"piers" poems
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.
Always before about my dooryard,
Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.
If I could hear the green piles groaning
Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs,
If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,
Feel once again the shanty straining
Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,—
I should be happy,—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!
I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.
31.5k
Our heart burns broken at the ends, they fail us, keep building
my lungs are wax inside my ribs, you’re burning, well I’m breathing
this back breaks walked on from carrying friends, can’t stop now, still working
your life’s like rain drops on my tongue, I believe you, keep raining
and it’s alright, it’s alright, we are not right now complete
and I’m alright, you’re gonna be alright, we might never be complete
but the water keeps rising, it’s rising, everybody get into the water
and hold each others hands and lives, let’s all push our hearts together....
we’re gonna leave these shores right now, be everything we’ve never been
but you gotta swear to promise that we’ll never go back again, ever again
and we’re not just islands lying beside each others shorelines
we’re all bound with veins and hopes, we are not each others ghosts
our hearts are abridged, let's build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under
filled with monsters and goblins, they keep dragging the bottom
our life is a bridge, let’s build bridges to each other
and pray we don’t go under, oh these careless waters
I’m trying not to confuse: being used, with giving all I am
by: being used, and giving everything I have, all I am
so I’ll build a bridge with hollow bones filled with hollow teeth
inside a hollow heart, with the insides carved
and let the blood in these veins freeze
let the water in these veins freeze and break and flood the dam
we are all we have, this is all we need, hold on it may never end
and I might have to drink my teeth again if I wash up on the coast
so I’ll build a bridge with all that’s left, & not make any more new ghosts
show me your life, wide and bright, I hope that patience fills the seams
keep what’s inside, dry and right, you arch the frame I’ll span the beams
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
cause one day we’re gonna close our eyes for death or rest
and abandon ourself, this weak mind and breath
and the columns we made, and roots we grew down deep
will be pulled and gathered in to firewood, and burnt for heat
but when the tension shifts, and these braces turn
I’ll try and build a better bridge
and when all our piers burn, and the hinges miss
I’m gonna build a better bridge
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so we don’t take ourselves under
Our heart burns broken at the ends, they fail us, keep building
my lungs are wax inside my ribs, you’re burning, I’m still breathing
this back breaks walked on carry friends, can’t stop now, still working
your life’s like rain drops on my tongue, I believe you, keep raining
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under, so we don’t take ourselves under
our lives are a bridge, let’s build bridges to each other
and pray we don’t go under, oh these careless waters
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our lives are a bridge for us to give, I want to build a better bridge
from every wrong we’ve done to each other, if I forgive will you forgive?
our hearts are abridged, let’s build bridges to each other
so this river won’t take us under, so we don’t take ourselves under
May 12, 2012
May 12, 2012 at 3:26 PM UTC
128
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning’s flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps—
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!
Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs—
How many trips the Tortoise makes—
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow’s piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite—
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?
Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who’ll let me out some gala day
With implements to fly away,
Passing Pomposity?
6.5k
Current affairs, making family disappear.
Blood thicker than water; I can't see that from over here.
Haters show hate, to hide their fears, hide their faults by dissing piers.
Their hands weak so they dis their peers.
Weak-minded; Diss-impaired.
Test the truth and get dared
Like something that's undeclared.
Put a ring around your rosey,
Then I’m taking a chair.
The kingdom come;
The dynasty is aire.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
(for Cyril Connolly)
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
4.8k
Let me burn on the love drenched piers of your soul,
Let the ether from your burning heart fill me of your musk,
And let it last till the longing fades, until the moment we are one.
Jul 11, 2010
Jul 11, 2010 at 11:30 AM UTC
Lucky Strikes and Mangos,
Which one would be good at the tango?
SPANDANGO!
Indulge with them at a watering hole.
Intolerance placed on smoking fruitiers,
Intolerance placed on back-packing Reindeers.
Both come up close,
But always fish off long piers.
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 4:02 PM UTC
it's been months since I bothered opening my eyes before the birds have finished their song and the sun is casting 5 o'clock shadows on the faces of those who work and strain and cry and just want to put food on the table for their loved ones. I never thought about what was just below the surface what was edging towards the eerie fog about the lake just as I turned my back. you told me flowers always sprout when rain and snow and hail and sleet and every form of tears god could throw at us whip your face and you're still not crying and why aren't you crying you're bleeding and I'm aching and have you ever thought about how clouds are just vessels for rain and how maybe you're a cloud and I'm a torrential downpour but I'm more like a thunderstorm without the lighting because nothing shines like your eyes when you hear your favourite passage read aloud and I hope you hear my voice in your head I hope that omnipresence you always complained about comforts you when your bed is the last place you want to be and I hope you dream harder than rocks falling down mountains until maybe the figures you see in sleep become real. until the apparitions you claim have plagued your mind are left with no safe house and no real home and you can box them up like pictures and firewood and the couch cushions with the stains on them like Why the **** didn't we get those cleaned. why didn't we clean up our mess why is the window still shattered it's getting cool at night and the blankets are itchy and the grass looks comfier than cots in prison cells and what kind of prison cell is this with birds and lights and piers with boats that never seem to come in and lighthouses that never seem to guide them home. like nothing could ever guide you home, like nothing but light and wind and waves crashing and you'll probably never see the captain again. the ship is never sinking but the captain died many years ago sending smoke signals swallowed up by the clouds who lost their rain.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
#
My father said believe in nothing
My mother told me everyone will do you wrong
I thought to be taught a wise lesson
Sang along this song for far too long
Wasn't sure I'd know how to forget
or how to move on
My father cried only once
My mother never stopped her tears
Are we just vessels to be filled
with our forerunners' endless fears
Of a life that is begging to be lived
Just to be dead on arrival at the piers
My aunt said do what's asked of you
In the end no one could tell me how it's done
I jumped off the boat of broken ones
and got washed up at distant shores unknown
Though since then I saw many bright suns
never has anything clear been shown
Endless days of wondering
endless ways to go on pretending
always kneedeep in my head, always pondering
and how fiercely I'd like to be defending
the fragile insides of my chest but I let them keep plundering
hearts and hopes are constantly breaking and mending
To this shell I'm bound
for now my heart is cold and my ghost is still
in awe of what I haven't found
sitting on my mind's windowsill
wishing for a wind of change. May it be profound.
#
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 9:24 AM UTC
When did news parody
stop being funny?
Was it somewhere between
Alan Jackson’s 9/11 cash-in
and Donald Trump’s hair?
Was it BoJo stranded on a zipline over London,
or Cameron’s alleged porcine relations
(bizarrely black-mirroring fiction)?
When did the news
start doing Chris Morris’ job for him?
When did they start
pre-satirising the headlines?
“No evidence mermaids exist,” says US Government.
Swimming pool evacuated after prosthetic leg is mistaken for **********
Robots follow Marco Rubio to South Carolina.
I swear, I didn’t
make any of those up.
The actors on Saturday Night Live
are more statesmanlike
than the Presidential Primary Candidates they’re lampooning.
How the hell do they breed these
creatures? These gurning,
overgrown foetuses with their
conveniently dead ****** sisters to get
all wet-eyed and tumescent over,
their boomingly hollow controversy and
their total, catastrophic
crashes of personality.
These loathsome
organic constructs who would seem
more relatable and trustworthy if
their image consultants made them wear
Nixon masks for every
public appearance.
When did it all become
this strange, sick spoof
of itself?
Is there no one left in Britain who can make a sandwich?
Man dressed as penguin receives more votes than the Liberal Democrats.
Piers Morgan given jail time for illegally hacking ‘phones and gloating about it.
Okay.
I made the last one up.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 6:07 AM UTC
1433
How brittle are the Piers
On which our Faith doth tread—
No Bridge below doth totter so—
Yet none hath such a Crowd.
It is as old as God—
Indeed—’twas built by him—
He sent his Son to test the Plank,
And he pronounced it firm.
2.1k
The fat lady came out first,
tearing our roots and moistening drumskins.
The fat lady
who turns dying octopuses inside out.
The fat lady, the moon's antagonist,
was running through the streets and deserted buildings
and leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners
and stirring up the furies of the last centuries' feasts
and summinging the demon of bread through the sky's clean-swept hills
and filtering a longing for light into subterranean tunnels.
The graveyards, yes the graveyards
and the sorrow of the kitchens buried in sand,
and dead, pheasants and apples of another era,
pushing it into our throat.
There were murmurings from the jungle of *****
with the empty women, with hot wax children,
with fermtented trees and tireless waiters
who serve platters of salt beneath harps of saliva.
There's no other way, my son, ***** There's no other way.
It's not the ***** of hussars on the ******* of their ******
nor the ***** of cats that inadvertently swallowed frogs,
but the dead who scratch with clay hands
on flint gates where clouds and desserts decay.
The fat lady came first
with the crowds from the ships,s taverns, and parks.
***** was delicately shaking its drums
among a few little girls of blood
who were begging the moon for protection.
Who could imagine my sadness?
The look on my face was mine, but now isn't me,
the naked look on my face, trembling for alcohol
and launching incredible ships
through the anemones of the piers.
I protect myself with this look
that flows from waves where no dawn would go.
I, poet without arms, lost
in the vomiting multitude,
with no effusive horse to shear
the thick moss from my temples.
The fat lady went first
and the crowds kept looking for pharmacies
where the bitter tropics could be found.
Only when a flag went up and the first dogs arrived
did the entire city rush to the railings of the boardwalk.
2.1k
There’s nowt like some rapping
To get my feet tapping.
Alesha Dixon’s the *****
That got me mixin’
Today.
Saw her on a recording
Doing rap for Piers Morgan.
That might be pararhyme –
At best -
But who gives a dime.
Just feel like rhyming
With impeccable timing.
Let’s shimmer and shammer
And give it some hammer.
Alesha’s sure got glitter
There’s no gal fitter
No wonder she is
All over Twitter.
She’s as smooth and silky
As a pint of bitter.
These rhymes
Like chimes
Make me feel so fine.
Well that’s me done now
I don’t quite know how
This mood came over me.
It is infectious
She leaves me breathless
But hey I’m out of time,
What a crime.
Paul Butters
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 6:46 AM UTC
The way in which we cower away
From desolate words
Yet we dream of bottling them up
To wear as perfume
We carry with us to ports and piers
Where the wind and water waltz
And take our hands in a line dance
Where fire can never touch the surface
So, it lives deep in our hearts
These are the ways I dream of our
unconventional circumstances
Wishing them into happenstances
That could possibly bloom into purposeful love
but I fix clocks, and no matter how hard I try,
I can't change time
...Don't forgive me, just don't forget me...
Jan 1, 2022
Jan 1, 2022 at 5:38 AM UTC
Pan
by Michael R. Burch
... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ...
... Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ...
... where we cannot return, because we lost
the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ...
... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair
who never were enchanted, and the stairs ...
... that led up to the Fortress in the trees
will not support our weight, but on our knees ...
... we still might fit inside those splendid hours
of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ...
... of voices of the wolves’ tormented howls
that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ...
Published by The Chariton Review
Keywords/Tags: Childhood, dreams, enchanted, stairs, fortress, trees, damsels, maidens, towers, wolves, howls, oaks, elms, paths, pebbles, playthings, toys, moss
Mar 19, 2020
Mar 19, 2020 at 1:47 AM UTC
I take a cigarette break to the beach at 2AM every time i'm on the graveyard shift. The whole atmosphere of being at the edge of a continent with an endless body of water living and breathing in front of you is emotional. When the sea is calm and the tide is low it feel like you can relax, listen to the tide rippling off the rocks and it soothes the soul. When the tide is high and the sea is rough you realize the pure power of the ocean. I imagine the lives previously taken by the merciless sea, engulfing ships and crashing into mountains and piers, cities, lighthouses, residences, and boat yards. Unforgiving, and yet, majestic she is responsible for more life than we can fathom. A whole different part of our world we have such minimal access to. I look out into her endless brilliance as the wind warns me of her presence. Blasting the smell of salt onto my skin, as i take long breathes with ease. The ocean is wise, she has been here much longer then i have and has experienced loss, life, tragedy, war, ****** and survival. Nobody's around at 2AM, just me and her. Every night she gives me the same feeling, like a women you love but cant control, a free spirit, wild for her own pleasure, thirsty for love and affection but resilient to the idea of being confined. For you can not control the one who manipulates you. I am being manipulated by the sea. As i exhale my last puff i walk back inside to work. "Ill see you tomorrow".
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 5:15 PM UTC
Loss is a heart drawn in the sand like a mandala,
Or bravery built like a sandcastle,
Too close to the edge of the sea when the tide comes
Slowly washing away every last grain,
Every speck of courage
Built up to walk across the boardwalk
To the end of the pier to look her in the eyes
And smile without an awkward, nervous giggle
To ask her to dance.
Her elegant wrist rests on the old, wooden
Pier guard rail that contrasts
With her soft, creamy hazelnut skin.
Her hair is backlit, gloriously
Set on fire, revealing her radiance.
You are not ready yet and all your plans are sure to fail.
The salt in the air is thick in your throat
As you notice how large the ocean is behind her,
And how high up the planks of wood you’re standing on
Rise above the crashing waves.
Loss is yours because you turn away
A few steps from deeper waters.
The wooden boards beneath you creak.
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 6:37 PM UTC
— and the rickety ferry-boat “Arden”!
What an object to be called “Arden”
among the great piers,—on the
ever new river!
“Put me a Touchstone
at the wheel, white gulls, and we’ll
follow the ghost of the Half Moon
to the North West Passage—and through!
(at Albany!) for all that!”
1.5k
The silver moon
falls
from sight
as the rising tide
kisses
adjacent piers.
The cool morning
rests
over the gentle bay
as clouds
commute
covering the light of day.
Brown thrashers rhythmically
mimic
stolen song
as they
traverse
the canal.
Barefoot toes
roam
freely
frequenting familiar
footpaths.
Minute minnow mouths
toy
with the bait
bobbing
the cork.
Experienced hands
handle
seafood
adopting its scent
while the blue *****
boil
into crimson.
Afternoon showers
cool
the earth
as a mysterious moon
lowers
the tide.
Night
falls
again
in Mississippi.
Jun 6, 2023
Jun 6, 2023 at 4:21 PM UTC
I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection
In the watrers under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the gleaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away.
As, sweeping and eddying through them
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often oh how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its *****
O’er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection
Aand its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.
1.5k
In the harbor of my sixty five years,
The tide is going out beneath the dock.
Ragged barnacles **** up my piers;
Gulls circle my bald pate in a flock.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 2:19 PM UTC
i became the jumpin' jack flash in november '77.
there was slush in new york city and the bums at the piers
still burned trash in metal barrels you could see from over on coney island even.
just like kerouac said.
in the daytime foolish kids picked weeds in central park
and called them flowers. they got laid by stringing charming words together as they gave them
to the thousand daughters of manhattan's old monied men,
the wall street hacks hanging from the teats of the
great & frenzied cash cow of capitalist interest. the milk
came slow that winter.
one week, early december when the slush gave way to furtive snowfalls
i took a bus to patterson, NJ
for a few days, drank a lot of awful coffee writing obscenities in my journal but speaking
them aloud in the restaurants and bars and so
was deemed just like everybody else in patterson, NJ.
drunk & high, helicopter tours, stuffed with bread and half-truths.
and when shortly my irish luck ran out i raced back to the big smoke
in a drop-top mercedes driven by a man whose thick accent i couldn't quite place.
whose only serious question was whether i knew anyone
who had good coke.
in the city it rained for three weeks straight and
david byrne, in some bowery apartment wrote a song called 'flood'
which was never released on any talking head's album
but lingered in his brain as a reminder of the three weeks
he spent cooped up, eating saltines and dancing to the rhythms of the thunder and rain outside.
totally alone with his mind & a bass guitar. tina weymouth, naturally, was furious.
the bass was the last thing she had left in a band she half-started. and david had stolen even that.
but that was tina weymouth, that was new york.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 9:33 PM UTC
Fooled again by spring changing
Its mind and retreating.
Skies are waterfalls of snow above
The white veiled construction site.
I can barely see the crane, blowing
Grey slush from my walkie before
Telling the driver to lift these
Two-by-fours that just days ago
Reminded me of lake piers and
Diving boards under tomorrow's
Summer sun. Today they are
Firewood in these eyes blinking
Snowflakes into tears that I wipe
With padded gloves, leaving
Streaks of oil and concrete on
Cheeks pale with winter under an
Icicled full beard.
Fooled again.
This is Norway.
This is where giants come to shiver.
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 4:45 AM UTC
I intend to love the air in my lungs —
as I wake.
Compelled to peer through coke bottle glasses of glitter.
I intend to be unseen.
A whispering ocean concealed beneath the piers of Santa Monica.
I have so much to say, so much to share
as I wake.
Here in my bed,
Frozen between planks of wood and placid sea.
I laugh in my sleep,
groan as I wake.
I fear the here the now
and encourage the dreams,
the sounds.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 3:18 PM UTC