"mussels" poems
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.
Always before about my dooryard,
Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.
If I could hear the green piles groaning
Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs,
If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,
Feel once again the shanty straining
Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,—
I should be happy,—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!
I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.
31.5k
Your life is made of distant springs and falls,
a straight route is not
what you own
for hurricanes and storms divert your path
to new horizons.
Will you find horseshoe ***** mussels, clams
on the stopovers?
Food awaits you
if the shores are not ravaged
by human greed, ignorance.
Your resilience is written in B95's ordeals,
a mosaic of adventures ingrained in his own cells.
The threads of your trips assemble
the places of Mother Earth connected in its roles;
nothing is detached in the collective harmony of souls.
Red knot shorebird,
peaceful messenger,
icon of strength without rage,
your story is the universal flight of awareness
waiting to be heard.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 3:28 PM UTC
I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees,
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelled of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind the little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.
The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the **** out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the ******* can.
One was a little office clerk
Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old quean;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish.
The Maori Jesus said, 'Man,
From now on the sun will shine.'
He did no miracles;
He played the guitar sitting on the ground.
The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a ***** the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the Asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
'I am the Light in the Void;
I am who I am.'
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half.
On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It did not rise the day after.
God was neither alive nor dead.
The darkness of the Void,
Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then till now.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
(Inspired by and dedicated to John Edward Smallshaw, and his "Spice")
I am a summer-man,
Because I'm blessed to sit by the sea.
Let it and the other two Musketeers,
boon companions to me,
Sun and Wind,
erase my discomposure as I
reside in the Poet's Nookery.
Let them have almost
all that troubles,
but not all.
I am a summer-man.
On the bay, on the beach,
I see birth, I see death,
osprey nests, carcasses of
mussels and horseshoe *****
This, somehow reassuring,
the cycles,
this circularity,
the tides and inevitability.
I am a summer-man.
Student of languages seasonal,
Peaches, plums, cherries, poetry
and loving Woman.^
This, the summer alphabet-soup
of my multiple tongues.
I am a summer-man.
Sancerre and Pinot Gris, super cold,
Paul Simon, Nina Simone,
with proper aging,
getting hotter,
Salsa and Afrikaner hints,
super louder,
Even "Still Crazy After All These Years,"
that-who-wud-be-me,
chills outer.^^
I am a summer-man.
When ever this lad's writes appear,
it proves once again,
there is no truth that his
name was once Dr. Seuss
In a prior life, even if
each is signed by
Ogdiddy Nash**
I am a summer-man.
**Disrespectful of the calendar,
if I can, try to make
summer season stretch-marks from
May to October.
I would add April,
but the IRS is already
****** at me.^^^
Though the cherry blossoms of May
now gone away,
the lilies of June
arrive, but but for a week or two,
soon, like my mom, withered away.
Acorns in August^^^^ have arrived too swiftly.**
This summer, beloved,
and love of summer,
deep-rooted.
Season of my Peter Pan Poetry Galore Festival.
A love, incapable, impossible, of ever
growing old, ever growing cold,
it cannot wither.
It is summer heat reminders exposed,
how it misses its man,
that hide in the flames of
the teasing, popping, reminding
Winter fireplace's crackling popping***
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 9:33 AM UTC
The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
The Cornish shore …
Where golden sand lies next
To dappled grey granite rock,
Where the sea breeze sweeps
And the mussels flock,
Where the rock pools gather
And the small ***** patrol,
Where the white foam curls
And the breakers roll,
Where the sea birds call
And the salt spray stings,
Where the seaweed sunbathes
And the limpet clings,
Where a stream’s course meanders,
And reflects the azure sky,
Where a starfish gazes skywards
And white clouds go scudding by.
By all means take treasured memories,
But please take nothing more,
And leave nothing but your footprints
On this sacred Cornish shore …
May 8, 2021
May 8, 2021 at 1:08 AM UTC
I've had enough of all this wind and reindeer
We otter go away
Holidays are important, my parents tortoise that
Weasel have to look on the internet
You know I can't bear the heat
But here's a spa hotel where I'm sure they would panda to your every need
Alpaca suitcase right away
Toothpaste tube, cattle class
Purple stripes, rows of lights
A newly formed castle white
In concrete, steel and glass
Cloud-high halls, giant pots
Re-charging bodies strewn around
Turning deeper shades of brown
Volcanic sand, hot black rock
We watch a floating city, blazing light
Like a dying star, fade into the night
-
Ali, where do these bananas go?
What kind of tree is this?
How far does this levada flow?
Ali takes the tourists out
He throws some breadcrumbs in the water
He likes to feed the trout
Madeira born in forty five
Ali told me many things
Ali, our levada walking guide
His family was very poor
He collected mussels from the shore
And sticks to burn for heat
For today his mother said
I have no food and we must eat
We have to eat
Ali, where are all the vines?
How long before your boots wear out?
Do you drink the local wine?
Do the tourists drive you mad
With all the questions that they ask?
Ali smiles, shuffles us aside
To let some others pass
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 9:02 AM UTC
Barbells and principles
Intensity through determination
Shape leading to conditioning
Veins with the muscle peak
Creating just the right physique
I have long to have muscles
No relation to seafood mussels
However, its nutrition with a name
Looking for results being the aim
I want a reflection that is my own body composition
The idea is to be solid and strong
Feeling muscular in where I belong
A dynamite me
For all to see
My dreaming mind
I am visualizing with all combined
Muscles are just fine
It takes years of perfection and that means time.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs sprayed all over the everywhereworld.
"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.
And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.
These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.
While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
He taught me
to find love in the fruit of the sea.
In the flesh of mussels,
spread open,
before ******* them down.
He taught me
to find love on a fruit tree.
Specifically,
in a split open fresh fig.
Sweat
mingling,
with sweet juices.
He's the oldest feather,
but my father's father,
Could find love
in the tears of his eldest son.
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 11:23 AM UTC
Large boulder rocks everywhere
Water so clear mussels attached to riverbank's
Laughter racing home made boats
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 12:42 PM UTC
My fingers raw from scrubbing pounds of clams, mussels, peeling prawns.
My back aches in preparation for a meal that I wish to share with you.
Christmas music in the background.
A cocktail in hand
Now I sit for a moment and wonder
Where are you?
I hope you smile
Know I think of you
Waiting for our time together
Sitting here. Lost in thought.
Lost in you.
Kiss my love
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
On a white conch shell
like flowing teardrops
her name was written,
in his heart's blood;
this is the only record
hitherto, of his sacrifice.
On a coral reef
with every imaginable color,
his name was sculpted;
a real marvel that belies
the labor of love of long days,
her final dedication to the love of her life.
A deep sea diver, exploring
a long time after, strayed
in to this chamber of love secrets
by chance and finds
the relics of a mysterious love affair
that got lost to the human world for ever,
but found an abode deep down
in the ocean depths
amidst crowding scallops, calamari and mussels
The explorer's eyes brim
a stream of tears,
though do not know
for whom, it was shed
adds salt to the ocean floor.
Love makes heroes out of
even timid and docile persons
let me tell this. it is difficult
to predict the ways love treads.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 6:25 AM UTC
Cured meats hanging hooked
veiled in shadows, flies resting on pink
salmon flesh and a tall long bearded man
wearing dark denim in the Jewish Quarter
talking adventures, jumping vibrant,
Bold questions and stares, the woman
screaming in the Great Hall Market escorted out,
back of the throat slapping smells
on the train from Budapest to Bucharest
Stories from a tired man
aging wearing a musty coat no bag, complaining about wild
children near the dead sea throwing rocks at his sinking house
Hands beckoning in between white flapping cloths
- white sails everywhere high up, sleeping in the Hare Krishna temple
with mosquitoes ******* my legs, fishing for mussels
and eating grilled corn, 6.am grey skied Istanbul,
Morning prayers, the setting up of stalls
The shouting, the tasting of honey thick with the bees still immersed,
the tasting of cheese wet and dry brânză de burduf,
chubritza, soups, the hash and the ham. Escorted out
The juice leaking from tender meat
A sweating brow
Pockets full of coffee beans
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 8:57 PM UTC
Where is the poem,
the one I culdn't feel?
Escaped, like a flock of gulls
when all that's left is shells.
The mussels gone
or rotted
by heavy salty air;
exposed like a heart
to a fisherman
who never eats his catch
but hasn't the sense
to toss it in the water.
I am a shell,
with nothing succulent
to share.
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 10:26 AM UTC
pistachio nuts - or the clams of the the forest,
not among the helter skelter
birch tree scouting and marking territory,
but among the aged oaks
and pristine scents of pines among
the fallen pine needles in zigzag promenade -
indeed pistachio nuts like shellfish,
slightly opened ergo healthy -
clams or mussels, once opened then
healthy for the palette - still a bewilderment
to care with a hydrochloric acid cauldron
that the stomach is -
that's the prior bewilderment, the other
being this madonna-whore complex
that Anaïs Nin represents -
i've eaten a prostitute's *** (her own
anatomical definition) - indeed smothered
in creams to ease a professional approach to
a lack of relationship stimulation -
science says that eating the female *** is
like downing a range of antibiotics -
i can imagine - why is she suddenly this hailed
saint of scissors applied to a middle-class
straitjacket? what the hell is going on?
ah... i know, the longer a feeble secret is allowed
to ferment, it goes from being vinegar
to being wine to being a fruity ***** -
well shiver me timbers!
ever walk into a brothel with 7 prostitutes waiting
their bus for £110 an hour and not feel
intimidated asking for a glass of water?
i have... they eye you like hyenas,
a true spirit of solidarity that feminism forgot,
7 prostitutes eyeing you, then you say
'can one of your pick me?'
'you can't say that, it's not allowed!'
'oh, aren't you a talker, you'll do.'
every single brothel i've been too always reminds
me of Jack Daniels - i don't know why,
the burnt auburn sweetness of charcoal or something,
add the skin creams on the ****** smeared
like an insomniac creating a synthetic approach
to sleep with amitriptyline (25mg) and alcohol
and you've just bought yourself a treasure island
crucifix.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 7:43 PM UTC
My blank eyes stare
In bold frustration
At the white sheet
Sitting, calmly mocking me
On the plain brown table
The pen quivers in hand
My mussels shake with shame
But try as I might
My ideas are insanely sane
No bursting fits of passion
Or inspiring metaphors
Only a page covered in splatters
From my ink of internal wars
A block of metal in my mind
A chain of iron on my hand
Glossy mirrors on my eyes
Spiking needles in my thighs
Calling for me to get up
To leave this terrible attempt
But when a poets mind is blank
Like mine
About blankness will they find a rhyme
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:29 AM UTC
Time comes in waves,
is measured in pulses of light and dark.
Not true light, mind, but this is how I imagine it--
the tightness and then the sigh as some pressurized valve loosens.
I have never seen true light,
but the sands whisper of it longingly
as they tell their tales of something rare and precious.
I envy them their fluid existence,
swept up in a sea of that which is greater than themselves.
I am a solitary being, tough and hardened,
built to endure rather than enjoy.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 6:03 PM UTC
1. Understand Weather.
(Strangers on a bench,
Looking up.)
“Cirrus, I think.
Cirrocumulus?”
“Stratus surely.
Or altocumulus.”
(You must also hate the cold
And the sun,
And always wish the current season
Was a different one.)
2. Never Be Honest About Stuff That Hurts.
Pain so bad
Can’t even **** –
“How are you, Arthur?”
“Brilliant, thanks!”
3. Have An Opinion On These People
Katie Price (Feminist? Witch?)
Kate Moss (Goddess? *****
Stephen Fry (Snob? Wilde?)
Frankie Boyle (Offensive? Mild?)
4. Never Talk About Money.
“So.” An American asks. “How much do ya make?”
“I…I…Oh My God look at that dog over there that has a face like a pancake!”
5. Learn How To Apply The Class System To Cigarettes.
Pipe – Monty Withnail
Silk Cut – Comfortably Middle.
Lucky Strikes – Probably not British.
B&H; – Shops at Lidl.
6. Secretly (Or Openly) Enjoy The Royal Family
“So, did you hear what they called the baby?”
My boyfriend shrugs and says -
“I don’t give one tiny ****
“They named him George. Isn’t that twee?”
“Aw ******* hell, I had a tenner on Louis!”
7. Hey Jude.
If all else fails,
At the end of the night,
Sing na-na-na
And it’ll be alright.
8. Never Complain About Your Meal
“Hm. These mussels look a bit suspect.”
“How’s your meal, Sir?”
“Perfect!”
9. Always Hate The French, (Even If Your Own Mother Is French)
Numberplate 'F'
On an articulated lorry.
“Stuck up…onion…bastards.”
(I’m sorry mum, I’m so sorry!)
10. ‘Jerusalem’
Mime a sword in your hand,
Bang your chest with devotion,
Wave the sword about,
Sing with emotion.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 10:35 AM UTC
don't be alarmed. i have no brick hat so there will be no tornadoes.
sleep now... if you would dream
awake; you'll see the world end
and comets stall in midair
apparent.
sling your ribbon in the fey dusk
and fetch mussels from tide-pools of emaciation / gather your things
it won't be long before the love hates
and a weary lingers lovely
and returns
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 11:36 AM UTC
A whipped plane, plain to see with the windows up, but down, to be downed by the splendor encompassed only with this type of vastness.
Sitting for hours, silence not for naught but traversing efforts toward closeness to the bringer of Peace. The only.
Dreams are heavy, and comforting when the roads journey takes more tolls and toiling on our souls. We disregard for a while the sipped perfection from whence we came, glamoured for justice to who we became.
Trivial matters none the less, uncovered near Hermit's nest. Blessed to bless, fessed to confess.
A priest to stare, iconic to share a truth-unfair to the tune of the wind in our softened hair.
"As a child I spoke like a child, felt as a child does, but now that I'm older I fear that all's not lost." Once a brain, now to complain of a surrounding so deafened, and dream-less. I take it back; for when dreams strive in equal relation to Justice, the days of golden mussels, and embraced lovingness from our soul's longing will reap.
To be.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 7:45 PM UTC
black mussels de-bearded, shine
water, yeast-beer, hops
combine enticingly with
ginger, chilli, lime
and much garlic.
simmer, then....
gorge!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 4:55 AM UTC
Acquainted with Mark,
I walk to the bookshop;
not the one with the *****
instead the neon green nightmare
where there’s nothing good to read.
It’s not so much that I’m searching
for anything in particular, but the sun
has gone down and there’s a need in me
to get out of the house and walk around
someplace that feels like someplace.
Walking past the skateboards,
(Why the **** are there skateboards here?)
I start looking for Mark.
“He doesn’t live here” they say, “He never has.”
No, he doesn’t, I gather.
The King does though,
and if I wanted to fall in love
with a vampire there, I certainly could.
But, Mark is nowhere to be found.
The Laureate of Drunkards has a room
there, but he hasn’t moved in and the
staff cannot remember the last time they
saw him.
Dr. Lovecraft and Chitulu have been known to set
up a lemonade stand now and again, but they never
stick around very long, their product is too sour
for palettes around these parts.
Regardless of this, my search continues.
Mark is not here today, but Robert Parker
has rented some space and is rooming with
Ray Chandler, down the hall from Larry Block,
sometimes they cook up some pasta and mussels
in white wine, with good bread.
Sometimes they pan fry steaks, and make home fries
drinking rye until it’s all medium rare.
It’s mysterious, how Mark became an afterthought
and we all hope he hasn’t been murdered, kidnapped,
or met with some other form of foul play.
It’s poetic really,
how Mark will come around now and again
he’s not lost or forgotten,
he’ll be waiting for me when I get home.
We’ll sit in the dark, under the lamp,
together well read his poem titled: “Poem”
and I’ll tell him that he’s better at this noir stuff
than all those other hacks.
But, for now, Mark remains…Stranded.
***
-JBClaywell
©2016 P&ZPublications
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC