"broadsides" poems
When saliva is saturated we all need a wakeup call
No matter how foreign we feel
But at daybreak your love is like a milkshake
It claws out my eyes and reluctantly takes Eleanor home for dinner
She sits there
She snorts
She smiles
She tore my heart into so many pieces that I'm still looking for the ones that rolled under the refrigerator
Bingo and broadsides do little for my brain
Ages of nothingness and drifting decades starve me
Lies and mistakes and dreams refuse to move on
They bounce off of Rosie's chin, mangle with age, and bitterly salute us as they die
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 10:48 PM UTC
What do you do when you're feeling so blue?
And you are under blue skies listening to the cries
Of the terns and the gulls.
The heart constantly pulls
Me to the oceans shore
Once there I'm not blue anymore.
I stand skipping the stones
Dreaming of lost sailors bones.
But it's the battles I love the most
Off the Cape of Good Hope or the Ivory Coast.
I can hear the cannons roar and see broadsides score
And I transport with delight into the thick of the fight.
I drink *** with the matelots
Take potshots at whatnots
Those enemies of the crown I say let them sink down
Into the cold arms of the deep
I will not lose any sleep.
But once more I find myself stood on the shore
And I'm soaked to the skin.
I hadn't noticed that the tide had come in.
I'm such a dreamer.
John Smallshaw 2011
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 7:27 AM UTC
Believe it or not,
there are men who shriek like
banshees at the deathbed of a sickly dog,
and women that remain impenetrable
like the broadsides of an iron ship
at the prospect of loss. Not all
executives wear the silk tie
of haughtiness, but bump shoulders
with the rounded backs of street beggars.
And just as the moon waxes and wanes, organizing
the stars into a symphony of light, so too
do the clouds occasionally close the curtains
on the whole performance.
I am a poet but I do not cry.
I am a man but I do not push nor pull,
throwing around wantonly the weight of the cosmos.
I like to think that each of my billions upon billions
of atoms move as gracefully as swans
under their own microscopes,
forcing each and every onlooker to stare
and pick at their own skin
in a search for uniqueness.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 11:14 AM UTC
O. Pool raw island or line vineyards
action stripping the shifts in throat lobes
co operative fraction guillotine manual or
glandular matchstick subtracting certain
matching breeds already beneath accidental
mathematics in estrus clothed by fractions
II
Aural syringe laughing lineage captured
glass cultures Where I feel revered by newborn
lands of guilded dementia children from vapor
quartering off portions of soft cornered rockets
off soft dabs of round cornered minaret orders
I fire the buoyant mind with fractioned black butter
III
The hum of fans
the gunboats dealing broadsides
raw meat and bound feet
moon is withered grape
flys gnaw thru our cellophane
intent to devour our brain
The mythical hiss of salted throats
dissolving like fermented aphids
milk amidst the purr of confused
****** onlookers
The Princess of our burlesque
appears with her sun red triplets
Three clairvoyants asleep in their
eggshell bed each with three eyes
one just within the foreheads
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
Dyslexia, mixed messages
Everything so confusing
Susceptible to misusing;
A 'B' becomes a 'D' instantaneously
And screws things up simultaneously.
A short trip from insanity to inanity.
Fiscal confuses with physical
Turning laudable into laughable
So quickly eyes can't disguise
Whether one means the skies
Or perhaps one means this guy's.
If read, confusion and contusion
Seem like quibbling over siblings
But things like read and read
Only different when they're said
Take un-signalled turns in the head
And instead come out backward,
Which should be spelled backword.
Muddling and confuddling resides
Issuing thundering broadsides,
Rendering and sundering any
Blundering inadept ineptitudes
Like some kind of garbled beatitudes.
Some take hostile attitudes.
Wheedling and wheeling away
Beetling and saying it wrong;
Maybe a song can be written
And some tongues can be bitten,
Taken aback by words taken back,
As the Raven said "Never more!"
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 4:18 AM UTC
Nemesis Tales(The Slaver)
------------------------
**Far to the East, a prowling Beast,
The Prow of the Nemesis Seeks a Feast,
a Tautened crew and a Hardened Master,
avert your eyes Shipmate-he's a Tartar!,
like summonin' a Genie,here he Strides,
The Nemesis Sails and the Harbinger Rides,
above the deeps of the ocean gloom,
where Leviathan sleeps,a Predator looms,
we cut the Line four watches past,
much merriment fore and aft of the mast!,
no Grating rigged, no rating flogged,
"aye not even you you drunken dog!"
avast now mate- just shut your gob,
from the Dragon's Cockpit issues Smog(pun:)
we've seen such Fog before recall?,
Mon Capitan, Le Diabole!**
*Prepare for squalls messmates of mine,
ill work ahead this side of the Line,
a foul Miasma disturbs me deep,
I toss and turn and spurn my sleep,
A thousand souls cried out to mine,
no fat Merchant, nor Ship of the Line,
could cast such ripples across the surf,
nay, a thousand times this curse is worse,
we beat to quarters no man waver!,
Two points off the Larboard bow- lies The Slaver!,
from every throat there came a Growl,
from those enslaved before a Howl!,
no Mercy Sir? cries one such Martyr,
Nor asked Nor given Shipmate said the Master,
we sink Merchants and live life hard,
and if we're caught we're strung from the Yard,
yet there ahead with the seal of a King,
lies a monster worse,let the chase begin!(Echo)*
**She's laden deep, and stinks of Death,
I'll know no sleep til she's sunk in the depths,
All sail Aloft, then run out the guns,
we assault from the East and the rays of the Sun
will blind their eyes until broadsides RIP!
the Lateen Sails from the mast of the ship,
then load with Grape, sweep the deck then board,
and free those souls chained down in the hold,
shackled down from head to toe,
in their filth rocked to and fro
in the Bilge with the avid rats to fight,
some die of plague,of fear of fright,
some just give in and slide to the night,
some founder through and become Wights(important for the next chapter!)
but not this time, its Free or Dead,
now we've work to do, and enough been said
are you with me Crew "AYE ONE AND ALL"
as the Nemesis sails let the Slaver Fall!**
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 8:18 AM UTC
a peerful vision
than once entranced
like flys on your arm get attention
or a kitten in the mirror
hunched all up seeing hisself
hisses
back fur at attention
tail straight up
attack with broadsides
in quick steps then run
run kitty
from your reflection
there is
no one else to
really be afraid of
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 3:15 AM UTC