"nets" poems
Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.
There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames;
Its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness my distant female;
>From your regard sometimes, the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons,
I fling my sad nets to that sea that is thrashed
By your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
That flash like my soul when I love you.
The night, gallops on its shadowy mare
Shedding blue tassels over the land.
34.4k
the walls of the inside passage
look the same from sound to straight
tugs and plugs dot the coastline
as the quartermaster rolls
giving time for evening glare
pods are in sequence
as the high tail smashes and jaws at the krill
white bellies and sea cows bob and weave
as bow heads glide over haida gwaii
northern lights dance
and tlingit chant
as the tide settles softly on savory shores
their getting hungry in hoonah
as the blue back and beating drums
mark the life blood of the sea
driftwood nets
and sitka spruce
surround the cook house
ravens and tinhorns
man the scullery
kerosene lamps flicker
as clam shells roast
on open flames
villagers stroll
on pebbled sand
*in the harbor of souls
where ships set sail
on might and mass
into the steady winds
of the golden skies*
ice fields (to the north)
of kryptonite blue
cutting hills at
a glacial pace
knuckle clouds
above the snowline
where warlocks
craft a hidden trade
trappers, skinners
muscle shoals
grizzly feasts
in kodiak bowl
determined pilgrims
on a dead horse trail
in search of gold
the holy grail
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 11:52 PM UTC
The Nets Hold Our Dreams Like Tangled Bugs,
And The Courts Gleam With Our Ambition,
Beads Of Sweat Form Perfectly On Our Raised Brows,
As We Play With The Attitude A Champion Needs,
We Are Dressed In Black And Blue,
Floor Burn Covering Our No Longer Smooth Skin,
Our Lips Bleeding From The Battle For The Ball,
The Sound Of Screaming Becomes White Noise,
As We Burrow Into The Gym Floor,
Just For One More Medal,
And As We Walk Away From The Courts,
With Our Arms Bruised And Torn,
Red And Raw,
We Smile At Our Dreams Still Lying,
In The Twisted Nets
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 8:44 AM UTC
The ocean,
oh it looked so blue,
shades of colour swimming around like clouds around the moon,
The water,
oh it looked so clean,
but it was just the sun's reflection making it clear,
Underneath the waves lay a graveyard,
a promise of death,
a promise of extinction,
Tombs made of plastic,
slathered in oil,
steaming with toxic waste,
and all the people know,
The damage is unfolding faster than we are evolving,
The turtles are ingesting plastic as if it were their only meal,
begging for their fins to just be free,
so they can dive through the sea,
The seals are tangled in nets, lines and lures,
plastic bags and packing bands,
till they're tied to their grave as if life were just a brief phase,
The seabirds skim the ocean waves for fish and squid,
yet plastic is their only catch of the day,
leaving them broken inside and out,
and dead on the beaches we claim are our own,
The whales are submerged beneath the sea,
eating most things that they see,
plastic, plastic everywhere beneath,
not giving them much time before they can no longer breathe,
The dolphins are gliding through the sea,
taking what they can to eat,
plastic as their only meal,
tearing them apart from within,
leaving them starving for weeks,
till the grave is the only thing they see,
Us humans are so weak,
we can’t see how deep the pain seeps,
but when nothing is left for us to eat,
and the rich have nothing left to steal,
we’ll end in the same graves as all the lives we could have healed.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 12:16 PM UTC
*Casting spells in a song of lust
with such beauty undenied.
He's chased her half a lifetime
and have lost but all his pride.
Sailing all the oceans blue
He's left his ship dashed on the rocks.
Begging for that enchanted kiss
from his mermaid as she mocks.
Her voice to call within a gale
scent heady upon the waves.
Nets shredded trying to capture her
yet every night he craves.
To nary catch a fleeting glimpse
of her golden hair or tail.
He's chased her 'cross the storming seas
as winds and rain did wail.
Forever calling out her name
He's come to rest in every port.
On moonlit nights he hears her song
attempts to see her, she does thwart.
The scent of salt does show his years
but still he sails to her song.
Forever on the shifting waves
is where his heart belongs.*
Aug 3, 2017
Aug 3, 2017 at 9:36 AM UTC
He wrote of the light of the world,
a testament, a lamp to illuminate
the place from which he came —
I saw his lighthouse coalesce
out of the cloaking mist, its blade
shearing the sheath of darkness.
I inhaled the dusk bloom scent
- Four O’Clock Flower, Poinsettia, Frangipani -
beguiled by a road, undeterred
by calls in the night, the rain, the unknown way.
I sang with one thousand night-drunk tree frogs
proclaiming an equatorial cycle to the stars,
choristers intoning a chant of existence.
I rode balanced between
the cycling engine's torque and the
reflective cast of my foreign skin.
I felt the grip of ignominy constrict the stir
of my drink, amongst hands toasting
the crush of entitlement’s bearing.
I walked where people dwell, and stop
to greet and tell news of the market
or of their nets, bearing the sea’s returns.
I savored the song in his speech,
a seasoned stew, unshackling the tongue
to ring like the steel of a drum —
a tapestry unfurled: a world
paced by sirens of wind and wave,
embroidered on the earthbound side
of heaven's abiding blanket.
Copyright © 2017 Gary Brocks
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 4:46 AM UTC
born in illusory chains
gnarled metal
encrusted in my broken skin
the copper colored dust
of rusted steel
infectiously envelopes
shaving off antiquated layers
of fundamentalist religion
encrusted for generations
unpeeled until raw
an unsophisticated method
unveiling
ancient lodged glass shards
colored with deceit
brought before their court
interrogated
unfathomably skewered
an eerie salem witch trial
in modern times
barbarically they shun me
banished
i wander aimlessly
smelling the rotten decay of deceased community
as splinters pierce my feet
from the crooked wooden plank
i walk alone now
an unfathomable inner ache
kindled a residue within
igniting a wildfire from the darkest shadows
uncontainably erupting
i dance savagely
naked in the orange moonlight
and in every shaded edge
lit my soul ablaze
i am a nomad sheep
‘tho not one of their color
no pasture to contain me
no shepherd i can follow
theological safety nets
no longer there to catch me
bohemian-like
i plunge
free falling
plummeting
stripped wide open
magically
fearlessness
reverses gravitation
floating
untethered
i soar amongst
apricot tinged clouds
my skin still wet from rebirth
and rise with the flaming coral sun
you cannot destroy me
i twisted in your decrepit pencil sharpener
and with fresh mettle
cut through the chains that bound
you can have my ego
but you cannot have my soul
dismantling domestication
transcending limitation
wildly untamed
i fly
©2016janetaylor
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 6:40 AM UTC
Today not all of our mistakes are failures
Today I'm closing the door on
the things we keep behind our teeth,
the ways we never learned how to be
soft, but always tried
our best anyway
this is a tribute to the lost sleep
the nights I keep marked in tallies on
my arms, the letters I keep locked up
in a dark drawer,
where maybe something besides moths and regret
will eat away at them.
Today, not all of our thoughts are broken
today you take me out of my skin and I learn how to dance;
the rhythm is choppy but I follow
it anyway, after all we are only testing the waters here
we are only stargazers
awaiting some grand cosmic miracle, we are waiting with our
hands in our pockets for something big to happen,
we are falling in and out of obsession
chasing strangers
around and around in circles,
throwing our
fists in the air claiming "not everything is lost",
slowly coming to the realization that
it's also true not everything is found.
Today you don't know what you're looking for but you can't stop
searching the horizon, like maybe if you peer long enough,
your brain will slow down enough to process
the harsh thump-thump, thump-thump that tells you you're still alive
that tells you you're still here
that tells you you're still waiting
And my fingernails are digging into my palms now from the suspense
of writing and re-writing my name onto fresh pages,
crumpling and collecting them
in the bottom of waste baskets along with
half smoked cigarettes and
last night's rain, because
it is rare that two paths will cross in this world with anything more
than a brief flash of recognition,
it is rare that anything
better can be captured before it slips
down through the cracks;
but that thought was me eons ago
that was me in someone else's skin
today I'm putting nets out to catch the things
we throw around & never keep,
I'm writing your story into my
daily script & keeping a list
of "to-dos" before the big event;
tonight I'm alone and I'm
too busy to look out the window,
maybe the stars will flicker or maybe
they won't, but regardless
I'm still counting my heartbeats to know that I'm here
(still counting my heartbeats to know
the time I have left),
I'm still patching
this wound up with fragments of could have been,
reminding myself that not all
of our hearts are broken, and not all
of our moments are failures.
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 1:32 AM UTC
'Twas all so beautiful a sight,
A long summers night; The sacred stars were burning bright about our mother moon.
The wind filled the sails above the waves, that sped us through the sailors tales, and brought us to a deep lagoon.
We cast our nets out far and wide, then watched them sink below the tide, which rattled out a tune for me and you.
We hauled aboard the silver fish, to fill our bellies and our fists, then set off home with seagulls squawking tunes.
The wooden boat now tied about the quay,
its tattered sail and rusty cleat,
gently tug and tug the rope upon the swell.
come to sea!
You know me well!!
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 8:23 AM UTC
I went fishing with two witches
Out in my new boat
There was me, the witches
Two black cats, and a little pygmy goat
We sat out on the water
The small odd group and me
And in the first few hours
Not one fish did we see
The witches looked on skyward
Grabbed hands to cast a spell
They said that this worked wonders
And then they both did yell
Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew
Suddenly the water around the boat
Started to steam, and then it did boil
The sun disappeared, the sky went all black
And the clouds went the colour of oil
The witches both gathered the nets on the boat
As the fish came on up from the deep
They were out of the water and up in the air
And through this the goat went to sleep
Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew
Fish were around us, high in the air
The witches waved nets as if mad
The cats didn't move nor did the goat
It was the best catch that I'd ever had
After a while the sky turned to blue
The witches sat back with a look
We'd netted hundred of fish from the lake
Now, they would have to be cooked
Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew
I took the boat in, and docked on the shore
With our fish all strung up just for show
Everyone there asked what bait did we use?
I just smiled, for they weren't set to know
I go fishing with witches at least once a week
My freezer is full and then some
Their spell is amazing, it works every time
They say it loud, and fish come
Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 2:57 PM UTC
All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying;
These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time:
Survey our progress from our birth—
We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,
All bewitching appetites!
Sweetest breath and clearest eye
Like perfumes go out and die;
And consequently this is done
As shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain the ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind.
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One fleeting chance to catch you between trapezes
Yet my head was bowed, my thoughts immersed
In another dream of another life that i longed to live
A moments lapse careers you to that downward spiral
Through all those safety nets, all those webs we wove
Once so secure borne from our labour, love and toil
Exposed now like a promise of night through a civil dawn
As you fall through each of my declarations of trust
You blow out the candles and knock out the lights
Of celebrations and occasions now shattered like glass
Blackness descending through this never blinking eye
As those moments and time perpetually relive yet resist
The blood still refusing to flow freely through my veins
As i sit and wait for this evening coffee to run cold
That i may embrace the sanctuary of night once more
For I was one that could never dream in the dark
No more than one who could ever make amends
Between those two trapezes that signaled our end
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 5:54 PM UTC
The strike of the rainbow warriors
After a few hours in the dark cages of horror we suddenly see a sharp light in the sky of evil. The golden goddess notices another ship coming towards the devils spike city.
At that moment the orange and black pirates run towards their ships in dock and sound a long dark horn of terror. The golden goddess notices a large rainbow type ship sailing in firing laser rays at the pirates vessels of evil.
The ship sets into the dock of spike city while some remaining pirates get cut down and captured with blue laser nets of torture. Our eyes open with horror when rainbow type creatures with bows and arrows jump out of the ship and circle our cages of horror.
A few of the black pirate in the purple bushes try and shoot the rainbow warriors but get cut down with their laser fast arrows. The commander of the rainbow warriors suddenly jumps down from the ship and lifts up the cages with power and ease while the warriors round up the captured pirates.
I comfort a shaking luitent megs while the commander shakes our hands before releasing the other golden warriors from their dark cage. The horses bow their heads towards the commander while the golden goddess looks with hope in her beaten heart.
All of a sudden two rainbow warriors march out a swearing and aggressive woman holding a long jagged sword and pirates armband. The rainbow warriors quickly zap her evil body and hold her down tightly . The golden goddess goes over for a better look while her long tongue of nails cuts of a warriors head off with ease.
The rainbow warriors chop her evil tongue off with a swipe of the rainbow sword before pinning her to the cold ground. two of the warriors then begin to peel her black dress of horror off while other rainbow braves flock around.
A curious golden goddess peeps though for a better look while the warriors are undoing her small black studded bra of terror. The goddess looks on with a smile and twinkle while she screams in anger at her ******* bouncing in the dark cold night.
All of a sudden the commander comes inside the circle of torture and begins removing her devilish red ******* while the warriors cheer and scream. The golden goddess looks on with a content smile while the warriors chop her body up into bit with their glowing swords.
After a few minutes the rest of the pirates are shot and executed with laser bouts while we all sit watch with open mouths of horror. The commander then takes us aboard the rainbow ship of safety while the pirates come back to evil spike city with four more pirate ships of torture.
We all sail across the red evil sea towards a big large rainbow in the glowing yellow sky whilst being followed by two black pirate ships. Once we reach through the rainbows end we begin to notice the water turning bright pink and the pirate ships turning back towards the red river of horror.
A relived golden goddess turns towards her army and smiles while we we all jump about on the rainbow ship of safety. I hold luitent megs tight in my arms while the green moon sets across the blue landscape in the distance.
written by wayne mockler
ownership and copyright wayne mockler
Apr 25, 2020
Apr 25, 2020 at 2:34 PM UTC
Running amok black bellies of hail-clouds
divest their hard cargo
on near-ready harvest and thunder claps
in spiteful applause.
Scudding sails of racing white galleons
arrive to the rescue
and change weather's position as quiet
breaches gale's disorder.
Setting the sun throws magenta feathers
across dark horizon
and to settle the issue parades jade tints
as the landscape transforms.
Waiting small boats plod homewards in
fish-laden formation
while wives run to stoke hot-kettled fires
of ready bath water.
Lighting a pathway half-moon winks as
heavier catches in
hauled nets silver the harbour and men
start night's final performance.
Sating hunger with coming and going
sow-and-reap women know
the meaning of sharing male labour in
scaling and salting chores.
Fisher-folks' world begins and ends
with the vagaries and quirks of weather.
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 9:32 AM UTC
who needs tampons
and breath mints
and safety nets
if you're there to cradle my fall?
i'd jump out of a perfectly good airplane
from thousands of feet in the sky
without a parachute
because i know you'll be there
at the bottom
with open arms
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC
When our tears are dry on the shore
And the fishermen carry their nets home
And the sea gulls return to bird island
And the laughter of the children recedes
At night
There shall still linger here the communion we
Forged
The feast of oneness which we partook of
There shall still be the eternal gate-men
Who will close the cemetery door
And send the late mourners away
It cannot be music we heard that night
That still lingers in the chambers of memory
It is the new chorus of our forgotten comrades
And the hallelujahs of our second selves
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 9:10 PM UTC
I'm in love with a fisherman who fears sailing onward to outstretched sea
instead he casts his nets over ponds and shallow streams
I’m in love with a fisherman whose hands are ignorant of forceful currents and giant swells
each graze from his unscathed hands reminds me of his vanity
his boasting never halting -- the fish are endless in his shallow stream
My fisherman is too cowardly to inhale the briny air
so when we make love
the smell of fresh water lingers on my sheets and my salty skin needs a drink
but this estuary is not a haven for ill-fated love
while I yearn for my fisherman, my heart will always yield to the sea
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 10:18 AM UTC
It lives in Him breathes in his vitals,
Personifies him and nets out of his veins lethargy,
It dampens what his heart has in offer,
It lays in him waste,
a bewitched rower to this boat,
Who has yet to learn to stay afloat,
His obfuscations lead him sober,
His blind eye dictates his horror,
A pearl beyond imagination he has yet to attain,
To proclaim his name with no distain.
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM UTC
The engine is killing the track, the track is silver,
It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.
Its running is useless.
At nightfall there is the beauty of drowned fields,
Dawn gilds the farmers like pigs,
Swaying slightly in their thick suits,
White towers of Smithfield ahead,
Fat haunches and blood on their minds.
There is no mercy in the glitter of cleavers,
The butcher's guillotine that whispers: 'How's this, how's this?'
In the bowl the hare is aborted,
Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice,
Flayed of fur and humanity.
Let us eat it like Plato's afterbirth,
Let us eat it like Christ.
These are the people that were important ----
Their round eyes, their teeth, their grimaces
On a stick that rattles and clicks, a counterfeit snake.
Shall the hood of the cobra appall me ----
The loneliness of its eye, the eye of the mountains
Through which the sky eternally threads itself?
The world is blood-hot and personal
Dawn says, with its blood-flush.
There is no terminus, only suitcases
Out of which the same self unfolds like a suit
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes,
Notions and tickets, short circuits and folding mirrors.
I am mad, calls the spider, waving its many arms.
And in truth it is terrible,
Multiplied in the eyes of the flies.
They buzz like blue children
In nets of the infinite,
Roped in at the end by the one
Death with its many sticks.
6.2k
Delicate nets collect on sailing clouds of violet mist
While red leaves twist and spin in turn
Gleaming sparks of dawn cannot be dismissed
As the scattered night sky
Is adjourned
Sweet water gathers in a dream’s own reflection
On a whirling spider’s silvery thread
Morning has broken needing no authentication
See her truth glowing there
In an intricate web
Tiny stones are surrounding sharp blades of grass
Worshiping the presence, they behold
Looking up from the shadows of a looking glass
With their own stories
Still untold
A leaping bass, splashes proudly in a silent pond
Each drop of water expressing its distress
Thinking that the sun was waiting to respond
To his shimmering silence
Used to impress
A single drop of water, a red leaf twisting in the wind
A spider weaving her web to be blessed
Even the tiny stones worshiping their friends
Leap with the bass, distressing the pond
To impress
Oct 26, 2010
Oct 26, 2010 at 1:58 PM UTC
Tonight watching the waves
break over Dead Woman's
Shoals quite a ways away
through the windows
of the Riverview
where I once thought the bar
was the bottom of a boat
scarred deep from the drink
on the rocks and sand bars
until I realized it was a coffin
shellacked black
as the hazards of marriage
between a waterman
and a lonely woman
black as the soft leather
of the stool climbed
and kicked away
black as the water
the night
you found her there
still swinging
from the rope
of the nets
she repaired
for her man
while he was away
chasing the catch
deep in the darkness
of the black waves.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 11:45 PM UTC
I dreamed up a world
Where reality had tilted
And the sky traded places
With the sea
We walked on streets
Of fluffy clouds
Caught stars in fishing nets
While gazing up at celestial waters
Making wishes on flying whales
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 10:44 PM UTC
I wrote a poem on a bus
but to hear it you must
climb to the top
of the bouncing metal stairs.
Slither snake-like
past the rail
and sit
on the rainbow nylon bench.
I'll be there
at the top of the bus,
reciting my rhyme,
written as we ride along,
past shops and houses
with musty nets
and peeling paint
on dingy doors.
There's the old woman who
lives in a house no bigger than a shoe box
who had so many children she didn't know what to do!
But they've all grown and flown now and she's all alone
with no-one to talk to but herself.
Look at that kid: grimy smile and mischievous eyes,
skateboard-scuffed knees,
darting out from the roadside.
Screech!
As we stop and angry words.
The kid glances back and tosses a vee
leaving just his smile behind.
The bus lurches on
at a snail's pace and stops at a stop
for a giggle-girl-gang
to chatter up the stairs
with a clatter of feet and voices:
weekends and boyfriends,
music and laughter.
The bus trundles and sways
past shops all shuttered,
old folks gathered by doorways
talking about people
dead and forgotten ...
except by them.
Into the town now:
a river of road-rage
as our bus ambles onward
toward car-parks and markets
and rat-racing shoppers
And stops by a brown pigeon-stained temple
of public philanthropy,
a gift from a long-dead civic leader
and now proud home
to dogeared tomes of PC persuasion.
Our bus, like some Trojan horse,
disgorges its riders
who spatter and scatter
like rays of dawn light
to shop till they drop.
So, just me and you seated
atop the steel stairway
and you say to me sharply,
“So where's your poem then?”
I look at you strangely:
“It's happened around you,” I tell you quite curtly.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 11:35 AM UTC
Proving myself worthy,
has been futile.
You still see me as flawed,
I am real
My love is honest,
not just a word.
Not just an emotion,
Love is real
New safety nets are up,
fear of more rejection.
Time to part ways,
Loneliness is real.
Time is short,
so many distractions.
Struggle to stay focused,
Pain is real.
What drives me to keep living?
How long will it save me?
I want to keep loving you,
Be loved by you.
Real
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 4:14 PM UTC