"shanghaied" poems
*What would I give for a nook and a book
to cuddle and snuggle and longingly look
the pages unfolding as I listened to
the babbling song of a fast flowing brook.
Oh, if it had pictures, a faraway place,
mysterious villains, a dark alley chase
I’d pick up the phone I’d call in sick
disappear in the mist, leaving no trace.
What would I do to be captured by words
impressed into service by pirates with swords,
adrift without wind, current silently slow
half crazed crew pacing the sun-baked dried boards.
Perhaps of an evening a stroll on the beach
salt, surf, and moonlight on ebony skin
passion full sated on cooling soft sand
last dream of the shanghaied seagoing men.
What would I give for a storybook nook
I’d offer it all the time that it took
to take me away to wherever it would
leave me enraptured by a murmuring brook.*
Oct 2, 2017
Oct 2, 2017 at 9:18 AM UTC
Here I am
by the sea
Shanghaied
from the mountains
a long ways
from loving
let the record read
I'm ****** if I don't
and ****** if I do
and let the moon
hide in my boot.
Feb 13, 2017
Feb 13, 2017 at 9:27 PM UTC
Women are a gateway;
a path and goal unto themselves,
you know this as I.
They are our way into this world
and out of ourselves.
If you are not careful
some pretty eyes and a tempting form
will sweep you up;
sure as shanghaied,
to worlds and lives
you never dreamed.
After its over
you will pick yourself up;
and withdraw inside,
to lick your wounds and cry.
Then one day...maybe while you're gardening
you will look up and think...
What was that all about?
And get on with your life.
But then a pretty smile and a tempting form
will beckon and off we go again,
sure as shanghaied.
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 10:28 AM UTC
I said it was not meant for me,
But what did I mean?
For any youth, any love,
Whose prey who might be,
On whom you’d lean,
In your semi-corseted skirt,
Or dressed full fig.,
Stalking into town,
Shocking men in wigs,
Luring them into false love,
As others had been?
Would you capture me,
Chaining my soul to your heart,
So I must carry on playing
At your command?
I see your dress under the piano,
And your boots and pantaloons;
The piano is not my voice,
Though you insist it is.
I shot a drunken man for you,
Which made me more your slave.
You woke urges I suppressed,
Too strong for one so frail.
With words you pushed me
But caused music to pour
From me as love did.
A storm of disapproval raged all round
Our Paris nest of love and art,
You came and went like a soldier, shielding us,
And at home you urged me on,
To impromptu inventions,
Yet causing us to depart.
Packed into a cabochon,
You shanghaied me,
Away to Majorca
And the wintry sea.
Your searing love and the island’s cold
Were too much for me,
And I escaped with my art.
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 8, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
I came and then I came to
And all those things I said about you
About me
Maybe that's why I'm here
He thought, while the darkness around him swallowed him both physically and spiritually.
Tonight didn't end quite like I thought they would
Endings taking the form of sea men being shanghaied into the nearest boat
No alcohol this time
Just pure ambition, or the lack thereof
Writing is the only thing keeping me up
That and spiritual distress brought on by the royal we, man
[insert pop-culture reference]
Unsure if you'll read something that was truly meant or me
{
And the hypocrisy that I find when lambasting someone for using the Internet as their diary, when I do the same, but cleverly disguise it as poetry
}
This is block text with no form.
There is no rhyme scheme nor is there timing.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 2:37 AM UTC
Resolved to stand alone
unto thyself,
filched hearts shatter dreams
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
If I were Newland Archer
What would I now do with my love?
Would I torment her, ask impossible things,
Surrender to her irrational command
And let the others make my future plans?
Oh no! My beloved Ellen was wrong!
To think that I could stay the course,
That marriage could end like a closing door,
And leave the future in May’s serpentine hands.
This time, if such a chance were given me,
What would I do to make safe our love?
I would give up all I had thought so dear,
My frivolous books, effete pursuits, so she could be near.
I was unworthy, the first time, I know.
I consented to her feeling that I must go.
But now I would re-arrange my life, dare any disdain
Just to kiss her wrist in unfounded faith.
Would I again leave my Love if told to choose?
No! I was weak before, thinking that I had no chance.
Yes, oh, yes! How could I ever bear to lose
My Ellen and our enchanted dance?
I know I have wronged those who trusted me,
But don’t blame the unwitting authoress of my woe!
For it was my own frailty that blinded me,
My disregard for those things that
Any man with a heart should know.
I see now that if to May’s wish I did not bend,
She would see my surrender was great to me but small to her,
She would find another, as resolute women do under duress.
And instead of a false life, Ellen, I could be alive with you!
-------------------------
Written if Newland Archer (of the novel "Age of Innocence") had listened to no one and abandoned not only the wife who shanghaied him into domestic servitude, but his own priggish insistence on doing the “right” thing for the wrong reasons.
Semi-finished, June 19, 2011
Sharon Talbot
Mar 28, 2019
Mar 28, 2019 at 11:35 AM UTC
For a long time
I've been dreaming
of being the younger me
my heart leaning
into those dangerous places
like the wheels on a road grader
Nights to remember
seeing big lips in the moon
blowing its black and bad sax
Dreams of night sweats
and my lost loves
dancing in the fields
where the moon, a white cow
goes to chew her cudd
Dreams deep in other cities
and towns where photographs
all signed love are slipping
out of the frames of many mirrors
Dreams of an old soured pillow
waiting for its case to be called
shanghaied by the cold sea
a long ways from the mountains
where I once found young love
Dreams of a storm coming
still many miles away
hearing the wind in the trees
The thunder wakes me
like a backfire on a moonshine
run with two trembling fingers
finding me riding shotgun.
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 6:50 PM UTC
I put a face on to make a place on the night shift for me, but the darkness sees through me into the shadows that await me when the morning breaks into my door.
**** it
I'm sore, been beaten and shanghaied,
cried out to my God and
he did not want to know.
Below me
Beelzebub
in a hot tub
I'm dripping while God's
ripping the contract
apart.
All heart or he could be
if we all believed in the
final solution,
E=Mc
and it's
finally
Squared.
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 4:46 PM UTC
The great divide
religious fanatics
cause it to grow wide
in the name of their god
think they're saving your hide
when in all honest truth
all they do is misguide
The great divide
separates families
groom against bride
splitting up marriage
conversation gets snide
from their stubbornness
that's based on their pride
The great divide
the different beliefs
relationship fried
run aground on the reefs
partners have cried
days together are ending
as this trauma takes them broadside
The great divide
organized religion
cause folks to take sides
rather than bond
total lives are shanghaied
and still they aren't seeing
that the great divide as always has lied
Jul 5, 2015
Jul 5, 2015 at 9:35 PM UTC
______________________________________
I knew when you came here
The truth would reveal
A thousand misgivings, a million appeals
Your words a disguise now
For actions concealed
And I left to wonder
Are you false?
Are you real?
Your warmth and conviction
When telling your lies
Shanghaied my logic
Bedazzled my eyes
A dozen maneuvers
Outsmarted my questions
A game long since honed
Via force and deception.
I could not be strong
When under your spell
I knew what the truth was
But I wouldn't tell.
And as you continue
Your seductive denial
I can’t help but wonder
At your own heart beguiled
Into a dream
Of no longer knowing
Which is reality and where is the scheme
But I cannot judge you
Nor seek to condemn
For I was held captive
By more than you knew.
What drew me and kept me
Was more than a con
But a hope for your truth
To finally shine through.
You are for the most part
A man in disguise
Yearning to impress
Fearing reprise
The light is within you
And its you who's not free
You can’t let me love you
You're unable to see
There’s nothing to fear here
It’s real
I’m me.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 5:55 AM UTC
You use your propaganda as
if it's played like watching cricket
from an old pavilion and you
sat on the verandah
with a pink gin in your hand
all that's missing is the marching band and that can easily be fixed just like you fix the things we need, we read, the horseflesh we don't want to feed on but as long as its propping up the state
we're well conditioned to that.
You told me there was Shangri-la, another lie,
shanghaied I'm taken off to be
reformed in the reformatory
But the cracks begin to show
tarnishing your crowns of gold
diminishing that glow of
self righteous satisfaction
the factions within factions are
the ones you need to fear
the time to strike is almost here
and can you hear the bells ring freedom?
see them?
I can.
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
studious skinny scruffy scribe
Scathing, scolding, screaming,
scorning, searing, sniggering,
sociopathic sarin soaked skewed
squirt, sputtering, squawking, sleepily
staggering, stabbing, swaggering
sweltering sadistic, sarcastic,
savage, systemically systematically
stigmatized, supersized saber sharp
schick shaving, shunned, sabotaged,
scarred, scorched, smote, sanguine,
stippled, speckled schizophrenic
sensibility, spurring, seething,
somewhat stultified, sophisticated,
spellbound spirited scabrous
schlemiel schlemazel, stenciled,
sundered sniveling sanguine storied
snakebitten sojourning ********
skeptical shoddy sophomoric
screwball, subtly sagacious,
stunted, sclerotic, scrappily
shuffling short, Shylock
styled sideburns Semite,
sainted Shasta sipping
shriveled sad sack,
sullenly syncopated, synthesized,
slobbering sybaritic, scruffy
sheepish sketchy scalawag,
Socratically scrutinizing, seizure
stricken, stoically sneezing,
shamed Skidrow skeezer, shifty,
sweaty, sham shaman,
supremely spidery, schmaltzy,
sylan seeking subsidized succor,
self shuttered, sequestered,
sidelined, shiftless, shabby,
semantically snazzy, soldiering,
shrieking, skulking, somber,
stooping, Segway scootering,
schmart spendthrift, Swahili
speaking, straitlaced, streamlined,
spongebobbing, sandal shod
sealegs, squarepants sporting
spectacles, sedate, sensate,
sentient, ship shaped,
shanghaied, salubrious,
slithering, snakish, stuttering,
sluggish, smashface scarred,
sober, solitary, sangfroid
skidamarink singing, Shamokin
speaking scrivener, scuzzy,
spunky, starved, submissively
suicidal, sunburned,
salaried shuffling senescent
snoutish soundcloud shutterflying
snapchatting schnorrer.
Sep 1, 2019
Sep 1, 2019 at 4:32 PM UTC
I've coughed up ***** of pill soaked cotton,
every morning.
Everynight it's like there should be shows on tv showing how rough life is.
But it's not,
it's a business that's built a cathedral
and stitched ups sides of all the folks that were lied to.
In order to stay true
to nihilism and anarchy
it occured to me
that the final way to stay in my lane is my sitting my ***
in hot sad littered with lizards and all the water in my upcycled big gulp cup.
It *****
And I'm scared.
Because they took my stray away, and with out lids, it the woods,
i can't keep the ice to stay cold in my drink.
It's the first inkling of poor people killing for schillings of basic disposal needs,
but the rich folks greed will instill into us
landfill thinking.
Like we're supposed to be sinking on the ship we were shanghaied on.
Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 1:31 AM UTC