandoned to its fate
The times they are a-changing; so is the climate
The Ice Queen watches, her kingdom undone
By the march of machines and the glare of the sun
As more open water replaces the white ice
Ships blazing new trails are invading like mice
From Northwest Passage through Canada’s icy waters
Come tankers and bulkers and oil rigs and cutters
The Ice Queen of the Arctic shakes her head in dismay
Seeing the pollution of the water in her kingdom today
The Russians are drilling for oil over there
Arresting all activists who dare to care!
Pipelines are fragmenting the tortured land
Oil spills and sea levels are getting out of hand
The Ice Queen of the Arctic in quiet desperation
Looks up at the heavens for divine intervention….
The walrus and the narwhal drift far from their shore
Their ancient routes altered, they find food no more
Soot stains the snow which once sparkled in the sun
And silence now echoes where penguins would run
The Ice Queen of the Arctic gazes down from her throne
The growing devastation chills her down to the bone….
The seals will go silent, the glaciers will weep
The ocean will rise from its centuries of sleep
The seas will turn black, the skies will turn red
And children will ask what the old stories said
The Ice Queen of the Arctic gazes all around
Looking for help, but there is none to be found….
Come Back to You
I’ve been with you for decades ‘n’ more
Often wonder what I do it for
Not sure of the answer— (’tis pleasure and pain!)
But in my next life, I’ll do it again
To smell you and to feel the sky
Watch lonely islands passing by
The clouds at sunset changing hue
Maybe that’s why I come back to you
Again and again, come back to you
Not sure what it is that draws me back
To live a life off the beaten track
The peace and quiet? The ozone rich air?
Far from the crowds? From anywhere?
The murmur of the waves at dawn?
The song of the wind as it hums along?
The dark depths of the ocean blue?
God knows why I come back to you
But year after year, come back to you
Did spend some years at life ashore
But couldn’t take it anymore
My heart belonged to only you
To you I wanted to be true
Returned to you and here I am
Braving the elements as best I can
Witnessed all your tantrums too!
Nevertheless I come back to you
As always, come back to you
I miss you at home in the dust ‘n’ heat
In the traffic snarls of city streets
I long for the discipline, clockwork routine
That shipboard life has always been
Even storms that make you explode
Seem magical when I’m on the road
Like a moth to a candle flame, I too
Will one day come back to you
Will surely come back to you. . .
Capt. Beetashok Chatterjee is a retired Merchant Navy ship captain who loves to write. His forte is marine fiction and nonfiction; he has two volumes of sea stories Driftwood-stories washed ashore and Wind Chimes by the Sea-stories blown ashore. The latter won him the Kala Pratibha award for Literature in 2026. He has also written a collection of ‘land’ stories The People Tree-stories about us and them. Mayday! Maritime Disasters that Shook the World, his analysis of great marine tragedies that have taken place in history, was #1 in its genre on the Amazon Bestseller List for two months. He has contributed to a Covid anthology The Phoenix Rises—Lockdown Chronicles along with many eminent writers and poets. Just An Old Sea Dog and Other Poems is his first full volume of poetry released last year.
