"oar" poems
Patiently he untangles the net
Standing calmly
Brazing the breeze
On the dancing boat
With an oar on its side
Which is cooled by the
Waters of the river..
The sun will set in an hour or so
And he has to finish his catch
Before the dusk
And back to his hut
Where his wife will
Waiting eagerly
To make the dinner
With the fresh catch
Another day
Another catch
The river but
Remains the same
Greeting the fishermen
Who roam the river
With their boats
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC
I hear the carve of oars,
I see your palms enfold the wood,
as shards of stars shred
a black and glistening wave.
I hear the carve of oars,
the shore is breached,
we reach dank granite stairs, climb
a tower in moon gritty light.
I hear the carve of oars,
you speak, your turgid cheek
blue-steel-gray, your gaze grates,
my salt raged eyes summon waves and stars.
I hear the carve of oars,
waves rattle a candle's flame,
chill the bed frame, the wet stony room ––
the door closes, it scrapes.
I hear the carve of oars.
I know your lurching gate,
the clank as oar lock’s turn.
You slip the shore.
I hear the carve of oars
Copyright © 2002 Gary Brocks
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 8:47 PM UTC
•
**
♥ ♥ ♥
Saccharine
kiss, a taste of heav-
en, it's a chef d'eouvre,an ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
exploding fulgent tint• ••of love••
& commitment;, our to\ /ngue limning ela-\\
tion with these lips as ˋ•´canvas, stars detonate\\
lavishing blessing from above to our bona fide\\\
love ethereal emoti- on scintillate from w/in \\
creating a paradigm- of immaculacy of \\\/\\
endearment with an- ....enfolding c- \\\\\/\/ /
ape of assurance it's an e(mpyrean aroma from\//\///\
two seraphic being wit(h ablazing devotion towards//\\\
each other it erected a b(eatific paradise that link two/\\\/\
souls together in love & harmony & while your lips/\\\///
pressed to mine, it also push away all of my/ /\\\////
trepidation & replace.it with prodigious/\____/////
bliss, it colors my coun ,,,___,,,tenance with perfect\\//////
euphoria that spread out to my psyche.oh how heaven\/\/
descended on earth & spiced our lips with its ethereal sa-
vor oh how it birthed wings in our back that allow us to s-
oar high while relishing this very moment oh how it crea-
ted a divine crown to our heads & dressed us with ecclesi-
astical robe that scintillate w/our love as the source of lig-
ht oh how I want the time to cease to eternally feel this--
juncture oh this kiss.oh this kiss,oh how exhilaration do-
minate in me oh this phase with my king,oh how I pray
this to never end a phase that ignore the world & just fo-
*** to each other we |are united)with the )
love of God that bin- |d us toget(\her a love(
that come out from - |our mouth )\and reveal )
it with this kiss, oh t- |he sweetest )\just the sw)
eetest of all, oh i close |these eyes ) \and appre)
ciate each movement |our lips p) \erform o)
h how i love this kiss |oh how i) \w i love)
you my king, you ha- |ve suppl) \emented)
me with all nutrients |that I n) \eeded f)
or survival, your kiss |have s) \ituate)
d me in a bed so dear |surro) \undin)
g yellow flowers that |bloo( \ms i(
n its most ravishing /state,, ) /oh this)
kiss became gleami- /ng sun\ /light th\
that gives us warm- /th, yes \ \ /this sac\ \
charine kiss, a taste of (heaven/ \_\ (en you/ \_\
've let/ \me taste heaven!
**
with love <3
© Earl Jane
♥ E.J.C.S.
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 6:08 AM UTC
1656
Down Time’s quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide—
6.8k
on this boat I am safe as long as I can see shore
but that is not what I have built this for
I sailed out for adventure and a chance to explore
this place is too mundane I want something more
to navigate by the stars like in the times of yore
and find rubies and gold treasures galore
but first I must get there so I reach for my oar
and row into the unknown until I am sore
I look out to the east and the clouds I just abhor
the waves grow higher and the wind starts to roar
the clouds begin to light up and the rain starts to pour
a storm such as this one I have never seen before
and all this premonition I can no longer ignore
but I am not turning back I'll risk the ocean floor
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 10:22 PM UTC
Third weekend in July
I love canoeing out on Northwood
Lake, early morning hours melting
into the pines, as I head toward the
island where the wild blueberries
lie. Tiny morsels, abundant and packed with
the taste of summer and beepollen and freshwater
and snow. Minnows nibble my toes, each one
a solid worm for the biting, as I slowly
fill a one-gallon jug, berry by berry,
to use for breakfast pancakes and
Belgian waffles cooked golden from
the waffle iron. Some of the ripest
berries plop into the lake. I swipe
them up before bass or sunfish
see them; always leaving the
green berries behind.
Pausing to taste some, they
split between my incisors;
I marvel at the flavor
while a loon’s haunted red
eyes stare at nothing.
Blueberries split like
relationships
occasionally do,
sour at times, always
leaving a taste on your
palate. Families, young
lovers picnicking on the
beach lake, confused couples;
they branch off, moonlight
silhouetting their outlines;
silent elegy softly blossoming
downward as their paths skew.
They won’t cross again.
My jug filled, I oar
back to the dock,
ears filled with
humming of birds,
insects, boats;
brimming with
the bream from berries
splitting apart,
and the intense
silence of blueberry
picking in late July.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 3:09 PM UTC
Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore —
No doubt you have heard the name before —
Was a boy who never would shut a door!
The wind might whistle, the wind might roar,
And teeth be aching and throats be sore,
But still he never would shut the door.
His father would beg, his mother implore,
'Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore,
We really do wish you would shut the door!'
Their hands they wrung, their hair they tore;
But Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore
Was deaf as the buoy out at the Nore.
When he walked forth the folks would roar,
'Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore,
Why don't you think to shut the door?'
They rigged up a Shutter with sail and oar,
And threatened to pack off Gustavus Gore
On a voyage of penance to Singapore.
But he begged for mercy and said, 'No more!
Pray do not send me to Singapore
On a Shutter, and then I will shut the door!'
'You will?' said his parents; 'then keep on shore!
But mind you do! For the plague is sore
Of a fellow that never will shut the door,
Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore!'
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
I wonder why you want to row
When there are just so many terms to know
Before you get in the boat and place an oar in the water,
Before you take a single stroke don’t think you ought to
Remind yourself of what they are, these parts and pieces,
Actions and orders that rowers use (but poets don’t)
So forgive me if I leave some out.
Let’s take a look at the boat (or rather the shell):
The seat you sit on,
slides, backstop, shoes and riggers.
The skeg that stabilizes the shell,
shoulder, saxboard, and pogies.
The top-nut that keeps the rowlock in place,
swivel, stretcher and rollers.
Now for the oar (or rather the scull):
There’s the Spoon blade, the Macon blade,
Smoothie or Tulip.
Ready (or not) for the stroke you take ?
An Airstroke (in the air) ,
backsplash, backwater, or body stroke,
Go on bury the blade, check the cover,
but don’t catch a crab!
Mind out for the drunken spider,
watch the feather and the finish,
Inside hand, outside hand,
hands away, miss the water,
Leg back, lie back,
pause the paddling, watch the pitch,
Release and recover,
don’t shoot your slide,
Swing the stroke rate,
and space those puddles.
Careful there’s no skying,
and absolutely no washing out.
Ready for a repecharge?
Or perhaps you’d prefer an egg-beater?
Ask the *** to call a flutter.
Easy oars
Hold her hard
Ship oars
One foot up & out
Waist, ready, up
Shoulders, ready, up
Way enough!
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 2:14 AM UTC
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.
Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;
Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
4.1k
there is a god but don’t encourage him. my father means it tenderly. in his attic a painting of a park scene has in it a woman without feet sitting on a bench. without feet because his young mind couldn’t settle on them bare. in the end it seems the wild dog has licked them away. attic that in a drought of weeping became a basement. our poverty was given an oar. my past has a past.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
shore slips tangent
once each turn
and life pivots
on blade’s pull
from age’s widened spiral
we watch to find
another oar
uncertain
how to circle
back to land
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 6:26 AM UTC
Australia takes her pen in hand
To write a line to you,
To let you fellows understand
How proud we are of you.
From shearing shed and cattle run,
From Broome to Hobson's Bay,
Each native-born Australian son
Stands straighter up today.
The man who used to **** his drum",
On far-out Queensland runs
Is fighting side by side with some
Tasmanian farmer's sons.
The fisher-boys dropped sail and oar
To grimly stand the test,
Along that storm-swept Turkish shore,
With miners from the west.
The old state jealousies of yore
Are dead as Pharaoh's sow,
We're not State children any more —
We're all Australians now!
Our six-starred flag that used to fly
Half-shyly to the breeze,
Unknown where older nations ply
Their trade on foreign seas,
Flies out to meet the morning blue
With Vict'ry at the prow;
For that's the flag the Sydney flew,
The wide seas know it now!
The mettle that a race can show
Is proved with shot and steel,
And now we know what nations know
And feel what nations feel.
The honoured graves beneath the crest
Of Gaba Tepe hill
May hold our bravest and our best,
But we have brave men still.
With all our petty quarrels done,
Dissensions overthrown,
We have, through what you boys have done,
A history of our own.
Our old world diff'rences are dead,
Like weeds beneath the plough,
For English, Scotch, and Irish-bred,
They're all Australians now!
So now we'll toast the Third Brigade
That led Australia's van,
For never shall their glory fade
In minds Australian.
Fight on, fight on, unflinchingly,
Till right and justice reign.
Fight on, fight on, till Victory
Shall send you home again.
And with Australia's flag shall fly
A spray of wattle-bough
To symbolise our unity —
We're all Australians now.
3.5k
Jupiter Mars P Moon
VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.
Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon.
Life is absorbed in its beatitude,
A meditative mage beneath the moon
Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude,
To Campo Santo that, this night of June,
Heals for awhile the immitigable feud?
Adela!
Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola!
Through maze on maze of silent waterways,
Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,
We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways
Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas
Swoon in the ***** of Pacific bays!
We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies,
Adela!
Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!
They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres
That guard such ghostly life. They tower above
Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs
No angel from the pinnacles thereof.
All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers
That reigns is this most silent crown of love
Adela
That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.
They twist, they twine, these white and black canals,
Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx.
Even as out love - raging wild animals
Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix
To radiate seraphic coronals,
Flowers, flowers - O let our light and darkness mix,
Adela,
Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!
Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire,
Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash,
Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre,
Your eyes His stars - come, let our Venus lash
Our bodies with the whips of Her desire.
Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash,
Adela!
Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?
3.4k
The Eclipse
The eclipse dose not become endless night
The reappearance of light is the same as the survival of soul
The eclipse
Such indeed a character of the historic hour through which the world was passing
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon
A quiet and unexpected change,
That looked the desultory range
Of happiness and sprightly thought.
Where'er was dipped the toiling
oar,
The direction of winds danced round us as
before,
As lightly, though of altered hue;
Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noon-tide from umbrageous
walls
That screen the morning dew.
No vapour stretched its wings; no
cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
'There was light sheathed and gently
charmed,
Of all its sparkling rays disarmed,
And as in slumber laid:--
Or something night and day
between,
Like moon shine--but the hue was
green;
Still moon shine, without shadow,
spread
On jutting rock, and curved shore
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 6:25 PM UTC
YOU waves, though you dance by my feet like children
at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and
you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves
were more gay,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when
his oar
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
3.3k
Now do our eyes behold
The tidings which were told:
Twin fallen kings, twin perished hopes to mourn,
The slayer, the slain,
The entangled doom forlorn
And ruinous end of twain.
Say, is not sorrow, is not sorrow's sum
On home and hearthstone come?
Oh, waft with sighs the sail from shore,
Oh, smite the ***** cadencing the oar
That rows beyond the rueful stream for aye
To the far strand,
The ship of souls, the dark,
The unreturning bark
Whereon light never falls nor foot of Day,
Even to the bourne of all, to the unbeholden land.
3.2k
Four you already know,
But I can't, I won't,
Put them in writing... allegedly.
The Fifth is my favorite.
Adrift on the Bering Strait,
On an ice flow,
Followed by habitat strained
Polar Bears.
(We'll give him an oar)
Upon landing on the opposite shore,
To be met
By a voracious, ferocious,
And *******
Russian bear.
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 9:03 AM UTC
Feb. 2015
this writ,
content so obvious,
it begs,
why even bother...
Pen Man Ship
this is who you are,
this is your scent, scripted,
the parfume that memory triggers
declarative self-examination passing grades
if pen and paper
are your skin and blood,
then you, man,
ship to shore,
skinned alive,
in poems verbose spill all
ship in ship out,
the glories and the dreads,
expel ink oceans glorious India blue,
rivulets of tributaries,
spillages of what~where,
you are pen
you are man
you are ship
where intersect these routed things,
one is voyage~bound
for parts unknown
the pen be the oar,
and the man, the ship,
and when the sails raised,
the wind never fails,
only there is no
dead reckoning -
for there are no
landmarks observable
when sit~stand
to commence sail~writing
each writ a latitude recorded,
each poem a longitude drawn,
all together, a
body of work,
all together,
your life's coursework
is the captain's log
Pen is the Man is the Ship
in everyday words
he answers
the questions life poses,
in everyday words,
he realizes
the answers he (doesn't) posses,
with each passing poem
the ship, righted,
though the heading
remans unknown
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 3:39 AM UTC
Ripened by night
the profound sea,
as a huge archaic mirror
embracing a pasture for reflected star
Beneath the stage of luminous enthusiasm,
wavelessly rising your meditation,
which unrequitedly falling in love
with the moonbeam
Withering somber luna,
as the faint Cupid
shooting an arrow of ice
into an auroral mirage
with shining rosiness
Ought to feel out eternity
the lily wings, finally
turned out to be the feeble oar
knocking the ebb rootlessly
Affection
inexhaustible braveness and endless scrupulousness
But what are these amongst us? -
The tacit contract
between sunrise and seaside;
also the blurry distance
between darkness and dreamland
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 3:39 PM UTC
Verse, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?—Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change ‘twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along,
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in’t together.
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys! that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
’Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I’ll think it but a fond conceit—
It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled—
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes:
Life is but Thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life’s a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath out-stayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
2.9k
{Chorus.} Come praise Colonus' horses, and come praise
The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies,
The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
If daylight ever visit where,
Unvisited by tempest or by sun,
Immortal ladies tread the ground
Dizzy with harmonious sound,
Semele's lad a gay companion.
And yonder in the gymnasts' garden thrives
The self-sown, self-begotten shape that gives
Athenian intellect its mastery,
Even the grey-leaved olive-tree
Miracle-bred out of the living stone;
Nor accident of peace nor war
Shall wither that old marvel, for
The great grey-eyed Athene stareS thereon.
Who comes into this countty, and has come
Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom,
Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter
And beauty-drunken by the water
Glittering among grey-leaved olive-trees,
Has plucked a flower and sung her loss;
Who finds abounding Cephisus
Has found the loveliest spectacle there is.
because this country has a pious mind
And so remembers that when all mankind
But trod the road, or splashed about the shore,
Poseidon gave it bit and oar,
Every Colonus lad or lass discourses
Of that oar and of that bit;
Summer and winter, day and night,
Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses.
2.7k
Stranded the shore the loneliest row boat.
Laid on the shore as if a grounded whale carcass collecting barnacles.
No rescuers ro save this noble beast.
The tide may come and take it home.
Depending on the time of tide.
The setting sun brings with it relief.
Cooler in a peaceful air.
A lonely gentlemen elderly in years.
Walking his chocolate labrador, Charlie, stumbles across an old wooden rotting oar.
Was going to sling it back into the sea.
Further along the shore he spies a lonesome row boat.
A perfect pair..
Row boat and oar reunited.
(c)Livvi MMXV
Watch this space...part two to follow.
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 5:26 AM UTC
Gone is the long, long winter night;
Look, my beloved one!
How glorious, through his depths of light,
Rolls the majestic sun!
The willows, waked from winter's death,
Give out a fragrance like thy breath--
The summer is begun!
Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day:
Hark, to that mighty crash!
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away--
The smitten waters flash.
Seaward the glittering mountain rides,
While, down its green translucent sides,
The foamy torrents dash.
See, love, my boat is moored for thee,
By ocean's weedy floor--
The petrel does not skim the sea
More swiftly than my oar.
We'll go, where, on the rocky isles,
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles
Beside the pebbly shore.
Or, bide thou where the poppy blows,
With wind-flowers frail and fair,
While I, upon his isle of snows,
Seek and defy the bear.
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame,
This arm his savage strength shall tame,
And drag him from his lair.
When crimson sky and flamy cloud
Bespeak the summer o'er,
And the dead valleys wear a shroud
Of snows that melt no more,
I'll build of ice thy winter home,
With glistening walls and glassy dome,
And spread with skins the floor.
The white fox by thy couch shall play;
And, from the frozen skies,
The meteors of a mimic day
Shall flash upon thine eyes.
And I--for such thy vow--meanwhile
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile,
Till that long midnight flies.
2.6k
Me and Jessie T
Rowing down cedar creek
oar in hand, smile on our faces
intoxicated steering
trees scraping our backs
cant stop laughing
just keep rowing
row.
row.
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 7:56 PM UTC
Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites
of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal
pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark
on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.
~~~
Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of
mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows
splash, re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at
gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?
~~~
Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer
cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless
flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.
On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble
over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze
over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole
song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -
coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined
existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.
Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 8:13 AM UTC