"seascape" poems
Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the ****
ing surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
10.8k
*Elusive moon beckons dark currents,
sand's sparkling pageantry
drifts out midst frothing tide,
submerging lover's imprints 'neath
the realm of alluring seascape illusions*
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 9:50 AM UTC
I saw the sun steep
into the seascape ―
lonely as a drowning
wave
on still-waters
the dimming of the day
rescinding evanescent daylight .
fading with the slack tide
lost at sea ―
a gloaming moment
let fall from
the remains of the day,
like some other passing
sea bird's molted feather
drifts away untamed
I sit silent as the driftwood
lingering at the watermark,
watching a random gust
erase the footprints
of another recurring day,
bearing abandoned memories
and vacant heartbeats,
atrophied in the drifting sands
and I see you walking
towards the abating
midnight sunset ―
but I know
you're just a mirage;
like the dimming afterglow
of so many waning moons
elapsed
ever-changing tides grow low
and promises made lightly
do ebb away
Scanning the distant horizon ―
a blindfold heart
mooning all at sea;
parsing a deserted shoreline,
wondering if love
is too late ,..
to stem the tide ―
harlon rivers
30 May 2018
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
it seeps like sap down the spine
this tar, or fear, or hate of mine
beads opaque and thick and full of sin
i pick and peel
but they get in
i still dream
but blue, it blurs to black
deep seascape of a tormented hand,
i bind, am bound, to the things i pretend i understand
circle of a girl
eyeing squares of man
light is the letting go
hoping you pull, forgetting you won't
each time i forget, i melt and i drip,
a bad trip.
but when i think of teeth
discerning meat from bone
alone,
i float back with loose palms,
a calm.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 9:09 AM UTC
Boy, SCUBA diving sure sounds fun-
to play in seascape soaked in sun.
I'm certified my classes done,
if only I could rent some lungs.
Apr 16, 2012
Apr 16, 2012 at 12:34 PM UTC
Annapolis (DDH 265)
decommissioned warcraft
clean severed lines
steam gusts belt
from a cavernous shell
the ghost ship settles
on a drift ridge
perfect tide rhythm
on a salt washed shore
calming nuance
in passive time
*weaving through
channels and crest waves*
white sands warming
at a high point
beyond the breakers
and porteau pins
gazers and dreamers
(and sleepy fiords)
rest softly up the straight
froth folds skim and linger
on the wide eyed
wanderers of the sound
cove seals settle
at the inlet
their symphonies
backing on the
bowen brigade
ripples and
patch makers
hold sheets to the wind
markgraf lines
find electric blue sky
stealth shadows
haunt the seascape
the dragon fly hovers
in fits and starts
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 11:15 AM UTC
Two sparks of glass dancing on the currents
like two feathers with silk stiffened by salt.
Broken bottles to the midnight seascape sent
unsteady as whispers, sharp as the cold.
I’d drift as part of chandelier like rain
be the anglerfishes’ luminous snare
to tresses of jellyfish dresses vain
as the smooth face reflecting there.
On the plateau the sand will frost our smiles
smoothing those edges to a bent jigsaw piece.
This cold Desert of ebb raked sands and fells
from the bottle’s great birth into the sea.
Making blood fire by joining sparks by hand
as others join stones in returning to sand.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
I shield my eyes
against the glare
and see the lighthouse
far distant
stand *****
beside the sleeping sea
the tired strand
where seabirds wade
children play and
parents guard their
moves and makings
. . . at my feet
the detritus of time:
tide-gathered wood,
salt-stripped,
sea-stained yet
polished by restless
turn and tilt
of the absent moon.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 3:19 AM UTC
His silence screams like a searching wind
a death-hungry spirit painted in
pallette-knived smears of
grey and fear and crimson
streaking across the night sky of his heart,
lightning-bolt ricochets striking, incinerating
the solitary oak tree of his soul,
scattering his acorns down the hill where they
are lost among the weeds,
shocked into infertility,
But he is a seascape pine,
weather-worn but razor-straight,
Gargantua in wood and steel
establishes his personal space
like a rabid porcupine,
And he is a tower,
hiding his soap bubble dream
while she brushes her hair
one hundred times
one thousand times
one million times
until the dream is
lifeless, breathless, armless
and tucked neatly in a refrigerated drawer,
As his silence screams like a searching wind.
Jun 13, 2011
Jun 13, 2011 at 2:17 PM UTC
The heat of the tequila sunrise
On the seashore of Cape Creus
Melts flaccid pocket watches,
Soft as overripe cheese;
The dreamscape's permanence dissolves
Before distant amber cliffs;
On sweet, rotting flesh termites sup;
A time fly lands.
The monstrous fleshy mutation
Across the seascape draped -
Deformed, distorted,
Disfigured with decay;
Centipede shades lash alien flesh
And sluggish tongue oozes
From the snout of the surreal
Self-spectre of Salvador's craft;
Persistence of Memory.
Jun 24, 2010
Jun 24, 2010 at 8:32 AM UTC
in my homeland,
the fishermen widows
salt their hearts
and hang them to dry.
in my homeland,
they say there is a cliff
where the moon gives
birth to the ******
and where the wind
whispers and howls
until the sails
get lost in the far.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 3:59 AM UTC
My poetry is an acquired taste,
So come, dear one,
Place your tongue in my mouth.
Pace yourself, there is so much,
Spoke and unwritten,
That fruitions only when spit-shared.
Flick your tongue-tip to mine,
Sealing bond, the salt caramel of my rhymes,
The iambic meter of my tamarind prose,
The buds, flowering, poems forming,
Watered by the admixture of joint, minted saliva.
My poetry, so very complicated,
Hints of currants and ash,
Soil volcanic, basaltic vowels, oh's and eyes,
Cursed verses that commence with I,
Nonetheless, despite soil inhospitable rued,
Compositions flourish, born wetland soluble.
Yours, for the taking,
Yours, for the tasting.
You place your fingers on my waist,
My body of work to contemplate,
My ditties, you spit out,
You want courses, not appetizers,
You want truths, not fluff, lies, menu tastings.
Columbus and Magellan, thy fingers named,
Trace the curvature of my ***
With tip and tipsy stroked caresses,
You laugh with the pleasure of all the sssssss's.
Hissing all the day your satisfaction,
Capturing my writs, by your tongue's duress,
Recipient-thief of my literary largesse.
I am dressed all in white,
Stripped bare to my native coloring,
Except for two brown nippled spots, you lick,
Imbibing milky thoughts from fountain-heads *****
Savoring, relishing, stanzas that praise love's flavor.
With every line, every word-painting accessioned,
You make my soft parts hard,
My hard parts soft, but my liquidity,
My tears, they, that, you drink straight,
Licking, liking, and oohing and ahhing,
You tongue curled, upside down arching,
The storage point of your seduced gatherings.
To drain me full, your incisors cut,
Straight lines, entry points for your *******
Taking, draining, leaving nothing,
Not even one aleph or bet escaping.
When you acquired my poetry, my verbosity,
Pillaging soul's hiding place, took and *****
Your acquired the best, breaking my nape,
Imprisoned on and by my island's seascape,
Blanched and pained, a blank tape,
I am tasteless, witless, mockingly, tongue-tied.
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
’Tween hither and thither we wended our way
skipping, dancing through sand dunes, in seascape croquet.
While woven in waves watching dolphins at play
I first tasted her lips in the ocean’s wild spray.
Mystic moonbeams, suffusing clouds’ shimmering sails,
unleashed us and whisked us down sensuous trails,
soon evoking the trills of untamed nightingales
as our passions pervaded green valleys and dales.
Being spectres of splendour in wanton sashay
we mastered our meaning in love’s matinee –
the breezes, in passing, slowed down to survey
blazing bodies embraced in youth’s blooming bouquet.
With the wind as our wings, till the Never we flew,
two gypsies, on junkets through dusk’s residue
gently floating like pollen to everywhere new,
so eluding pearled teardrops that paint the past blue.
Yes, we gamboled and gambled, two waifs led astray,
with our shackles afire and anchors aweigh –
rising higher and higher, the sun lured our sleigh,
teasing time was our temptress, night’n day after day.
Having stars in our eyes and all time as our view,
we’ve drifted, like dreamers where sprites rendezvous
and feasted on laughter and sipped morning dew
while rambling forever as one made of two.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 4:07 AM UTC
The Harbour of Le Havre;
A seascape
A perception of the heart
It’s brightest point -
Is yet diminished when deprived of colour
The canvases memorized piece
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 12:00 PM UTC
after Alexandra Leaving, a song by Leonard Cohen
<>
to go where?
to a city self-consuming in madness,
giving every excuse to stay, and yet,
it came to me just now when the poet
must be leaving his redoubt, with doubt,
and return to the concrete and anomie
of a different kind of splendid isolation
when the last leaf meanders slow down
to the battlefield, and the falling terminado,
and the tree branches are stick figures, each
finger pointing skyward in an j’accusing manner,
accussing & conceding defeat, begging for mercy,
their pleadings too much for me to bare and bury
when green has been wiped clean, and deleted
from the dictionary of colors, my moth eaten soul,
can no longer be granted a stay of execution by
merely looking at the landscape and seascape
to admire their friendly contrasting schemes,
their installation in me of the awe of a visual
quietude, that was an astonishing injection
not truly appreciated till now, too late and
still early, the awe colorations of nature’s vibrancy
The gods have come, my soul hoisted upon their
broad shoulders, the dead-appearing tree branches
can no longer keep their poet safe, hold him back from
meeting his fate; now, he too is a leaving but
floating upward, unlike like the fallen crowds that have
come to rest upon the soil that born them, now to be buried,
all saying: Goodbye Island Poet leaving,
Island Poet
has no poem, no good understanding, no vision,
had no plan, no foresight, only a hope against hope,
that safety was/is not seasonal, Van Morrison reminds,
“These are the days of endless summer,”are memories,
to be held onto tightly, until when if I pass muster, angels
will return to my island abode, where my natural friends
will greet me again, with a flowering and new births,
and The Island Poet can once again revel in ideas in words like
future, sanity, when boarding the ferry with a one way ticket smile.
Sep 2, 2024
Sep 2, 2024 at 2:23 AM UTC
There are secrets hidden between the lines of these pages
which crease like the sheets on your bed when
you turn and overturn them with a
misplaced foot or an erring hand in search of
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed after
tumultuous waves rocked the ship back and forth
back and forth across the seascape where I learned to
let go and swim good and
break to the surface gasping for
your breath infused with the aroma of imported coffee and
the lingering aftertaste of sea-weed on your taste buds between
the hidden corners of your cheeks within
the hidden corners of your mouth,
I delved deep, swam good, delved deep,
swam up and down, up and down,
until the tumultuous waves swelled up and tossed
my body back and forth, back and forth,
slamming it against solid rocks into
bits and pieces of mahogany scattered across your seabed.
Dec 31, 2017
Dec 31, 2017 at 4:27 PM UTC
Memories of the North Sea
sift in like sand kernels
on a fast, frigid tide:
events that transpired outside
the confines of rhyme,
unfolding exactly
as they were meant to.
Never before had I seen
so many shades of gray;
the overcast, monochromatic splendor
was awe-inspiring,
instead of being bleak and bleary.
___
The smell of salt and seaweed
awakes something dormant and eternal,
deep within me.
I have a surging desire
to flush stagnancy from my blood—
salty blood and water
come together in a communion
of distant relations and movements.
Beside me, a flash of bright red
digs in the sand; my child
is wearing the only vibrant colour
to be seen for many kilometres.
The colour matches her
enthusiasm and energy,
as she moves from one spot to the next
like a dancing flame;
reflected, a fire glows from my eyes.
Unknowingly, I had dressed
in the same colours of the sky and sea,
blending into the scenery
like a chameleon:
an illusion thicker than the clouds;
an illusion of stone
for me to melt and reinvent
at the spinning speed of thought.
I watch my daughter
drink the seascape with a smile of wonder;
it's her first time visiting an ocean.
With our pants rolled up to the knee,
we wade through waves,
and collect stones and shells.
She knows the chameleon
who walks alongside her in the frothy surf.
Observing seabirds cover the steep cliffs
of the island located further out,
in a blanket of black and white feathers,
I wonder if people onshore
only see a solitary dash of red out here,
or if the chameleon
is more noticeable than I had thought.
2012 North Sea Remix
December 17th, 2012
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:50 PM UTC
A deluge of earthly sins,
A waterspout on green leaves,
A hurricane among lull seas,
An equanimity of autumnal eves.
A dilated tale of mundane me.
A million abstruse blocks of C of Co²
A walker among you and me.
A wanderer lost in blue.
Attired by crimson lust of artistry.
A masquerade brew of red wine and dark coffee,
A stark blithe of sanguine comatose,
All drunk and clinging to the thin threads of this unstaged life,
All murdered by the sinical overdose.
The seascape choirs of ocean waves,
Embracing the narcoleptic yellow shorelines,
And evanescent castles
And sail headwind with a mystical concubine.
The iced conundrums of this lost forsaken echoes of winter breeze,
The insanity measured in ones & zeroes,
We're the kings of this deadbeat time,
And praised victories of unsung heroes.
The wanderlust sailors drank the skies,
In mixed cocktails,
And thy heavens sang to this night,
As a melodic madness of wild gales.
Her pale white body declares some love due,
As our lips bled rapture,
And rose a melodramatic cue,
Like words of a closing chapter.
Charged with the flow of adrenal enzymes,
A surrogate from affinity to serendipity,
For in flashback of these forlorn events,
I write this epiphany.
And though these letters are on fire,
And bestowed the bullets over armored heart,
For life exists in the heartache symphonies,
Like a stratagem cliché of painted art.
Call your unfurled knots of wrecked sanity.
A wildfire has gone wild within,
The eloquence thirst of your red lips,
Inked the words of love on this skin.
An audacious lover of seafaring,
Beside the starry onset of a beautiful dawn,
A tide of marvelous mystery,
Whose side are you on?
Its all fiction served with tea,
And through warm sips of this worthy minute,
Change is tempted to render seeds,
That swam through wind, till it escapes and wanders the infinite.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
*His eyes rivet on the extravagant evening sun,
in frenzied creation, profusely mixing colors,
applying on the canvas of the horizon,
painting her, his lover with astonishing precision,
--portrait of a girl in love
unmindful of what the world thinks about her
and in total dedication to her man.
Love makes larger than life heroes out of weak mortals,
and creates echoes on the far horizons that keep on reverberating!
She sits quietly holding his hands as if it is all she needs
never thinking, it is obvious, whether this is a fallacy or ultimate truth,
that holds good for all the changing seasons.
With her long chiseled fingers she draws
something beautiful, a motif that emerged in her mind,
in front of them, the seascape, was a lively cyclorama
framed by bright ultramarine.
Like eels just out of water, their bodies gleaming,
bikini clad glam girls, beach soldiers spearheading
an undeclared beauty attack,
on the look out for hidden challenges
while walking past the love pair,
each one stands awhile, scrutinizing her thoroughly
measuring with a scale, hidden in those eyes,
as if she was a **** on parade, even women couldn't help covet.
Though inappropriately dressed, for the beachfront appearance,
she invites more attention, she is amused.
But after a tumultuous love, and eventful elopement
she is in bliss, in her love-land with her prince
she is just ecstatic, no thought could make her shake off her composure.*
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 2:15 AM UTC
Hi there,
I say to the ocean,
dropping my shoes
for the sandy pilgrimage
to shore,
A lone figure wanders
into a Delft seascape,
Blues and whites
of Dutch perfection engulf
my field of vision,
Water and sky reflecting
back infinite shades,
the blue of stiff dungarees
at the horizon,
clouds in shaving cream white,
the heron blue gray of the shallows,
I could name twenty shades
on a good day, like today
when the beach is all mine,
I step into the cool ooze,
jolted into a sudden jig,
I hop, a riot of ah's and elbows,
Waves rush at me
like a legion of puppies,
frothy and excited,
I laugh at their sloppy greeting,
Overwhelmed by their welcome,
unconditional and salty,
Spray lapping my face
as I find my footing.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
As snow does to a fire that runs
Blue white Ophelia floats
Mad with love as magnificent as snow
And among water lilies
Star which melts away
The wind kisses her *******
Shivering willows
A nest of mad kisses
Curves of her back
In each soft corner
From violet forests
His sweet brow
On the seascape
The calm black water
Black moss embroidered
Her great veils rising
Why the goldenrod stars
Love her reflection madly
The rivers are a sail
Shadow flowers with bale
Scented twilight
A pearl sky
Jul 11, 2010
Jul 11, 2010 at 10:59 AM UTC
Another seascape.
The occasional gull
glints in a cheerful sun
against a sky
not hungry for clouds.
Everything smells of salt;
there is sea-weed
and companionable cliffs
while the backbone of distant mountains
is drowned in an azure haze.
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 7:39 AM UTC
Silhouette of her figure
Eyes like a mirror
Hair on her face
Makes the heart race
She stands alone
On the hard stone
Large waves break
On the roaring seascape
She feels content
By the cliff's edge
The moon is bright
In the dark night
She thinks of falling
But keeps stopping
She feels too deep
And dreams of long sleep
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
One legged Anne
sat in her wheel chair
by the white table
on the lawn
watching the other kids
at play
on the swing
and slide
or sitting around
playing I Spy
hey Kid
she said to you
push me out
to the beach
I can't watch this crap
makes me
want to throw up
with all this
goody two shoes stuff
so you pushed her wheelchair
along the back path way
towards the back gate
where you going?
Malcolm asked
away from you lot
as far as possible
she replied
o
Malcolm said
what will Sister Paul say?
couldn't give a fig
what she says
Anne said
push on Kid
she said
so you pushed on
along the path
I'm going to tell her
Malcolm bellowed
go kiss her backside
for all I care
she bellowed back
come on Kid
push push
so you pushed
and out the back gate
and on to the path
that led by the beach
you smelt the sea
the sound of gulls
you moved along
the path pushing
the wheelchair on
here here will do Kid
she said
pointing to an area
of beach
so you wheeled her
onto the beach
but got stuck
in the sands
ok ok here will do Kid
so you stood behind her
and stared out
at the sea
and the horizon
thanks Kid
she said
here come stand beside me
and so you stood beside her
her one leg sticking out
from the short blue skirt
the stump just visible
out of the skirt's hem
thanks Kid for being a friend
she said
that's ok
you replied
thank you for helping me
out of the bath last night
she said
didn't want those pesky nuns
getting me out
with their constant
mutterings and prayers
that's ok
you said
recalling the bath episode
she calling you in
the bathroom
sitting there
in the bath
she beckoning you over
don't shut your **** eyes
how can you see
to help me out
with your
******* eyes shut
she'd said
so you remembered
putting a hand
under her arm
and she was able
to get up and out
and said
hey bring me that towel
so you recalled
bringing the towel
your head averted
here
you said
and she took it smiling
and covered herself
and began drying
and said
ok you can go now Kid
and you left
and closed the door
behind you without
looking back
see that horizon Kid?
see the seascape?
she asked
yes
you said
well that's what I want
to be like
free and open
not some hemmed in girl
with a thousand hormones
bashing against my skull
hormones? you said
what are they?
never mind
she said
you'll know
when they kick in
and she gazed out
at the sea
her black hair moved
by the slight wind
her hands on the side of the chair
just you and she
silently being there.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 2:50 AM UTC
The simple life
It is cold;
sea spray paint the ship white,
light green
is the Nordic water,
a mighty cocktail
of clinking ice cubes.
I scratch a happy face
on the thick glass of
the porthole.
We will dock in a town
that have warm rooms
people sit around a fire
give a **** about sailor’s
miserable life.
Seascape paintings hangs
on gilded walls;
look at that sea,
so verdant,
delicate brush strokes;
the artist died at a mad house.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 5:51 AM UTC