"quays" poems
by the seashore
(by the seashore)
sits the soft decAy.
breast laden frames 1by1(in neat rows)
unquenchable olive flesh thirsty dirt
devour
but sotoo there is this:
in the beneath quiet quays
the green darkness pulls ugly
gull crys oily wings from hideous throats
virulent diseased avian beak *****
exhaling billowing bacteria
plume
disgusting riot of feathers
white grin bleached pearl bones repose sandy drug
and all the children laugh horribl e to spread sickly
f
ingers
by the seashore
erohsaes eht yb
Jun 4, 2010
Jun 4, 2010 at 11:10 PM UTC
In the evening, the river is a theater
the water carries the music
to our ears, the romance
of a saxophone, sunset
twinkling in the wine and the church
rosy, completely gentle grace
Tourists pretend click clack
that not they, but we, are the extras
and the city were a cardboard set:
theme park Paris l'amour
young people on the quays around
a pillar candle and kissing
couples as it should be
in the sunthrowers of the tourist vessels
gleam the spots in the corners
that you can smell
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 3:38 AM UTC
Catcalls, tangled up hair,
Red cheeks, tears and ayes,
Rumpled dress, jokes so wry,
A neckless of polished shells,
Restless night, anxiety, tickles,
Fright, moonlit promises, garlands
Of wildflower, stolen kisses, a palm
Full of down from the thistle, laughs,
Larks, dried roses in a basket, a frog,
A crow feather, my uncaught breaths,
Being chased on the shores, tight hugs
In rain, held hands by the quays, hopes,
Rushes, joys and warmth of tomorrows
To come, some worries, awfully happys,
Winsome things sure fair, without strings,
Powerfully gifted, now, all things naught,
Of this I am sure, my dear unfaithful boy,
Your ginger lassie, she wanted more.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 8:20 AM UTC
Let us catch the flashing lights
that light up London
new and old.
Let's hear the stories told
of ships and quays
and lovers loving from balconies.
let us see with our own eyes
the tower and its towering spies
and where the traitors lied and children cried and died
with blood upon the king.
let us kiss the ring on the hand of the Queen
have you seen where she lives
and gives artsy fartsy parties?
The queen of hearts indeed.
Who was found guilty when the great fire took hold
in the London town of old?
Did the dear baker go and meet his bread maker
with tears on his cheeks?
Nobody speaks about that anymore.
It's sods law
God's law
can you hear the luddites roar?
London bridge is falling foul
of poor men
I can hear them growl
burn you baftard burn.
But 'turn again **** Whittington'
Won't turn and let the poor folk in.
Another rich man on the take
one more loser that we make the mayor of London town.
Another fake
the bridge never fell
it was made of wood
and engineered by those good poor folk
as they slaved under the mighty yoke
(yoke's a joke I did mean oak)
of the invader.
So let us catch the flashing lights
that blind us to the
real sights
and we'll not see
we'll never be
any the wiser.
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
You existed; lived simply to love me
At least that’s the way I thought
Until the ghost of you no longer see
Made bereft and left me overwrought
I thought I was all that mattered
Was your centre; your whole life
Your own hopes and dreams shattered
When you became my wife
You did your job. You kept me happy
Catered and bowed to all my needs
But me like a greedy puppy. Yappy
Selfishly caused your soul to bleed
The more you seemed to do and give
The more I grappled to take
The fact you had lost the will to live
My selfish brain no dent did make
I thought you were just bluffing
You couldn’t be so depressed
So lazily I carried on; did nothing
Broke you down in final test
They said they found your little car
Your licence cards, and keys
Angry engine humming. Doors ajar
At the docks down by the quays
Of you they said they found no trace
The currents there were stronger
You would wash up in some other place
They would find you. Just takes longer
Months have gone by but still no you
Has washed up. The police have said
The protocol. What they now must do
Is officially declare you dead!
She couldn’t handle it any more
Suicide; she took her own life
Her husband killed her to the core
Destroyed this doormat wife
So now I wallow in my guilt
Too little too late; now realising
The man she nurtured. Fed, and built
She killed herself despising
She has gone…….
In a cottage garden in Bordeaux
A lady sits smiling; quietly contented
Tragic suicide. Drowning. NO! All faux
Make escape her living hell tormented
She’s glad she saved that money
Stayed strong when life hit the buffers
Gorge on new life sweet as honey
While her hoggish husband suffers
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:16 AM UTC
In the last darkness
before dawn, after the party
I wander through the city
my familiar city
The sky is clear
I have no idea
what I would want
The river glides by
Empty quays, no traffic
silence around the monuments
and everything neatly swept
Naked people made
of marble and paint
live in the museum palaces
The princesses play cards
in the basement of the servants
and my steps resound
in the floodlight of time
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 3:06 AM UTC
Home of the navy, big and strong,
Think that's it? You are most wrong,
Home of Dickens, and Isambard Brunel,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed a while as well,
Singers like Same Difference born so very close to home,
Gunwharf Quays, Action Stations and even a PlayZone,
An Aquarium, lots of shops, amusement parks and more,
Theatres, museums, the Isle of White; it's fun from shore to shore,
Portsmouth is a brilliant place, to live and work and play,
People who live or visit here shouldn't ever move away!
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 5:55 AM UTC
What is music? The heart rendered? What life
Is to a dream? The eyes object in rapture?
What is the soul's shell, but a half note hollow
Contained with music? Art is cold—
Echo, mute repetition, poor traits for nine
Dead muses of memory, a fiction after
The fact, nor can there be a shelf for credence
Without cadence. And though the painter's eyes
Remember rainbows colour, his hands forget
All, save black and white. Though the sculptor sees
The vein of nudes within the sparkled rock
That stone, still, looks back with grieving half-
Heartedness.
The chambered heart is beating,
The droning gales are sighing, but like the one bird
Who flies three ways— before and after song,
My middling wings pronounce two kingdoms part
Music. The felt fingers of rain consort with well-
Tempered earthly quays and everywhere there is
There is the bright organic instrument—
And actuality is sidled with dead metaphors.
Music is but purest feeling given air to,
The mind soothed, the spirit seduced and a quell
For ache of heart, music is pure making—
Existence itself, another plain, a well dressed
Traveler, a border with life—
Body and spirit, who hand in hand and each
With each, are bound as wings are paired;
One flyer soaring.
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
I've not stopped dreaming.
I drift through these quays,
through the mouth, onwards!
And in this insubstantial ocean,
maybe I'll find my whale.
I float amongst the restless,
shouting for tomorrow.
And if only I see through this fog,
I could find what was lost.
I'll wake up one day,
but I hope I never stop dreaming.
Jun 11, 2010
Jun 11, 2010 at 9:21 AM UTC
What is music? The heart rendered? What life
Is to a dream? The eyes object in rapture?
What is the soul's shell, but a half note hollow
Contained with music? Art is cold—
Echo, mute repetition, poor traits for nine
Dead muses of memory, a fiction after
The fact, nor can there be a shelf for credence
Without cadence. And though the painter's eyes
Remember rainbows colour, his hands forget
All, save black and white. Though the sculptor sees
The vein of nudes within the sparkled rock
That stone, still, looks back with grieving half-
Heartedness.
The chambered heart is beating,
The droning gales are sighing, but like the one bird
Who flies three ways— before and after song,
My middling wings pronounce two kingdoms part
Music. The felt fingers of rain consort with well-
Tempered earthly quays and everywhere there is
There is the bright organic instrument—
And actuality is sidled with dead metaphors.
Music is but purest feeling given air to,
The mind soothed, the spirit seduced and a quell
For ache of heart, music is pure making—
Existence itself, another plain, a well dressed
Traveler, a border with life—
Body and spirit, who hand in hand and each
With each, are bound as wings are paired;
One flyer soaring.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 12:00 PM UTC
Hotdogs, Mustard and Omelettes please
Yellow cabs, jay walking down Florida Quays
Four lanes, Juggernauts and Chevrolet cars
Lights,cameras and Hollywood stars
Palm trees, beaches and Hawaiian shirts
Gucci, Versace and loathsome old flirts
Fields, harvesters and barns full of hay
Buildings, boxes in lifeless decay
Piers, amusements and huge crashing waves
Soup kitchens, The Mission and a life it could save
Islands, storms and the hot lazy sun
Big Apple, Windy City, Graceland’s is fun
Sirens, Hydrants and never ending noise
Planes, Aliens and conspiracy driven ploys
History, Presidents wrapped up in Sams hat
Shrine, Humility where two towers once sat
Arizona, the desert, dry and ongoing
Vultures, Eagles and freeways never slowing
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 6:16 PM UTC
What is music? The heart rendered? What life
Is to a dream? The eyes object in rapture?
What is the soul's shell, but a half note hollow
Contained with music? Art is cold—
Echo, mute repetition, poor traits for nine
Dead muses of memory, a fiction after
The fact, nor can there be a shelf for credence
Without cadence. And though the painter's eyes
Remember rainbows colour, his hands forget
All, save black and white. Though the sculptor sees
The vein of nudes within the sparkled rock
That stone, still, looks back with grieving half-
Heartedness.
The chambered heart is beating,
The droning gales are sighing, but like the one bird
Who flies three ways— before and after song,
My middling wings pronounce two kingdoms part
Music. The felt fingers of rain consort with well-
Tempered earthly quays and everywhere there is
There is the bright organic instrument—
And actuality is sidled with dead metaphors.
Music is but purest feeling given air to,
The mind soothed, the spirit seduced and a quell
For ache of heart, music is pure making—
Existence itself, another plain, a well dressed
Traveler, a border with life—
Body and spirit, who hand in hand and each
With each, are bound as wings are paired;
One flyer soaring.
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 4:07 PM UTC
No barons down in Earls court and no Surrey in the quays
the underground's a mess if names are things that please
in Raynors lane there's rain again
in Catford there are mice
in Epping it is epic and I think that's awful nice,
In Battersea there is no sea
in Clapham they don't clap
at shooters hill they don't shoot guns
and Network East's a trap.
In Stepney there are several steps
in deptford they sink under debts
nothing gets me on my way than to pass through Green lanes, Harringay, now I don't know many gays down there but I'm friends with some
up in Sloane square
no Knights in Knightsbridge anymore
no Kings at Kingly court
Bradford's not in Bingley either
neither here nor there nor in Trafalgar Square will you see any ships
But the underground's a fabulous place for going out on trips.
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 10:19 AM UTC
Cobbles
I had forgotten
How the Artic wind could
Sear its path up the Dublin Quays and flood
Into the streets
Tearing the very surface off
Everything it touches
The cobbles seem to shiver and ask to be brought
Inside
The paving slabs have already resigned
To their destiny
Feet shuffle past
Ignoring the multitude of stoney beggars
It's October
Dublin has turned off
The welcome sign.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 6:49 PM UTC
What is music? The heart rendered? What life
Is to a dream? The eyes object in rapture?
What is the soul's shell, but a half note hollow
Contained with music? Art is cold—
Echo, mute repetition, poor traits for nine
Dead muses of memory, a fiction after
The fact, nor can there be a shelf for credence
Without cadence. And though the painter's eyes
Remember rainbows colour, his hands forget
All, save black and white. Though the sculptor sees
The vein of nudes within the sparkled rock
That stone, still, looks back with grieving half-
Heartedness.
The chambered heart is beating,
The droning gales are sighing, but like the one bird
Who flies three ways— before and after song,
My middling wings pronounce two kingdoms part
Music. The felt fingers of rain consort with well-
Tempered earthly quays and everywhere there is
There is the bright organic instrument—
And actuality is sidled with dead metaphors.
Music is but purest feeling given air to,
The mind soothed, the spirit seduced and a quell
For ache of heart, music is pure making—
Existence itself, another plain, a well dressed
Traveler, a border with life—
Body and spirit, who hand in hand and each
With each, are bound as wings are paired;
One flyer soaring.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
In the forenoon,
we waited 'til two o clock
until the ship berthed at the dock
and we waited some more.
At three o clock, we
waited 'til four
and the waiting was done then
men home from the sea.
Mum cooked a meat pie
sprinkled with tears not
a dry eye
in the house.
Dad brought home some brandy for
mum, he
brought us kids candy and
all was fine and dandy, the
day that his ship docked.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
Vane glorious and absolutistic,
though I defiantly,
cavalierly, and blithely attest
Yukon bet your (laugh-in) sweet bippy
mine acidic breast
houses anarchic, anti-poetic ballistic,
barbaric, and bubonic
cannibalistic demons within thy
safely guarded Pandora chest
atomic cesium clock
timed to trigger avast
burst of anxiety, frenzy, and
(What me worry
Alfred E. Neuman) blast
ting mental quietude at most
inappropriate, inconvenient,
inopportune, out classed
adrenaline rush, nausea,
palpitating heart, vertigo
besieging, corrupting,
endeavoring fractured arrant
cleft daemonic gripping
hellishly psychic chant
rendering unto sieze ****
a choking vise grip extant
yule hiss sieze indomitable
banshee fully controlling grant
diabolic, dogmatic, and dynamic,
anguished corporeal ache
easily, egregiously, and emblematically,
exemplified historically
graphic fatalistic, and ecstatic coup,
(koo), when I caused furious frantic flight,
and/or fight betake
king angst causing just desserts
for Marie Antoinette,
who got her humble pie cake,
thence dispensing with formalities,
where a joshing drake
(named Gill O. Teen)
also known (solely known
to mine selfish source error ways)
alias i.e. as; the Lewis (loose)
lunatic, heady harvester,
and decapitation Deacon trumpeting,
trouncing, and triumphing tranquility
for fifty three Tuesdays,
thence sea king punishing psychotic
pre pound payment
basking in glory (re: gory us)
amidship crashing quays
music to mine ears hearing plaintive neighs
high pitched straining
vocal chord hamstrung keys
regaling oceanographic
lambent hagiographic essays
and keeping at bathos bays.
Jun 24, 2018
Jun 24, 2018 at 11:45 PM UTC
“Raging waves of the sea foaming out shame,
Wandering stars above to which is reserved,
As my obscurity shall befall me perpetually,
I know not how to contain me in this macrocosm,
As a quavering adumbration quirks my hands,
The hard brisk hour of night falls upon me quickly,
The swishing foam of the sea sashes before me,
My first vision in all my nights will forever be of her,
The barren quays at eventide feathered varmint gather,
If I were to think with acrimony of this once realm,
Of foremost loves that has passed me through my life,
She has left me at the fringe of the sandy littoral,
As I have decided to leave my heart felt altruism,
It is my hour of adieu oh me the dissipated one,
Her coiffure her guise of such charm lips of lust,
I adored her all this love will never be restored,
A Poet’s words of love penned on tattered paper,
All the words of love and pain that many fear of,
Expressed in through the ink drafted on paper,
Poets die but their words anamnesis is perpetual”
By AG 05/29/2018 ©
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 4:35 PM UTC
The harbour: the quays
are like a flat sea, the ships --
are walls of iron.
May 23, 2022
May 23, 2022 at 5:58 AM UTC
Truths you can't live with
Blame me it's so easy to do
Cheating,slanderous lies
It's always you you you.
Slowly I'm untangling your hold
Starting to see behind ones mask
so I'm looking forward to the future
To be a beer without a cask.
It's going to wreck my emotions
Play havoc with all my thoughts
As the noose slackens around my neck
My smiles gets bigger of sorts.
I'm going to dance the boulevard
Run naked through the corn
Releasing me from your iron grip
Means I can slowly be reborn
You broke my heart through away the key
But now I've made new locks
Sitting on the quays of life
Waiting for a sweet ship to dock.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 5:19 AM UTC
The level is rising around
the islands of silt
in the swamp, the fishermen
see their world widening
Old streambeds are also filling up
The wetlands become accessible
by rivers from the mainland
It is a ******* void
a gate to the sea, a chance
for the peat farmers and the forest people
to start trading, to build
dikes, quays, a city
with a dam
in the middle
People are flowing over
from the prosperous villages
to the impoldered land
with the new port –
not an old core that hungrily
conquers the surrounding lands
but their colony
May 21, 2021
May 21, 2021 at 3:21 AM UTC
The silver slide.
Doors closing,
lift going down
sounds like directions
to an old
Northern Town.
There's not much old now
and somehow
it doesn't seem right
seems to me they want to
paint the night white and
call it a day
if you get what you pay for
the door still closes, the lift
still goes down
and you still get directions to
an old Northern Town
Fish from the quays with
chips for your teas
not forgetting a dollop
of green mushy peas
talking past tense
over
the small garden
fence
Pegs on the clothes line
gabbing away
having a fine time.
Doors closing
lift going down
throwing up motives
for memories of
an old Northern
town.
Jul 2, 2016
Jul 2, 2016 at 1:43 PM UTC
There are certainly people
living in fantastic cities
there, behind the mountains
Houses piled up
towers sevenfold
in the river, unworldly
rich with gold
which even upstream
silts upon the stones
where butterflies find flower pots
block after block, and leaves
for the caterpillars, their colours
a wonderful pattern
a familiar mystery
which the oracle does not explain
It is everywhere
if ever it should be lost
in the city of floods
and subsiding quays, which
in their collapse, can take none
of the wonders
Nov 24, 2021
Nov 24, 2021 at 3:45 AM UTC
breathing fire
dreaming the horrific dreams
spending days a sponge, emulating
MULCH
TAKE
SPIT
picking at the sobbing satyr that is begging to be
Plucked
stirring up the soft drink and making it
too hot to touch
MINE
TAKE
SPIT
or shall I go?
NO
never, I lift, I am a winged animal, heavy as a pig
dragging on the end of one long spliff
I spit
WHIFF
I'm IT
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 11:20 PM UTC