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Donna Nov 2017
Moving the ocean
With there gigantic tails , whales
make beautiful waves
Donna Jun 2017
waking up a deep
imagination , whales swim
gently in abyss
Beautiful creatures :) I watch video on blue whales and it's amazing how gentle they swim in ocean x
Sobriquet Feb 2017
At dawn on my twenty fifth birthday
416 pilot whales beached themselves,
in the shallow tides at Farewell Spit.

I woke to rain on the wooden roof
of my new flat
and confused myself in unfamiliar blankets and
the words of your message,
written heartfelt and wobbly
in the early hours before morning,

caught in the marine ebb and flow,  
that stranded us too.
cgembry Jul 2016
I dreamed up a world
Where reality had tilted
And the sky traded places
With the sea
We walked on streets
Of fluffy clouds
Caught stars in fishing nets
While gazing up at celestial waters
Making wishes on flying whales
Lunar Luvnotes Mar 2016
The beaten path is hardest to go alone but it makes one stronger. One never wants to admit to oneself that misery is the predecessor to change, ushering it like the pilot ushers the plane down upon the runway.  This is a new destination you'd never have known. That is why we go up and then down, otherwise you wouldn't care for clouds. They'd be like stop signs posted on every street of every town you can't escape from. Don't you think whales like to take a dip in our atmosphere with the same exhilaration we dive down into their ocean? Marine life has it's trials, it all seems so buoyant and peacful, but its another jungle down there. Beautiful until you live it and predators lurk every corner and algae field. Everyone eating the next guy, if its your residence, it is no vacation. Its not so simple just cuz they've not got rent to pay and corrupt politics. Babies on the way while no financial burden make most species crazy. Try being a single mother just trying to keep your kids well enough hidden just to go off to find good eats for them. They have very emotional lives out there, full of pain and suffering. If whales could get drunk, mermaids would charge and set up breweries. But the ocean would dilute any profits, and two tons of blubber each would call demand too high and so whales throw themselves into our world just to escape. They could gulp the air so low key, surfacing like submarines, instead they splash mountains with their ferve, the same way we get down, tossing cares across dance floors. And we wonder why when  they take a breath, they reach for the sky, they just want to be free, where nothing of their world can touch them. And we wonder why when it's not enough, they just give up, just like us. Massive escapists desensitizing to the joys in the depths of their waters. We wonder why we find them so sad layed up on our beaches, you see it in their despondent eye. They just want to die in that memory of exhiliration. One. Last. Time. But they're not happy. Cuz they were always chasing a high that fleetingly springed them from all worry. They lay knowing its the last time and they wonder what's gonna become of them when its all over. They just figure what lays on the otherside, or even nothing has got to be better. Maybe they're right,  or maybe all the off kilter chemicals got the better of them. Full moons got them all emotional just like us, gravity pulling all their painful memories to the surface, pulling them up out of the ocean all hopeless. Shoot maybe some of them dont even mean it, they were just so tired of the krill or baby seal murda life, or sharks poaching their babies and needed longer and longer til oneday they got too sleepy and the tide snuck down too low. Like when I pass out in the shower when it's hot enough, I swear I was about to get out..then, ****. Maybe that's why they're so ******* sad. They didn't mean for it to be over, they just got caught up in that feeling. I bet the old ones though go on purpose, just to spite the sharks that took their babies out they'd rather rot in the sea breeze they loved. Or maybe they're so depressed at the loss of their child they just want it to be over. They carry their babies in their bellies just like us, I bet they get depressed like us or the smarter dogs. Being a whale, or any sober creature can be very hard, but at least if you're not running from it, you might see through the storm for the beauty of its strength, releasing fear to just stand in awe of it. You can learn to cope with pain in at least better measure to sprinting in laps, without intention, you're just on the track, even if its as vast as the pacific, adriatic, atlantic, doesnt matter all the waters you cross, they all just ran back into themselves. See, the whale can only cope, no emotional escape route, so no matter what comes, whale is miles wiser. Their calls sound a little sad but so hauntingly beautiful. Do not beach yourself humans, in your little ways everyday. Stop feeding this disbelief in yourself. You were given this brain to choose to overcome this pain, to communicate in new ways. If you get tired of something just cuz you're used to it, you've done fell off your rock, you slipped to drown in your own riptide, to get pummeled to death. Or as my Papa woulda said, you're not playing with a full deck. You drown in intoxicant, whatever your vice, liquor, uppers, downers, shopping, food, flirting, ******* to numb life's beating. You're running from sobriety, from reality, from those people you don't love anymore cuz they can't jive with your illusions. You'll look for every reason why your psyches not the problem. If you'd not only accept but seek the need to heal,  you wouldn't need constant change of scenery just to feel something, to feel snippets of sanity, mini vacations from your daily miseries. New people, places and substances are just so exhilarating, cuz you can't handle yourself. If you could, each listed above would be blessings of oneness, not necessity. Running is only blocking your life from mattering as much as it should. You squander potential wandering in circles inside yourself. I smoked **** habitually since I was twelve, it didn't really hurt me right, just my dump trucked loads of brain cells? Wrong! Sobriety is the hardest but most rewarding excursion so far. I delight everyday in the opportunities I can receive just cuz I can think so clearly. I have an occasional shot or glass of wine with coworkers and think God I feel good. Then go home and think and plot, how can I attain that joy without consuming a dollar, compromising my body?  How can I be so at home in my skin that I don't need that just to feel like this?  I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. It's the big ******* mystery, isn't it. I THINK my point is,  we would never know what's so good to be cherished if we always had it made. They call it a beautiful struggle, and i really think they're onto God with that one. Wherever your feet lay, next time you look down at them in dismay, remember your pain is the best teacher you never had to pay.  It makes you great, it makes you an epic ******* trilogy of the past present and future.  You'll get through this day, I promise you. Whatever it proves to be to you, I pray oneday you hold the kingdom. Oneday you'll praise yourself for holding on. Oneday you'll stop running. You'll just wake up and feel at home inside yourself how the wise whale makes peace with the ocean. Tempering the binges to the surface. As above so below. You just have to find the thrill within the hand you're dealt and make yourself better for it.
When Katie gets drunk, she dances and rants about nature. This whole scenario got real complex real quick. I just picture the whale telling the other whale,  yea man I don't surface like that,  I don't hit it hard like I used to. It just doesn't do it for me anymore, I've just learned it's not worth it. Sorry i speak in circles I clearly need to learn the art of editing. But that seems daunting so fuuuuck it. To everyone in pain,  if u ever wanna talk I'm not gonna lie I **** at keeping in touch but say hi and I'll say hi and I'll remember at least to pray for u
Cori MacNaughton Oct 2015
She had been at sea for three decades
her first voyage at age eighteen
a week after her marriage
in the year of our Lord 1883

She married a sailing man
captain of his own ship
handsome, bearded and tall
a fine commander of his men
as they searched the sea for whales

She loved life at sea
and could imagine no other
the motion of the ship
the sounds of the rigging and the sails
the quiet companionship
with her husband every evening

She was beloved by her husband’s men
whom she mothered well
having had no sons of her own
but nurtured and healed
patched and sewed
bloodied and broken hearts and men

Often she came out on deck
for she knew when they would find them
and though she was in the stern
and the lookout was high in the crow's nest
she saw many whales they missed

She thrilled each time she saw them
awed by their sheer size
marveling at their strength
humbled by their beauty
careful to hide her feelings

Sometimes she could feel
when a whale would blow
and she would call to the first mate
so the men looked at her
as the whale passed unseen

Most times she silently prayed
willing the lookout to search
the wrong spot of ocean
and felt again the pang
of disloyalty to her husband
for he commanded a whaling ship

But then the lookout's call came
"Thar she blows!"
and the men sprang to action
taking after the whale in longboats
while she escaped below

She had seen before the killing
she would not watch again
too many whales succumbed
to exploding harpoons
and a death horrifyingly cruel

And she wondered
what would happen
if only whales could scream . . .
Originally written on 4 Feb 2006 at 11:57 PM.

This poem is very close to my heart, as I have been strongly morally opposed to whaling since childhood, and it was inspired by the following wrenching quote:

The methods have hardly evolved since Dr. Harry D. Lillie worked as a ship's doctor on a whaling expedition in the Antarctic in 1946:

"If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it."

I recently read the wonderful book "Fluke, or I know Why the Winged Whale Sings" by Christopher Moore, in which , though it is a work of (mostly) humorous fiction, he recounts a factual occurrence of a mother whale attempting to protect her calf from the Japanese whaling ship pursuing them.  In Japan, whales are considered to be nothing more than fish, with therefore no moral reason not to hunt them to extinction, but her actions showed the whalers onboard the ship that she truly displayed a mammalian motherly love, and moved many of them to tears.  

There is still room for hope, but we have to act NOW, and drag our government officials into the 21st century kicking and screaming if need be.
Michael Ryan Sep 2015
When you fell in love with me
it was the most exhilarating life-style.
We're fabulous and none could tell us
that we were just two ordinary people swooning.

People spoke of remembering the beginning of their own--
comparing their moments to ours
the same places the same people,
but to be honest I never believed a syllable
they whispered our way.

Anyone can recreate a master piece
and say it is identical in every single way.
Though the painter will always look quite different
and their detailed feelings for each stroke
will be the same as a grain of sand
compared to a humpback whale.

These people see love as an comparison story
where they can take notes and read books:
how to deal with happiness or depression
what this means for her and him,
it's the exact same thing for their own relationship.

I simply smile at these folks
they will always wander the grounds behind us
seeking out thoughts
about how to deal with each other.
To them I give a full smile,
where my eyes crinkle at the corners
giving them some peace.

As I take your hand
and tell you about the beach
where we watched whales jump out of the water
and land all over the sand.
I wanted to write a poem about a family and having one of the family memebers wanting to attempt to commit suicide and the struggle they all faced together, but separate, but it just didn't come to me.  Maybe another time.
Coop Lee Jul 2015
the sea is cold,
but the sea contains the hottest blood of all.*

             killer transients.
             people and whales.

             he needed to see his son smile
             & he did.
             a blue-trucked boy, hometown hero.

             he loved to fight
             & he fought to love.

             died in afghanistan for the pentagon boys.
            
             blame them. bomb them.
             submerge your vestigial limbs in days and home
             & simple mammalian living.
             wage and pray.
             little hours.
             little sweet nothings.

             people and whales fall older.
             think. write. ferment.
             the good deep.

             the hottest blood of all.
recently published in The Bayou Review
Cori MacNaughton Jun 2015
Between the Navy or Whales
I'll choose Whales EVERY TIME
This is the 5th of fifteen 10-word poems I wrote this morning, 23 June 2015.  I posted them here in the order in which I wrote them.
Cori MacNaughton Jun 2015
Language
is one of my favorite things
for which I displayed
an early facility
I toyed with foreign languages
but went no further
it wasn’t where I wanted
to spend my time

I wanted to save the whales
improve education
fight poverty
protect our environment
a whole host of causes
I visited in a repeating cycle
whirling faster and faster until

I created my own vortex
and then found myself
at the far end of a wormhole
with no idea how I got there
much less how to return
and found myself observing
every time I behaved badly
in excruciating detail

A tactless comment
a thoughtless act
each small transgression
building stone by stone
until I created a fortress
walling myself within
this invisible shield

When we touch
is it you or me
who feels remotely?

All dissolves into Oneness.

17 July 2005
I wrote this poem shortly before my divorce became final.
I have read it in public but this is the first time it appears in print.
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