"swash" poems
tented World of Bubbles and
critters, monkey-wild,
the slant-
off,
the fathoms of a depth,
of Worlds whose histories end
in a fraction of what nature does do.
Amola mola, designator
a bulb of light dangling down to the nauticals,
the bubble armoured polyps.
The lively cesspool of micro-seamounts, where,
once there stood strong
a sea-green zoo,
now vaguely stands a mineral vestige.
Gaia shut off the vent
everyone goes away.
visited by wraiths --
These black lampreys, hooded and veiled,
clustering, cloistering,
the successors who
they and they only
the new deepsea robbers.
now a lighter sinking feeling,
the demigod sinks hitherto like nature does do.
a giant ***** whale dies above
Casting its shadow of hope
and the wraiths appear in the umbra
pushing & shoving for a spot
food arrives with a thud;
a castle of whale bones as their home
they were never so happy.
so crazily, thoughtlessly food-driven
deepsea "things"
swish-swash swish-swash goes the weird fish circus,
and then, crazily so
upon their trophy, the mirror wraiths,
of a bubbled World
feed in frenzy.
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 11:23 PM UTC
on evenings such as these
everything inside of me
finds a mirthful memory
to indulge in its revelry
on evenings such as these
my heart hitches a ride
with these soft winds
that barely make their presence felt,
and soars towards the last
swash of the orange sea
on the horizon
evenings such as these
are when
i wait
for you
to find
me
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
02.02.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 9:48 AM UTC
Barry’s dead.
I saw you dying weeks ago;
An oyster shell turned empty can,
Scrumpled up and finished
By the past’s magnet attraction
In your shakey hands.
It’s just a habit now and you can hardly kick yourself.
Buckets of Grolsch:
My swash-buckling hero
Turned slosh-slurping zero once again
And shiny surfaces
Never suited you.
Scrub away at that black demon matter
With the sole white spirit
Your genius affords. A shattered socialist
Posy primrose ******
That’s the story of your life –
All
most
man.
Now beneath the cowslips
And the heifer’s hooves,
Your saintly-thorny words without a roof:
But who will speak for you?
And trawl the depths
As you once did in youth?
Prizing open oysters…
I hope that where you are
Your silence brings relief.
I hope that where you are
You smell the borage breeze.
I hope that where you are
There’s ox-cheek for tea
And your carbonated past
Is carbonating in mute peace.
Tonight the argent stars
Are dulled in disbelief
Tonight the slate that you’ve carved
Is the hardest you will teach.
Tonight the tumblestones
Are falling down in grief:
For Barry’s gone to rediscover Pearl
And the beauty of her peace.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 4:40 AM UTC
Apon one stormy cold night,
the stars came out to stay,
as the moon lit up the sky and the sailors sailed away.
A storm began to brew, amongst the ocean waves,
but somehow it grew bigger and the death of one gave away.
It got cold and darker, as the night started to sway,
but a voice was heard from afar so gentle, calm and sweet.
Her voice was like magic, in the times of despair, please will you come and save me for as i'll die under there.
The voices came closer, and i seen her golden hair, shining like molasses through a stormy autumn night.
My boat seemed to swish and swash as i fell through a crack,
landing under the water freezing to my death..
a warm light came gleaming through a tunnel close by, she grabbed my arms and brought me back to the shore, i woke up the next morning and couldn't remember what' was spoken for.
Laying underneath the sun, dried up on the sand, who was that young lass, and where did i see her last?
Oct 29, 2021
Oct 29, 2021 at 3:16 PM UTC
Swish swash
Swish swash
Stare down into the
Soapy swirl
Of artificial detergent and bleach
A good place and space for lone thought
Contemplation
Swish swash
Swish swash
Soapy molecular
Foamy activity
Your clothes are being washed
For you to wear again
Why not wash through your head?
Wash away
The muck and yuck that sticks to your brain
Swish swash
Swish swash
It really helps, try it
Swish swash
Swish swash
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 7:23 PM UTC
Metaphors like similes
Alluring alliteration
Onomatopoeic sounds
Swish swash through its creation
Full of figurative constructions
To skyscrapers of the soul
That rise to a crescendo
Then with bathos quickly fall
So what is it I have written?
Just a stream of consciousness?
For if I claim a classic poem
Then you’d be right to take the …. :)
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 11:55 AM UTC
It's about 2:30 in the morning
there you stand
a janitor
weilding your gigantic
paintbrush
in a full jumpsuit
and a bald cap.
Nobody's around.
The mophead slaps the ground
you dance with it
Swirling it all
across the checkered tile
with such grace
and such beauty!
Soak
Swash
Squeeze
Repeat.
What magnificent art
Such extraordinary
masterpieces
being created
night after night
across this marble floor!
Why,
Michaelangelo would be
turning in his grave!
A shame though,
That the paint is clear
and it dries away in about
15-20 minutes
and no one will
ever see or know
the greatest art ever created
by you,
the unknown custodian,
the master of sanitations,
the mop artist.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
Shiver me timbers
What's going on
I was dressed as a pirate
When I woke up this morn
I looked in the mirror
And let out an Arrrr....
I came equipped an eye patch
And a swash buckling Scar
I felt the strong urge
For grog, meat, and cheese
Went into the kitchen
Told the winch who lives with me
It's my new pirate attitude
That I have to thank
For the look that I got
And why I'm now walking the plank
When I arrived at the office
It wasn't the ship I'd hoped for
And security at the front desk
Barred me from bringing my saber to work
With all these modern day regulations
How's a pirate to get a break
When the only body of water nearby
Is a drainage ditch and man made lake
And the only pirate *****
That I'd hoped to see
Is right now swabbing the kitchen deck
While talking mutiny
Still the days barnacle adventures
Had a lot going on
As my head hits the pillow
I wonder what I'll wake up as tomorrow morn
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 9:42 AM UTC
In the swash zone
a desperate crab somehow overturned,
belly-up. Dome-backed, helpless,
she twitches feet and claws
grasping only air
as seagulls gather, smacking lips.
Shall I intervene?
Who do I favor, crab or gull?
Frankly I have problems with both personalities.
Can’t ignore a creature in distress.
(Who programmed that?)
Wiggle my toes into damp sand beneath the beast.
Flip.
With nary an acknowledgement, crab scuttles
sideways to a spot in the wave wash
where in a flutter of little legs she half-buries herself,
eyeballs above.
Seagulls scream curses.
What did I expect, a thank you?
Jun 25, 2017
Jun 25, 2017 at 1:23 PM UTC
There were four of them dressed in loud yellow t-shirts
and muffled white-washed jeans. Three carried rubber
ended stick-picks and sand crusted sky-blue buckets
for hypodermic needles and diapers and condoms.
The last of them, an older stocky gentleman with thick
red skin and no more than ten years left to live maneuvered
a grass-green, six-cylindered, diesel-powered tractor with
an old metallic rake attached to its bed across cold soft sand.
These four men are the edge-of-morning-heroes,
– they have to be the edge-of morning-heroes,
these four men, the beach combers.
My friends, have we appreciated the fruit of their labor?
the outcome of their edge-of-morning-efforts?
It was because of them that I was there, because of them
that the great lake was enjoyable, swimmable, because of them
that my heart had become a poem whose first stanza opened
with a young man staring off into the open, ocean-blue horizon,
water birds skipping, circling open-winged with webbed
feet behind him, his brown legs nestled firmly in the swash,
where to the left of him, a couple, neck-deep, was making love
between the familiar crest and trough of a wave, making love
between the familiar beginning and end of something
– going deeper, under still as a plane hummed overhead.
My friends, will the future appreciate the fruit of their labor?
the outcome of their edge-of-morning-efforts?
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 7:33 AM UTC
One Day with You
On a candle light dinner,
Me and a Rose
Splash a Swash time in (......) Cup".
Amour voice left inside the cup.
#Incomplete Love
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 4:11 AM UTC
Swash arises with immeasurable strength
Cascading against a buckling hull
Lost screams echo incoherently in a dark abyss
White embers engulf the universe
As the world cracks in two
Waves distort life and death with gentle balance
Bestowing reincarnation against the odious blue kraken
Rolling innocently upon the great pale sea
Striding to quench a perishing thirst
Embarking on my final journey.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
Push harder.
It’s the cork that keeps us from negotiating.
It is the hip lashes that are bound to the wall we are trying to move.
Like rippling beasts.
This will evolve.
Each revolution around a pixilated world are just metaphoric steps, aren’t they?
Because no one really moans like that unless they know someone is listening.
I was listening.
My body is foreign to me now. I am in a new birth.
I am fascinated with the way my stomach dips in on itself when I lay on my back.
Come. Let me show you how new my fingers have learned to see.
I am a pool. I am a spring. I am a bowl. I offer milk on my skin.
Come drink at me.
Then we can run hands on foreign bodies and make sense of the new curves and make new the old ones.
It would be new to see the tragic swash of red smeared high up your lip and on to your cheek. It would be new to see strange eyes and strange hair framed below my strange body in the half dark.
Strange pieces with rough to smooth edges making shapes with precise intention on a thousand count canvas. Milk. And Spice. And sweat.
The only thing that is the same would be the knowing. Maybe the desire. Maybe the sound. And the scents.
I was listening.
But was it real? Can you summon your talent at will?
This will evolve.
It will evolve.
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 9:27 PM UTC
I wish inspiration could be injected
intravenously, without delay. That
I could wrap a rubber band around
my arm and pull it tight with my
teeth. Then give myself several swi-
ft slaps with my middle and index
fingers to the inside crook of my arm
to pop the vein. Then without look-
ing, (because I am afraid of needles)
slowly insert the thin metal spear in
my skin and puncture the vein. Draw
back a bit of blood and watch it mix
with my concoction. Then voila: ins-
tant inspiration.
If only I could buy words by the bot-
tle, so I could guzzle them down by
the quart. And they could mix and
swirl, swash and stir, with all my
other ****** fluids. They could seep
into my veins, via my stomach lining,
and warm my body with a toxic glow.
The words would blur my vision, mu-
ddy my senses, and stumble my step.
Then, after I consume more words th-
an I can handle, I would projectile vo-
mit and spew the words all over the
page. Then the next morning I could
rearrange the words into something
remotely coherent.
But there is no such luck.
Instead I have to go toe-to-toe with
each word, each syllable, with the
utmost precision and vigilance.
And let me tell you, these word “St-
ing like a butterfly and float like a
bee”. I give a left jab, a right hook,
a shot to the kidneys, but it does
no good. Most of the time I am on
my heels; forced to be on the defense
But of course I take a hit, or twenty-
two. Until I am punch drunk,
and everything is brilliant to me.
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 12:54 PM UTC
The dance of Amphitrite
I used to see
When I lived by the sea
Which in turn saw me
With her ever azure eyes
Below clouds, camphor-white
Her tides used to rise
With the coming of the night
And descend slowly
With the advent of light
I was welcomed everyday
By her king's white horses
Who galloped by her bay
I used to watch with wonder
The seagulls by her quay
Zephyrus, the west wind
Caressed her wavy locks,
Composing mellifluous harmonies
(The songs of the sea).
He brought with himself,
Ships, salts, sand
And faraway lands'
Numerous stories
The swash and backwash
Were like the ballet of nature
Performed by the sea
Which I used to see
As the sea saw me
With her ever azure eyes
As her tides used to rise
Sometimes low, sometimes high
In the Amphitheater of Amphitrite
Dec 6, 2020
Dec 6, 2020 at 6:46 AM UTC
swish, swash
under a blue moon
you, in your chariot, racing north
on Highway 1
while I look for footprints
in the sand--five toed tracks to prove
you were here with me
swish, swash, sea songs
replacing your voice, like I had any choice
but goodbye
after your confession,
and your appeal for absolution,
on the same shore we first lay,
naked
and walked until the sun rose
above the silent cliffs--the same bluffs
you climbed now to be with him
would you two also tread a beach
and marvel at weather worn gems, the purple waves'
evidence time smooths and soothes all things
I don't believe it
even as I find and finger new green and amber shapes
on this eternal stretch of sand
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
she awoke one morning to find wings upon her back
spread out across the length of her room
she had trouble getting out of the door
and every room she left and house she exited
she knocked things askew
destroyed more and more
she met a boy down-town of a similar strange sort
he was covered, every single last inch of him
in crawling, hugging spiders
his face was obscured and his tongue black
as he spoke, more came from his throat
fatter, hairier, wider
they fled together to a beach where a big bonfire sat
and around, for hundreds, in the fog, were others
others like them; outsides varied, insides same
there were some with wings too, the girl saw
but all stopped what they were doing as a sound was heard
and eyes turned toward the colossal flame
the people sat and gathered at the fire's base, close-knit
she linked arms with an old man with tears pouring from each wrinkle
and a little girl made of air
this crowd watched, enraptured for hours like moths
until the bonfire spluttered, stuttered, went to sleep
and wrote in the charcoal left: 'despair'
the boy with the spiders took her aside; his hands tickled
he bade the girl to wade out with him, into the swash
which giggled beseechingly at her toes, flecked with frost
the crowd of the beach overheard, and together they all joined
to slink into the fog and ocean depths united
to become, like the people of the night before them:
eternally lost.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
That ships sail, now forgotten, is remembered only in rust.
What stormy waters have you conquered?
What triumph have you fostered?
How many hurricane eyes have you starred into?
Forever forgotten is you legacy.
Forever forgotten is your destiny.
Your death knows not the silent depths of watery tomb,
But the slow sway of a swish swash waltz.
A dance in rust and slow decay,
A dance we all share someday.
Let us pull off our hats of to you and your skeletal remains
As your skeleton serves us as a reminder of our tick-tock days.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 8:26 PM UTC
Ocean waters in half-time swash
Microcosm in rhythm
Mathematics's song
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
“Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man:
one draught above heat makes him a fool;
the second mads him; and a third drowns him.”
— Feste, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Pulling into Colbert on a mid-week afternoon,
I stride through drifts of passengers falling
from each carriage.
Inside, they deck the station out
in wait like chess figures. I leave as soon as I arrive.
Blessed with rain again,
pestering the roof tiles, great sweeps
of grey water
dash each street. Across,
a building's squared face, chipped bottle green.
Namelessly familiar,
my hermitage.
I enter half-drowned.
I place myself on mark at the bar,
flanked by fellow veterans. To my left, a lowered head,
the dark hide of a colt
retired early from his race.
Right,
a creased face and suit I dimly recognise.
Before my eyes adjust, I limply
raise my hand —
few fingers outstretched, Christlike. A head bows
in response. He moves
to draw a black slick glass;
a tarred trickle, foam-topped like stormed wave.
The first.
A swash against my lip, my mouth
a vacant cove.
Bitter, it gathers in the pit of my tongue
— my pleasure,
I swallow half in one surge.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 9:48 AM UTC
Forgive the grey sea for its intrusion at this hour,
Don't believe its breaking hum that holds such power,
Meaningful strokes sweep the bed where it weeps
The grey sea trying hard to evade those who sleep.
Succumbing to the swish, the swash unfolding,
Unbeknownst to all the dreams its withholding.
The break ponders before deciding on its course
Underneath its caress is a knife that is sharp,
Unafraid to utilize its brutal force
How easy it is to drown in nature left ajar.
The grey sea lies still, calm and unruly
But what of the waves that linger in our paths?
Find them, stroke them, brush by them cruelly,
Their present once wanted, no need to look back.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
…For Now
the people I know are talking taxes, the price of heat, ******* food!
The people he serves
wipe their spoons on silk napkins, slap each others’ shoulders
take each others’ wineskins, corkscrews in their eyeballs,
walL sT. on their grins
The people I know get up in the morning, every morning,
everyday (in every possible way) to get to work,
work all day, then come home tired, a bit more afraid
The people he serves are out of his league
truly rich men with swash-buckle needs
avarice men with bundles of greed
to lay upon the stooges who desecrate the dream
who pick up the court jester and let him play lead…
we fund them both – the rich man and the clown
dress them up in emperor clothes, bow down
to their blows, we take it all and plead for parity,
wipe their smell from blistered hands
cuddle in cameraless work-cells
with a smartphone or a podcast jam
The people I know talk about the government
the inequality, the lopsided way it’s rigged,
the unfairness in squeezing every dime
tell each other things like – ‘chin-up’ ‘don’t give up’
‘nothing we can do about it anyway’
The people I know,
talk
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
i’ve blown all my dosh
on a brand new Bosch!
my clothes will be super clean
with this amazing new machine
i’ve burnt all my dosh
singing swish, swash, swosh,
singing splish, splash, splosh,
a ladies got to wash!
i’m in love with my new Bosch!
Oct 12, 2023
Oct 12, 2023 at 4:07 PM UTC
Ride the wave, the wind roared.
Sinking little with each footstep.
I wander the beach.
Finding myself lost amongst thoughts.
Only the breaking waves provide a beacon.
Slowly the waves mount attack.
Grasping, they pull from shore.
Larger and larger they grow.
Too much to handle.
Capsize.
The waves embrace, pulls, deep down,
Smothering. I find myself lost.
Slowly choking away my life force.
Straining to keep sanity,
I push to the brink.
The rumble of the swash,
signals the nearing shore.
A newfound sense of security,
the beach.
Peace and Serenity.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC