"paddled" poems
When I went to the park today
I heard the birds singing
and the water moving-
ever so softly against the wind.
The squirrels,
their erratic tails and fur
bounded across trees and
ate nuts as they stared
at the funny looking squirrels below them.
The ones with the shorts and the shirts on,
and the ones with the long hair colored so strangely.
Those squirrels didn’t quite look like squirrels at all.
They drove strange boats and paddled in the water,
and a couple of those strange squirrels
seemed to have large furry companions
that definitely didn’t look like squirrels.
And yet whenever they come near
they act like they know the squirrels
they take photos and videos
and make memes, funny pictures
and snapchat videos of them.
But they aren’t.
They aren’t squirrels at all.
They’re humans,
yet some think they are squirrels.
Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016 at 6:44 PM UTC
Who knew the soft breeze
Was merely a tease
And sunrise a false fire,
The waters once calmer
Inviting and promised
A siren’s calling horror.
Quiet Lake a liar,
liar.
My God has watched the wind turn and many a son die, though I did not pay attention to deaths jealous eye.
The shock grasps and pulls until you know its true,
The best of us was taken
And I was left to you
The shadow on his chin in that early golden glow,
stuck inside the tent I did not know.
That the paddle of their canoe through the calm breeze would be
the last I’d see--
Island time clocks slow like a grief as it grows and regret in often company.
Who gives a **** island was stretched from shore to shore,
Divided by that cold wet demon
A womb of lost children, a watery graveyard.
All for smoke and fire they paddled their canoe
One beached on land like a salty sailor
The other exiled to hells blue.
The tragedy—whose heart weighted in gold left my copper soul rusted, the brakeman sold the purest human I’d known and grief clocks slow when you keep waiting for his body to surface.
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 11:59 PM UTC
I locked eyes with the street last night
and it dared me to turn away
turn from the injustice
inequalities
ignorance
move on to some romantic scene
that lives outside the grey
I wrapped its cold wet skin
around my neck and began to shiver
as the rocks began to scrape
scratch
slither in my veins
as one hundred unknown faces
paddled their way down river
I tasted grief and empathy
and the mix was all too vile
more bitter than any sympathy
symbiotic
synergy
gears were painting machinery
cranking out disquiet and bile
It was then I found its corner
and the music it seemed to breathe
and despite my hesitation
hysteria
hellish intent on fiction
The asphalt smile began to grow
and pave my mind at ease
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 11:15 PM UTC
If a fish
Could make a wish
for what would
this fish wish ?
a wishing fish
you say, tosh tish
but if you were
a wishing fish
would you wish for
a new dish ?
or a knish ?
what would a fish
do with a dish ?
and how would he
eat a knish ?
but if you knew
a wishing fish
exactly what
would this fish wish?
If you saw
a little bunny
on a tree stump
counting money
would you think
that it was funny
if he used it
to buy honey
to eat outside
while it was sunny
Just where would
that little bunny
get a bag full
of such money
To me that just seems
rather funny
If you saw
a blue canoe
being paddled by
a kangaroo
wearing shoes
size sixty two
Tell me just
what would you do
if there beside
that kangaroo
sat a rather large
and old gnu
I think I would
call the zoo
but, tell me
what it is you'd do
A bunny, fish
and kangaroo
were all out walking
two by two
they were followed
by a large gnu
I think this rather strange
don't you?
I don't know just
what I would do
If I saw walking
two by two
A bunny, fish
and kangaroo
in fact i do not
have a clue
but I know the fish's wish
don't you?
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 12:17 PM UTC
From one lunatic to another
One poet to his friend
We said we should go sailing
Ended up sinking in the end
They said that we were mad
And maybe they had spoke the truth
But the way in which they put it
Was so terribly uncouth
So we left them on the shoreline
Waving backwards with relief
We would ride the incandescent waves
So set in our beliefs
That we would reach the other side
We would become the pioneers
We would find the favoured winds
Across that ocean of our fears
We put out of the harbour
Put our faith into The Boat
We paddled with our hands
And handed our trust to The Boat
But now we’re shipwrecked on a coastline
Full of cannibals and rats
We wanted to put a dent in history
But we’ve barely made a scratch
We went exploring on the island
This unfamiliar place
Got lost in a simple jungle
Brushed away the green disgrace
We found a village of the natives
But we had to pass them by
We wouldn’t sell our heads for hunting
We’d rather run away than die
We found an orchard in the mountains
On a fragrant afternoon
But the fruit it was forbidden
Now we’re servants for the moon
We left home making sense
But just found madness on The Boat
We sailed after our dreams
But just found nightmares on The Boat
They say it’s an affliction
When the moon is shining bright
But to me it’s an addiction
And a goddess given right
To wear left handed trousers
And be gracious in defeat
They think we’re being honest
And we are: that’s our deceit
We wander in the meadows
Softly howling at the sky
We tie ourselves to trees
So we can safely learn to fly
I’d say that I’m a better man
Than I ever was before
But I’m still here on the wrong side
Of that ol’ asylum door
We came here wanting answers
Left our questions on The Boat
We came home with the tide
But left our senses on The Boat
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 5:02 PM UTC
we visited the beach, kicked up the sand
I watched you lovingly as you paddled in the surf
and then the sea stood up and hugged you
as if you were responsible for keeping it blue
Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 1:06 PM UTC
I'm not in a rush to leave this place.
I'm in no hurry, it's not a race.
I'd like to take it real slow.
So many stunning places to go.
I want to travel far and wide.
See much more of the English countryside.
Beautiful beaches that surround us in Cornwall and Devon, remind us we live in our own corner of Heaven.
Mystical places with tales of legends to tell.
So much to do and see, I'll do my best to make it sell.
Tintagel such a mystic place, where legend has it King Arthur had his chair.
He had a roundtable it held many Knights, all ready to defend, always ready for a fight.
In York a Viking museum to tell how they came upon our shores, with longboats, a 60 man crew, paddled with their oars.
Bath has the best Roman baths to be found, laze and spoil yourself in the steam rooms built in Roman surrounds.
In Wales, there's Snowdonia for you to climb, or the less active can take a train ride.
A castle in Caernarfon where Princes are appointed by H M The Queen, the sword on the shoulder duly declares arise HRH Prince of Wales, the crowd are waiting for the new Prince to be seen.
In Scotland there's Edinburgh with a castle tall and round sits atop a very high mound.
The lowlands and the Highlands are a sight of well known beauty, driving around the lochs at night keep your eyes open for a monstrous sight, nessie fact or fiction,
Of course there are the lakes of England too, Windermere the largest draws the biggest crowd. Find a cottage out of sight, snuggle up with a loved one, cuddle tight.
Put on your water skis, hire a boat, sail your wind surfing board, fire up your jet ski any of these activities can be fun and available to be done, daily.
The Cotswolds, for take your breath away beauty, small villages, luscious village greens, cricket playing in the field, Large Houses, Lord of the Manors, old worldly pubs, thatched pubs and rivers waiting to be seen.
There are Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor and Exmoor too, Peak District, Lake District mountain ranges, many a zoo.
I'm not in a rush to leave this place.
I'm in no hurry, it's not a race.
I'd like to take it real slow.
So many stunning places to go.
So much to do, so much to see.
On your doorstep, no need to stray.
Whatever you do, wherever you go, have a happy holiday.
May 5, 2018
May 5, 2018 at 12:49 PM UTC
Vietnam, you uncovered my soul
Gave me a song, a direction smog
Looked at the pandora box I held
Unstripped my flames up temples
A hologram of the graded existence
Seasoned in explosions of burnt haste
Decked on buses,ducked in valleys
Chilled bays, overly paddled kayaks
Such sweet taste of the Halong bay
Undreamt mist of the skies stared
Fishing squids and bellied jellyfish
The soil, the sound,an orotund playlist
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 2:53 PM UTC
if he is not made of them wholly, branches, he will be soon. they are everywhere, and he steps on them, and they are arms from hell. he wears a child’s football jersey, torn at his size and his sorrow. he reaches into it and pulls out his heart, a red balloon given the what for, inside of which he blows his nose. he returns the heart.
a yellow adherent hangs from both nostrils, as two ropes being cut at and then loosed from his brain. the first keeps an arm from heaven; the second he catches and loops twice to put on his neck. one is never out of the woods here, and he knows it, knows here is Baltimore, Ohio. he has watched the people, some of them, leave; their happiness would be better called remission.
he is giddy when he comes upon a man wearing only a barrel and he tips it with joy and makes better his headway home. the rolled over branches shriek and wake the man who nakedly bails. the branches up their shrieking.
his mother he has no dementia of his time in her womb. why for **** the despondent are given captions like ‘blank look’ he can’t say for in his mama naught but canvassing eyes. she’s what he calls ‘at grocery’, shaking a coffee can she’ll buy because a done melon can’t hold pennies. she often at the neck is saddled with two toddlers but in his projection now there is just one making miracle of not kicking the coffee can into another’s back.
any girl that occurs lets him take her with his tongue only as she seems to know he was circumcised and after that much paddled.
he starts thinking on dad and dad’s laughing when mother’d say boys be home before dog because that’s how it sounded from seizures and of course rock candy in the summer. the barrel splinters beneath him to be forgotten and his legs go to bleeding stilts.
his last things by his face are insufficient; rock candy, barrel, and twin. I talk on the barrel, I don’t need it, not anymore.
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
The dweeb lived in the dwellings of a dwindling tribe of dwarves
Who anchored little kayaks at the moorings in the wharves.
He organised this transport so that they might go at night
Deep into the dark dense woods to visit their Snow White.
But the dwarves were very old and weren’t getting any younger
And although they really wanted too it couldn’t last much longer.
Meanwhile the dweeb would study every minute of the day
So studious and serious with little time for play.
The daddy of the dwarfs known as Doctor Joe
Said to him, “Look dweeb, there’s little left to know.”
But still he studied on writing loads of lengthy notes,
Which sometimes he would use to make tedious little quotes.
Until eventually the dwarves found him annoying and real boring
Besides he woke them up at night with his constant snoring.
So Doctor Joe hatched a plan with his little tribe
It was devious and genius and this I will describe.
They knew Snow White was lonely and longing for a man
So this is what they had in mind for this dweeb known as Stan.
Snow White would lie there in a dwam pretending to be dead
And somehow they would lure Stan along to her deathbed.
So they told her that he was a Prince, the great love of her heart
She of course was up for it, and couldn’t wait to start.
Doctor Joe then told the dweeb, that Snow White was no more.
He said that he might save her and showed him to the door.
On their little kayak they paddled up the river
But the dweeb then said to Doctor Joe, “I don’t know what to give her.”
The Doctor reassured him that it would be real bliss
If only one time in her life she had a loving human kiss.
The dweeb replied, “This just won’t work.” So he quoted healing potions.
When Doctor Joe rejected these he suggested soothing lotions.
None of these the Doctor said were right for their Snow White
Only a kiss from a real-man could help her end this plight.
So eventually there beside Snow White all the party stood,
Outside of the stone cottage deep within the wood.
The dwarves should have looked distressed but they were full of glee
And so they had to hide their smiles in case the dweeb should see.
At long last they’d be rid of him, this boring little nerd
Some of them expressed this and they hoped he hadn’t heard.
But the dweeb was now distracted by the beauty of this girl
He didn’t know if this would work but he’d give it a whirl.
He puckered up his lips and planted one before he spoke
Then gob-smacked he stood there as Snow White soon awoke.
Immediately when their eyes met he knew that it was right
Likewise she felt this too, it was real love at first sight.
So you see that all of this now ended happy ever after.
Doctor Joe and all the dwarves left in bursts of laughter.
Dec 7, 2009
Dec 7, 2009 at 11:16 AM UTC
My feet are so cold to lay on yours
Your hands busy chasing my curves
Paddled in cuddles, pebbles carved
Doodles dwindles all over my body
Tinkering hands as they reach a ******
Ripples twisting blossoming bosoms
Rage the sleeping animated power
Break your wings as the rod erects
Alas! The touch disappears in thin air
Feet warmed in the damning chamber
The perpendicular collapses in angle
Sailed to dally in uncensored snores
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 4:56 PM UTC
A panic attack has a way of creeping up on you
At the start of one, you always think to yourself
"No this can't be happening"
Much like the feeling you get before you
Throw Up
The heat comes on so strong and forceful
Your internal fire, dead set on burning you
from the core out
You hadn't noticed because your knees just buckled
and you went numb
The tremors
you feel them in your fingers
To your shoulders
To your tounge
Hyperventilating
The extra oxygen
Feeds the flames
Once,
With the help from a Brittle Lake
I was able to prevent this state
Seven bucks to rent a kayak
I sliced into the lake
I paddled and paddled and paddled
My arms were introduced to a new kind of fire
A blue cleansing flame
Take a break and drift
Listen
Breath
Lament
Paddle
Feel the warmth of the sun on your face
Paddling again, now it's the breeze and spray
A smile creeped upon my face
At Lake Brittle I was able to keep the panic at bay
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
Venus in Boots
You scared others, but me! Attracted
By what I’m not sure, your hair, eyes, hips.
Maybe it was the *** noodle you were having for lunch
My modern day Venus: behind the beauty counter at Boots
Head and shoulder above everybody else,
Even though you were only five foot two
I was captivated by your beauty, our eyes met
Then gazing at your full red lips, hearing those
Immortal words, “can I help you sir”.
It was at that moment I realised I do need help.
Nights and days I dreamed of Venus in Boots
I longed , not for her body, but her heart.
You in your twenties me in my seventies
The odds were not in my favour.
Slowly a relationship formed
You let me hold your hand, smell your neck
No kissing: I bought you things
Earrings , jeans, you asked what colour
I could not resist. Blue!
We went for walks , town, country, seaside
The waves crashed. My heart had already crashed
Totally besotted. Even though it was all one sided
I was blissfully happy!
As I paddled, I felt tired. As the tide ebbed
So did my life. My final thoughts were of my
Venus in blue jeans, in Boots.
Jun 15, 2011
Jun 15, 2011 at 10:44 AM UTC
My breath beat shallow at a chest of stone as I looked out
At all of our houses that seemed so small from whence I stood
The sky’s true and radiant blue, I discovered at this altitude
Cloud rings spiraled down, the sun beams reflected off my goggles -
And my arms felt stiff, strapped into wings of enchanted brass
When all of a sudden a gust swept –
Me from the tip of my ride with such haste!
From a cloud boat I dropped and gasped for my life!
Cyclones of wind paddled my body and blew back my hair…
From a tumble, to falling with such grace,
I soared with a smile over my tiny little city -
And yearned at the horizon in its majesty -
This moment and its treasures I had stolen for me.
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 12:19 PM UTC
They met
When but sixteen,
She called herself
His ****** Queen,*
And he her ****** King.*
Thus they remained
Til seventeen,
When his lowered drawbridge
Breached the moat,
And for forty years
He paddled her boat.
But coldness grew,
The ice-palace too,
She was an Ice Queen,
His armor tarnished,
His sword was sheathed,
The Lady and her King
Severed bonds,
Relinquished rings
And set new realms and dreams.
He's a western-style S.O.,
He didn't know
Cowgirls rode backwards.
He's now a sexagenarian,
And the Ice-Palace,
A planetarium.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
*Among the sea of discontentment
There is always a green isle
Have to swim against the tide
Land of hope waiting for weary swimmer
Who has paddled the rough seas
Finally finding a paradise*
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 2:10 AM UTC
He slipped too many times for it to be accidental,
Gurgling underwater; and sinking from the vessel.
He too, had supplied the deaths aboard the deck,
Where drowning and breath paddled; all atop his neck.
Do you know his struggle, until you've met the sea?
Where fish swim past on their way, and you clamber just to breathe.
Sputtering on bubbles, his exhaling's a crusade,
But please don't feel bad for him, that's just an average day-
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
You paddled in my physics
Accelerating my universe
I was ****** into your black hole
My sanity dispersed
(C) Pixievic 2016
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC
on saturdays, they broke our knees.
mondays and wednesdays were reserved
for the study of literature,
for splitting open our heads and branding the words of the great writers
into our bones,
copying them over and over in our own blood,
memorizing masterpieces until we knew them forwards and backwards,
in order to remind us that there was always someone out there
who was better than us
(so we might as well not even try).
on saturdays, they broke our knees,
because pain would make us stronger.
on tuesdays and thursdays,
we were chained to a wall of numbers
and forced to take it apart piece by piece
(then put it back together, exactly how it had been before)
learning the true nature of things from the inside out,
so that we would always have an answer for everything,
and never have to just sit and wonder
at the world around us.
on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would learn to know the sound of shattering better than our own skin.
fridays were the days
when we were taught history,
when we were told the stories of our pasts and their pasts
and all the pasts that had ever been,
so that we would learn from our mistakes (and their mistakes,
and all the mistakes that had ever been)
a thousand times over—
learn them so well that we would carry them with us forever,
and never be tricked into letting go.
on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would always have something familiar to fall back on.
sundays were our day of rest,
when we stole a rowboat
and paddled off into the mist,
until the fog was so thick that we couldn’t see our own feet
(it was the closest we ever got
to emptiness,
not that we would ever admit
we desired it).
but on saturdays, they broke our knees,
so that we would remember to come back eventually.
we always did.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 2:31 PM UTC
Grazing off the Screen
the little things that you sometimes wrote
I came to collect and keep close
So slow, does my lung breath
as a palpitating tremor
shaking
and stirred within
the mind that thinks
"when will it come?"
In expectation
desperation
dire attention
is required
to keep
My tears from crying
this dialectic
meta-dates.
I dictate:
"will I detect"
in rhetoric
"if I shall have expected it to arrive"
In sugar cubes
complete, and on time
as diamond brick streets
to tumble down as ice to melt
down my cheeks into my mouth
they leak
or welled up in pools
or on diving boards
with clay platforms
spongy stone floors
Blowing back and forth the reeds
to feel the river pour
as a wheat mill to turn in torque
to establish the width and paddled
chore to show off as a nimbly plotted
game of over lapping arrows and empty treasure troves;
of the destitute dialogue dominoes.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 11:17 AM UTC
in a river flow
you see me I am
a limb or leave
soft demeanor when I float down
I am at nature's mercy;
quite like now.
You see my limbs thrash
trying to tread water as
no one else does
you get high when I am
low when I sink under;
you are my lifesaver.
Then, on the shore I come up on,
you are there, a hand hold,
you are my float.
I've floated on other streams,
went under, many times.
Never came up gasping
seeing my dreams.
Never have I paddled over
limbs and debris,
raised my head and seen
heaven.
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 12:50 AM UTC
I sat on a rock
And starred at a duck
If feathers ruffling in the breeze
It's webbed feet keeping it still
As it paddled in my view
That duck starred right back at me
It's beautiful gaze meeting mine
A pleading look covering its face
Yet it didn't fly away
It stared at me, another creature
In its world, a harmless organism
We love them and paint them
Capture them in a pretty picture
And little do they know
Those toxic ponds and broke homes
Are all our mans doing
It stared at me unknowingly
Incapable of understanding
Or if it did it didn't show it
In its tiny duckling face
We tear their home
To make room for us
The most brutal race
And yet this duck
Came waddling up
Not knowing us for what we are
We are human
We are predators
We are destruction
In its finest hour.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
Young men fit for battle,
too young for war but paddled
with swagger down the Skeena.
A week on the water, lakes and rivers,
bodies of water that take if you giver,
but this one this day promised what it delivered.
A vortex, canoes lined up to paddle hard,
as the hole in the middle would drag a canoe,
to the depths, to the depths, without release.
One canoe and wait then another then one more,
three were through, number four went round
and round the eddy they held steady as five went
past, then they, four escaped the mighty swirl without
cheer.
Six was with the whirl, they paddled hard as
they were drawn near the rocks and cliff,
a broken paddle, and they limped away, clear
of the gulf.
Seven went and were hell bent, to get through,
all experienced paddlers too, what success,
number eight held four of us, weighted low down
with only three paddlers too, round we went and
then again, nine passed us and cleared the danger,
seven came back to encourage and be near...
What happened was what they feared the whirlpool
dragged us closer, we weren't dizzy, but tired of
rounding the same bend, breaking waves but not enough,
tiring out as we were pulled in again, round and in again.
We needed to split the curve cut the outside wave
and across the break, near the rocks and in the wake
of the river wash and the base of the cliff,
we had to all paddle hard and when and if
we broke free we would join our brothers guilt free,
if we did not
we would have
been a story on
a page of some
deaths to drowning
while at a cadet camp.
the boat's bow broke the waves one two and three,
missed the rocks, the cliff, almost free, voices raised,
an angry fight to live and have done battle with no loss,
we were finally free three companions and me, tossed
by the fourth wave, and I looked back into the hole
of the maelstrom, I looked back lesson learned,
passion for life, a must you have to yearn
for life otherwise, for love, point your bow,
dig your paddle in
and look back no more.
There is more rough water ahead.
©DWE102013
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
The arctic spell of this winter,
Has finally froze the river.
With the parade currents lying still,
Grasping the last air to be free again.
For the river has now lost its audience,
As they paddled into the deep sea.
While the polar glass exhibited the frozen lie,
The anecdote of time taking a pause,
In a bewitching black of a silver sky.
Alas the sublime river starts to hope again,
As the sun embraced warmer rays,
With every melt of the icy skin,
The river heart starts to beat again.
At the dawn of this winter lapse.
The currents ran once more,
With the arrival of the inhabitants,
The river was once alive again.
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 4:30 AM UTC
A hungry young sailor
paddled his worn out raft
searching for dry land
came across with a young bard with his guitar
on a floating log waiting for luck.
Saved, he helped the hungry sailor
paddle in search for dry land.
Minutes later found themselves
on still waters, sign of good luck.
Dry lands ahead..
There sat a lonely barber
by the river bank
The bard asked the barber
what made his heart sank
and he explained how
he lost his good scissors
on a bet with his bad luck.
I don't mind giving you these
the hungry sailor said
not just one one
but two new scissors
the barber jumped
I could give you free haircut anytime!
the barber exclaimed
but before that' the sailor replied
he's hungry' the bard said
too bad, if it's food, I don't have'
the barber feeling really sorry
with a sigh they fell silent
oh I know someone who can ease our worries!
stated the barber sounding resilient
he told them about the fantastic cook
his foods taste good as it looks
So they started to search for the cook
but where to? Asked the sailor in a shook.
He's near the woods, in a sunflower field
the barber answered as they left the raft and began to walk
How I wish I could follow them, but I can't
For I'm asleep, I'm just asleep...
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 2:48 AM UTC