"mooring" poems
There is a forest old as hillsides
tall, majestic, dappled shades
fall on ground beneath the silent
gnarled defenders of the glade.
There they stand in ancient splendour
many souls have passed their way
often used as welcome shelter
from the heat of summers day.
Sweet the air they breathe in chorus
our life's breath their lungs provide,
soaking up our daily poison
so that we may live and thrive.
You seas of men intent to clear them
citing progress, peddling greed
tearing roots from precious mooring
laying waste to nature's seed.
**** the beauty of a landscape
displace creatures for your need
rupture fragile ecosystems
scar the earth and watch it bleed.
To you I ask a simple question,
as I see the land bereaved.
What need has man of all this progress
when he can no longer breathe?
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 3:17 PM UTC
star, sapphire of the water,
sapphire of love,
the moon, throws
off her jacket,
bares her flesh in the
autumn rain,
leaves melt to the
floor,
streams of gold
and amber
start to blur,
surreal landscape,
mooring rope of golden rain,
as you kiss me
i slope into
your corners,
unwind like the
night’s sapphire
dew,
mesmerized by
the dark waters of
your touch,
mesmerized by your love.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 2:48 PM UTC
My sisters and I jest
That men never get over us.
We have been named
Muses, angels, succubi, leanan sidhe
But we are les belles dames avec merci
And that is their undoing.
Our breath has left them gasping
With unfilled lungs
We never meant to be their oxygen
But they drink us in like drowning men.
We didn’t ask for this,
But disarming, we are soft enough
For them to float in
Belly up, eyes to distant stars
Singing the sirens song that stirs in our veins.
Behind our teeth rests the love
The world has failed to give them till now
There are holds in the knowledge
that our fingertips find the hollowed spaces,
mother wounds, clefts where trust was carved out,
And they clutch our palms to staunch the bleeding.
We never asked for this,
They cherish the brittle changelings of us
until they are crushed in the coals of our eyes
Eggshell ideals, fragile as egos.
Blown by the sea wind in the strands of our hair
they are scattered, undone.
The distance drifts between, inevitable
And full they turn away to starve
We cut the mooring line
After one too many storms,
And search
For safer
Harbor.
Sep 29, 2021
Sep 29, 2021 at 9:54 AM UTC
+
A bed-sits high and dry,marooned on a sandbank of night.
As radio 4-casts its nets to isolated ships like me that rudderless drift on into the light.
Still dark outside,no sounds,save the distant echoing bark of a hungry fox ----streets away.
Another dawn ripped blackbin bag of a day creeps and ouzes in
Heavy unfocused lids fogged in the steamy smokeyness of tea and a first fag
plenty of time plenty of time.
Time before the world wakes to the morning pips and its flushing, brushing, rushing sounds
A greyness gathers just beyound my pained curtains, as with a silent sigh a roosted blackbird clears its fasted throat.
Then as if by magic I 'm carried, scimming high above and beyound this mooring set in a silvered sea,on a welcomed mantra known to all.
As if a calling pray at day break,following each word in a moment subline
Un angle vole un angle vole.
Rockall - Malin - Hebrides
Humber - Fisher - German bight
Thames - Dover - Wight.
Each single secert understood and noted only by a few as I glide over in paced, pausey surf rolling words
North northeast - 994 - Falling slowly - Low pressure moving away - Gales 8 very poor - Backing 3-4 later - Mainly good - Becoming variable - Syclonic later - Increasing 6-7 mainly west - Swally showers for a time - Fair - Good.
Oh so good, each pure English comforting sounds heard over lapping waves of air.
The bushy wet nosed fox sulks and cowers away from the breaking sun, as the blackbird draws a dewdropped breath though golden nib and tapping gently, call a hidden choir into song just for me.
Reminding me of the things I'd for gotten I care about.
Sharp timed unwelcomed pips flood the ears to prise open sticky eyes from promised dreams and spoon-cuddles warm
As I set forth on wetted pavements, ready to decline into my charted day.
Yet smiling as if blessed and no longer alone
But filled with early morning salty thoughts of strangers
I
have
yet
to
meet
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 7:47 AM UTC
It was well trained cats in the cattery calling, pats on the back, back door, kicked in, mooring boats on the mooring in the morning and the phone call, cost cut, cold calling, and we're falling, falling, we're falling in love.
My best friends are criminals, and the jail cell crying is trying at times but trying sometimes feels tiring. The tire track tiling is abysmal, freewheeling in reverie, revving engines readily, sitting, settling and stirring imaginary cups of tea until eternity gives up delinquently.
I fail to recognise the narcissist in me until the inadequate rantings fall of the page at me. I want to be free, I want to be me, I want solidarity and I want that cup of tea, I want patriarchy, I want matrimony, I want monogamy and none of this is hyperbole. I have no apologies, especially not for the words I string together so irrationally. What else could you ask of me?
What else indeed, if I can't be naked I can't be free, if I alter the way I write I relinquish personality.
It doesn't seem right to me.
Dada is too crass for me, I need a cult of spontaneity. The English language is too brash to be...
Philosophical ideology and the books I read, all tell lies to me, are all absurd you see, I embrace the monotony, let the waves of the sea wash over me. I let the dictionary pages fall off the quay, like that moth on me, like the sloth i've been and cloth on screens. A dead dog can't scratch it's fleas, but to appease the beast we must first release, all creativity and return to being.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
[Being an humble address to Her Majesty's Naval advisers, who sold Nelson's old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.]
WHO says the Nation's purse is lean,
Who fears for claim or bond or debt,
When all the glories that have been
Are scheduled as a cash asset?
If times are bleak and trade is slack,
If coal and cotton fail at last,
We've something left to barter yet--
Our glorious past.
There's many a crypt in which lies hid
The dust of statesman or of king;
There's Shakespeare's home to raise a bid,
And Milton's house its price would bring.
What for the sword that Cromwell drew?
What for Prince Edward's coat of mail?
What for our Saxon Alfred's tomb?
They're all for sale!
And stone and marble may be sold
Which serve no present daily need;
There's Edward's Windsor, labelled old,
And Wolsey's palace, guaranteed.
St. Clement Danes and fifty fanes,
The Tower and the Temple grounds;
How much for these? Just price them, please,
In British pounds.
You hucksters, have you still to learn,
The things which money will not buy?
Can you not read that, cold and stern
As we may be, there still does lie
Deep in our hearts a hungry love
For what concerns our island story?
We sell our work -- perchance our lives,
But not our glory.
Go barter to the knacker's yard
The steed that has outlived its time!
Send hungry to the pauper ward
The man who served you in his prime!
But when you touch the Nation's store,
Be broad your mind and tight your grip.
Take heed! And bring us back once more
Our Nelson's ship.
And if no mooring can be found
In all our harbours near or far,
Then tow the old three-decker round
To where the deep-sea soundings are;
There, with her pennon flying clear,
And with her ensign lashed peak high,
Sink her a thousand fathoms sheer.
There let her lie!
3.2k
i am abrasive
personality functionality deficit
yet i attract
beautiful women
to befriend the hermit of solidarity
will you go out with me
brought answers on no
my friend i could not lose
yet for the end of altruistic bargaining
i end up ahead
with false promises of a beginning
to an end my own personal
apocalypse
david lee roth would understand
that as i write in this
mindset
brought on by reading
778 comics in 12 hours
and a 4 day binge of job for a cowboy
my mind wanders
as insomnia sets in
would i be one of the great
dissociative poets?
a dose of the unrequited free associative minds
free thinking form of diet coke with a side of purple strawberries no i meant blueberries
my mind wanders
and yet i look forward to pad thai on wednesdays with cute blondes whom with i stand
the chance of a bat in the mosh pits of a metal band
suckers
i win
for you all know the taste of yellow mustard
ramble ramble ramble
this indie pop poem
would it be ironic to like it
if one truly hates the wording
and yet loves the idea
one of lives greatest life mysteries
alcohol i bid thee a fair welcome
nimble bubblegum monkey wrench
how long will you read?
enough to to see my lack of coherent sentence structure
or that i am a flawed creation
going on and on about existential non existent problems
for i shall exist regardless of my best intentions
as the wheel continues to roll on despite the moss covering this ice slicked track
metal boar slayer of a thousand suns would be a good metal name from sweden
the mooring dove coos to the beat of an undead drum
boo hoo boo hoo cries the witch at the stake
i am done
May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
for Mark Richards
It was a spur of the moment thing -
One message freed us from Tuesday’s calling -
The next offered a morning's sailing.
So rather than spray water for Rocky's plants,
We skimmed over Carter Lake’s, crystal waves
With steady and ample winds at our backs.
Boaters and tubers speckled the waters
While verdant foothills smiled assent
From every shore and horizon.
Captain Richards skippered his Flying Scot
Toward the far off shore before tacking our
To and fro way back to the mooring ball.
In years past Mark had captained the Health works
For all the good folks of Pennsylvania,
But this morning he guided a much smaller tiller.
So we sailed and sailed under fairest of skies
In a swift and charmed little craft
Mark chose to call, Spur of the Moment.
Robert Charles Howard
Jul 26, 2022
Jul 26, 2022 at 6:29 PM UTC
Catch my mooring rope
And come ashore with gentle tugs,
Sweetly, softly, nibble on my ear,
And run your fingers over my weathered sails.
Trace the notches on my docks,
For the places I’ve been –
Santorini last spring, Venezia,
Marseilles in the fall.
Get rid of the doubt that hangs
Like an albatross around your neck,
Capsizing fears sending tremors up my bows.
Simply breathe like the swelling tide,
And sing a sailor’s song,
The one about the Spanish ladies,
“For we will be jolly, and drown melancholy,
With a health to each jovial and true-hearted soul.”
Loosen my knots and we’ll drift out to sea,
Two travelers with one home.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
i think of you too often. it has become rare to think of something else. i used to think of last summer before i met you. i used to think about long days on beaches i have never heard of before the very day i jumped into waves of sapphire. i used to think about the smell of sun lotion and jasmines and peppermint icecream, which still is my favourite flavour. we bought icecream last summer, mary and i, and dug our naked feet too deep in the melting sand and drank gin straight from the bottle and laughed our hearts out in the embracing summer air. i sighed a hopeful sigh as i let my body kiss the ground and i wished for never-ending summer days with mary at the mooring. we danced around the fire whilst holding each other's hands; we danced and danced and danced until our minds were all sore and then we watched the awaken sea turtles and fell asleep on the dock, hand in hand.
i used to think of mary before i met you, but ever since you bumped into my life, thinking of you has been blocking all other thoughts; thinking of you has been the baddest habit of mine. you did never ever leave.
(k.w)
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
*Slammed to "Pick Up the Pieces"
by Average White Band*
Life's a jungle I have found
Torn to pieces all around
There are foxes - there are hounds
Zoos where wild things abound
Just listen to the funky sound
Now we're going underground....
Underground where rabbits go
Down tunnels in a faster slow
It's all over, don't you know
Pick & Shovel, Rake & ***
You're down with it, on the low
Like you're Edgar Allan Poe
Feast or famine - friend or foe
It must go on... The Truman Show...
*Jigsaw pieces - play the game
It is just a crying shame
Dance for dancing - Fame for fame
Break a leg and you are lame
No one'll ever know your name...
**PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES***
You're a tiger, nothin' nice
You've been bought, you had a price
Yeah, you tore off quite a slice
Well, some are men and some are mice
Some eat meat and some eat rice
Some are fire - some are ice
Some are ticks and some are lice
Let me give you some advice...
Just so you are never boring
While you're out there pimping, *******
While you're the one they are adoring
Just watch out for polished flooring
Don't break loose from your fast mooring
Into the pit you will be soaring
After that there's no restoring
Listen to the lion roaring...
Chorus
Here we are in the U.S.
We are pampered we are blessed
Sometime soon there'll be a test
We'll ride the Bronco way out West
The Magnificent Seven rides abreast
There's a new Sheriff, have you guessed?
With a tin badge on His vest
He does not play - He does not jest
I'm afraid, I will attest!
It won't be fun, just wait and see
It will be "pain" with a capitol P!
On this bus, don't ride for free
This is not a game of Wii
There's a port and there's a lea
There's a shrub (Bush), and there's a tree
There's an us, and there's a we
**There's a YOU, and there's a ME...
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES**
SoulSurvivor
(C) 9/14/2016
https://youtu.be/xpflST8xWm8
"Pick Up the Pieces" extended version
Average White Band
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 4:51 PM UTC
it seems, my words
have lost their allure,
this morning.
and i am too fixated,
on vainly scrawling.
to see
the crafts of others,
floating on the river poetry.
i am, hands to the oars, rowing against,
a beautiful tide.
endevouring,
to attain a mooring,
on the inside of a thought. what would happen,
if i.....
let go and read just
one or two poems
from other,
weary skullsmen
and made comment.
it mayhap...
nothing, but then it,
maybe...
instead of poetry,
decrying a dying state.
the poet in the other boat,
rowing silently,
for a moment, or a lifetime
is encouraged to,
greater acts
of creativity.
just maybe.....maybe.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC
52
Whether my bark went down at sea—
Whether she met with gales—
Whether to isles enchanted
She bent her docile sails—
By what mystic mooring
She is held today—
This is the errand of the eye
Out upon the Bay.
2.1k
beholding
the tipping
Big Dipper,
with its
dangling
handle,
traverse a
midwinter
northern sky
rising
in concert
with a
steadfast
sword
wielding
Orion,
mooring
the southern
firmament,
I stand
atop a
splotch
of black
macadam,
straddling the
equidistant
expanse of
all
ascending
celestial
spheres
Music Selection
Charlie Parker
Estrellita
Oakland
1/23/15
jbm
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 10:27 AM UTC
i cast myself into the sea
an anchor mooring an empty vessel
to a body that never asked to carry
a weight heavier than its own,
the waves roiled,
the moon called out
the sea called back and
i cried out beneath the waves,
the night was quiet.
i cast myself into the sea
the moon slept on the surface,
i called her harbour and jumped.
her craters swelled and burst
into the night, the stars collided
and i sank beneath the waves,
opened my mouth wide
and swallowed a star whole
as the sea swallowed me,
i tasted salt,
licked it from the corners of my lips,
wiped it from the corners of my eyes,
the moon rippled back into place,
i reached out beneath the waves
and watched her shrink.
i cast myself into the sea,
i thought the moon would swim after me
i found a siren instead,
she beckoned me into the deep,
took my hand and led me
down, down into the trenches,
i felt the moon in the currents,
she reached out to me
and i shrunk.
the night was quiet.
Jan 29, 2021
Jan 29, 2021 at 4:24 PM UTC
Galactic curls in spirals swirl, entwining twisted mystery,
where time unrolls in blackened holes, no longer bright and blistery,
but writ like runes on starry dunes enclosed in cosmic history
Galactic dust, from novas' gusts, congesting empty spaces
once fatefully flung beyond the tongue of burnt out astral traces,
may recompress and coalesce in distant times and places
Galactic dwarves, like ancient wharves with silent planets mooring
yet still in spin though long done in, hide flares no longer soaring -
magnetic webs of eons ebb, in thermal fusion roaring
Galactic tides warp space divides, call forth sublime creation
while bending clocks in rippled shocks, unfolding time dilation
that seems to crown the flowing gown of pulsars' pulsed gyration
Galactic stew, a seething brew, midst background noise and chatter
like Chaos reigns, the sole remains of missing antimatter,
with just a trace to form a space-time, curved or somewhat flatter
Galactic glue holds something new: dark energy and matter
that interacts and counteracts the ancient Big Bang splatter:
a cosmic soup of strings and loops, a universal batter
Galactic life's replete and rife 'neath lactic milky wafer,
though solar gales leave unseen trails of cosmic rays, the strafer;
but nonetheless, one must confess, it seems there's nowhere safer
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC
There was an old wreck-marker from Fowey,
Who had been at sea since he was a buoy,
But when his mooring wore through,
He went where the wind blew,
Ending his days on the beach - as a toy.
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 2:27 PM UTC
368
How sick—to wait—in any place—but thine—
I knew last night—when someone tried to twine—
Thinking—perhaps—that I looked tired—or alone—
Or breaking—almost—with unspoken pain—
And I turned—ducal—
That right—was thine—
One port—suffices—for a Brig—like mine—
Ours be the tossing—wild though the sea—
Rather than a Mooring—unshared by thee.
Ours be the Cargo—unladed—here—
Rather than the “spicy isles—”
And thou—not there—
1.6k
July Twenty Fourth, Nineteen Fifteen
The river was murky, The weather was seen
The steamer Eastland, firm on her bow,
loaded with coal, port side and sound
A captain, that's ***** and stout in his manner
stands on his bridge with an arrogant cantor
Mooring lines set, stern to the bow
Gangplanks are steady, awaiting a crowd
Employees of Western dressed to their nines,
a picnic awaits, everything's fine
Families with smiles and tickets in hand
looks up in wonder, the Eastland she stands
Boarding commences and loaded up full
Twenty Five Hundred, no more to call
Port side list, a lean to the river
Ballast is leveled, some felt the shiver
Worries amount to settling fears,
a starboard list and beckoning tears
Back to the port, no coming back
tipped on her side, everything's black
Panic in fever, screams are abound
echoes in motion, no silence no sound
The river's chaotic with bodies afloat
Kenosha stands ready and rescues the most
Eight forty four lost their lives
In the armory they lay and Chicago cries
The Eastland still rests in our hearts and our mind
Not a second or hour can turn back the time
Jul 25, 2015
Jul 25, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
Listen up, sweater.
take good care of my love now
when her joy is boundless, hop around like a fool and
revel in the excitement of each crisp little sound
and in the cold nights lay warm beside her, whether as
pillow or cuddlee and be the soft whisper for hands to hold
the mooring point for beautiful dreams
(you are hers while I'm away because
I am hers no matter where I go)
and in that rustle of fabric, that cloth to smooth skin
do speak my name
and retain all our scents when we laughed in her
arms so she'll smile and close her eyes and
burrow into you
listen up, sweater.
take good care of my love now
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC
In a throbbing coccon seized by ablazen web
thou viscid meanders woven by an unabating tempest
then hoarded in a rapture... by the sylph of the sands.
Rising rider, captive of an upwind sail
meadowy sky lover, worshipper of the ephemeral
fettered Why mooring the eluding eons to a transfixed now
as if the twined dreams of a wayfarer,
nomad of the seas, the sands and the skies
trapped in an ethereal time warp.
Jun 1, 2010
Jun 1, 2010 at 9:10 AM UTC
I was fading out
Searching for the horizon
Fading on... To the wind
My sheets carried ideas,
my sheets restricted flesh to flies
Eyes sailed... Did my bed
On... My tears
Four years... Toes tingling with numbness
Held sky... Inside this room
And that
of prior walls dooring
to that dock
I waft... Away
I waft...
After the fade
I will waft
On the Mediterranean coast of Africa
I waft
with the seeds of a Phoenician queen
in my corpuscule
her sweet fruit
being eaten
by your
heavy tongue
perverse, Moloch sun.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 12:52 AM UTC
thank you for visiting my pad, unannounced,
everything there was in a mess after the shake up,
my books, the whole lot was in a heap,
soiled clothes like big dead birds
were strewn everywhere,
the packets that accumulated,
remained unopened,
my sense of humor was in hibernation
for a long long time,
The potted plants cried for water,
my pet parrot stopped talking,
but kept on complaining-
asking about her,
I had even forgotten
the sound of laughter,
I knew few things were to be done
to get back on track,
I needed someone to do some
creative prodding; get back my mind
to its original mooring.
I longed for some guiltless
heavy duty loving,
though so much has to be involved
for all this to happen, in a short while,
that too i needed without any strings attached,
after all that happened i was more than battle scarred.
there was nothing money can buy i didn't try.
but all failed and i was left, high and dry
You appeared like a whirlwind,
and changed everything,
yet you knew how to be a breeze so gentle,
at the right moment;
bless you, even if you aren't sneezing.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 7:28 AM UTC
*The strains of flute, touched his inner being,
lifted him up, held aloft like a feather,
the music in gentle waves,
took him through many lives he lived before
loosing all his mooring on here and now
he moved to the pinnacle, an unattached effulgent particle,
a sea of colors that kept changing, took him in,
he was liberated, from all bindings.
felt a joy exquisite, on being one with the music of the cosmic waves.*
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
she's my sun and I'm her moon
she is electricity running
through my soul
she's the blood flowing
through my veins
Oh but she burns like *** on the fire
all her flaws are her charm
The way she tells me
I'm hers and she is mine
I love how she wakes
me up with kisses
every single mooring
cherry wine lips
so soft
warm and generous
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 2:40 AM UTC