"gannets" poems
for Hazel and Joe
Just walking the parrot
Said the lady on the beach
He's so shy you know this bright bird
If he were to sit on my shoulder
Seeing you children come toward him
He'd fly off and away with the gannets
So he stays safe in his basket
Swinging on his perch to and fro
Snacking on cuttlefish and a millet bar
My son Steve brought him back from Belize
He's been my companion four years this June
No, he doesn't speak but he does a fine squark
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 3:39 AM UTC
This early morning time (you do not know
- however much I share its joys)
has been a space, a time aside for me:
to be beside your bed, your sleeping head, hard
into the pillow’s soft rest, deep
among dreams of swarming fish,
the basking shark, the limpet shell,
gannets (always gannets), and the otter.
Seeing its running prints, its tell-tale spraint,
the sleek brownness, sea-sluiced washing on rocks
meters away, you told me the wonder at it all,
your voice sparkling as the sun-glinting sea sparkles.
And I am free for once to share your time aside.
Sore and poor, the relentlessness of making
stops. I am chair-bound.
The radio, my books, your dear letters lie beside
the drugs and flowers on this small table where I write.
There is time to think beyond the next bar and the next.
There is time to contemplate the thrill and joy of you
though far away, yet brim-full of such sights that feed my soul.
Oh, the innocent joy of exclamation,
each rush of every description made.
The music of your observation,
so harmonious, so pure-toned,
As though the land, the sea, the sky,
wrapping around itself (and tied at your feet),
sings.
To share this time aside
is the sweetest kiss,
the tenderest touch,
the most loving, loving look.
Know that please.
Know what happiness
you’ve brought to me
and bring.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 2:13 AM UTC
Sickly, sticky-sweet syrup
oozes into our minds,
unbeknownst to us, so vulnerable.
We are painted the perfect picture,
sneak peaks of Utopia;
and are kept locked away by a camera lens.
Agonised and deliberated over,
by those who seek a fairy tale to repair a torn away heart.
Take a Lollipop with a wink,
Break up those four letters
and attack them with a recipe preached by idols,
two spoonfuls of lust,
a pinch of promiscuity,
and, (if you're really ravenous,)
finish with a sprinkle with insatiability.
Greedily we gluttonous Gannets
eat and eat and eat,
until the idea of right and wrong flies off the end of the scales.
Discover me using your own map;
And pick me,
and make me your favourite chocolate,
Throw away the box.
I'll be your smooth praline,
your sweet Turkish delight,
your bitter liqueur
all in one bite.
Love me: Dust me in a gentle coating of sugar.
Don't drown me in treacle.
Enjoy me: Dip me in dark chocolate.
No need to top me with whipped cream.
Nov 7, 2010
Nov 7, 2010 at 6:23 AM UTC
Top hat and tails.
Fire and ice and bison graze the land,
man's hand desiring more and more until there is no more to feed,and at such speed and still we need that more than more, so dig down deep into the core of where we live,
we give ourselves an even chance when chancing fate but fate gives us a passing look as if to say,'fuck you,you do what you do and expect so much,to touch the stars,dig up Mars and plunder planets'
I wonder such as gannets fly across the worn out pillaged sky where aeroplanes shave micro lines across the sheets of landing times.
It's fire and ice and desert scrub, manufacturing gin in the old bathtub and guv'nor can you spare a time when if you ever spared a dime for beggars on the city street who graze the dog ends at their feet and look in kiosks for lost coins.
It's the road we're on,no going back now,we've ******* the world and have to live somehow with ******* crops ,unfertile ground,the world keeps spinning round and round,a crazy top,can't someone please just make it stop.
And then, when men become cave dwellers
why do we expect the fellers (sic)
to do or not become much more than what the modern man once saw,
we're in the spin
we cant begin again
can't beat the acid rain
just relax and revel
in the pain.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 9:02 AM UTC
Gulls, gannets brooding
vying for plankton
Acrobatic flights, flappings
Swarm the blue
Chirping, tweeting another
To lave the silvery sea.
Impishly unclad moppets
Running and frolicking,
Some helping their
Fishermen father untwine nets
The evening venture their chaste aim.
Over the horizon
Is the Yellow Face
Lustring like a
Gigantique Bohemian Chandelier
Lapping on the repose waters.
Someday when am ripe and mellow
With means to own a crew
I will sail up that mulky horizon
And touch that glowing cosmic disc.
But mater says
"The horizon doesn't end"
"It goes in league miles"
"Even when a yore mile is sailed"
"It's unattainable, puerile and trifling" She'd opine.
Only these chiding words of hers
I never take for a dime,
I will engage in my venture
I will stand to be corrected.
This is my only demure dream
I will endeavour and suckle her
I wouldn't want an elegiac ending
In this beach I've known for eon.
Sep 15, 2017
Sep 15, 2017 at 1:30 PM UTC
Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach.
The sea reclaims its myriad young,
Kidnapped by clouds, thunder-slung;
The storm is long past with calm all around;
Albatross glide, with a whisper of sound.
Seagulls circle, dogfish sleep,
Gannets dive and dolphins leap,
But black clouds return and lightning flashes
O'er storm-tossed seas, as thunder crashes.
Once more a stealthy cloud abducts infant water,
The sea's own offspring: a son ... a daughter;
The thief sets off at a wind blown pace,
The anguished mother unable to chase.
The criminal finds refuge in a partisan crowd,
A formless body in a vaporous shroud;
The cloud has no guilt, shows no remorse,
But heads inland on a predestined course.
A hill stands guard, like a customs post;
It stabs the guilty, but allows past the host;
The rogue cloud is ruptured, severed seam and pleat,
Releasing its captives and accepting defeat.
Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach ...
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 10:38 AM UTC
As sun warms my shell and melts me a bit,
Like butter in pan before simmer boil,
Beneath the sand, where waves on ankles hit,
The seas unfurl and winds in jocund roil.
The salty zephyr weaves and ducks through hair,
And Gannets croon its songs like off-key bass,
With fall of tides like steps of giants bare,
And feel a thousand pins of tumbled sass.
The children batter broken shells from sea,
To hear it play its crashing, haunting tune,
At red of day, the waves renew their moxie,
Like leaping, hunting dogs in rising moon.
So, I observe the nature's glimmer lurch,
A firefly admiring stars in arch.
Jan 29, 2025
Jan 29, 2025 at 1:08 AM UTC
The sea in evening
Eyes, inhabiting coastal patterns
As gannets descend,
And rise again across the ancient skyline.
A stranger in some melancholy town,
Full of brooding faces,
And cobblestone streets.
We stood at the edge,
For hours as the western winds
Traveled toward our tawny figures.
Flesh, waning. Wishing it everlasting.
What lies over the bronze horizon,
What lies beneath oceanus?
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 11:39 AM UTC