Poetry

[sabray]

The modern version
There's a jet ski in the harbor
With a fool that's not to bright
He's buzzing all around us like a mosquito in need of a bite
I've asked him to go elsewhere
I've suggested with a fist
Your dangerous annoyance is much to much for us
Just when I was thinking there would be no peace today the boring ignoramus has found my mooring chain

[NFTB]

MichaelC:
Is this your poem? Do you mind if I include it in an issue of News From the Bow? We occasionally publish original nautical poetry and will include it if you agree.
Stu Hochron, Editor

[High Heels]

Love this thread! I like writing poetry, and have since college. Went back to my old school last June and took a workshop with a professor I had in college.

Sure can relate to the poem that opened this thread!

Maybe I will add my racing poem to the mix after I dig it up...

[NFTB]

High Heels,

Considering your poetry background please consider this your invitation to create a nautical poem for News From the Bow, our monthly on-line boating newsletter. You can see other poems by going to the site.

Hoping you are interested,

Stu Hochron

[High Heels]

Stu,

I certainly will! Thanks!

HH

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by Jerry

There is no doubt in my mind that many of you all (when students) drove many a good teacher from the profession in utter frustration. Drugs, it must be drugs......that's the only logical explanation!

Yes - I've often thought that drugs would explain what many poets produce.....

[nigel1]

Not exactly a poem, more a bit of prose, but I was hoping someone on CF could identify the author. It was with my late fathers possessions, he had copied it in copperplate when he was on his first ship in 1940.
I have no idea of the origin

But stay clear of the sea I tell thee, a thankless mistress, a gypsy, a love-mad thing, ‘twill twist thy soul and make thee but a manikin of a man.
Up in the shrouds dancing to the fiddle of the winds, the green combers will be thy hills and valleys, changing and gone. Every port in the world with lights aglitter in the evening will be thy homecoming, with a home at none.
Thou’lt sweat in the cockpit with lice and roaches for thy bed-fellows, and turn from linen and lavender to crawl to it again, hungry for the taste of salt air and rotten pork. And the swell of the hundred fathoms will swing thee on to God know what, but the slavery thou wilt call freedom.
Thou’lt stand watch with ghosts in the starlight, and the devils of hell in the storms; and thou’lt drown at last, nothing surer, with a blinding light in thine eyes, and thy head bursting; and not even a stone to mark thy grave. It will not matter, for thy friends will all have forgotten thee; aye, even those thou lovest best.
So dance with the village maidens and pay them with trinkets and farthings, take a lady for thy wife, plant thy patch and hoe it, and laugh at fools like me.

FOR EVER ADRIFT

[pillum]

Nigel, it's beautiful, but I couldn't trace the provenance either.

Here's one of my favourites (one stanza anyway). Good old WBY:


"An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium."

I'd love to sail with my father down the Bosphorus Strait to Byzantium, he getting on now so it may be just a dream.

[sabray]

My sister sent me these that she is working on. I can't tackle words so well. They work very well brother is biased.
My job is to bang materials into function. To reach a moment where the sails are full and all this mass finds sense. I think my sister could do it with a 2oz pen and nominal weight paper.

Beau geste beau geste - Bedfordshire

a graceful, pleasing,

fine or magnanimous gesture.



Because we are becalmed

and I can only beckon

as can she,

and because I am dazzled

by her beauty,

I pour us each a glass

of red wine

and throw my cares

into the wind, literally,

filling my cheeks

and blowing hard into the sails,

to traverse the space between us -

Aeolus bedamned! 8/9/11








Barcarole Barbary fig - bare

a boat song especially as sung

by Venetian gondoliers and typically

characterized by the alternation of a strong

and a weak beat suggesting a rowing rhythm



An aquarium carp swims in a tank

in a parlor car on an Amtrak train.

In the rhythm of the rails,

he imagines the songs of the gondoliers,

the push and pull of their poles. 7/23/11





Banderole banausic - bandolier

(for Nap)

a long narrow forked flag or streamer;

a flag about one yard square formerly

displayed at funerals of great men



The old man prepares his canoe,

while the old water snake watches.



It was carried with great effort

across the man’s shoulders.



When he reached the bank,

he bent low, boxed as a turtle,



then, with effort, rolled it off his back,

the bow balancing for a brief moment on shore,



before sliding into the stern’s wake.



~



The old man reaches forward,

his legs pegged to the sandy soil.



He gives the bow a shove,

the current swinging the stern around.



He lifts the paddle from the ground

bending at his waist ,



places it across the gunwales,

distributing the barest weight.



Lifting his right leg over and in,

his left leg remains stiff



and attached to the earth

like a tall wading bird.



Then, a moment of flight.



The old man’s foot leaves the dirt,

and with a push,



as the old water snake watches,

the man kneels and sets himself adrift. 7/18/11








Baldachino balance - ball

a cloth canopy fixed or carried

over an important person or sacred object

often as a mark of honor



Hoisted from the sea, the ship

appears to give a baleful look,

its naked timbers useless,

its barnacles bared.

For a brief moment

it flies through the air

and comes to rest on a sling,

beneath a canvas canopy

befitting a king. 7/14/11

[Capt Phil]

Please remember, when at sea
Even men sit down to pee... Anon

[VirtualVagabond]

Originally Posted by Canibul

The boy stood on the burning deck,
his back against the mast.
He swore he would not leave the deck,
Til Oscar Wilde had passed.

But Oscar was a wily sort,
and tossed the boy a bun.
And when he bent to pick it up
the dirty deed was done..

Well I'd guess it was Ogden Nash who wrote the first line...

And a talented, smart-arse school kid who wrote the rest!
Very funny