One Way Ships - Part 1

Flings and wings and rings rejected…
 Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile

Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns a’ bleeding…
Struck dumb by night, no way to say “Let’s sound the stars another way”

Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks,
shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks…
Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride
beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride


Gypsy dreamer in denial…
Sleep and slumber standing trial…
I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept

Martian moons provoke the oceans…
Strange enchantments stir the potions…
The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies

Voiceless echoes feigning laughter…
Crushing quiet screaming after…
Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap

Startled stars at dawn are slacking…
Still her tempest sail is tacking…
In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets…
Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets


Cold cathedral clocks upended…
Frozen second hands suspended…
Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby

Ticking-tocking time’s a’ tolling…
Cruel eternity’s cajoling…
The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left

Brigantines skim gated grottos…
Distant divas voice vibratos…
Though eons pass, then intermix, I’m trapped ’tween time’s untallied ticks

Conquered candles flicker faintly… 
Braided tresses quiver quaintly…
Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime…
Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime


Bolts of lightning flash unkindly…
Stoned, alone, I huddle blindly…
I drain another dram and bray “she’s far too far too far away”

Twisted waterwheels a’ thirsting…
Flaming flower buds a’ bursting…
Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow

White crowned wave crests break unbounded…
Shackled seashore sands lie pounded…
Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled

Captive bluebirds nest in baskets…
Morning glories cover caskets…
Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin
and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin

Continued in Part 2
Copyright © | Year Posted 2012


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Date: 1/21/2013 9:29:00 AM
Love it Terry,,,, thank you for reading my " family hair" ,,, you have an awesome day ;}
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Date: 12/26/2012 2:54:00 PM
love the story line n flow, rhyming surely is the go, upon the great verse maitrix....
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Date: 12/25/2012 5:27:00 PM
Interesting work..Sara
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Date: 12/23/2012 9:45:00 AM
A quick visit to your nice poem. - Wishing you a peaceful and happy Christmas! - / / I'm sending you a big Christmas hug!! Anne-Lise :) - / /
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Date: 12/22/2012 6:29:00 AM
I admire the surrealistic description your collection of words conveys. I have to see part two now.
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Date: 12/19/2012 12:40:00 PM
LOVE THE FLOW THE PATTERN AND SUBJECT MATTER WICKED WRITE DAVIDSCOTT
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Date: 12/10/2012 10:00:00 AM
amazing Terry, the story line, the flow of the inter woven words, will go on to two...
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Date: 12/9/2012 11:08:00 AM
I am awed by your ability to write such beautifully flowing and well penned poems. You are a true master of this art.
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Date: 12/9/2012 10:53:00 AM
A good job I do not get seasick, still working on it my friend xx
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Date: 12/8/2012 5:21:00 PM
Oh the stories you spin, and the rhyme within, puts my mind in a spin, the trip is mine to win.............and on to the next! :)
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Date: 12/8/2012 7:07:00 AM
I feel like I'm in the haze of an alcoholic on the boulevard ship of broken dreams.
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Date: 12/7/2012 11:24:00 PM
The world you see.....My....My.
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Date: 12/6/2012 6:55:00 PM
A great poem here Terry!Enjoyed the read.Thanks for visiting my page.
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Date: 12/4/2012 3:36:00 PM
So Alice-like? My head is spinning with rhyme Light & Love
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Date: 12/3/2012 5:17:00 PM
How can heartbreak sound so beautiful?
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