"pelicans" poems
island summer heat
big backyards
shared by three families
with rambunctious kids
sundresses, sandals, swim trunks
a big mango tree and
a merry-go-round with red chipped paint
geckos and mud baths
"boy's got cooties!"
mid-west plains' dry, summer heat
Mr. Sun is our lamp well past 9:00pm
Dow St., a giant hill covered
in uniform houses, filled with the uniformed sacrificial
spinning wheels, acre-wide hide and seek
nintendo and donkey kong, fireflies in jars
front yard mulberry trees
pippy longstocking "lets' go into this 'cave' of vines"
poison-ivy
southern peninsula, humid, summer heat
above ground pools and trampolines
a red brick house; the first home
the first CD collection, Filipino food
THE PARK,
the sandbox lid drowning in the bayou
sleeping in guest rooms, sleepovers a sign of status
pelicans, ducks, fishing,
sleeping in the boat; camping on the beach
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 4:18 PM UTC
I went down to watch the ocean this morning - well, Long Island Sound anyway. My last chance for a while, classes start tomorrow. I wonder sometimes how I can be refreshed by that gray, drizzly, melancholy harbor - locked in winter’s intemperate grip - but I am.
The salty air seems thicker and richer, the sky bigger and wilder. There’s the relaxing sound mix of wave and gull. The ugly brown pelicans bickering like old, married couples, as a lone fisherman, in his yellow macintosh slicker, sorts his boat lines under the watchful, hopeful, hungry eyes of floating black-backed gulls.
Maybe I should become a sailor? Besides, I hear it’s a great way to meet guys.
Jan 24, 2022
Jan 24, 2022 at 10:51 AM UTC
Eggs, eggs, toss them high in the air
Catch em, and gargle, and mash them, and swear
Eat them with shells, eat them with sauce
Eat them with bags, eat them with moss
Eggs, eggs, between sandwich bread
That's what the wise elderly miller had said
Before came the bomb and he had dropped dead
Before being poisoned by a surplus of lead
And then came a centipede, long and sanguine
And bit a small child, so recently weaned
Off the protein derived from his mother's fine eggs
So he had to start munching on his mother's fine legs
"Be warned" said the Miller, his hair all askew
While dousing his wounds with mountains of glue
A tapeworm emerged, and looked toward the sky
Feeling envy toward all the birds that could fly
But the Miller was quicker, even in old age
He smacked the worm soundly, in a manner enraged
Bruised from the damage, and covered in glue
The worm turned away from the sky that was blue
Never with pelicans would he fly with delight
Never with owls would he soar through the night
For all Darwin's cruelty, an injustice rings
Tapeworms simply have no need for wings
So he bit the old Miller, and laid ten thousand eggs
They hatched and devoured his liver and legs
And as the man writhed, waiting to die
He vomited upward, up toward the sky
The tapeworm went flying, up toward the clouds
The air felt exhilarating, the rushing wind loud
For once in his life, he soared with the birds
Then in came a swallow, and bit off a third
His body, segmented, fell in parts to the ground
Tears seeped from his eyes, his face in a frown
From the ground he gazed up into the ominous fog
Before being lapped up by an unlucky dog
The End
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 1:20 AM UTC
I'm flying away from winter
to feast with palms and bougainvillea
egrets, pelicans, banyan trees
assuring my enraptured ease
I may be silent for awhile...
may return with sunmelt style
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 10:29 PM UTC
Sinner
What have I done to my world?
Egrets
Pelicans
Whales
Are you diving into the plume
A 10 mile depth of black hell?
Are you in another dimension now?
Have you given up on this world of
Easy living?
I am guilty.
I work too much and care less
As one superficial lifestyle Blends into the other
Money seems like security blanket
It is Not.
My land is covered in a part of me that dies
As the sea spits up the overdose of
Consumerism.
Each time I feel the powerlessness of hope fade
I take my plastic water bottle and throw it into a
Bin labeled
RECYCLE…
HA!
Plastic
OIL OIL OIL…
PLASTIC
******* Hell,
I bet oil is in my food chain somewhere
A box that makes it easy to cook in
A packing tool to deliver me the goods
OIL OIL OIL
Saturated Guilt
I feel like a harlot
A sinner
A part of something I cannot stop
I don’t want my world to look like this
Stop Me.
From the desire for convenience
Let me take living down a notch or two
Let me see with a part of me that is lost
THIS IS A CRY IN
(the
sledge of redemption)
I remember my body gave me another chance
When I filled it with poisons that made me feel good (you know what they are)
Will you do the same?
Oh heavenly body that holds my own.
Can you ever forgive me?
Linaji
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 1:02 PM UTC
I want to sing love songs to you
And recite poetry all I can
But I must not and I won’t
Because you are a Republican.
I want to sit at the shore;
Watch the gulls and pelicans
But that isn’t going to happen
Because you are a Republican.
We could go out to a bar
And sing old favorite songs.
We could sing and dance
Our friends could sing along.
But that won’t happen for us
Because hope for it all I can
The bottom line to all of this
Is you are still a Republican.
If they took a twisted family tree
And put it into a cheaply built can
Then added some bile and lies
You’d have canned Republican.
You could open it and pour it
Away from good, decent Americans
Because we’ve had it hard enough.
We don’t need more Republicans.
There’s a brand of human mutant
Arises when times are better than
The starvation and degradation
When the nation went Republican.
These mutants make war with poor
And unemployed and dependent man;
Blame everyone else but themselves
Mutants mentioned here are Republicans.
I want to sing love songs
And recite poetry all I can
But I must not and I won’t
Because you are a Republican.
I want to sit at the shore;
Watch the gulls and pelicans
But that isn’t going to happen
Because you are a Republican.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 10:21 PM UTC
[On my birthday]
At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire
one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.
The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock
already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.
The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash
into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard,
it seems to me, like pickaxes,
rarely coming up with anything to show for it,
and going off with humorous elbowings.
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar
on impalpable drafts
and open their tails like scissors on the curves
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock
where, glinting like little plowshares,
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry
for the Chinese-restaurant trade.
Some of the little white boats are still piled up
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,
like torn-open, unanswered letters.
The bight is littered with old correspondences.
Click. Click. Goes the dredge,
and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.
2.8k
There are constellations between your teeth and you have starlight wrapped around your tongue, there is moonlight in your eyes but sunlight in your smile
Every time you breath you inhale glitter and oxygen and powdered sugar, the scent of grass and strawberries and hope
Flowers bloom between your ribs and wind through the joints in your hips, your knees, your wrists
There is a whole menagerie in your stomach, butterflies and pelicans and Bengal tigers
Your skin is crushed velvet, silk and lace, encasing a skeleton of steel and iron, silver filigree
Your hands are soft as cotton, rose petals, strong as the will of all your ancestors.
When you die you will melt back into the earth, disintegrate and fall back to where you came from
You will be absorbed back into the atmosphere and the universe will swallow you up.
It will rearrange your atoms and produce something completely you but completely different.
You are one of a kind, you are the entire universe.
You will never be again, but you will never stop being.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
Take me somewhere new, I want to explore with you. Let’s go climb a mountain, let’s go jump off cliffs into waterfalls. Take my hand and lead the way, Mr. Adventurer. Let’s sit on a rooftop and make music. You with your guitar and me with my voice. Let’s stay up there so long we watch the sun set and the moon rise. Let’s stargaze, I’ll watch the way they twinkle in your eyes. Take me in your arms, wrapped together in a blanket on June 24th watching the night sky. We can fall asleep together to the sounds of the nearby ocean and wake up at sunrise to the bright clear skies. Hear the birds chirp and see them fly in their V-formation. Let’s just stay here all day, bundled up in each other. Let the hours pass by and eventually we’ll go get some food only to bring it back to the rooftop and watch the townspeople walk to the city and bike to the shore. Let’s go for a run. A run down the beach, stop to feed the pelicans, the one we named Steve. Who are we kidding, we don't know which one is Steve. But after these nights, you do know me. And I surely know you, Mr. Adventurer.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 9:09 PM UTC
It was wind and wild - sunset on the California coast
we watched the birds seemingly fly backwards
seagulls and brown pelicans
the wind bit my cheeks quite red
barefoot, we sank in the cooling sands
watching the final flash of glassy sun
firewater reflecting on the darkened lands
the sky swallowed the sailing light away
with the half moon askew above the bay.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 8:02 PM UTC
Addiction
No, not what you think, not needles, not bottles, not too much food or too little, not sleeping 18 hours or running until feet bleed, not *********** not voyeurism, not pole-dancing or jello shots or driving 150 mph down dark streets, not working to exhaustion, not bizarre rituals, not staring into bright lights or ******* on sweet treats until a migraine sets in, not pulling out fingernails or walking with pebbles in shoes, thinking any of this brings God to the door.
No, none of these excesses
But, life? Yes. Addicted to breathing, yes. Addicted to sweetness of morning-light, yes. Addicted to aroma of salt water, when the sun swings low and pelicans skim the curling waves in search of dinner, oh yes. And playing hide-n-go-seek with my three year old neighbor, yes. Addicted to not giving up on that African violet in the windowsill, despite its crispy appearance, to watching my child shimmy, yes and yes. To her well-being, her off-key singing, a resounding yes! To letting family be. To the solitude of a hot shower. Addicted to your righteousness, your swagger, the way dimming sunlight cups your body, I’ll admit it, yes. And anticipation of oysters still in their rough shells. And never, ever worrying about whether these are excesses or not because it’s in the elusiveness of the word (addiction, for example, or desire or want or tenacity), in the lone gesture, the moment before that door opens and the house empties of terror and fills with human breath that the balance is reset.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 4:58 PM UTC
Lazy seems the sun today
helped aloft
by a flight of pelicans
in formation
like B-52s returning
to safe haven
after a sortie
Inland they go
with the gulls
during this calm
before the storm
The smell of a slowly swelling
angry sea awakened
drowning out the roses
by the garden path
soon to be scattered petals
across the village
The morning calm
belies the night
to come.
r ~ 7/3/14
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
*Sunset orange ardently overlays periwinkle and thistle whilst two tone brilliant fuchsia in passionate , reserved grace quietly dominates the image of sunrise as portrayed by a child . Forest green , royal blue and cinnamon depict backyard adventure and wonderment of Blue Jays , Begonias , Daisy and Petunia , rainy days captured in black , silver and indigo and raspberry , magical yellows , reds and gold , smiling friends on the school bus , hop scotch , favorite Teachers and kick ball , Summer vacation , grandparents and sand castles on the beach , turquoise sea , brown pelicans and scarlet sailboats , salt water taffy , midnight blue ***** and fuzzy wuzzy starfish*....
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 8:34 AM UTC
Cold and closed, each green
tidal lull lingers over rocks.
A line of pelicans heads home.
Before you arrived, days passed slower.
Th salt-grass, the anemone
blossom in cycles set up by the moon.
I wait like a spring tide.
Photos will prove changes
happen in increments.
Birds wait for sand *****
limpets, littoral fish.
You practice naming each in order.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 10:17 PM UTC
Silent fishermen
Pelicans, like brown clad monks
travel single file.
Oct 13, 2011
Oct 13, 2011 at 10:56 PM UTC
I took to the shore my final day
my final few hours
the Sun was low and the breeze had a coolness
though it was blistering hot earlier
I was watching an osprey returning from the ocean
a sizeable fish in it's claws
the beach was sparse this late
I relaxed and enjoyed the sounds and sheer beauty
of the Outer Banks
from my left I heard a light gasp that startled me
as I hadn't noticed her approaching
she spotted a lettered olive
as the sea gently lapped the shore
it was rolling back towards the next wave
but she managed to grab it just in time
a look of delight crossed her face
glowing like the Sun itself
'Nice find
those are tough to come by in that condition' I said
'they are my favorite' she responded with a smile
her eyes sparkled blue and her auburn air
tied in a bobble hung far down her back
'nice to meet someone who still appreciates
the beauty of a sea shell'
I was hoping for a name but one didn't come
instead,
she sent a gaze that ignited not shivers
but an energy down my spine
'If only everyone knew the beauty that lives here
It's nice to meet another who sees as well'
I started to respond, but she turned and continued down the beach
her white kimono gently flowing with the ocean breeze
appeared to be from a time past
I turned my attention briefly to a group of pelicans
playing 'follow the leader' just above the waves
I could not let her go
I gathered enough courage to continue this chance meeting
but when I turned, she had disappeared
impossible
we are no less than 50 yards from the path off the beach
I just saw her less than 30 seconds...
I called out...but felt foolish
I tried to gather my thoughts
a light voice...or thought came as the breeze quieted
my name is Eve...
I walked the shoreline until it became too dark to stay
bewildered...I bid goodbye to the ocean and turned to leave
something caught my eye in the sand
amongst the thousands of shells on display
there lay a beautiful, perfect lettered olive
I will hold onto this one
Jun 7, 2022
Jun 7, 2022 at 7:32 PM UTC
before going to bed it is to be checked thoroughly
if there lays any carbon-paper under the bed-cover
now-a-days some upstart pelicans become so
disobedient it can not be assured if they come
to know the whereabouts of the blood easily
from the copy of the heart
then they distribute the delirium of the high-heel moon
by writing cash-memos at the gate of the locked-out plant
the hundreds of thousands of white clouds
also drink the whirl-water of love
they touch to feel the freshness of the habitat
they touch to feel the can full of smiles
after the explosion they touch to feel
the bier of the deodar-birds
covered with tamarisk plants
Sep 29, 2010
Sep 29, 2010 at 5:38 PM UTC
Late afternoon, seaside
Trying to bottle time
Collecting these moments
Like shells and sunshine
Sun kisses shoulders,
Water, and sand
And nothing's arranged by
The hands of man
The surf presents shells
Some broken and crushed
Sometimes whole treasures are
Taken back in a rush
I try to hold onto the moments
As close as one can
Though I fumble as time slips
Like sand through my hands
Your eyes, child, are so filled
With wonder and awe,
You're my greatest adventures,
The best gifts of all
Time and tides change
And unfold in no rush
While pelicans fly
Across sunset's blush
Always fleeting
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 10:46 PM UTC
They crest the white foam in perfect formation,
With purpose and strength they flap as they glide,
Fixated ahead in assured navigation,
Each trailing the other with nowhere to hide.
Then all of a sudden with no clear command,
They veer on some path and head for the sky,
Soaring the waves like a mischievous band,
Riding the thermals with a predatory eye.
No longer a pod but single torpedoes,
Spotting their quarry they launch with intent,
Diving at speed like rapacious mosquitoes,
To feast on that glimmering shoal now hell bent.
Again and again they dive to then surface,
Their sacks full of loot hidden from sight.
Transfixing, majestic, nature's true circus,
The curtain then falling as they once more take flight.
Florida's Pelicans, a marvelous sight,
Gregarious and cheeky with us so entwined,
Once hunted and culled as merely a blight,
Now in our hearts so fully enshrined.
Jul 5, 2023
Jul 5, 2023 at 10:06 AM UTC
Big brown
back pelicans
sit a top
their
matriarch
perches
casting
their cynical
stares of
judgment
to all
who happen
by.
fat Mexicana
fisherman
skinny
Asian
fisherman
throw their
sights and
lines
beneath
the horizon
line.
dinner or
die.
two teen
lovers
holding hands
as their
walk
under this
splintered
pier,
stars in
their
eyes you
can see
that even
from
way up
here.
totally oblivious
to the half
eaten sand *****
that lie
lifeless
under their
feet.
and the tide
rolls in,
and the tide
rolls out.
and yet
to know
how I
fit and
breathe
amongst
all of this.
escapes me.
like the
punch line
of a bad joke
at a
holiday party
now without
you for
the first
time in
my life.
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 8:33 AM UTC
My mom likes to feed the ducks and storks that frequent our lake.
We often refer to her as the "Bird Lady."
They congregate in our backyard, waiting to be fed.
She throws them cereal and dried up old bread.
She's given most of them names.
Whenever one becomes a mother,
she keeps track of the ducklings.
Most of them don't make it.
They fall prey to hawks and cranes.
I can always count on her for an unwarranted update.
"Juliet lost another baby today."
"I don't care."
If they lose them all,
she likes to call them Bad Mothers,
which I find ironic.
This morning, I saw three pelicans in our lake.
I guess there's a first time for everything.
They were white with black-tipped wings.
They were feeding with a sort of unexpected grace.
They'd dunk their heads then come back up with something in their long orange beaks.
The bottom of which would shake. All loose and leathery.
After they had their fill, they flew off in unison.
One after the other,
like one, two, three.
And afterwards I thought,
**** swans."
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 8:35 AM UTC
it's the middle of
the afternoon
on one of those warm
winter days,
that hold the promise
of summer inthe brightness
of the sun..
and we three are at the park
having swung to the sky
on the swings, gone up and slid down the slippery dip
a dozen times
and made ourselves dizzy
on the merrygoround
we now sit quietly, watching
pelicans and ducks
icecream, soft serves melt
in hands and on toungue.
when we are down here
we will go down to the jetty
and throw our bread upon
the water for ducks and pelicans to squabble over
and then home to play
in the garden....
before dinner.......
there is a simplicity
to this.....yet it deserves
to be written... for it is too beautiful an afternoon
to be forgotten
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 1:03 AM UTC
flossing jocks swing mighty
***** crow blowing triumphant
incumbents sent to extend the morality
vitality reality equals fallacies and tribulation
recreation station seething with malcontents grossly exaggerate
the aggregate to depreciate the innate greatness of iced milk and cherries
varying fairies trailing mankind grind to different beats
seated meat sacks lack tact and force ill-mannered children
to render hate venders with crayons
yawning chasms plastered with plasma and grass clippings
flipping chihuahuas slipping in to the dark
bouncing ta-ta’s, beer-soaked and tightly clad
refocus the mass passing by
flying low with bellies plastic filled
pelicans land softly on quiet mountain lakes to breed in peace
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 2:16 PM UTC
The description of my affliction grasps the friction of a worthy depiction to my addiction in a position feeling the infliction of my minds worst prediction..
Unleashed skeletons distinguished in the flight of pelicans severing the embellishing of savored intelligence longing for sweet repentance revealing relief that goes the distance..
Searching for clarity that never ending morality my mind takes on high hilarity in the crushed arms of polarity assembling the modularity of my brain screws in chastity releasing all of the bottled-in charity of my restless audacity...
As all that's buried beneath takes turn within my rocky caverns that burn I release my tactiturn of the aches and pains the spurn I've been able to learn bounty of my earn comes to term as I yearn for freedom of silent concern if I can disinfect this germ like cleansing the embodiment of the smoked sherm I will be clear of the uncoiled fern slithering about as a pristine worm..
Deeply inside my head I've swum like the graceful swan in the pond that I come to grow fond classified the demimond upon no formed bond twisting my thoughts my top has spun uncontrollably making me dumb my darkest secrets tucked in the gun behind the chamber of obligated fun partaking of the glazeless bun that's so scrumptious to my tum tum I can never find riddance playing the war drum but if I fail now my utterance is done now if all coincide with my tone I may finally speak out and be gone...
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
Smack, jab! Left, right,
watch out I bite,
process words
too fast,
they move like
flashes through my thoughts,
I don't make them, they don't make me
Don't force them, they don't force me-
I do this for fun;
bash my head into a turtle's skeleton,
pelicans, stay out of the way.
Wish wash kind of washer head,
wolf wild but walker wed,
stupid is as stupid ever gets when
stupid is what stupid said he'd turn
stupid,
what he'd spurn, stupid
pedestrian...
I, always the equestrian
and never stupid (and never wasteful
but always mindful, mind you!), like
to think that I do this for fun.
Believe me,
I do this for fun.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 2:12 AM UTC