"freighters" poems
Cold beer,
a long necked bottle held to my forehead
and in my throat,
to my lips,
so relief comes both ways,
glad for it,
the double of the cool,
helps the day of troubled nothingness,
and the long necked bottle makes it
worth the extra second of anticipated tasty wait
can't drink in the river park,
don't cotton to brown paper bags,
do it anyway cause the East River
tides me over on its way
thru the Verrazano Narrows,
bound for the Atlantic with me low rider spirit in tow,
a devil may care attitude en contrôle
this troubadour opened the store at 700am
but not a one came looking for a song,
but the mail came reliable,
with dues due,
promises that need keeping,
and other items,
what the grownups call responsibilities
June Monday early eve and the Moran tugboats
ply their trade like reliable ****** to the sailors,
and their larger than bathtub size toys,
turning containers, freighters, into docile boys
who do as they are told on their way to ports far
there are stick figures outlined on the hexagon
paving stones that are so nyc for me,
here pedestrian! follow your designated path
here pedestrian, you must walk to be safe arrived
but I take to the railing,
where Isaac-bound and mesmerized,
I imagine surfing the churning wakes on the surface
of the riveting tides and wonderous wanderlust for
where we are bound...
no voice heard from the heavens,
saying Abraham put down that knife,
because I have not passed the test of true belief,
perhaps the river's invitation is my test,
if I should sing another song here,
perhaps it will tale the end of this tell...
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
some of us walk insistently,
instinctively, and instantly to
and upon the edged path,
this physical nexus & abstract mental locus,
a cliffside enticing rock strewn trail,
drawn of men, by men, for men
(yes, men are people too, still)
enthralling views,
down to the riverside,
where eyes intuit the
beauteous aroma of
precious precocious
precarious precipices
and the near-stench of
mortality
amidst
wafting scents of inane undesirable need,
hints of destruction, or,
alternating eager relief,
like a ****** infused, instant attractiveness,
making weakness in the knees, all too real,
trembling with a delicious accented edge of
a fresh, familiar scent, fresh baked bread,
an all enveloping consumption need now!
to
crave what we fear,
to fear what we crave
our cravings are craven,
this twisted sense, annuls
our common sensibility, yet,
titillates our pleasured imagined relief,
releases, our unsated, even better,
our insatiable curiosity to tremble,
an entire body enjoined by vibrato~
enticing tremulations, shaken and stirred,
this danger choice releases something primordial,
escape? a reckless wrecking so deeply designed,
it has its very own designation…death wish
multitudes of easy choices afforded my senses,
and by accident, all mine chosen, all nearby,
I travel the esplanade près de the East River,
where even if calm is the sole visiblilty,
undercurrents and the unpredictable passage
of container wakes and the larger freighters
will hand you down, so easy, to become parcel
to a littered river bottom of centuries’ artifacts
but even more tempting, the balcony,
a hop, skip and a jump unlocked,
mere ten steps, no need for a running start
why it’s the “height of convenience,”
he ruefully winces, and not even any
TSA lines or inconveniencing “conveniences”
Why this calamity seems so desperately desirable,
Why this unabrogated feat so featured, nay, even
feted in our hot? cold? bloodstream
“Why just men?
*I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.*”
Dec 5, 2023
Dec 5, 2023 at 5:42 PM UTC
The wind chimes are melting,
The ponds are sweltering,
The roads run like black tea;
The flags aren't waving,
Sheets aren't sailing,
The grass looks like gold wheat.
The beaches have more bodies
Than Juno did in June;
The dogs aren't barking,
But the kids are laughing,
Their joy's not lost on me.
I should go to the banks
Of the St. Clair River,
Where the current cools
Beneath the bridges;
Read the names on the Huron freighters
Carrying coal and oil;
Eat tasty dogs and greasy fries,
The northern breeze there never dies.
I should hover like a dragonfly,
Applaud the divers hot ******* chances,
In the dog days of their youth.
Aug 3, 2019
Aug 3, 2019 at 9:42 AM UTC
In early winter
River grey and freighters few
The ducks and I wait
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM UTC
Early morning light
River ice is breaking as
freighters blast greetings
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 8:57 AM UTC
Oil tanker
laden with grime
bobbing in the waves
Blamed for polluting
obscenely obtuse
no one cares to save
Don't hate yourself
for I see a shimmer
of something once beautiful
A "fixer-upper"
yes, you are
but who ever said in vain?
for isn't the story of Seattle
to re-make something old,
giving it life again?
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 4:29 PM UTC
We tagged him Candle Sticks,
Called him that
When he was six.
Snot oozed down
Around his lips.
It was one of those taunts
That seamlessly sticks.
When he ran in the race,
He finished dead last;
His pants fell down,
Exposing the ***
Of a hometown clown.
Many times I'd see him
Standing in the movie line,
Taking his aisle seat.
Or stocking butter and cheese
In the dairy case at Foodland;
Or under the bridges,
On a bench, watching the freighters
Power on to foreign cities;
Smiling at the fishermen casting their lines.
I think I saw him cry,
In the library, reading the local paper
In a secluded carrel.
I heard he walked to the Bridge,
And jumped.
Candle Sticks.
It stuck.
Nov 18, 2019
Nov 18, 2019 at 9:34 AM UTC
sending you the wind in my hair, and highways
lit up so bright at night that you feel like a movie
star, and you gotta wear your cheap shades
at midnight just to get through Circus Ville
machine dreams, big rigs, perfect coffee hot
& fresh, god bless truck stops,
buy a fluffy key chain,
three pounds beef jerky, ride all night
out into the hand-painted desert
where you know you don't belong
when the rocks turn into freighters & sail over you
like pirate schooners in the coming dawn,
& the price of your awe is more than you can afford
so you laugh, step hard on the gas, turn it up
dylan rasps out some ****** tempest tunes
all you can think of is how pure this air
he's singing about scarlet town, where you
were born, and you try to understand, but
feel it instead
because there is where you were born
listening for twining leaf & thorn
casting out for clues, in the blue vastness
of his voice in your husband's old bmw
racing through towns to nowhere
listening, breathing, playing a few rounds
of some game inside your hollow point head
before the sun comes back to the huge cacti
eats your eyes, swallows this plain
we love the feel of highway beneath us
wind everywhere, touching us in places
we need to feel something
all-american something about the car
indulgent as some old rock song
I still love, like my sharona, I am
helpless
hopeful
driving
no resist in me for you,
pulls me in every time
road and wind and that
beat
let's g-go, speeding
my lovely engine,
my sweet machine
stutter it to me
car shaking
shudders
my *****
336 miles to go
tonight
time to
ride
~a~
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 9:20 PM UTC
I shooed a June bug
Off my front screen door;
The freighters' fog horns
Roll on The Huron and St. Clair.
The mist rises like incense
From the black tar on Spartan,
Still a warm May drizzle drifts tonight,
Anointing gardens and lawns.
And Beulah, my new magnolia,
Blossomed yellow for me this year.
But Brigid and Ophelia,
Heralded my Spring,
Brought warmth and light,
With a fresh green lease to everything.
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 7:23 AM UTC
A roar broke the silent dissidence of head shaking in a coversation
about America that I was in.
This voice railed against the country whose pride ran deep in her blood.
And with this voice, I agree.
But it did cause concern when she lumped the red, the white, the black
and the blue in with the rusty freighters and rolling hills that I've come
to love.
And the concern brought forth lessons from my own teaching.
Stories of 15th century frontiersman tramping around the great
wilderness, with nought even a flag to their name, for they had
rejected even that.
And memories of bloodline relatives that fought for the type of
independence that the declaration wasn't offering.
An independence from having unknown men, armed with bibles,
translated to the 19th power, telling them what's "right" and "just".
Now here we are today, lying in a grave that is no longer fresh whose
tombstone reads: Democracy.
All because we have not yet understood that a flag is not a country,
but rather a symbol of control.
And a country!
Now there lies something to love.
And it's easiest to love in the labored breathing of a mountain top view,
or in a toast from the top of a water tower overlooking the Mississippi.
It can be seen in the wave of a conductor as he pulls out of the yard.
Or heard in the hissing of his wheels when you have the moment of
realization that, "Yes! Those trains are actually going somewhere!"
It can be grasped in the handshake of a homeless man, who is not
unlike your forefathers.
A cast away, tramping about the wilderness with not even a flag or
a prayer, but two hands that are ready to work for change.
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 4:51 AM UTC
river wakes lapping
grain freighters barge and bisect
Danube after dark
Aug 14, 2023
Aug 14, 2023 at 1:38 AM UTC
They say there’s plenty of fish out there in the sea,
Shame I’m stuck without a fishing rod.
No, I’m no catch and that’s plain to see, lil’ old me,
Shame I’m so far from blessed by God.
I’m a rowboat among yachts and freighters.
And there’s no strange taste to which I cater.
I’m no master baiter,
or am I?
In the Atlantic they’re shooting me down,
In the Pacific they all only frown,
They say no man’s an island but what about boys?
And God I wish I didn’t feel so very alone,
But I’ve no shooting stars, no luck, a broken wishbone,
I suppose I’ll just drown out all this whiny noise.
Oct 22, 2017
Oct 22, 2017 at 10:24 PM UTC