"astern" poems
I launched her with my small remaining band
and, putting out to sea, we set the main
on that lone ship and said farewell to land.
Far to starboard rose the coast of Spain,
astern was Sardi, Islas at our bow,
and soon we saw Morocco port abeam.
Though I and comrades now were old and slow,
we hauled till nightfall for the narrow sound
where Hercules had shown what not to do,
by setting marks for men to stay behind.
At dawn the starboard lookout made Seville,
and at the straits stood Ceuta t'other hand.
'Brothers,' I shouted, 'who have had the will
to come through danger, and have reached the west!
our time awake is brief from now until
the senses die, and so I say we test
the sun's own motion and do not forego
the worlds beyond, unknown and peopleless.
Think of the roots from which you sprang, and show
that you are human: not unconscious brutes
but made to follow virtue and to know.'
3.6k
Titanic
****** berth, she stands,
Maiden stream deflowering the
sunlight.
Immense furore along the dock.
Streamers, banners, brass bands.
Herald the beginning of
the end.
Magnificent and stately,
There she stands, a glory to behold.
Pomp and splendour,
Wealth with greed,
All set to sail the seven seas.
A dream of life,
A life of dreams
Splendour of their own,
Scrambling ice mountains, glisten
Shining a fateful allure to a frozen death
A stern captain,
Calm, dignified,
Guides the ship of dreams unto her nightmare,
“Astern”, he cries, unheard through
muffled joy….
Crunching, crashing, listing,
A myriad of smashing crystal,
Destined for the deep,
Air thick with screams of terror,
Young, old, rich, poor,
All scared.
Mortified corpses float,
Water littered with deceased,
While the living dead look on.
Hope’s dashed,
Time dies silently.
Carpathian angel,
Saviour of souls,
God spoke,
Their souls were saved!
Livvi Kent 2012
[email protected]
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 12:18 PM UTC
_
Within the grip of swelling grays
The Southern Cross astern now shines
Ever close of darkened bays
Adrift of lost and endless times
Sails now hoisted, directed wind
I hear the angry waves a’ crash
Spume does touch my worried skin
Tempest waters come to lash
This journey fraught of desperate dreams
To reach the one that I adore
Of echoed voices calling me
And compass points of distant shore
Fear shall not my face to run
As fight this wrathful storm I will
Hoping for the morning sun
With calmer seas so ever still
When dawn, I pray on bloodied knees
Does find your arms about my chest
With kisses sweet of anchored pleas
To whisper I have met my quest
And found my love for once and all
By harbor light and North Star way
Your heart is now my port-o-call
Never more to sail away
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 6:51 PM UTC
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, *** on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 8:19 PM UTC
wind astern sail away
old chores tried are done
no horrid travel everlast
endless squall has won
goodbye mistress light
i know this road i roam
back to earth and sky
madness take me home
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
We'd grown accustomed to the rain. The incessant rain.
The waterlogged ground, the standing water all around.
Long weary months, no sight of sun, underfoot the soil is mud.
The seasons change from Winter into Spring; But still the rain,
still the lashing days, the night's when lulled to sleep by natures tattoo upon the roof.
Birds, rain soaked, dishevelled, find little shelter amidst the rain soaked leafless trees.
The industrious ducks, madly dibbling, turn the soaking ground to pools, their ever probing beaks sifting mud.
The despair of weather's dreary cycle, month after month. And then, the sun! at last the sun!
How we rejoice; the rain has ceased at last.
Now the sun is here to warm the earth,
Trees and grass grow green again, embracing the warm, life giving rays. The countryside is growing beautiful again.
Now the lakeside is thronged with downy ducklings, brown and yellow ***** of energy, darting at the rising Mayflies.
The Geese also have their young and parade in line astern, a guardian in front and one behind.
The lonely Swan has made friends with a white Duck, and the Carp, great and small, are basking at the surface, warming their backs in the welcome rays. The soggy earth is turning hard, and new cracks appear daily.
No rain now, only the blazing Sun.
People lately clad in raincoats and boots, now roam about in lighter garb, bare backed, bare legged, turning redder with each day.
The lonely country walks are now awash with sturdy hikers and the parks are thronged with Sun worshipers, stretched out to brown, like drying fish.
By the Hall, the lake shimmers like a mirror, and from my window I see the Swallows swooping low, dipping their beaks to the water for sedges and and mayflies. The first Bats, from the culvert spread their wings and join the evening Swallows in their search for food.
Sun wind and water are in harmony.
How glorious the Earth with teeming life! How wonderful her colours and her creatures; I cannot truly comprehend so great a beauty.
All life is miraculous! the elements surely blessed.
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 10:44 AM UTC
Keep pulling the strings,
Harder.
I've grown accustomed
To the painful yanking.
Take my shoulders
And tug them astern.
Back rigid as a board,
So as to never run blissfully.
Heave my head up.
Neck indefinitely stiff.
I'll never be able to gaze
Down at the flowers.
Wrench my lips further.
Cheeks excruciatingly tight.
So that I may amicably smile,
At people I'd rather frown.
Extract my laugh out from within.
Lungs enervated from
Emanating becoming laughs.
Which animate these artificial
Kings and Queens,
When I genuinely desire
To spill their crowns.
Force the tears back from my eyes.
As I stand reduced to a creature
In a frivolous sideshow.
Defeated.
Degraded.
Destroyed.
Master.
I do not despise you.
Neither pity myself.
You cannot dodge inheritance.
You cannot hide from the strings.
For we are born Puppets.
And become the Puppeteers.
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 8:02 PM UTC
.
*Of glancing sight and desperate eyes
For this my heart doth cast abreast
Yon whispered seas in torrent squall
Alone adrift this salted quest
Let ocean tears of sorrowed cries
Come rise above this angered swell
Neath clouds of rumbled argent calls
O’er journeys harshly come to tell
As this my life is tossed astern
Midst hurricanes and frenzied wind
On waves engraved of depths below
To pray, so soon to find its end*
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 7:03 AM UTC
A seeker, bound eternal
foundering gently
against rocks of change
arduous dreams
Vanquished
no longer able
to pierce the heavens
with a clarity of heart
Lost amidships, the key
lay hidden by choice,
by fear
bygones
In a world which could not see
could not know
the truth behind windows, etched
and facing darkly within
Lonely point of reference
a reading
of the stars
found at once to be lacking
And more than enough
for a man
versed in wonders
in days
Blindingly brilliant light astern
casting shadows
on lives
finished but not forgotten,
Lost in fated worlds
that followed
burned
into memories too deep
Lit castles of the mind
of the soul, the spirit
resolute
against storms of time
Sacred in living
loving
and the infinite reality
before him
Brought forth the Angels
attending grace, turning out the tides
for the seeker, with freedom
to dream once again...
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 8:27 AM UTC
The wimpled scrolls recede....
The Authors of the braille sands
leave Northern marrow in their wording,
as sharp as Marram grasses bent
in keening subjugation....
Illuminated Sanskrit kelp,
infused with lust of fallen auras,
scrims the weed-green gartered breaks
now shaken from the glaucous mane,
while fleets of stippled cumuli,
( rain-chartered galleons of the West)
in line astern, prepare for war
beyond the deepened brim.
We,- the town-worn Pages- flutter,
drawn to trace the moiling hem,
to pour away into the water....
Salt-preened minions of the wind.
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 12:10 AM UTC
Did I not deserve one moment of your time?
I stared at the walls, I was crying blind.
You were not there, I had no other.
A sister, a mother, but where was my father?
I wanted to talk, I wanted to grow
I felt betrayed with no place or no home
I was left scared, with no place to turn.
No father to run to, I was feeling astern.
Time passed by, I remembered what mattered,
all of my innocence, all but shattered
I found your headstone many years later,
I cried many tears, I found my father.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 6:43 AM UTC
LOVE, the greatest gift,
Lies disguised astern cold eyes,
Lost alone adrift.
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 11:32 AM UTC