"spars" poems
This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.
19.7k
When descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda’s reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;—
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet’s soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor
That forever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate;—
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
7.2k
Rising from the sand at low tide,
The shipwreck’s spars, brown wet, decaying
Reaching like skeletal fingers, grasping
For one last piece of the breaking daylight
Tentacles of seaweed, woven
Wrapped around decaying planks
Anchoring it firmly
To Davy Jones’ Locker
Barnacle encrusted planks
Lie twisted, turned, unnatural
Frozen in a final plea of mercy
Before white tipped monsters
Crashed across the bow,
Splitting, tearing masts
Sending it to the murky depths
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.
Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,
their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.
On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.
And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds
hanging in n's in banks.
One can hear their crying, crying,
the only sound there is
except for occasional sizhine
as a large aquatic animal breathes.
In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,
while the ships consider it.
Apparently they have reached their destination.
It would be hard to say what brought them there,
commerce or contemplation.
3.7k
When I was borne
i was borne on the crest of a wave
and rocked by the cradle of the deep.
My mother is the tale
of seahorses running
chariots to Atlantis!
My eyes!
My eyes are stars
my teeth are Spars!
My hair is made
out of seaweed.
And When;
When I spitz,
i spitz tar.
I is tough,
I am,
I is,
I arggggg!
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 5:34 PM UTC
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind- with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.
2.2k
--To W. G. S.
The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean
We bowled along a road that curved a spine
Superbly sinuous and serpentine
Thro' silent symphonies of summer green.
Sudden the Forth came on us--sad of mien,
No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line:
A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign
Of life or death, two spits of sand between.
Water and sky merged blank in mist together,
The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship's spars
Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze:
We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather,
The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars,
Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze.
1.3k
To the east
To the sundered east
Of the deserted Isle
Their lies a wrack
black timbered bones
Scold clinging clams
That harbour there
In the Wrack of the Isle
As she lies down
They say
In hushed wispers
it happened
Many years ago
Men died
Or so they say
But now, no one really knows
It's all been forgotten now
Through foggy years of
Sun and Snow
And dirth the man
Who can name her
The wrack rises
To the waters
To greet the
High airs above
The darlking deep beneath
Where once there was a love
Who can say, now
When looking at the wrack
In its black longingness
That once, it was a brightened
Vessel, fine and new
Filled with laughter
And simple joys
They dive there sometimes
When the tides allow
But divers have to be wary
It's dangerous near
Wrack waters, so easy
To be pulled down and
Within, you go
And once in her shell
The air can not sustain
You, for it is
Not for breathing
Creatures
Remember the shore
They tell
The newcomers
You must remember
Where it is
To the west you
Must go, and so on....
But carefully,
The wrack will
Call at you
Softly, and slow
Breathing liquid fumes
That fill the lungs
And crush the ribs
I swam round her once
It was a heady -
Experience, all shoreline
Was forgotten
I was lured by her
Cracked spars and
Speckled beams
So beautiful
Beneath a shining sea
But I learned there
That no man may
Swim the wrack
Forever, and not forget
Deep death there awaits
And lies down
With you
In a wet grave
So be forwarned
Before you swim
The wrack of the Isle
To the East
The sundered East.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC
For many,
the first skims the cream off naivety
perhaps too swiftly.
It's frantic.
Filled with awkward urgency
to reach a milestone.
So it goes
For-evermore.
Hardly a chance to savour its parting
Too green to fathom the sway of regret.
The second spars for individuality.
Experimentation, Development
experience.
Other boxes ticked.
Lessons learned.
Rawness verses prowess
'till one bows out exhausted
and the other learns,
eventually,
how to recover
and strengthen.
Hardened,
the third treads carefully.
Logic and wisdom
balancing with basic needs.
It is more selfish
and yet, more generous.
A slow exposure.
Relaxed standards
yet, heightened self-respect.
Honesty and acceptance.
A comfortable settlement of equality.
If it does or does not last
it will be the last
either way
for many.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 7:57 PM UTC
My brother is a pilot,
Not just any old pilot...
A tail dragger pilot,
Champions
Cubs,
Super Cubs.
Planes made of spars and fabric,
Held tight
By screws
And dope,
And glue.
Airframes part wood,
Part aluminum,
Part steel.
Fuel tanks sloshing in the wings
Either side above our heads,
Set the mags,
Hand crank the prop,
Turn on the fuel,
Hear her pop
And roar to life.
We strap in
Single file,
Controls fore
And aft.
And rev 'er up
To join the winds.
Once up,
He yells, "She's yours!"
And I am piloting
Or rather gingerly sliding her
About the blue,
Skidding right or left,
Holding my breath,
Wondering how much I dare
To tip her up there in the air.
"I've got the stick!"
He yells, and I let go.
"Don't be afraid to fly it!"
"It's just a machine!"
"Make it do what you want it to do!"
And we are diving toward the ground,
Then bringing her up and tilting 'round.
"Give her fuel when you tilt to turn!"
He demonstrates, and we are standing
On the wing,
Perpendicular and looking to our left and down.
I know he's right,
That I am timid in my flight,
And he is brave with years of joy,
A pilot fearless since he was a boy.
"You want to land?"
I hear him say.
"No, that's alright!"
"Not today!"
To prove how safe it is to fly,
He touches down,
Then bounces high,
And vaults us back into the sky.
We flit across the fields,
And then,
He flies beneath the power lines,
To show how spray planes catch the ends
Of fields.
He skies the plane at either end,
Then bee lines it to the badlands' edge
Where suddenly we're swooping down
Between the canyon walls, and sinking low,
Then, rising, turning to our right,
He sails us toward sun's dying light.
My only hope is that we'll land
Before the night
Erases all our sight.
And sure enough,
The air is calm;
The night is coming on;
Gusting breezes are all gone.
We gently settle once again,
Back at the ranch,
I help wheel her then
Into her waiting hangar pen.
Life can be lived all in a panic;
Fear fills us with a lingering dread,
But we should live our lives
Just like my brother said.
"It's just your life, so make it do
Whatever it is you want it to!"
And when you're changing
Your directions, throttle up!
Don't let the fear of living
Bring you to a needless stop.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 8:25 PM UTC
Portrait d'une Femme
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind — with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
Yet this is you.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 1:07 PM UTC
Say I was a sea captain in that life.
Say I sailed a barkentine, the Eloise,
on the Azores run out of Lisbão.
I was a sea captain in that life.
I sailed a barkentine, the Eloise,
on the Azores run out of Lisbão.
I found a green disc under my bunk
and instantly knew its use.
You have taken my books.
You're no sea captain.
The color you paint your toenails
is that of weathered brass.
The salt on your neck
and in your navel tastes
vaguely impure, like spray - delicious.
Say I was a sea captain.
Say I had a dinghy named 'Alouette.'
I was a sea captain.
I had a dinghy the crew called 'Woody.'
She sang when the wind stroked her ribs
and the spars rattled. Never mind.
Never mind the night breezes off Mosquito Island,
the roll of the berth as we lay
at anchor in North Sound
plotting our run to Anegada
so you could see Pomato Point
and what the chart called 'numerous coral heads.'
That morning, with Fallen Jerusalem
to port, you said four prayers, one each
to your gods and a last one to Sunday,
which you had neglected for years.
The swell in Drake's Channel is rising.
It will rise all through the night,
and if we are not too drunk on this fine black ***
we will rise with it.
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
I've been breaking my bones trying to reshape them to make your eyes comfortable
I've been going under cognitive reconstruction to shelter your mind
I've been feeding spars flames to this piece of firewood just so I don't burn you
I will no longer dilute myself just to have the right to exist
While you flaunt all your raw intensity
Just because you have normativity holding your hand
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
In the sands now,
The castles crumble,
You are salted, breaded
Of eternity and old song how
Under the mute whine of stars
Sings a lost melody all shall
Soon enough join in corals,
The dive into the stretches
Beyond strands and untoward
What light there surely may come,
Beckon, like recurring dreams
Of fathoms yet to be discovered,
The rivers of time have slipped
You by, here riding now in tides
And driftwood under stars, sails
Moving by masted spars' rowing,
Your rude cross, commemorating,
All that was dearest, too soon lost,
The ferried bones to sea from sky.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 7:07 PM UTC
marks which never leaves
using knife cutting hands
bleeding will stop
scars will form
by tomorrow
wounds will heal
yet all those pain
and that problems
that never spars
marks which never leaves
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 6:12 AM UTC
What will happen when the fight fixing champion pugilist Falls to the ****** wearing chief? Teeth grinding and gnashing of the utmost. Hero decay in the Form of various half lifes. Truths become more powerful and evil wears like blue jean material. God has lost all rounds but won the fight.
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 3:42 PM UTC
Just let me in
Past the walls
Of your perilous fortress
The barbed wires
The treacherous spires
Won't let me in unharmed
That doesn't mean though
That I'll walk away
Because I won't
I'll just have to suffer through the aches
The scrapes
The scars
And the breaks
From the seemingly endless spars
Just open up
If only to me
I just want to see
Just open up
You can be free
I just want to help thee
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 8:53 AM UTC
My brother is a pilot,
Not just any old pilot...
A tail dragger pilot,
Champions
Cubs,
Super Cubs.
Planes made of spars and fabric,
Held tight
By screws
And dope,
And glue.
Airframes part wood,
Part aluminum,
Part steel.
Fuel tanks sloshing in the wings
Either side above our heads,
Set the mags,
Hand crank the prop,
Turn on the fuel,
Hear her pop
And roar to life.
We strap in
Single file,
Controls fore
And aft.
And rev 'er up
To join the winds.
Once up,
He yells, "She's yours!"
And I am piloting,
Or rather gingerly sliding her
About the blue,
Skidding right or left,
Holding my breath,
Wondering how much I dare
To tip her up there in the air.
"I've got the stick!"
He yells, and I let go.
"Don't be afraid to fly it!"
"It's just a machine!"
"Make it do what you want it to do!"
And we are diving toward the ground,
Then bringing her up and tilting 'round.
"Give her fuel when you tilt to turn!"
He demonstrates, and we are standing
On the wing,
Perpendicular and looking to our left and down.
I know he's right,
That I am timid in my flight,
And he is brave with years of joy,
A pilot fearless since he was a boy.
"You want to land?"
I hear him say.
"No, that's alright!"
"Not today!"
To prove how safe it is to fly,
He touches down,
Then bounces high,
And vaults us back into the sky.
We flit across the fields,
And then,
He flies beneath the power lines,
To show how spray planes catch the ends
Of fields.
He skies the plane at either end,
Then bee lines it to the badlands' edge
Where suddenly we are swooping down
Between the canyon walls, and sinking low,
Then, rising, turning to our right,
He sails us toward sun's dying light.
My only hope is that we will land
Before the night
Erases all our sight.
And sure enough,
The air is calm.
The night is coming on.
Gusting breezes are all gone.
We gently settle once again,
Back at the ranch,
And I help wheel her, then
Into her waiting hangar pen.
Life can be lived all in a panic.
Fear fills us with a lingering dread,
But we should live our lives.
Just like my brother said.
"It's just your life, so make it do
Whatever it is you want it to!
Feb 26, 2021
Feb 26, 2021 at 12:56 PM UTC
TLACAELEL [to audience as spectators]
Hear ye! Of these five games, his majesty
The emperor has won the first two rounds,
And Hungry Prince has crowned the third and fourth.
Who takes this final set will clinch the match.
HUNGRY PRINCE [aside to Motecuhzoma]
Motecuhzoma, why not call it quits,
While thus we tilt in equilibrium,
So time may be arrested in his stride,
And nothing will be proven to your loss.
MOTECUHZOMA
Oh yes, well, well you should prevaricate,
Since you recoil, and your horoscope
Is but a bunk, evasive, spurious sham.
HUNGRY PRINCE
We used to sport like willful brothers once.
This pointless schism scathes me to the core.
MOTECUHZOMA
Play on! Your grace, equip him for the serve.
PRIEST OF TLALOC
Behold this little token of a ball-
Through this ordeal, symbolic of the sun
When- swallowed nightly by the earth’s dark mouth-
He spars with demons of the underworld,
To birth anew at dawn. So does this sphere,
Across the blood-bathed flagstones of this court.
Regard it so. The gods assort you both.
To one: bask in divine approval’s nod,
The other: dark ignominy. Engage!
He throws the ball to HUNGRY PRINCE. MOTECUHZOMA and HUNGRY PRINCE leave the stage separately.
TLACAELEL
A solid serve.
PRIEST OF TLALOC A capital return.
TLACAELEL
These salt-and-pepper gents belie their age.
Look how they swoop, like eagles bloody-beaked.
PRIEST OF TLALOC
Our monarch springs, a glistening dynamo.
TLACAELEL
And his contender sheds years as he runs.
Tell me, your eminence,
What are your sentiments on Hungry Prince?
PRIEST OF TLALOC
Though not a brilliant statesman, he remains
The most perceptive prophet of the earth,
With whom the gods must share their captain’s logs,
His auspices so rarely miss their mark.
TLACAELEL
You’d buy his soothsaying?
PRIEST OF TLALOC I'd say I would.
TLACAELEL
That’s to the heart of this imbroglio.
PRIEST OF TLALOC
What is the real dispute, then, of this duel?
TLACAELEL
You’d know their true contention?
PRIEST OF TLALOC Tell me.
TLACAELEL So . . .
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
Wish we were the stars we always knew,
Wish we had the spars we kept due,
Wish we didn't end up like we have now,
Shouldn't have crossed the line,
Broken the unsaid vow.
My Alter Ego.....
You had secrets you told lies,
You jumped to conclusions; That wasn't wise,
You still proclaimed you loved me didn't you?
Now you're empty, you're all alone,
Still haven't apologized but shouldn't you?
My Companion.....
Were you involved, this wouldn't have happened,
Were you caring, our relationship wouldn't have dampened,
Were you sensitive, you could've felt my pain,
Nevermind nothing's gonna change now,
For I'm now left with this permanent blain.
The Patriarch.....
All is said and done,
All I want back is that downright fun,
All the endless moments would never part,
Your loss can never be restored,
It's still the missing piece of my heart.
My Hound.....
Here I'm done, I have nothing more to say,
Here I'm quiet, right on my way,
Here goes the last breath I'll ever breathe,
Wish we could've made amends before I leave,
Well at least from my side I sheathe.
Myself.....
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 4:23 PM UTC
I once had a special friend at school,
His name was Daniel Hare,
He would dream through maths and geometry
For his mind was never there,
I would nudge him in the ribs each time
That the teacher turned to look,
And slide my hand across, to turn
To the right page, in his book.
He’d get this distant look in his eyes
And slump back into his seat,
And tell me then at the break, he’d been
In Ireland, digging peat,
He’d roam the great Canadian Plains,
Was there at Austerlitz,
And hid in a London cellar with
His mother during the Blitz.
The only subject he really loved
Was the study of history,
And then he’d sit on the edge of his seat
Enthralled at the mystery,
But Physics, Maths and Biology
He said, was leaving him cold,
He’d rather be there with Francis Drake
On a search for Spanish gold.
We went our separate ways, of course,
I didn’t see him for years,
Then came on him in a boarding house
Where he’d suffered some reverse,
His life, he said, was a shambles, he
Could never hold down a job,
His mind had continued to wander
From Berlin, and to Cape Cod.
His eyes were sunken, his skin was grey
I noted his sallow cheeks,
‘I dream too much in the day,’ he said,
‘And I just can’t get to sleep.’
I walked with him in a lonely cove
Where the moonlight shed its beams,
‘I need to find me a ship,’ he said,
‘And sail to the Port of Dreams.’
I asked him why he never had met
And married a local girl,
He said he’d met a girl in his dreams
But she didn’t live in the world.
‘She waits for me on the other side
Of a wide and windswept Bay,
Not in this life of broken dreams,
She leaves at the break of day.
A week went by and a storm came in,
He wasn’t there by the stove,
I made my way in the pouring rain
Where his footsteps led, to the cove,
I found him sat, his back to a rock
With a wild, unseeing stare,
And knew he’d gone to follow a dream
As the sea spray soaked him there.
For out in the bay a Barquentine
Had pitched and tossed in the storm,
A ghostly lantern hung from the mast
As the spars and the timbers groaned,
A figure clung to the foredeck yards
And waved as the wind had screamed,
While the barque turned west where the sun had set
And sailed for the Port of Dreams.
David Lewis Paget
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 11:09 PM UTC
In the sands now,
The castles crumble,
You are salted, breaded
Of eternity and old song how
Under the mute whine of stars
Sings a lost melody all shall
Soon enough join in corals,
The dive into the stretches
Beyond strands and untoward
What light there surely may come,
Beckon, like recurring dreams
Of fathoms yet to be discovered,
The rivers of time have slipped
You by, here riding now in tides
And driftwood under stars, sails
Moving by masted spars' rowing,
Your rude cross, commemorating,
All that was dearest, too soon lost,
The ferried bones to sea from sky.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 9:23 PM UTC
Predicting the unpredictable,
that's not on the timetable,
dressed up to the nines
at
sixes and sevens when
Siouxie's with the banshees
and
screeching in my ears.
it takes me back to punk rock
smoking barrels and the lock stock,
crocodiles and tears they cry,
I spy
but nothing much.
Stripping down the skyline
revealing underneath,
racetracks up in Hampstead
horses on the heath.
Trams and Trolley cars
rotting hulks and broken spars
time delivers everything
if we
have the time to wait.
Far from nothing clear
when the night falls quiet
with the morning near,
the cat prowls proudly
tail *****
one dead sparrow
and she
a likely suspect.
when it's all a matter of degree
and gas mark seven is all I see
because the microwave has
waved goodbye
come the crocodiles and
the tears they cry.
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 7:19 AM UTC