"riggers" poems
I wonder why you want to row
When there are just so many terms to know
Before you get in the boat and place an oar in the water,
Before you take a single stroke don’t think you ought to
Remind yourself of what they are, these parts and pieces,
Actions and orders that rowers use (but poets don’t)
So forgive me if I leave some out.
Let’s take a look at the boat (or rather the shell):
The seat you sit on,
slides, backstop, shoes and riggers.
The skeg that stabilizes the shell,
shoulder, saxboard, and pogies.
The top-nut that keeps the rowlock in place,
swivel, stretcher and rollers.
Now for the oar (or rather the scull):
There’s the Spoon blade, the Macon blade,
Smoothie or Tulip.
Ready (or not) for the stroke you take ?
An Airstroke (in the air) ,
backsplash, backwater, or body stroke,
Go on bury the blade, check the cover,
but don’t catch a crab!
Mind out for the drunken spider,
watch the feather and the finish,
Inside hand, outside hand,
hands away, miss the water,
Leg back, lie back,
pause the paddling, watch the pitch,
Release and recover,
don’t shoot your slide,
Swing the stroke rate,
and space those puddles.
Careful there’s no skying,
and absolutely no washing out.
Ready for a repecharge?
Or perhaps you’d prefer an egg-beater?
Ask the *** to call a flutter.
Easy oars
Hold her hard
Ship oars
One foot up & out
Waist, ready, up
Shoulders, ready, up
Way enough!
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 2:14 AM UTC
The rigger journeyman was city bred,
But Cumberland was in his bones,
He saw the hills above the doors,
He saw the fells above the roofs
And when the great pain came,
His eyes belonged to them again.
By Ruskin Street he stopped to choke
At forty six, his wife beside,
My father's line revealed to me,
A farming, rigging family tree.
His place of death recorded so,
Not 'in' or 'at' but 'by' they wrote,
Impressionistic, vague, but true,
Or careless hand for riggers, who
In city great of small account
By Ruskin Street,
Out for the count...
The journey ends
And Benson, male,
No sails will mend.
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 8:04 PM UTC
Like the way a speaker prepares his toast. Each yearning sensibility, their bold autumnal stamen cast lines into the horizon of our lives. That when we were younger we even thought, that aeroplanes would land just where we stood in front of our homes in our neighborhood. And if unfurled, as our oil riggers kept us off the benches so we must only had whispers of our doings. Then Harold Sev and Linda Wevven brought to us our cars, our toys, our wives...cooking and cleaning and children. This was not the narrow passage of peak four.
Because of this we have learned many wonderfully-suited professions of our tertiary friends: radio captain, Saharan Field Marshall, dairy operator at a dromedary farm.
Why in this short-timed, often-rainy parody of existence due countries set embargos upon one another so that two men who cannot afford even the drink they carry, so long as they handle the glass properly, and we concern ourselves with things as trivial as this.
You stay everyone! This America is stupendous.
Or then drink from my hands and say, "America Finding the Curious Even More Curiouser.'" Where with two plates two bowls, two forks, two spoons, two glasses, and thrice the knives of a charcuterie.
So with your bold hand baskets, and Model-Ts, go show us how you fffffffffffffffffffff
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 4:42 AM UTC
the seafarers of old
did take to their ships
to discover new lands
on blue waters trips
vast distances they did
sail around the globe
with sails billowing
in the wind's driving lobe
neath the stars they'd chart
a course through the tides
with their ships full of cargo
stored inside the hull's hide
square riggers sailed
to lands far away
their decks and masts
plying the brine's spray
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 6:24 PM UTC
Here I am, consciously putting your puzzle piece heart back together because someone played the gambler and bet on your blood only to lose because you found out the game that was going on quicker than your host expected and they dropped your vessel like the glass trinket that it is and it shattered to pieces as it met with the ground. Harlotry is the game she started and didn't know how to quit, her mind seemed confused as well as her chest that seemed to be made cold as ice and black as night.
Here I am doing my best to show you how much I care, how much emotion is there in my heart waiting to be shared, to be left in your arms as the truth that it is, to be reflected in your eyes as the things I see, for I love you that much. I could stay with your help if you wanted me to, and could stare at the smile that I caused for you. Now here I breathe like it's not in my nature because of riggers of passion and moments of pleasure.
We could spread your beauty like a rumour that stays, like an illness that's healthy in odd kinds of ways. We can burn things together like pyro-addicted lovers and laugh in the faces of stupidity of others. And the places we stand will be all but cherished for our bitter facade has all but perished from the lives of those that treat us like **** in this evil world that's hell in a pit of a fruit of the universe that no one would pick for differences that express just how much that it ***** even for those with an Irishman's luck.
So here your faith shatters as mine did too and remembrance and patience are again a virtue that not many have because this world tore them down like a natur-istic thing that survives with a frown. And I love you so much I've faith in you, only you, and the things you may do for the hope that humanity will change one day and be more like you.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
the only book you can plagiarise from is the dictionary; enter plagiarism: platonic definitions of a single sound.
spa spa spawn a spandex bubble on the rims for elongating width
in french inches of the waist.
but i liked my walk, took the scenic: empty street, night, solo,
solo, night, empty street -
not many donkeys sweating tears -
not many relations to see: i understand money in
the manual labour professions, but outside
of manual professions? don't have a clue... have a poker though
for a ***** you randomise whatever you want in that:
never read a philosophy book that utilised grammatical categorisation
efficiently: aristotle started it all off with nouns (proper names),
naming and layering as i might call it:
but who the hell needs plato these days given television:
oh right, that's why: shout into a cave the worded nuance...
what do you get? ecce echo.
i appreciate god as an omni-relevant vocabulary / shouting into plato's cave
provided me with thus:
noun, plural i's or is, i's or is.
1. the ninth letter of the english alphabet, a vowel.
2. any spoken sound represented by the letter i or i, as in big, nice, orski.
3. something having the shape of an i (floating head on a total amputee).
4. a written or printed representation of the letter (sound) i or i.
5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter i or i.
well so much for those paper folding idiots of shadow:
i shout i into plato's cave the idiots are still talking in sign language
having been fed images throughout and no phonetic symbols
of breaking knuckles.
pronoun, nominative i, possessive my or mine, objective me;
plural nominative we, possessive our or ours, objective us.
1. the nominative singular pronoun, used by a speaker in referring to himself or herself.
noun, plural i's.
2. (used to denote the narrator of a literary work written in the first person singular).
3. metaphysics. the ego.
that's many more echoes to come - plato was ridiculous counting
six fingers on the shadow hand doing all the masturbatory
talking into rabbit population truths in australia.
oh **** i just shouted red into plato's cave and i heard synonymity come out!
what's crimson? words with many meanings have rats in the armpits of armchairs,
those eager dental riggers of bucktooth chew
made fudge into glue within dental analysis conclusive in lance stance
of a knight in rusty armour wishing it was oiled up copper.
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 7:56 PM UTC
Save yourself
Shine a light on me
Don't shed a tear
On top of the hill
There is no wealth
That I leave
Nothing here
An empty will
The dish and the spoon are on the lam
The cow is now jumping Jupiter
As the cat smashes his fiddle in a fit of frustration
While the little dog sobs after being neutered
Satan's pointed horns and hairy hooves are turn-on's for some
While coal miners stick their tongues out at gold miners
Because they will soon produces diamonds
They all laugh with the oil riggers and refiners
I admire Eeyore
He never cries
But stays grounded
And has a great outlook
It's a crawl
On the parkway
An hour drive has turned into a day trip
You've just won a million dollars!
What will you do next?
Buy a new flashy, top self life
So all the Looky Lou's will break their necks
I got shoes to fill
Things to live up to
People to face
Acorns and elder berries
I've got nothing
Can't think of a word
Baptized
Conformed and organized
Made illegal and criminalized
The dollar bill remains idolized
Until we all realize
That everything is all wrong
I chill with rising suns
And setting moons
Hot and heavy winter nights
Calm cool summer afternoons
Colonel Mustard did it in the library with a candle stick
Because the pistol had no bullets
No harm done
No fault but my own
Promises aren't broken
The hope and faith put into them are
But it's all good
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC
Crew Quarters...
(When I was a-serving of their majesties Brown and Root)
Rows of racks under aquarium lights
And scattered paperbacks: Louis L’Amour
Bravo Company battlefield yarns, (love)-books
About blonde hot rod babes with really big (pretties)
The crew, all older than I, were better books:
Mechanics, enginemen, crane operators
Welders, riggers, radiomen, divers
Draftsmen for the “as built” modifications
The cook was a nervous man from New Jersey
He looked over his shoulder and dropped things
Sep 9, 2019
Sep 9, 2019 at 3:47 PM UTC
Back on the long stone jetty
a time when the smacks came in
splitting the tide with a daily haul -
marlin flags, yellow-fin flags,
shark flags and all on the riggers.
In come the seiners, longliners,
and skipjacks. The crabbers,
the Merry May, Mama's Revenge,
Rock Bottom Sally, all going
bayside with their wares and
worn bows.
Each in it's cutting and bobbing
joy, blows a horn for the jumping
jut-finger kids - the day done
on the shore when the waves came a' roiling.
The jiggers in for the market docks
and a couple a bucks for the gap-toothed
waterman gathering legs on the rocks.
Two for a steak a' tuna
Five for a pound a' nurse
Blue Marlin not for sale, my boy,
it's for the record books.
Jul 21, 2019
Jul 21, 2019 at 6:20 PM UTC
I’ve never heard of a dishonest leopard
Or a cheating cheetah for that matter
I haven’t spoken with a corrupt eagle
Doing things I find rather illegal
I didn’t meet with a warlord grasshopper?
Nor a giraffe being the nastiest plotter
Never seen an ethnic massacre of sparrows carried out by pigeons
Or Panda’s killing koalas in the name of panda religion
Neither did I hear a drug-dealing squirrel
Nor a cat applicant with fake referral
Newspapers never read an alligator
Acting as the river’s agitator
No birds to sink so low being the bid-riggers
Or fish terrorists pulling the triggers
These are the problems that humans face
The ultra-superior, ultimate, master-race
These are not even problems, man! Just basics
And we succeed to fail in all. Let’s face it
Being the only incompatible creature
Of the whole system, we call nature
Answer me this! Who are the irrationals?
Honestly though! Us idiots or them animals?
Apr 15, 2021
Apr 15, 2021 at 9:59 AM UTC