"schooners" poems
Big ships, small ships, yachts and dingeys
Floating across the mighty sea
Carving their way, displacing their weight
To keep afloat the Captain and First mate.
Old ships, new ships, schooners and cruise liners
Have crossed paths throughout the ages old
Once to explore, make claim, pirate and fight
Now to wine and dine on a luxurious bite
Salted beef, rock hard bread and weevil-friendly biscuits
A 3 course meal fit for Old Salts alike
Weevils & worms and bugs of all kind
Along with sparse portions of meat, you might find
French wine, filet mignon, sushi and pastries
Buffets and fine dining, variety is key
All you can eat, whenever you'd like
No chores, no work, just eating all night'
What a contrast exists between these two worlds
Only 2 to 300 hundred years apart
Once grimy, risky, arduous and fraught
Now fancy, lazy, and much to be bought
What if the Old Salts could teleport to today
And live aboard our floating hotels?
With no masts to climb or sheets to tend
Would they break or would they bend?
I suppose that switch would be easy enough
But send us back to Pirate-ridden waters
You'd be sure never to hear from us again
Swabbing the deck would **** us alone
Not to mention the food and disease of back when.
- BPW
Dec. 11, 2013
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 4:29 PM UTC
Our house is full of ships. A painting on each wall.
Some schooners, racing single sails,
18th century warships, some American,
some French, most British
and captained by Nelson. There are fishing boats,
less although, they're lining the staircase
leading down towards the basement.
The bathrooms house small
single frames, big enough to fit in your palm.
Maybe 25 portraits or so. All of them going fast,
the water rushing beneath the bow,
cutting through black-blue waters.
These were painted, hand-drawn and hung
by my father. Now a financial advisor. And cold.
But underneath, I know, still loving.
I haven't seen his brushes, his paints.
But he drew these boats years ago.
And I can't stop thinking,
every-time I **** wash hands or ****
about the artist he was and why paint these ships.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 1:44 PM UTC
The misty firmament above in the hours before the rising sun,
Swirls patterns deeply etched into the grey sky,
Windy realm of night with its soaring echoes,
A play of wind, clouds and dancing moonlight,
The spirits of the ages play, spread across the invincible night,
They play unseen, yet fill the Arcadian meadows with their presence,
To the wind, they vow a burning promise,
To the night, their unquenchable energies,
In the windy sea sky, adrift with misty cloud schooners,
The season of the Solstice sweeps her glowing gown,
Drawn by oceanic breezes,
Her midnight tempest spawns vaporous clouds across the gloomy moors,
Her Druid song haunting the moonlit fields,
This swirling mirth of darkness strips the tired senses spellbound in these seasons of the night.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
Pain in the thighs
from the endless straddles
Pin ****** in the ribs
from a poorly made white willows dress
All are things much desired by a pudgy adolescent female
A garment of ill conceived freedom
An illusion
Of frolic in utopia
It was just a small gate way to the mud caked feet
And into the auto eclipses
Of stargazing zombies
Those still relied on vintage kaleidoscopes
All Full of cracks
See in her bleeding ignorance
the shores still remained open
Turquoise schooners unleashed
The tree tops were still aching to be claimed
Reincarnated as a paradise for attractive drifters
Not even the all mouth beasts
can contain her patented enthusiasm
The straw huts break for assembly
under a tiny hand
Too bad the cracks have been secured
The air was kept to boil
and stain the linoleum
Echoes of a puritan called to action
The streams soon hardened
to form plastic shelving
And the orange flowers collapse
to form packing materials
Onto the plastic shelving is were we placed the books
The books that know that freedom
is just copy right infringement
And life is a micromanaging instruction
Designed to make workers eat their own demise
Grid-less prosperity
cremated in the corner of a starter home
Only an anthropologic mistake
Meant to ward of a mass pandemic of sudden infant death syndrome
The pudgy filled girl,
The comedic car and the overproduced dress
They will learn the value of a hot meal and a good ********
The dreamers almost stole her away
in their patchwork parachute
But we sent her away to Universidad
And the world is her worthless cluster ****
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 8:59 AM UTC
The first love for me
It was always the sea.
Being lovingly caressed
Being slowly undressed
By the deep oceans call.
Being caught as I fall
Into Kingdoms below.
Where I flow
Into gleaming ravines
Into Davy Jones dreams.
And on the network of tides
I slide into rides
And slip into waves
Of mermaids and slaves.
I glide upon stallions
Sail in lost galleons
And float in with the breath
Of those swallowing death.
As the seafarers are pounded
As schooners are grounded.
And sink into the deep
In silence they keep
The first love for me
It was always the sea.
John Smallshaw 2011.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 7:10 AM UTC
The first love for me
It was always the sea.
Being lovingly caressed
Being slowly undressed
By the deep oceans call.
Being caught as I fall
Into Kingdoms below.
Where I flow
Into gleaming ravines
Into Davy Jones dreams.
And on the network of tides
I slide into rides
And slip into waves
Of mermaids and slaves.
I glide upon stallions
Sail in lost galleons
And float in with the breath
Of those swallowing death.
As the seafarers are pounded
As schooners are grounded.
And sink into the deep
In silence they keep
The first love for me
It was always the sea.
John Smallshaw 2011.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 7:10 AM UTC
*Honeysuckle carrier churning the spring-
river caladium
Easterly shear delight beyond Dresden blue visage
Windy dream mermaid sea , Brown Pelican motion
Harper Chickadees stirring Pineapple sage-
banks of thought
Tempered , smitten , physical piedmont devotion
Pisciform schooners roaming wits damask ocean*
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 3:43 PM UTC
Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut,
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door
To give their summer jackets to the breeze;
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar
Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;
Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift
Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift
Lightly among the islands of the deep;
Islands of lofty palm trees blooming white
That lend their perfume to the tropic sea,
Where fields lie idle in the dew drenched night,
And the Trades float above them fresh and free.
1.3k
some days i write
rafts and barks,
kayaks and corricles.
some days, a mere log,
set hopefully upon the water.
some days, dories and yachts
pinnaces, sloops, ketches and tugboats
on rare occassions,
great two and three masted ships,
schooners and galleons
filled with treasure..
more often scows, punts
and barges,
work man like and useful,
but not alway pretty
all painstakingly,
crafted...
with planks of words
nailed together with punctuation...
and caulked, with my soul...
sanded down by thought
polished, oiled and varnished,
with love...
then i set my sails,
my inspiration,
to the mast of poetry
and push off....
into the great white yonder....
hoping my xebec...my catarmaran, my dinghy...
my log...
will find a fellow waterman....
sailing, on this...
the ocean of words.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 2:57 PM UTC
when the leaves are turning red,
time is rife with parting words
as we say goodbye instead
of hello to fleeting birds,
and the schooners out at sea.
time is rife with parting words.
hidden in the poetry,
of the gypsy butterflies
and the schooners out at sea.
then return with stronger ties,
to the pattern in the wings
of the gypsy butterflies.
an imagination sings,
bland acoustics of an ode
to the pattern in the wings.
branches creaking secret codes
when the leaves are...
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC
‘I used to work for the council here,’
Said ‘Ripper’ Jones at the bar,
Fortified with a Beam or two
And a pint of the best, Three Star,
Trelawney winked at the barman and
The barman, he winked back,
‘We’re in for another ripper yarn,’
Said the bearded Cousin Jack.
‘They always gave me the ***** jobs,
It was always just my luck,
They’d point to me, say, ‘Ripper’s free,
Break out the tipper truck!
You know, that beast with seven gears
But only three of them worked,
The brakes were non-existent, and
The Foreman, he was a ****
‘We used to call him Father Time
He was always on the prowl,
Calling time to the Smoko breaks
With an ever present scowl.’
He said, ‘Pick up that giant rock
In the Commer Tipper Truck,
The ocean’s sprung a giant leak
And we have to seal it up!’
‘It took us a crane to lift this rock
It was seven feet across,
‘This mother has to be fifteen tons,’
Said my mate, crane driver Ross.
‘What did he say you need it for?’
He yelled, in a sort of screech,
‘I have to drive it down to the shore,
There’s a great big hole in the beach!’
‘The Commer sank right down on its springs,
This rock, a hell of a load,
I had to drive it in second gear
With the tyres flat on the road,
I finally made it down to the shore
And thought, ‘I must be a mug!’
The sea was circling round the hole
Like a bath when you pull out the plug.
I had to wait for an hour or two
‘Til it emptied out the bay,
All you could see was a dry seabed
For a mile or so, each way,
Then I drove the truck right up to the hole,
Thinking to tip it in,
When a giant geyser of steam shot up,
The sea was turning to steam.’
‘You know what the brakes on that truck were like,
They hadn’t been fixed for years,
I thought I’d better get out of there
Or it all would end in tears.
But the truck rolled forward, over the hole
And began to sink right in,
While I climbed out of the window there
Determined to save my skin.’
‘The truck sank down, under the rock
And it plugged that head of steam,
You could barely see the tip of the tray
When the tide came rolling in,
And that’s the rock you go fishing off,
You can say it was down to me,
While you were throwing your schooners back
I was out there, saving the sea!’
David Lewis Paget
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 2:18 AM UTC
Why you...angel--why you...to peep through
the finality of white walls?
To overspread the concussed skull that bangs
against them to keep time...why you?
Why were you born against a spillage of air
in a freefall of wings?
Nothing...absolutely nothing... between your
wings, save for what you will embrace in that
freefall...why you?
Schooners rounding earth's violet aura--
dissolving into the transcontinental bestiary
of souls...why you?
You are what shone through the breakage
of humanity--you are the emanation of our
breakage...why you?
You...legions of you...fence the Romantic's
chimerical stead...only to retain the character of
what implants itself face first...as so you.
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 1:05 AM UTC
sending you the wind in my hair, and highways
lit up so bright at night that you feel like a movie
star, and you gotta wear your cheap shades
at midnight just to get through Circus Ville
machine dreams, big rigs, perfect coffee hot
& fresh, god bless truck stops,
buy a fluffy key chain,
three pounds beef jerky, ride all night
out into the hand-painted desert
where you know you don't belong
when the rocks turn into freighters & sail over you
like pirate schooners in the coming dawn,
& the price of your awe is more than you can afford
so you laugh, step hard on the gas, turn it up
dylan rasps out some ****** tempest tunes
all you can think of is how pure this air
he's singing about scarlet town, where you
were born, and you try to understand, but
feel it instead
because there is where you were born
listening for twining leaf & thorn
casting out for clues, in the blue vastness
of his voice in your husband's old bmw
racing through towns to nowhere
listening, breathing, playing a few rounds
of some game inside your hollow point head
before the sun comes back to the huge cacti
eats your eyes, swallows this plain
we love the feel of highway beneath us
wind everywhere, touching us in places
we need to feel something
all-american something about the car
indulgent as some old rock song
I still love, like my sharona, I am
helpless
hopeful
driving
no resist in me for you,
pulls me in every time
road and wind and that
beat
let's g-go, speeding
my lovely engine,
my sweet machine
stutter it to me
car shaking
shudders
my *****
336 miles to go
tonight
time to
ride
~a~
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 9:20 PM UTC
The Temptation
The girls in the bar that had floors made of
Stranded schooners timber came and sat by us
Many sailors had drowned here
On their way to Saragossa Sea their blood had
Run in the cracks on the floor
Drip, onto the sea below the colour of crimson
I looked into her eyes an evil goddess with
Green eyes yet I followed her to the rooms at the back
And she laughed when she caught me.
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 8:11 AM UTC
On the morrow of Monday
My Spanish to be switched
For I had hated Mrs. Bastida
With much and many a bliss
Walked I did
Right out of her class
Walked I did
Simply to make a switch
To my surprise I was obliged
To reconfide with the bristles and brush
To Mrs. Cacase I went!
Will to switch my motive was
To the first day
Let it be to which I sat
At a table with two
People of which
That I thought I only knew
For there was a freshy
Well maybe more than a few
But this freshys eyes
Glittered of acrylic blue
Her hair warped
Whipped as she moved
Like ***** blonde waves
That could warp a schooners powerful colored wood
There she sat
The Lines she drew
Straight to a spiral
Then a colorful a splash to go
Talked she did
Attention only grew
For she bewildered me
Her name was Briana
Briana Dampson was the one I knew.....
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 3:53 PM UTC
*Water birds are flying into the western sun ,
the pool bar opens with Kentucky bourbon
The crystal telegraphing ocean turns
ever mysterious and more mesmerizing with
every shot
The canopy ***** with fifteen knot gust
Salt water pretzels and crap dip are a must ,
Long Island Iced Teas and ****** Mary's ,
Sweetwater brew , stuffed jalapeños with
a local yocal strumming the blues
The greatest generation mingles with the baby
boomers , like the shrimp boats , the yachts and the
wooden schooners* ...
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 7:00 PM UTC