"rowing" poems
A night owl in the harvest moon
was awake till the crack of the dawn
but wasn’t surfing online, wasn’t rowing
the boat in the digital river.
Deep down to a dreamweaving scene
that was, in musing, painstakingly creative.
Wait till you snap up a witty aphorism.
The darling buds of May will be in bloom.
The tickled pink nightingale too will
give out its voice, singing a song.
Save a copy and tweet it to all,
but do give us a demo, tell us a bit more.
Where does it shine and sizzle?
Where did the winter tuck away the rose?
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 11:43 AM UTC
my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 7:56 AM UTC
Keep rolling, like sailing, rowing the science voyage.
Discovering a new discovery, then much happens:
a new crescent, new moon on a new turn is found,
yet a night to be invented eclipses it furthermore.
Will the voyage float at the newest dark energy frontier?
Will it now pierce verily the virgin-skinned heaven’s last barrier
that divides the seen and unseen, holds the uncharted water?
Will it by design decode or recite the word, the language
the lock is coded in, the very command written on the stone?
Till then it won’t move, nor does one see the skin black or white,
and till then one won’t stop the sun lighting up the night!
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 11:12 PM UTC
The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.
Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.
Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the baby tortoise shell.
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Then twenty-four, and a tiny little keystone.
It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back
Of the baby tortoise;
Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet,
Not in stone, like the Judean Lord, or bronze, but in life-clouded, life-rosy tortoise shell.
The first little mathematical gentleman
Stepping, wee mite, in his loose trousers
Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law.
Fives, and tens,
Threes and fours and twelves,
All the volte face of decimals,
The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven.
Turn him on his back,
The kicking little beetle,
And there again, on his shell-tender, earth-touching belly,
The long cleavage of division, upright of the eternal cross
And on either side count five,
On each side, two above, on each side, two below
The dark bar horizontal.
The Cross!
It goes right through him, the sprottling insect,
Through his cross-wise cloven psyche,
Through his five-fold complex-nature.
So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.
The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvedness of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this pediment
Of all creation,
This slow one.
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Look in the mirror
Look at the clock
Look at the time
It never has stopped
It only goes forward
It's a one way walk
See how you have been growing
You ask yourself, "where have the days been going?"
Time can only progress
Yes, the river of life is always flowing
We lived cabins
And castles and caves
We came from Adam and eve
We evolved from apes
From Socrates and Homer
To Napoleon and Alexander the Great
The minds that desired knowing
And the enlightened ones glowing
People can only advance
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Revolutions and rebellions
Riots and revolts
Great discoveries
A key, a kite and a lightning bolt
Great writings and inventions
Innovations from inspiring jolts
Improvement was showing
To the future the world was going
Humanity only began to develop
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Religions and sciences
Economics and politics
Television and radio
Monarchies and dictatorships
Tanks and machine guns
Atomic bombs and battle ships
We went from arrow shooting and spear throwing
The muskets needed reloading
To nuclear weapons
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Exploring new lands
To find the world wasn't flat
To find silver and gold
And buried artifacts
To establish new territories
And expand the map
The searching ship kept rowing
As civilization went on growing
Accomplishments of the past
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Boats and rail roads
Fair trade and industry
World wide markets
Over land and sea
To keep out nations going
And stablize the economy
But now every country has money that they're owing
And the land that they're owning
Is has evolved
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Social reforms
Counter cultures fight
They protest strongly
For equal civil rights
The world's in constant change
Every day turns into night
Every opening has its closing
And then it comes back again
As long as there's someone hoping
Yes the river of life is always flowing
We put people into space
We have fought for equality
Created a world from nothing
And advanced technology
We've struggle to go to where we are
And continue to go strongly
The opportunities fate has been bestowing
We look forward to see what is ahead
The memories and mysteries the hourglass is holding
Yes the river of life is always flowing
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 2:40 PM UTC
There are rows of black birds
flying above us,
my love...
Away to foreign warm places
leaving no memories or traces -
There are rows of black birds above.
There is a strong, cold wind
howling and rowing ahead us,
my love...
The echo of a new harsh winter
like an unseen bitter creature
filling the gaps between us -
There is a strong cold wind ahead.
Am I entitled call you 'my love'?
This autumn feels too cold,
too empty to bare
this bare emptiness -
These gaps between us
like black doves
too bold and unreal to hold.
There are rows of black birds above.
They shall never see each other's faces
as they fly to foreign warm places,
While Autumn and Winter align,
without any traces
of you
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 6:54 AM UTC
My partner in crime
Always on my mind
Who I can talk to for hours with no words half the time
My anchor at sea on a ship with no sails
And the will to keep rowing where my strength may fail
While I am with you I am fearless of heights
You make me feel loved and prompt me to write
When you speak - I don't listen
I breath in your words
Exhale, look up and see a new world
One with promise
A future shining bright as the Sun
Simply knowing your Love means the world to just one
As we drink up these moments
We're running from time
Staring into your eyes
I glare back into mine
Fly north on your wings while your heart becomes colder
When we are to meet again, we wont be different - just older.
So if you ever are lonely in a town with blank faces,
Look up at the sky and count the stars in their places.
For you can bet God I'll be counting them too.
Although we may be apart, I am always with you.
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 4, 2010 at 1:16 PM UTC
A sprinkle of blue sparkle
off the lapis lazuli sky.
A throw of stars
from the full moon night.
We will take in abundance
while rowing the waves
once in the River Nile.
Hear! The crave of oars
breaching the shore.
Reaching out and close
to the pyramid foundation.
That’s scientia is pure rigid
yet so open loose.
One dozen milky ways
can hover in rhythm
over this stony knot!
That doesn’t mean
the Mintaka stars will give
up their shares at all
They will sit on the top.
Without the pyramid moving
a step from the true north.
Between this relative sublunary
and over the moon mural
if and when one spaces up.
The silent Moon takes a pause
humming the prehistoric lullabies.
With a patch of the blue sky
and a starry sprinkle from the night.
Maybe then we will take a break in
behind the closed doors of the great pyramid!
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 9:40 AM UTC
A story, a story!
(Let it go. Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plactic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyebal,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat insdie me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.
As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.
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.
T h e
F an t a s t i c
Rocking Horse
T h e Catherine
W heel The Glo w
ing Triangle The
****** The Nirv
ana The Padlock
The SlideThe Ape
The Butterfly The
Ascent to Desire
The Balancing Act
The Splitting Bam
boo The Curled A
n g e l The Bridge
The Clip The Clos
se-up The Double
Decker The Seduc
Tion The Crouchi
ng TigerThe Hero
The Dolphin Th e
Frog The Glowing Juniper The Plow
The Peg The Classic The Kneel The Reclining Lotus The Lustful L eg The Eagle The Cros
s The Rowing Boat The Star Doggy Style
The Super 8 The Bandoleer The
M a g i c Mountain
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 9:37 AM UTC
he spends his time
rowing through the
rugged, blockaded channels
of my catharsis,
the bitter staccato
of ****** habit.
his love
can be as jagged
as gashes in an
Elvis Costello record
thrown against the wall--
the frayed words of the last love song
Billie Holiday ever uttered.
he is two
exclamation points lit on
fire, kerosene pumping through
tautly wound muscles and
caressing our funny bones with
sandpaper.
he is
dulcit woodwind melodies
and jilted viola strings,
epic poetry and grindhouse theaters,
McQueen gowns and thrift store bargains,
the kiss on the forehead
and the nudge for a *******
he is a double helix.
he is the beginning
and end of every sentence.
Sep 4, 2010
Sep 4, 2010 at 3:45 AM UTC
In this river while rowing your boat
hey there ! you hasty toad
you did not check for the banks
and flowed through the ranks
the trees are not anymore
by your side like before
the birds don't sing here
no sign of land far or near
in your attention for the twists and turns
like you ignored the face and saw just the sideburns
you were driven by an unquenched thrist
you repent what you left behind, now hurt
fishes so big, in this depth, your heart is now sunken,
in search of sweet happiness you have reached the *salty ocean*
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 11:59 PM UTC
Once upon a time, a long time ago
There was a little boy with a grimy flow
I used to hear him rap in Chicago everyday
And this is what I heard him say…….
He say **** like, he be like….
Ah! and I'm a *********** biter
The size of the incises inside ya might surprise ya
You might need rewind to decipher my cyphers
Ain't nothing on this world worth more than my saliva
I go so hard when I'm flowing
So cold my flows frozen
I'm a rowboat rowing in an open ocean
And I'm hoping, to blow up with no promotion
But dam, those explosions are so slow motion
So, I need some honey bees to pollinate my money trees
Cause fuckery of companies, accompanies that come between
A couple bucks and me, turned my orange juice to Sunny-D
Hide the cash for food stamps, no way i'm funded publicly
I'm hungry, but not for sandwiches I'm ambitious
A panhandler with gram plans and last wishes
Ask for the last table scraps you can't finish
Sell em back when you digest, and I repackage it
Abracadabra, I'm an alchemist, my magic tricks are acting as contaminates
I damage this establishment
They enacted bans on urban camping
If you ask them how they sleep at night the answer is
Happily on mattresses
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
to more than I can be...
a sad isolated man,
throes of an agonizing,
stretched by her for painful
revengeful gain,
kissed with pointless avarice, divorce.
children deeming
him alienating, his faulty
insensitive sensitivities,
to easy blame
little do they know of the
piercing lowliness, the looniness of
nights he listened to sad-eyed singers,
and his late-of-mid of night scribbled scripts,
where he
off loaded the agonies of a midlife
disaster, not entirely of his-own
sown making,
but still his to bear and bare alone...
some accidents happens for unintentional,
unintended intentional new seasons appear,
stumbled, tumbled, fumbled his way onto
this H~oly P~lace, where someone might listen
to his explanations, expiations, excoriations
of his all too common tragedy, and said:
this broken human, he's got his reasons,
read his overly long treatises, his entreaties,
to those that prowl, rowing, in this corner
of the silence of the internet, where only the
trolls, the cold, the easier to-be-meaner oft thrive,
and found none of that, but an oasis of sheltering,
embracing comforting, those who actually admitted
his writings could be loved, and perhaps the writer
himself, was
deserving
of a second chance, a verbal embrace. a rereading forgiveness,
a pat
on his natback, a sympathetic sensory intaking,
and perhaps-this debt, eternal, that put the
for and the fore in a new baby born, named -
new forever
came into existence
the very same
e
that begins those conjoined words
***e~ternally grateful
"and now I sleep in peace when the day is done"
but the night time
is still the
write time
Sep 13, 2025
Sep 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM UTC
Ta-ta Norma Drainpipe
Though I never shagged you at all
You ****** the rhythm to ******* yourself
While those around you ate crow
They schlepped out of the cleavage
And they ********** into your crumpet
They ******* you on the rowing machine
And they copulated you **** your three *****
And it seems to me you tasted your *****
Like a cigarette lighter in the diarrhoea
Never knowing who to stick it out to
When the ooze congeal from the top drawer
And I would have liked to have had carnal knowledge of you
But I was just a twit
Your cigarette lighter exploded spew out long before
Your whiff never blewout
Stiffness was sticky
The gristliest fat part you ever nibbled
Hollywood cobbled together a wizzofrog
And ******** was the corkage you greased
Even when you conked out
Oh the lubricator still molested you
All the skeletons had to jabber
Was that Marilyn was ***** flashy the starkers
Ta-ta Norma Drainpipe
from the virginal wombat in the twenty—second ghetto
Who smells you as meat as above par than scatological
Olé! than frank our Marilyn Monroe
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 4:17 PM UTC
I contemplate these crossings illuminated by clouds
between a shape of thought and its veils
we didn't invent a screen-reality
it was already there, in the scriptorium of mind
I contemplate this geography known only by fingertips
unworded broken lines in tense bodies
I wonder about the lineage of tears, of hopes
how we grow old in this ardour, in the burning of bridges
I nod, I frown at the glaze of time
I move to the center of seeing like a novice
I gaze at the poliphony of being
at our Janus faced trade with flames
I say to myself it's good to decenter the "I" in this poem
however, there is no purity of words
height after height and depth after depth
we betray a simple evidence: we belong to the same air
will we regret our rush towards the malaise of thought,
will we be rowing over the theft of light?
an invisible will is building up, an antifragile declamation,
the soul's defamation
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 3:11 PM UTC
What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?
Or, coming in, to avoid the bars, and follow the channel, a perfect pilot needs?
Here, sailor! Here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,
Whom, in a little boat, putting off, and rowing, I, hailing you, offer.
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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
shore slips tangent
once each turn
and life pivots
on blade’s pull
from age’s widened spiral
we watch to find
another oar
uncertain
how to circle
back to land
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 6:26 AM UTC
I would have rowed to you
had you not rowed to me, to the city
inside our heads and outside our bodies
and one cracked knuckle was there,
the welcoming committee –
we are inside, we are inside we are in
the most delicious parts of you and me
I breathe in some scent,
fly into another sector, another crevice
thinking love does the strange things:
I would have rowed to you had you
not rowed to me – I would have
rowed to you had you not rowed to
me. And we drown in each other, baby.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 10:56 PM UTC
249
Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!
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People walk on by and only glance in my direction
unaware that I am suffering from a deep rooted infection.
For don't you see that I'm painfully dying
and in the future you'll know that I could've been saved,
all it took was a simple moment of trying
and to hear the things that I always craved.
They tell you a drowning man will drag you down
but I've always been a strong swimmer,
we can easily take on another pound
just focus on the waves surfing glimmer.
Keep going, keep rowing,
don't inhale that salty sea.
The wind's blowing, exhaustion is showing,
I'll hold you up even when you can't hold me.
People walk on by and only glance in my direction
they aren't the slightest bit shocked at my self inflicted dissection.
For I desperately need to remove my organs of rot,
these days feeling just takes too much of a toll on me,
and they're so badly damaged that no customer has bought,
even when I offered them up for free.
They tell you a drowning man will drag you under
but I've always been gifted with a swift stroke,
how I made it out this far truly is a wonder,
or maybe just another sad tasteless joke.
Keep going, keep towing,
don't you give up so easily.
The wind's blowing, pace is slowing,
I'll hold you up even when you can't hold me.
So call me Ismael 'cause I'm lost at sea,
was caught up in a current very swiftly,
and my white whale has lost all interest in me,
I guess there's some other place it would rather be,
than stuck in my sad excuse for company.
Do I glimpse land's salvation or am I just succumbing to insanity?
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 5:17 AM UTC
H arrowing abundance rife with result
O ur minds narrowly try to cope
U nder pressure facades and near **** haute
R estricts the leisure of bare beauty
G rowing impatient by the cover of makeup
L oving imperfection is now a rare duty
A ttributes of wear benign hope and
S ecede scars born of cataclysm while
S carcely inhibiting a chance to forgive them
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 11:40 PM UTC
Look at the grass grow,
look at the spirits flow,
look at the sun glow,
look at your sons go.
Look at the rip tides,
look at the grey skies,
look at the black flies,
look in your own eyes.
Look at the hurricanes,
look at those in pain,
look at the pouring rain,
look at those showered by fame.
Look at the burning coal,
look into the black hole,
look deep into the soul,
look at the world as a whole.
Corporate conquerors conquer the economy.
Seven sickos ****** with ******
Honest Al has no honesty.
Endogamy?
Some poor sinner selects to sin.
Whiny woman want to win.
Crazy killers **** their kin.
Fin?
No! Lets keep the show going!
Skies are clear, but it is snowing.
Rowing, flowing, with the stream,
is this all a dream?
A dream?
Awaken me!
I scream!
I flee...
I'm floating on a stream,
crying in a dream,
waiting to be seen,
by you.
See me,
hug me,
kiss me,
love me.
Hate me,
shun me,
as long as you loved me,
then I can die,
I can dream,
in peace.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 1:04 PM UTC