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A ghost ship in reefed water
in sleeping, two otters
where you tell me of your white, russian father

and how you'd rather
sail tattered
on friendly water
please excuse this, I'm lacking a notebook write now (ba dum tss), and I wanted to get this down somewhere.
You know who you are, too.
neth jones Mar 2022
busy verbalizing my merchandise                                                      ­        
a display of teeth reefed behind my smile
                                                      becau­se merchandise is what i am after
                          and The Revels watch over me
                                and laughter drains down through sewer grates
i am watched over                                                             ­                             
my potential client walks away                                                                 
    but returns again with queries                                                          ­             
on this hot day                                                              ­                                   
a smell like burnt hair raises from the gutters                                            
and these are the streets that radiate                                                          ­  
on this hot day                    

an honest clash and not some some touchy bout
and here we are                                                              ­
the costly coil of pushing business together ;           
                                   a lively thrive
thrifty "*******"s and a dressing down       
circling the other and striking their buttons   
  
                   interlaced within is a genuine pressing
               toward each other goals  
this partnership                                                      ­                    
swiftly made                    
                                          has an extreme edge and chaotic balance          
the both of us must master or abandon our productivity             
shall we be served by this union
                                     or sever fighting ?

unfit                                                         ­            
  it swerves and suffers a pity                  
let's keep this one brief                                                     
we manage business
handshakes
and scowl away with our wares
each of us feeling equally scammed
(we've made useful enemies at best)

i break out laughing all the same-how
and howl because i feel
that feeling that this could go on forever
and business has roots in all my moods

i crouch at the curb       
the curb is abrasive               
              i sit
i look at the dry heat radiating off the tarmac
the slight greasy lime taste of the air passing
the roof of my mouth
the electric wires running hum into the buildings
the storm drains at the edges of the roads
where laughter siphons down to the magma of Hades

it is waning off now                         
and i feel vague
i stand and i scan for more players
i spot a vivid orange one
one that i may barter their aura of vigour
traded for my sketchy wares
Rhandom Rhymer Jan 2011
There were tales told of mighty storms that oft battered this coast.
The howling gale that struck this night was more powerful than most,
The lifeboat crews had been stood down, Who would venture out in this?
They gratefully all headed home for a night of fireside bliss

A girl stood on a towering cliff her heart was filled with dread
Somewhere in that maelstrom was the one that she would wed
The sun had shone when he’d left home before a steady breeze
A day so full of promise, but nature gives no guarantees

This normally astute sailor did not see the sky turn grey
His mind was on the woman, tomorrow their wedding day.
He was dragged back to the present by the sudden icy rain
The boat steadied, then surged forward, a ****** at the helm again

He quickly trimmed and set his sails to run before the gale
The speeding boat fighting gamely under the minimum of sail
Ten miles out man and boat still face the wrathful sea
With storm jib filled, and main full reefed he raced towards his bride to be

The man can see the lights of home, he’s just five miles from shore
With a fearsome ‘Crack’ the hull was split. Man and boat could do no more
Standing on the lonely cliff the girl sees his boat go under
She screams her pain into the night as her heart is ripped asunder

She takes a slow step forward towards the cliff edge high and sheer
Facing a life without her lover the drop can cause no fear
Her other foot moves forward, She is on the final ledge
Another tearful shuffle forward has her on the very edge

One more step. Into the void and she plummets like a stone
The sea has claimed her loved one but he shall not lie alone
As a wave approaches the stony cliff it draws a watery breath
Before crashing, straining, weeping falling above the lovers joined in death
I was staring at the horizon on
A clear and balmy day,
The sky was blue and the sea a type
Of aquamarine in the bay,
There wasn’t a sign of storm or squall
Till the sunset turned dull red,
And then the sky, of a sudden turned
From blue to the grey of lead.

And you were stood there, Geraldine
With your collar turned up high,
You shivered once, then looked around
Took note of the darkening sky,
‘Is that a barque or a barquentine
I see ******* to the pier?’
And slowly, filtering into my view
Was a ship that wasn’t there.

It hadn’t been there all afternoon
It hadn’t sailed into the bay,
I’m sure that I would have noticed if
It was fifteen miles away,
But there it sat with its stays and sails
Reefed in and sitting becalmed,
But dark and ever so threatening
I was right to feel alarmed.

Then Geraldine ran along the pier,
I was trying to call her back,
When lightning lit the sky above
With a sudden tumultuous crack,
She turned just once and she called to me:
‘Don’t follow, it’s my fate!
The ship’s the Admiral Benbow,
I’m a hundred years too late.’

She ran, and her coat flew out behind
Like an ancient type of cape,
And on the deck of the barquentine
Were men, with mouths agape,
A single plank lay across the pier
And up to the wooden bow,
Which Geraldine clambered up to board
While I stood, and wondered how?

No sooner was she aboard, than then
The men gave up a cheer,
And she I saw in the arms of one,
A brigand privateer,
She waved just once, then she went below
To my ever present pain,
The love of my life, my Geraldine,
I never saw again.

The wind blew up and the rain came down
And the barque then raised its sails,
Was cast adrift in a heaving sea
In that coastal port of Wales,
And then I swear, the Captain came
To the bow, and then he leered,
And by the time that I turned around
That barque had disappeared.

David Lewis Paget
Devon Brock Aug 2019
Down the deer path, thick with ****,
to every hard to find
creek bank in the world,
there's a busted dinghy,
a forgotten sloop dream,
with a mudstuck sprung transom,
a sky beckoning bow,
tied to a cattail or some other
tenuous stem.

Down the deer path, thick with ****,
the willows, reefed in a gale,
cringe in the rising crest,
and a busted dinghy
lifts on a swell and bellows
against the cleat to slide clean
to the sea, to a young boy's
landlocked dream of spray,
hard weathers and anywhere
but here night-watches.

All the colors of elsewhere,
the splendid regatta of the never-seen,
the gleaming spice and bent strange
tongues of the could have been - mold,
dip and sigh, lift and strain,
again and again,
upon a cleat,
upon a rope,
upon a cattail
or some other
tenuous
stem.
Anthony Pierre Aug 2020
Oh Sophie, no Sophie
So sorry, you left
crystal blue persuasions
No warning, you left
my coral feet reefed, fleeting
for cold fired bricks streets,
in heels on the walls, well lit
Too bright for you to see:
these red lit walls

and Sophie, do recall
better moons saw, my heart
teeming with an ambient glow
in our seasons, when we lay
on the hills of Soufrière
So extravagant those eruptions
You trembled when lava poured
freely into the Port of Amsterdam
No walls, no *****.... Sophie?

How, my dutch, now?
These red lit walls,
so lewd and menstruating
stands as glass windows between us
and these strong, macho *****
forged with Finish arms,
like Heini Koivuniemi look-alikes
muscling my heavenly pleas
to the hellish red walls in De Wallen
Ryan O'Leary Jun 2020
|  /  __


Symbols fall foul of
fabricated histories.

Ebbing tides
expose lies.

Truth stalagmites
need no pedestals.

Reefed undersides
begin submerging.

Deserving offspring
of another age.

Karma's anchor
broken loose.

Adrift to menace
federated flotillas.

Crown cessation
civil condemnation.

Begin your bleeding
haemorrhage hate.

Tsunami your poison
inhale suffocate choke.

Bear plinths
Odious epitaphs.

Flag of umpire up
red card Britain.

ps.

For those not aware,
Britain includes Wales
and Scotland who have
been aiding and abetting
England for centuries.

— The End —