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Adellebee Apr 2016
Your life consists of working hard hours, for not enough pay, hard days
Good, great people
But nothingness consoles you at the end of the day
Nothing to live for and nothing to fight for
You have become a waste of space
You don't contribute
You second guess
You

All the time fighting the same battles
Your heart, your tongue, and your liver, your mind set and your waist line
You are so far removed what you wanted ten years ago

Fell into a pattern of pay cheque to pay cheque

Living through decisions and then later, they're regrets

You need a huge change. It is scary, but dockside was the best decision you have ever made

Step outside, from your shredded sheltered comfort zone, and branch out a little more

Do what you always knew you were born to do!

Go take photographs, that mean something

Make your life important again

Not another bottle and not another regret

Do what you want to do!

Go to war, take pictures

Make your life mean something
the realization that you want more
Paul Glottaman Jan 2011
The fear engendered by a righteous act
is called cowardice.
To preform a righteous act because,
or in spite of, this fear
is called courageous.
To allow this fear to prevent,
or delay, a righteous act
is nothing short of
pathetic.

How I long for a righteous act.
What is the mettle of this man?
In what shapes and colors
am I defined?
To what parts are derived my sum?

For so long I have waited.
There was a time when I could
see them.
When you could point them out
and I would know them by name.
That has changed.
Miracles don’t happen here.

Are the pious also righteous?
Are the sinners capable at all?
Can a man be just one?

For so long I have waited
for a miracle.
For a spark of the divine.
I have labored for this
harvest, but am forbidden to
partake of the fruit.
Is that not a righteous act?
Dreams of Sepia Oct 2015
****-stained is the color of leaves falling, we say goodbye to ourselves like to lost lovers,  ripping up old love letters, tripping whiskey into the distance,

coarse wood chips of dockside hearts burned on future November bonfires spouting unholy flames, burning ourselves on the stake but once these harbor crane streets were ours & our fervent love in the making, not living on borrowed

breath or dying time, joyriding, unafraid of not wearing masks amidst the garish masquerade & someone who made us laugh & love despite ourselves was all we lived for

- remember?
I do.
.....insomnia makes me write all kinds of things....
Olivia Kent Dec 2013
Noah Saved The Day!

And so the wind and rain they blew.
Combination of cold and wet.
Noah,
Man of bible fame.
Scratched his head.
Somewhat bereft,
For he was left.
With animals only a few.
Those he found.
Were stuck in the zoo.

Built his ark to keep keep them safe.
From deluge of unholy storm.
Went to try and rescue them .
But the warders would not let him in.
They had the keys.
But, would not free.
The beasts from their sorry burden.

Instead sweet Noah scratched his head.
Oh what is he to do.
Had a thought in a fleeting moment in time.
That he'd save me and you.
The loathsome beasts.
He loved not much.
Decided in his heart of hearts.
That man needed a second chance.

Could not find no other men to come along.
All at work or not at home.
So off he went to his house.
Where he did find,
Tiny his pet mouse.
Also found his budgerigar.
Put the two beasties in his car.
And drove off to his luxurious yacht.
Laugh out loud.
As that it was not.
Just a junk made out of driftwood.
With barnacles on it's bottom.

Set sail onto the seven seas.
As he left dockside.
He saw you and me.
Changed his course.
Back to the dockside.
Picked us both up.
Off we went for the ride.
And still we drift.
Me and you,
Noah, the mouse and the budgerigar.
Last vision seen a floating car!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
As I went to bed last night it was blowing a gale and pouring with rain. This strange idea entered my head...Wrote a few daft words and this is how it ended up!
Robert Eckert Nov 2010
Staring at the night sky.
Back to the asphalt,
waiting.
The stars are dimmed by a thin cloud smattering
hanging above relentlessly,
the result of a windless evening.
Only here on a lampless island
could you see through to the stars.
The water laps rhythmically against the dockside.
Consistent.
Reassuring.
It seems I’ve been out here forever
awaiting my shooting star.
Irritating clouds matched with crisp night air,
make the search troublesome.
It’d be irrational to wait much longer.
Reconsidering.
Then she tears across the midnight sky.
Brilliant and promising.
Perhaps the brightest one yet.
I’ve never been a man for wishes,
but I have an urge to make one right now.
It is on a Friday she sits and
watches from the quayside the
ships coming in.
She's waiting for Jim,
he signed on at the 'pool' in '59
sailed for a time in the
South China seas, sent her
bone china and teas.

One tour took him around the 'cape'
a one hundred foot wave gave the crew
no avenue of escape
they went down to the deep and the deep
always keeps
her boys close to her chest.

She still waits and she watches the ships slipping in,
shipping out and
there is no doubt in her mind that,
God being kind,
Jim will arrive
home one day.
PJ Poesy Feb 2016
On Elephanta, we traipsed from our tottery tour boats onto venerable dust. Led single file up hardened clay trail to Hindu temples buried beyond time and grime, the temporal length of an entity's existence. Jungle encroaching, we were warned, "Do not feed the monkeys." We had no plans to, but we soon learned the monkeys had their own plans. Pronto, ******, and Scratch very quickly pinched, plundered and ransacked the box lunches we brought. Cheeky monkeys, ha! Toothy fanged gang-bangers more like it. Still, we escaped without the drawing of any blood, so we were grateful for that. Though my friend had lost her scarf in the tussle, and she kept telling me to ****** it back. "Sure," I thought, giggling with no chivalrous intention of taking on any ruffian primate.

Further on we became enthralled by the alluring architecture. Cave temples carved into basalt rock with Gods and Goddesses moved us deeply with their artistic and spiritual integrity. Natural light pouring in through vantage points illuminate sculptures at different times through the day, so the tour becomes processional. Devotion is seen as many offer prayers and flower garlands to the idols. Learning the history of Portuguese sailors using the temples as target practice is saddening and evident in the pitted carvings and reliefs.

We had been graced with a brilliant bright day to take in the sights, but this was not to last. It was monsoon season and scuttles of rain came dowsing our boat. Upon our return to the Gateway of India, we were blown off course, forcing us to land in an unfamiliar area in Mumbai where tourists were not seen regularly. We had to leap frog a dozen or more vessels all blown to port at once trying to escape the storm. There was a huge panic of tour boats and fishermen. The disgusting quagmire splashing in our faces from the harbor was mix of gas and oil spilled from boats, dead fish and likely other unnameable mammalian debris, plus general ******* of full gamut. All in all, we survived only to be encircled by knife wielding street urchins when we lost our way back to Whorli Seaface where we were staying.

"Street urchins," was the local term of endearment for the orphaned adolescent gangs known for robbing tourists. No one told us about the knives though, so we were taken a bit off guard. In any case, feeling less threatened than by the band of monkeys we just encountered on Elephanta, my chivalry kicked in. I picked one up, dangling him over the dockside. This show of brute force seemed enough to convince the others to withdrawal and I immediately freed my runty captive ****. He seemed grateful, though a language barrier was not resolved. I gave him some rupees for the newly acquired souvenir, namely the knife. He skipped off quickly with his bitty buddies. They turned and waved goodbye with bright beautiful smiles.

This story has no moral other than, when traveling without a compass, always keep a moral one.
Elephanta, known to locals as Gharapuichi, is an island about 9km northeast of the Gateway of India in Mumbai Harbor. Whorli Seaface is located on the opposite side of Mumbai (Bombay) on the western shore of the Arabian Sea.
Katelin Michelle May 2015
I think if you do it right you're comprised of places you grew up and people that love you. Things that didn't change when everything else did and those little unexpected moments of gratitude for your inifinite blessings.  To be made small, not in an insignificant way, but to be given perspective. To be consumed in love for friends, family-extended and immediate-by blood and by acquaintance-by circumstance and experience. I think if you're doing it right you wake to great the day, just as she has you, and this silly life fills to the brim
swaying to the thick summer breeze.
the sun, always at its peak
blazing on dry floridian ground.

hand in hand, intertwined by fate,
played by the gods of love.
a spark meant to last before the bells toll.

separated by foreign lands,
unfinished plans,
waiting for the last dance.

sweat trickle on tanned skins,
bodies wrapped within reach,
passion and lust fused.

this is the curse that binds us together.
to my lover from the distant land -
may hecate cross our roads again.
summer romance is like no other
Anais Vionet Jul 2022
The sun seemed to rise slowly, almost hesitantly, this morning - a yellow syrup pouring into a deep, dark blue sky. The air is hot and thick, like a low viscosity liquid. We’re going out on the boat this morning and when you have 9 passengers and crew, everyone’s toting something.

Kim and Bili have towels and a shoulder bag of sunscreen lotions and repellents, Charles has a cooler with everything needed to make breakfast omelets on the grill (the eggs have been pre-beaten, the veggies pre-chopped, the cheese grated, the meat diced).

Anna and Lisa are toting a cooler of sodas buried in ice. Leong has the “dry box” with phones, Nintendo switches, kindle readers and iPads. Leong’s rolling a luggage rack of textbooks, Sunny has a large coffee thermos, and Sophy has a bag with dry clothes for everyone.

The girls are practically running over each other in their eagerness to be last onboard because the first two get to towel the night’s condensation off everything.

I carried the lunch cooler full of Chick-fil-a sandwiches, but my main job is to check the indicators and disconnect the dockside water, drainage and electrical feeds as Charles takes the helm and begins his “preflight” before he fires up the Mercury 500-hp engines. I know we’re a “go” when he turns on the underwater lights - that’s my signal to cast off.

The engines roar to life and then purr as we slowly pull away from the dock, we girls greasing ourselves up with sunblock. The air conditioning begins to help but picking up speed is what finally breaks the hold of the oppressive heat.

As we exit the marina Charles opens-up on the throttle and that’s always a thrill. We usually ski first, before the lake gets crowded, and lounge later.

Sunny, Leong and Anna like to sit in the bow, refreshed by occasional lake spray and the wind-whipped cool. Leong likes to sit in the cabin, like Charles’ copilot while the rest of us recline on lounges facing rearward to watch the skiers.

Our summer mornings have passed like this, launching around 6 am, skiing, then swimming, studying and getting off the lake before the noontime “heat advisories” and afternoon thunderstorms.

Later, I’m relaxing in the shade, having just gotten out of the lake, and I’m on my iPad.

“What are you writing?” Anna asks.

“Oh, I write poetry and stories - mostly stories these days but there is some occasional poetic recidivism.” I say.

“You write poetry?” She repeats, as if shocked, “I didn’t think there were any poets left.”

“Well,” I say, “Most poets died, in the early flames of science, trying to prove the pen was mightier than the sword, but there are still poets around - they live in cities where they’ll try and wash your windshield if you stop at a traffic light, and they’re frequently mistaken for the homeless - or they may actually be homeless.”

“Can I read some of your writing?” She asks, after waiting through my long joke.

“Absolutely NOT.” I answer.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Recidivism: a relapse to undesirable behavior.

slang:
moto = hot
Olivia Kent Oct 2014
Seeing a vessel.
A catcher of fishes.
Espies another catcher of fishes.
These little fellows are destined for dishes.
Crew watching the crying ones.

The gulls as they rise.
Screaming wildly, they're on fire with excitement.
Gulls watch the Herrings, as they're breaching the foam.
Flapping and flipping, they're struggling to breathe.
The trawler man in the South westerly squall.
Struggling to cling to the slippery deck.
Tries hard not to fall.
He's used to it.
Another dollar.
Another day.
Only way to scoop his pay.
He's landing his fish.
Amid the squawking and bombing.
Keen and mean.

Tatty old trawler, chugs into the safe haven of harbour.
Today's catch thrown onto the dockside.
A different gull swoops.
A sly diving skydiver,
He's diving for dinner.
Never a loser.
Always a winner.
(C) Livvi
John F McCullagh Nov 2015
John Charles Buckley with his one man crew
set sail for Boston on the ocean blue.
With a makeshift sail and with favorable winds
they left Ireland behind and their journey begins.
Our cockleshell heroes soon lost sight of shore.
Not even a gull could they see anymore.
The days passed by slowly as they worked, side by side,
Slaves to the wind and the whims of the tide.
The Atlantic holds terrors,I cannot deny;
icebergs and fearful waves twenty feet high.
One starless night as they battled a squall
they were tossed like a cork with each waves rise and fall.
Sunburned and hungry, they started to drift
and their sense of time passing had started to slip
when they spotted a seabird, a sure sign of shore:
The harbor of Boston- their next port of call.
Their small wooden rowboat with the sail ripped and torn
was ******* to the dockside that September morn.
Heroes or Fools? I'll let you split the difference.
Theirs the smallest boat that had traveled the distance
In 1870 John Charles Buckley sailed a rowboat with a make shift sail from Cork in Ireland to Boston harbor.
Cana Mar 2018
Dockside and braai
*** and candy on the speaker
Fire crackling merrily
Burgers marinating
*** captivating
Me salivating
The better way to spend the day.
From the war mighty
across the unforgiving seas
all I have done is thought of is you
and the way it used to be

So as we do lay dockside
back in the lands we have always loved
my brothers carry me to my chair
it sits waiting for my coverage

No matter the outcome she'd whispered
she told me, she'd be here for me
in her letter stated when I boarded
I clutch her letter as I hear the sails folded

I slowly wheel myself up unforgiving hills
to I get to Gropecunt Lane
and in the shadows, as rat's scuttle past
I see my, my sweet,sweet love crying

In front of my love is a man's frame
bucking with her her in unison
as mist fell down in Gropecunt Lane
this was just another paying courtesan

By the wall in this narrow lane
stockings by her booted feet
if it was me, it would be a victors treat
yet I can't even lift myself to my feet

So I said not a word as I watched
I saw the tears of coal dust fall from her eyes
how could one liken to me....  a war child
how could I judge her, how could I despise her

She did cry as she did come
I used to be able to do that to her
but I sit in my wheelchair in Gropecunt lane
thinking and looking.... just half a ******* man


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Out on a liferaft looking for low flying aircraft and the
sea shells that sound like the sea.
I see nothing but water and sailors that caught a rough wave
and paving the way for a saviour to appear is the
rear admiral asleep and the course that we keep is
quite random it seems, gleaned from the stars and
the dockside bars, distilled by the gums that supped many a *** and
smoked a canteen of navy cut cigarettes, where will it end?

The admiral wakes, takes a reading, 'land sakes', from the parrot that sits by his side and we glide on through the sea, what will be, what will be
but what is
is what worries me.

On the cockleshell shore where we floundered and wore out the heels of our boots, we set down some roots built huts from bamboo to save us from sunstroke and the Lloyds bell was rung for lost sailors and *** and the admiral asleep in the rear.
Devon Brock Nov 2019
The roads here,
*** tongued, black toothed
and pitted, lead somewhere.

I am sure that over the peak of it,
splayed out like toes in dry sand,
tractioned for tide, a florescence,
maybe, maybe down in the abalone towns,
the oyster shot towns - in The Mother of Pearl,
where I met a guy,
a guy named Reason,
slim fingered and wrung
out at last call.

But there it was, he said "if" first:
"nothing really closes,
I just exchange doors for
carpets, throwbacks and
occasional tables - leaf down
and close to the wall."

He said his name was Witness,
but I knew better, I knew better.
This cat was leather on tweed,
a pick-up line on a business card,
call me anytime. He had shacks
for eyes and his temples pulsed
like Patsy Cline.

He said he had a flounder's way of lying,
flat at the bottom of things - loose silted.
If I needed, he said, the skipjacks
split at dawn, but that's rarely the way
for land legs. And he grinned,
wide like a seiner.

They're always there - these ones -
slumped for a schmuck
dipped out for a just a thud away
from home, down the *** tongued
road to Blacktooth,
where the Water and Sand
shutters before The Mother of Pearl,
where the windows flicker like barbacks,
and a girl named Treason ticks...
In the cove where sea lions do dwell
there be Saline Sams thirty gunner
most of his jolly tars are in bars

So by the moonlit night to guide us
up by his hind we crawl
we mean to take out her masts
and give her fifteen shots broadside

As we finish with his ship
my boys move to port
and with cannons blazing
we blow to smithereens the inn

Then by dockside we alight
and with glee carry on the fight
we slice and dice till non are left
not Saline Sam, or his salty sea dogs

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
The Cape of storms, bay of Bengal,
the southern trades,
I've sailed them all.
I
drank in dockside taverns,
met ladies by the score, been
picked up from the gutters and
then I've sailed some more.
My next port of call
if I don't die of thirst
will be the isle of Tortuga,
and I'll dive in
head first.

A *** by my Flintlock
and pieces of eight
while the dockside gals
stand idly and wait.

A pirate I am
and a pirate I'll be,
home being the heart and
my heart's in the sea.
Stood at the dockside, idly watching the ships glide on by,
waiting for my 'Torrey Canyon'
which will never arrive.
She is now bombed up and broken
a token of man's lost desire.
I watch as the fires burn, then turn
to go home.
ConnectHook Mar 2017
⚓    ⚓    ⚓

Name that metaphor (half-assed boating)

Polish the brass on your life preserver

Wring out some meaning for dockside observer

Moorings are tenuous; life is floating.
inspired by National Poetry Writing Month 2017

a.k.a: NaPoWriMo
Absent deliberate intervention
     vis a vis suicide,
supposed "natural" longevity
     of generic human primate ride
ding ******* across avast
     broke back mountain minus pride
defies accurate prediction,
     though hypothetical

     projections can override
unknown factors, whereby
     excluding misfortune nationwide
(and/or globally deadly accidents,
     catastrophes, diseases, mudslide,
fatalities from gunshot, et cetera)
     unexpectedly arise dismissing by landslide

mortal adversity can be generally,
     and more accurately spell joyride
ding calibrated to continue,
     thus subsequent existence,
     viz getting inside
scoop of this basic fellow, aye surmise
     to continue for many another hayride
say...two score plus more orbitz,

     whereat linkedin, flickr ring guide
by invisible hand snapchatting
crackling and popping fireside,
twittering whatsapp pining
     during eventide,
watching virtual twilight at dockside,
witnessing artificial intelligence,
     perfectly mimicking

     illusory edenic countrywide
vibrantly melds scenic
     ideal tonic bedside
counting black sheepish crows,
      thence set sleep number
      putting all worries aside
while merrily rowing boat
     with gentle creatures alongside.
A W Bullen Dec 2019
Shake
the beach-combed locks
and how this Spanish Plume
becomes, a vaunted
posturing of poppies..

The way is high
and undiluted.
Office blocks have melted
to a salty insignificance,
their oscillating convolutions
baked, on oven -cambers....

Catch,
her sorbet-samba glamping
apricot in sandalwood,
a paper-chasing chatelaine,
gone, daisy, down, the dockside pan.
Our Painted Lady tumble-dries
the bramble-crab, peroxide.

Her ox-eye, Andalusian tours
to rhapsodies of ice-cream vans.
Summer 2019- an exceptional season for Painted Lady butterflies
Cayley Raven Mar 2020
What is a boat good for
where there's no water?
A coma tied to dockside
missing it's blue waves.

What is poet's purpose
when he's a lousy knotter?
A lack of words on paper,
his mind is short of tales.

He's fishing for ideas
on a ship that won't sail,
oblivious to his surroundings,
he's only bound to fail.
Let the boat be the poet's attention.
They'll soon move him on,
yes dearie.
the beggar that bothers you
will shortly be gone,

and I'm going back
beyond the workhouse doors
down by the dockside
down on the Southside
mixing with the ******

some are flower girls
some are sour girls
some are
past the eleventh hour girls
some give
steaming mugs of Chinese tea
and
we're all beggars here
but it doesn't bother me.

All are pleading poverty
selling their sobriety
for
dreams across an
***** sea
I wonder if any hope's left
for me
before they move me on
ymmiJ Apr 2019
Burgers grilled dockside
charcoal dense smoke caught in the canopy
perfectly salted air for taste
stephen mason Apr 2019
Chain coiled snakelike now rusting remnant,
heavy and dust brown carpet,
unmoving, unmoved.
Light fallen shadow brightness as fingers unclenched,
Illusion of clarity as focus tenses,
tightening, tightened.
Industrial presence now industrial ghosts,
walk booted dockside granite grey,
spice scented,
tangible memory.
ymmiJ May 2019
Birdwell Beach Britches
sitting dockside, toes cooling
new Petty playing

sun soaked shoulders burn
under sky high heat beating down
cane pole cork bobbing

toe heads gone platinum
summers on Lolly's creek pier
Pawley's Island Home

— The End —