"tacking" poems
but it was only the old man
sitting there on the dock
his weathered smile and dancing eyes
when he spoke it was a rough sound
like cadence of seafarers raising sail
in the long rays of summer eve setting sun
off the ancient shores celebrated in song
he spun me a tale of uncharted lands
and beautiful maidens in tropical forests
wild nights in some forgotten port
*** and the dancehall glow in memory
they are the stories shared on the long voyage
they are the smile in this old mans memories
the scent of salt and the rhythm of
the waves breaking on the shore
surround as he weaves his story
with the years flowin like the waves neath the prow
tacking east to a rising sun
it seems like a living breathing dream
as alive as the sea herself
as alive as the sparkling beauty in the memories
of an old man
weaving his tale
by the seaside
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
I will tell you what he told me
in the years just after the war
as we then called
the second world war
don't lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you're older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity
just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice
he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally
it was in the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop
he was far older than the dates allowed for
much older than I was he was in his thirties
he snapped down his nose with an accent
I think he had affected in England
as for publishing he advised me
to paper my wall with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views about poetry
he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion
passion was genius and he praised movement and invention
I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't
you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write
4.7k
She saves swatches of fabric
pinked with special shears;
orders them in co-ordinated heaps
to keep her life fuss-free.
The finished quilt bubbles in her head.
She imagines it telling her bedtime stories
or lines of poetry to help her sleep -
"Better than sheep" she thinks.
She cuts card; stitches with rough tacking;
fantasizes downy feathers floating
between her patchwork story and
backing of silk slipping against skin,
then secures with neat tiny stitches
and strong coloured thread, to ensure
that her dream won't fall apart at the seams.
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 11:57 PM UTC
for Mark Richards
It was a spur of the moment thing -
One message freed us from Tuesday’s calling -
The next offered a morning's sailing.
So rather than spray water for Rocky's plants,
We skimmed over Carter Lake’s, crystal waves
With steady and ample winds at our backs.
Boaters and tubers speckled the waters
While verdant foothills smiled assent
From every shore and horizon.
Captain Richards skippered his Flying Scot
Toward the far off shore before tacking our
To and fro way back to the mooring ball.
In years past Mark had captained the Health works
For all the good folks of Pennsylvania,
But this morning he guided a much smaller tiller.
So we sailed and sailed under fairest of skies
In a swift and charmed little craft
Mark chose to call, Spur of the Moment.
Robert Charles Howard
Jul 26, 2022
Jul 26, 2022 at 6:29 PM UTC
i’m not sure how artists have the patience
to sculpt marble slabs into gods
or why they feel it’s worth their time
but i do know that
the nights i stay up until 3 a.m. are usually the worst
and the mornings i wake up at 8 a.m. are usually the
best
and that it’s worth the money to buy a decent mattress
instead of losing sleep on fiscal responsibility
and i feel grown-up having wrapping paper in my closet
and extra birthday cards in my desk
and i might always be crazy
always holding on to pieces of the past
tacking them to my bedroom walls
and pretending it’s okay that i still think about it all
but i won’t forget that some people are brave enough
to put on big white suits and fishbowl helmets and leave
their families to go walk on the moon
or that i flew on a plane by myself even though i was
absolutely petrified of being alone in the sky
or that spring exists,
and that winter cannot, and will not, last forever
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 5:34 PM UTC
she turned the questions in her eyes aside
and stealing away in the quiet
of the pine forest winters day
the taste of wood smoke was tangible on the sharp cold air
and his eyes hunted the ridge crest for sing of flames
as they hurried their steps along the rough hewn track
she carried the child whos silent contemplation
showed his understandings of the gravity of this flight
the bundle of possessions on his shoulder
weighed upon his mind
counselling himself not to regret casting it all aside should need arise
the woman and child so fragile and dear to his heart
mean so much more than mere trinkets of gold
he would surrender without pause life and limb to spare them
she was a smoky version of bobby dylan
complete with winged snakes in each hand
complete with a crown of jewels
and the thousand words dance
he was a seafaring man
they reached the shore of the sea
and found the wreckage of a sailing ship
her fine line speaking clear of her swiftness
and her appointments show without shyness
that she was of the finest portugal shipyards
they spent days making her seaworthy
laying up in the harsh tropical sun
neath the palm trees drinking *** from her stores
they put to sea in the birth of the new year
singing 'goodbye spanish ladies'
the three of them on the skiff tacking up-channel
trying to determine latitude by sighting
but a fog rolls in off the coast of grande bahama
as dawn breaks
man woman and grown child
the miles and the treasures cast aside
each wore on open hearted face
but neath the weary of sea miles
was their joys in the true riches
of eachothers soft hand entwined as they sailed into
a golden dusk
of a lesser throne
a kingdom of the sea
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 11:30 PM UTC
Whisper, whisper but I can still hear you.
Your eyes tell it all.
You don't even know me and you don't even care. It's people like you who ****** onto me a two ton weight that kept me from walking tall all these years.
It's people like you that ignited a feeling of torment for the unrelenting realization that I will never escape people’s stares.
Days like these I wonder why, friends aren't friends and everything seems like a lie.
“I never asked to exist”, (words that echo through my head every time someone falls from exceptional to unbearable) .
You don't have the courtesy to talk behind my back, instead you boldly break me with your tacks; tacking your words onto my skin, until my pride and self-worth wears thin.
That’s why on weekends I would sometimes cage myself in my room because though I was not free, I was at least free from your gazes, and though I was not living, at least I was alive.
I stayed inside because outside there were wolves and I refused to be a meal. I've seen what they do to their prey, cornering, growling in order to strike fear, battling with their eyes, and then they consume them until all that is left, are bones.
This is what they do,
and many of us can attest to their brutality.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 5:12 AM UTC
The Hardest Forgiving Slant
<|>
9:19am Fri Sept 22 2023 ~ 8:02am Fri Sep 29 2023
commenced during the Ten Days of Awe
<|>
we debase our language daily,
robbing the spectacular majesty [example]
of awe with the common overusing
vernacular of “awesome”
especially forgiveness is degraded,
we utter “I’m sorry” trippingly,
costless, less than cheap, with even the
snap-on veneer (1) of sincerity discarded,
but move on to the next rudeness
but today I will not permit myself
an easy letting-off-the-hook, no shifting
of blame to anonymity, or fast forward to tomorrow,
when we can obfuscate our intrepid
dishonesty one more time…again
to forgive those who have injured us,
not that hard, or the judging deities,
who silently wink and nod, but offer
no certitude beyond trying, itself a
maybe, maybe not, truly tiring this
trying tacking the constant requests
so first an etymology explication on
the tension inherent that very word,
f o r g i v e
As a word, as a sensed,
intuitively-
it is a
Perfect Continuous Infinitive! (2)
to
forgive is
perfect,
to forgive is
continuous,,
to forgive is
infinite!
what a marvelous, perpetual
past, present and always futuristic
word (alas)
The Hardest Forgiving?
to forgive oneself
so nearer to impossible,
the first responders doing triage,
leave people like me for last,
as it a unconditional condition
with no cure that can be effected
indeed, by our very affect,
they instant diagnosis seeing our
very gestures, body language, or ****** expressions,
all reveal the hopelessness of
the never-to-be-given-grace,
among us
for a thousand years,
I have tried and failed to forgive myself
for the worst I’ve done,
and there is no sword or club,
blood-letting,
that can dispatch the onerous burden I carry
so I write poetry,
a salve that offers
temporary relief,
while I write,
imposed a
momentarily distracting,
a kind of dusting of self~spin,
that chills myself
just until
the, this!
poem is finished,
the slant is drawn
<§>
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
BY EMILY DICKINSON
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Sep 29, 2023
Sep 29, 2023 at 8:12 AM UTC
Today there were two
people talking too much
and too loud
in the library.
Guy says,
looking down
nose moving with his eyes
over the Times New Roman legs
of a book.
"He broke up with her because
her ***** smelled like ****
The girl across from him
has tiny fingers with no knuckles,
fingers that make tacking noises
on her Macbook.
She smiles,
in aquamarine
as the screen dazzles her pale
face.
"She probably had a yeast infection,
or something."
There are too many people talking,
but what rights do I have?
The right to laugh with them,
to be a part of it,
to be a comrade
to be mad because they're talking
while I'm pretending not to listen
and agree?
I broke up with a girl
because her ***** smelled like
an *******
There are too many people
full of double-entendres
and irony.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 8:19 PM UTC
I watched some crows this very eve,
Play upon a blustery, early November breeze.
Wave upon wave of those corvid beasts,
Now going west, now going east.
Now rising up, now darting down,
Now racing east,
Now tacking west.
No sailor on the seven seas
Can tack so well as one of these.
Now up, now down
Now left, then down.
One flies north
Another south, then darts east.
Yet flock drifts by despite these feats.
Another joins in synchronous dance
Then up, then down, then back again
Waving together till parting perchance.
Then each alone, up,
Then down, then back again.
Some stall for several ***** and blows,
Remaining still to trees below,
Then a feather's twitch
Banks into the wind
And soar, ...... soar, ..... soar,
Soar away.
Down a slope only birds can know
Racing faster than the wind
Above the trees below.
*It seems so wasteful, this fighting of the wind,
Futile and vain as a skein does not.
It's not hunting, I think, nor ***
Except perhaps for showing off.
But I suspect play at play.
Jonathon Seagull's desire, it seems
Infects these playful playing memes.
Perhaps I see play where there is no play,
Projecting wishes onto senses.
But corvids do play, it seems.
Do you too so seem?
Perhaps they even dream.*
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 8:41 PM UTC
Sailing the mystic omnipresent seas,
on a craft made of dragonfly's wings.
Tacking across the magical breeze,
caused by songs that the sirens sing.
Weathered and worn by infinite tides,
holding lines made of eternal foible.
The warrior's blade like a rudder she rides,
in a sheath made of filigreed sable.
Virulent flow of futurity's pandemic,
vibrant waters fertile subtle surreal.
Ephemeral beings translucent endemic,
purveys omnipresent augur's appeal.
The starlit sky imbues waterfall's mist,
myriad creatures seek eternity's mantra.
Vivid delineations of artistry's gist,
seeking virile omnipotent yantra.
Celestial heights where eagles traverse,
soaring and gliding we learn to fly.
Must life be terminal we say of terse,
whilst composing music to make angels sigh.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 2:15 PM UTC
Lived the life of an artist
long before I became one.
Pressed to guitar strings
until my fingers were numb
to all exposed skin
that was not my own.
Listened to one thousand sad songs
over and over
until the pointless chords
clamoured over one another,
psalms of living
fall on deaf ears.
Trawled archives of ***********
Lauded aristocrats of cheap whiskey nights
and black coffee mornings.
Garnished my days with addictions carried
by better men
in love with real women.
Grew thin, moved about the apartment
in the graveyard hours
tacking songs to the walls.
In the absence of chains and ***
I fixed myself with neon lights
and cigarettes.
Spilt paint over undeserving paper
beneath the halogen bulb
to colour radio silences
of past friendships,
mountains I should let recede
like a ship in the night.
Stood alone in crowds
to witness the onset of a moment,
openings and closings of mouths and doors;
each one to allow another person in.
I go home alone
and sleep with my thoughts.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 1:33 PM UTC
You can be a boulder,
Unmoveable, hard, stoic;
But every stone is permeable,
And the water gets in
To make the rock sand...
Soft, malleable,
With indistinguishable grains.
I know others who swim
Against adversity to spawn in the current.
They believe destination is destiny;
Focussed, driven with tunnel vision.
Some face adversity like a roller-coaster.
When things are going north, all is good;
But they throw up their arms and scream
When going south.
I will catch the west wind,
Change course if necessary,
Tack across the white caps of roiling waters.
I will steer the rudder towards my East.
Jul 26, 2019
Jul 26, 2019 at 9:46 AM UTC
Sailing the mystic omnipresent seas,
on a craft made of dragonfly's wings.
Tacking across the magical breeze,
caused by songs that the sirens sing.
Weathered and worn by infinite tides,
holding lines made of eternal foible.
The warrior's blade like a rudder she rides,
in a sheath made of filigreed sable.
Virulent flow of futurity's pandemic,
vibrant waters fertile subtle surreal.
Ephemeral beings translucent endemic,
purveys omnipresent augur's appeal.
The starlit sky imbues waterfall's mist,
myriad creatures seek eternity's mantra.
Vivid delineations of artistry's gist,
seeking virile omnipotent yantra.
Celestial heights where eagles traverse,
soaring and gliding we learn to fly.
Must life be terminal we say of terse,
whilst composing music to make angels sigh.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 1:10 PM UTC
Pull in the sheets,
trim the tiller,
shifting to the other rail,
light airs prevail, the
sails they luff.
Seeking the wind,
Cat's paws to Starboard
Hard-a-lee tacking to Port,
the breeze she comes,
boom shifts, helm heels
over, sails crack and fill.
Reef in the Jib, slack off the main.
She digs in, laying her rail
into the water, riding on the
seas thin knifes edge again,
the keel rises, steadies her passage.
We fly!
Ah, fair winds, sailors delight,
pleasant sailing, safe harbor ahead.
No greater joy than to sail and muck
about in boats on blue water.
Freedom achieved, intensely felt.
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 2:49 PM UTC
Rigging taught and water bilged,
Sails snap stubborn in the face
Of Gaia's force.
Sailors gripped in terror forlorn,
Sailing round Tierra del Fuego,
Cape Horn.
Limes are long since rotten
And the *** is watered down,
At least three men overboard
Shot to depths where all will drown.
The captain stands to lose his crown
Cursing into the storm.
Cursing at the ocean wall
And the day that God was born.
Tacking starboard long into the dawn,
He releases rudder and draws his Sword.
As if the world his steel had hindered
He grabs the wheel and turns to windward.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 8:11 PM UTC
nescient of origins,
roaring narrow views--
a wend of finite specieshood
collides around a pond-shore
dreamt in colors algae soft.
car sized turtles sink
glow into the liquid cool
while stegosauri billow bottom silt,
their diamond spine-points
tacking to my gaze an oil depth.
time slows in,
viscous under water sun
silent evening stomp.
sipping breath above,
bone-dry families
coo their brittle nests
while scaly giants
skinny dip.
ripples red and gold
darken black as tar
as yawning maws,
eyedrop lashes
squeezed,
feel the draw of kismet
gravely wink in jetsam
at their young,
who, tugging tail-end games
despite a brooding storm
skitter jubilance.
i dive in stasis
nudely arched
above my shadow
as other apex mouths
arrayed in awe
foresee
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
Gentle muzzle
velvet soft
lipping at my palm
searching for the treats,
sugar and molasses
a rich combination
only a good horse
earns.
Supple leather
worn smooth
over years of dedication
and application
that comes from
this sport.
Nights
already promised ahead of time,
three months earlier,
hauling to deserted fairgrounds
a dusky sky setting the tone
for lead ropes
threaded
through stock trailer slats
cow dogs
running
up down sideways
trailing owners between horses legs and rusty pickups.
Tacking up
underneath floodlights
set to the soundtrack
of jangling spurs
and soft nickers.
Younger kids
hanging on the arena rails
drinking syrupy sweet
soda
a tradition
root beers before your run
good luck
in our community.
Foot in the stirrup
old braided reins in hand
leather,
broken into submission,
pliable
under years
of use.
Slapping hands
with other riders
who already went
horses,
slick with sweat
foaming at the mouth
ready to go again
with rippling muscles
still taunt in the sticky summer night,
aching for one last run.
three turns
and a gallop home,
don't care about the money
unless you beat your last time-
your only competitor
is
yourself
and
the
clock.
Hard packed dirt
pounded down by hooves,
tails swishing at flies
as you wait
for your turn.
Adrenaline and happiness,
an addictive cocktail,
these are the nights
I
love.
Apr 21, 2019
Apr 21, 2019 at 9:52 PM UTC
We have spoken of tacking
Our ships away,
Changing our divergence
From one mile
For every sixty sailed,
To one mile every mile
As we part at ninety degrees,
Having sailed close aboard
A few years with
Turbulent waters between
Our hulls
Offset by occassional beautiful
Moments of sunrise
And reddened dusk,
The sun is now more often
Obscured by storm clouds,
Black and angry,
Unfeeling and irrational,
Lightning-full and dangerous,
With fewer sunny moments
Or even any forecast
The wind is picking up,
And the waves have
White caps on their heads,
Spray bursts more often
Over my bow and the rain
Is freezing now
Time not to tack so much
As wear ship,
Turn away from the wind,
Give up the beat to windward,
Accept the futility
Of a fools errand,
Slamming into a sea that
Does not forgive nor want me,
Turn instead south,
Away from the teeth of
A gale driven by spite and ADHD,
Sail south and hope to find
A sunnier clime
Before my ship
Finally
Sinks
Sep 10, 2024
Sep 10, 2024 at 3:44 AM UTC
Sailing the mystic omnipresent seas,
on a craft made of dragonfly's wings.
Tacking across the magical breeze,
caused by songs that the sirens sing.
Weathered and worn by infinite tides,
holding lines made of eternal foible.
The warrior's blade like a rudder she rides,
in a sheath made of filigreed sable.
Virulent flow of futurity's pandemic,
vibrant waters fertile subtle surreal.
Ephemeral beings translucent endemic,
purveys omnipresent augur's appeal.
The starlit sky imbues waterfall's mist,
myriad creatures seek eternity's mantra.
Vivid delineations of artistry's gist,
seeking virile omnipotent yantra.
Celestial heights where eagles traverse,
soaring and gliding we learn to fly.
Must life be terminal we say of terse,
whilst composing music to make angels sigh.
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 6:03 PM UTC
It rained the whole time when you were away,
not all the time but at least once a day.
Rain drops made quick bubbles as they hit the ground,
small short lived air pockets I was surrounded around.
While others cascaded along the windows,
guided by air that softly would blow.
The tick tacking and pidder padding,
The smell of the breeze and it's cleansing.
The rain is an unspoken season of it's own,
some play outside while others hide at home.
More often than summer, it comes and it goes,
evoking emotions like the winter's snow.
Yet still helps the withered, all dried up and cracked,
but can't save the dead in hopes to bring back.
And that brings us back to where I'm sitting at,
without you around it feels more like an attack.
Attacking the loneliness and memories of,
The joy we had found from the rain falling above..
..But you're not around and then, only then
Does the rain take the shape of a foe, no longer a friend.
With you I found joy when it poured from the sky,
but now I'm alone and would rather stay inside.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 9:40 AM UTC
My dream takes me on a journey- big dream, big sky,
sea all around. Silent as a galaxy.
Flying is easy- I have simply to think it.
I rise weightless into a wilderness of imagined blue,
hovering over the wrinkled beach of my bed,
my mind a white butterfly,
And there I find you, dizzy with excessive light,
floundering at the sky's edge, head in the clouds
looking for silver.
Drawing me close, I fall into the net of your arms,
that safe place you've always made for me,
your hands tightly clasped behind my back.
We feed from each others breath,
aware of the sudden gravity between us.
But you are not as I remember.
Your face smoothed of all detectable emotion,
your eyes, not as they were, but exquisite diamonds
piercing through wads of cotton cloud,
until you become part of them-
a neat trick!
Shuddering, wounded,
lightly I descend into weeping,
I spread the sails of my arms,
tacking on a downward draught
until I find my feet anchored,
eased into familiar sheets.
A new light dawns on me,
wipes dry the lids of my eyes.
The clock reads four,
acid, luminous,
and there you are, in the kitchen,
slurping coffee from a chipped cup,
your free hand rattling the slats of the window blind.
I reach out for you, but your image dissolves
like paper in rain.
Aware of the mind's deception,
I remain wreathed in sleep,
and though this is still a dream,
you will always be a part of it.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2014
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 12:05 PM UTC
this body of poetry lacking
drafted white, out of sight on this backing
and oh such a wallflower it has become
and it's author, a nut for the cracking
the content within, also slacking
each sentence seems more like attacking
defensive it's true, and she won't let it through
so the message is lost in the packing.
she knows this in spite of her yacking
to reach you requires skillful tacking
to find you or bust, she'll say what she must
with dis gust in da sails, words are smacking.
A ***** in her mind needs some tightening
'twas loosed by emotional lightning
as for what she won't say, her heart gives away
but it's lost in the frost of this whitening.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Each absolute delt,
suit blurs and my hand folds into a smirk.
Swept under the rugged folds of throat.
Red and black to black and white,
placed violence at benevolence.
Ink stains indelible, only while the cut's fresh
Rewritten in medium of hope and asterisk.
Astral risks, they've got more value then ever kid,
tacking down the gray skips, (hypocrite) can't imagine the mix.
I tale freezing leaves six feet from the ground as practice.
© Cole Silvers
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 10:21 PM UTC
I wish this life were simple
An ever constant breeze
In which to cast a sail
An end to the tacking
No more catching the tide
Or having it leave without you
Less work, more speed
Smoother seas to sail
Of course such a life
Would be simple indeed
Everything the same
Which would be very boring
A wind to carry you everywhere
And it never stops
Perhaps that sounds more
Like a nightmare
A journey that always passes
Your destination.
Oct 17, 2011
Oct 17, 2011 at 11:16 AM UTC