Best Abalone Poems
Sunlight rains upon my face
Cascading memories cloaked in mystery
Kissing my eyelids
Ancient teardrops glide down my cheeks
Warmth illuminating my hungry soul
A sense of calm
A pulsating ellipse emerges before me
I dive into the magenta abyss
Releasing my wounded heart from its cage
Fear resides
Primal vibrations guide me
Becoming one with galaxies and starlight
My limbs relax
I flow ~ I undulate
I swim in the warmth of the universe
Time and space have become me and I them
Perched on a massive salt-stained boulder
Gazing towards the briny distance
Shades of White
A passionate brushstroke across the horizon
Sky and sea in a lover’s embrace
Caw .... caw ..... caw....
I feel you beckon me
Swallowing the sweet pit of truth
Nudged by a warm gust
I look down seeing the bundle
cradled in my arms
Your endless gaze speaks lifetimes of wisdom
Birth, struggle, bliss, challenge, and death
I watch you intently readying yourself
to pounce upon your unsuspecting prey
Riding this timeline of life
Together as one
Tick tock
Forward backward
Inward to the beating center of creation
Young one I see your sage reflection
In my gilded hand mirror
Me here and you there
Your smiling eyes
Tearing at my core
Come float with me
In sheer turquoise splendor
Adorned with seaweed crowns and abalone jewels
Rays of light penetrate the watery depths
Colonies of majestic stingrays hover nearby
Welcoming us to join their scared dance forevermore
We Are One
Dear Ancient Sister
I hear your distant calls finding me on a gentle breeze
You have lived in my dreams for many seasons
My voice
Your voice
My soul
Your soul
And our Coming of Age
I have always known you...
I have heard your
Quiet whispers echoing in
The night coming close to me
I call to you ...
Let me be a part of your breath
I have always known your wounds and sorrow
I see the light and magic in your eyes...
The pain you carry so eloquently
I see your reflection in the clouds above
Carrying your soul wound on your sleeve
I see the deep crevasses and lines
In your grandmother’s hands
I hear the secrets beneath the earth of
Your grandfather’s footsteps
I see your reflection in the twilight
Of the evening... against pink watermelon hills
Your voice beckoning me onward closer to you
I see you in the moon and stars
Your buckskin dress adorned with
Ceremonial beads
Abalone shell against your forehead
The dirt beneath your moccasins
Grateful for the kiss of your dancing feet
I hear the echo in the distance of songs
The Elders sang...
During their passage here
You are born into a woman
Before my eyes and heart
Before your tribe
Before nature
A wise new feline
A mystical power with endless allure
A force that lifts and unites us all
As one
Your rays blessing us and leaving
A welcome imprint on our hearts
My Ancient sister
I drink in your wisdom and grace
I fly on your wings
You have shown me your world
Watching you dance
Becoming you for moments in time
Your silhouette etched by
The wild flames behind you
A glow radiating into
The night sky
The stories of your Ancestors
Filling the air with
Words and lessons and song
Notes sung into clenched fists
With bloodstained hands
The children and animals
Sensing all that was
And all that will ever be...
The call of a distant bird
The thumping of your cane on
The hungry earth
Keeping time with
The movements of your body
You will look back on this
Day as you walk with the
Same cane down the path of
Old Age...
Your wisdom
Cupping your heart gently
Ancient Sister of mine
I am in gratitude for
Your strength and courage
The kiss of your words and
The teardrops of your loss
Susan Lawrence
Copyright 2020
Original Artwork
Susan Lawrence
In the endless expanse
of what exists
and the magic of what can be...
fantasy is the luster of opalescence
conceived in a continual curve of mother-of-pearl panache
spinning through a sacred spiral in effervescence
they arise - in bare necessity
and break the surface -
perceptions of prismatic potential
bending colors in the light of consciousness
daydreams delve
between realms of serenity and dampened spirits
amidst meditations
to unfurl the waves’ curl of life’s mysteries
where faceted riptides flash sun-diamonds
and twilight’s bruised beauty is but an abstract -
in mixed moody moon-shades
of earth’s passion and human nature
enriched with celestial nuances
I reflect within this mirrored space
as I search to adorn my naked thoughts in nacreous chic
breathing bliss and sipping soulful seas
my wild whimsy in wanderlust glides like an albatross
seeking the iridescence of the abalone shell --
a marvel of profound imagination
Susan Ashley
January 10, 2019
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Free Verse Style Only Poetry
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
*nacreous: consisting of or having the luster of mother-of -pearl*
As I search to adorn my naked thoughts in nacreous chic,
breathing bliss and sipping soulful seas,
my wild whimsy in wanderlust glides like an albatross
seeking the iridescence of the abalone shell.
Susan Ashley
September 2, 2021
N/A
Excerpt from: Wanderlust Of Imagination (1/10/19)
Contest: Liberum Divisa 7
Sponsor: Gregory Richard Barden
Seashore Sweepstakes
northwest rocky beaches
waves disguise cache of prizes ~
jellyfish parade
Clams and Gooey Ducks
hide in sandy blanket homes ~
no taste for chowder
hold your breath then dive
Abalone glued on rocks ~
opal sheen of shells
clusters deep purple
swinging from rocks of fool’s gold ~
Muscles hold strong
always on the move
Hermit Crabs – house on their backs ~
looks for vacancies
Oysters together
bedded down with family ~
maybe hiding pearls
Limpets with strong foot
clings to rocks and to fingers ~
teal and turquoise hats
trophies from tide pools
lucky tickets under stones ~
beach shore lotteries
I am Florida ,paradise
look around and realise
dreams come true
beneath my skies
azure seas ,a life serene
egrets wade beside the stream
peace surrounds you like a dream
sailfish and the dolphins leap
toward the moon out of the deep
wishing stars will always keep
promises made on the fly
shooting stars in summer skies
kiss your lips and whisper sighs
come to me where seashells sing
tales of abalone wings
bright coquinas,magic things
Seminoles and Everglades
Salofcatchee,healing blade
Chitamico in the shade
I am paradise.
Don't speak to me of summer storms
I rule winter,keep you warm
and you love me for my charm
for I am Paradise.
If I were a prisoner on death row
just hours away from execution
I would NOT order a meal of calamari with ratatouille,
filet mignon with truffles and Strawberry Sherbet.
I would reject a plate of Duck Liver Terrine with Confit Quail
garnished by Baby Leeks and Porcini mushrooms.
I would sneer at Saskatoon berries and Niagara peaches
dripping in lavender honey and maple syrup.
Peking duck, Scottish kippers, caviar, abalone
Siberian meat dumplings and escargot
washed down with a fruity chardonnay and a supple merlot
would not be of interest to me.
I’d insist on a baked Russet potato
freshly picked from an Idaho organic farm
topped off with Schuler bar cheese and sour cream
and washed down with Martinelli’s sparkling cider.
In my final moments I’d reflect on how Luther Burbank
began with the seeds of an Early Rose potato plant
and worked for years to breed the awesome tuber
that has come to be called the Idaho Baker.
And I’d feel sad as I meditated on how
the brilliant but impoverished Burbank
had to sell his tater masterpiece to a tycoon
named J H Gregory for $150!
For forty years the world’s potato scientists
(and yes, there are such people)
have worked to improve the Idaho Russet
and have failed to find a serious contender.
When I’m finally executed for my crimes of inanity
and ascend to the ‘Heaven for the Misunderstood’
I’ll dine on the manna from planet Earth,
the humble but delectable Burbank Russet potato.
NOT WRITTEN FOR A CONTEST
I often write about the ocean's secrets,
of its crashing waves that roar in apogee
and the treasures it washes upon the shore.
I've verses founded on tales of sailor's lore.
Stanzas about fragile seashells and abalone
and of gulls noisily squawking in cacophony.
I've penned Sonnet filled with romantic notions
in which mermaids live in depths of oceans.
I wrote I'd found Atlantis beneath the waves,
and chests of gold and silver in a maze of caves.
I am always watching out for predatory sharks,
for in ocean waters, they are considered hierarchs.
I've claimed the sun cries when twilight is nigh.
When his day his done, he yawns his 'goodbye.'
I narrated epics of its tide, controlled by the moon,
and of sirens who lure men with a beguiling tune.
Poems tell of typhoons, caused by Neptune's hand,
and of shipwrecks, men and cargo strewn on sand.
The ocean beckons to me as I stand on the cliffs.
It speaks in the breakers. My thought often drifts
to how beautiful are the waters that God has made.
It covers most of Earth's surface with salty brine.
The magnitude of its power, I would dare not define.
Much is unknown about what lies beneath the deep
but all its secrets, it seems, the ocean intends to keep.
In an effort to immortalize you,
I gilded ocean size frames in gold leaf
and painted your portrait with peacock feathers dipped in oils.
I spelled out your name in bumble bee wings
still quite attached to tame bumble bees
hovering in obedience and formation in the sky
I built a piano from felled red wood trees
and carved your likeness on each key
which I then filled up with ebony and abalone polish
I traveled to Old Russia to the Crimean forest
and pulled every wildflower up by it's roots
and replanted them just for you, on the cliffs, overlooking the Black Sea.
I tamed a black leopard and rode on her back
'round the world, with a banner, a list of your accomplishments
flowing in silk for miles behind me, past onlookers reading your life.
I sang gypsy music, as a siren on the wind
while I wept and flooded each street with the depth
of one tenth of the emotion you harnessed and kept at bay in your infinite quiet.
I started with one person, your granddaughter, with your blue eyes
her sitting on my lap, looking at me with a maturity past 3 years of age,
and imprinted every memory of you in the air, for her to grab.
You are not immortalized in portraits, or wings, or notes.
You are not immortalized in flowers, or banners or sirens.
You are immortalized, forever remaining, in the humble prayers of this innocent child.
I stay awake; I am like a solitary bird on a roof
Psalm 102:7 CSB
lone bird,
wings claustrophobic, abalone-gray
sans dandelion’s glory
surrounded by seeds
"Light Kissed"
Light kissed her through the veil
Come tempest on the beach of morning sun
With Gold on your naked feet
Life has again for you begun
Like waves to shore
You’ll meet my kiss
Slow and full
Wet succulent with salty bliss
And more my sweet
The Realm of Long Forgotten Love
Like Dark Green Ivy
Life has renewed growth
covers your ground stony,
it’s swift and powerful runs
o’er Wet Green Irish Moss
While Briny Blue and Amythest Periwinkles blink
and Emerald Green Abalone and Black Bearded Lips open
to sweet salt the wounds in
their pale then deepest darkest delectables
bristling Sea Urchin Pink
luring in Odin
And marbled Grey Geckos change their colours
From your spring to drink
Dragonflies lick Life's luscious lips of flame hungry fire
in the Gloaming mist
Lust and Desire
pressing urgency
LOVE
is let loose
held tight by the wrists
The Albatross has flown higher and higher
A great journey for you
both it and the Ancient Mariner have sung
Mornings kiss Twilight
Sleep brings dreams and delivers
Titania and Oberon
who watch over
Soul's solitary march
through Dark Night and it's wrath
To walk forever Aphrodite’s path?
A nightmare of a pardon,
Be blessed with Persephone’s heart
Athena’s wisdom, Demeter’s courage
All dance within your blood, you are whole
Life sings like a Lark
Walks with you through the mirrors
Long silk Alabaster curtains part
Warm Velvet uncovered at last
Come tempest on the beach of morning sun
With Gold on your naked feet
Life for you
my
Sweet of The Just
once elusive
now silently and swiftly
Light Kissed
LIFE
has
Begun
(Lovejoy-Burton/May 2018)
1.
Photography/Rex Dupain
http://www.rexdupain.com.au/
https://www.maxdupain.com.au/
2.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834
(for V.C. never far from me, always close by me)
Abalone Song
The ocean tossed an empty shell,
A swirled coil of pearly emptiness
glowing softly on the shifting sand.
What creatures lived and loved--secured deep
inside the silky walls of abalone?
What torrent tore the creature's heart
and ripped it from its shell to die
alone?
Or did it simply crawl away
Unseen, abandoned.
Does it live somewhere else
Without a home?
The ocean left a hollow song,
A sadness rolling soft and low
For those who choose to hear.
I hold the shell against my ear
And feel the somber tone--a moan
that fills the emptied abalone--
Not a cry of creature--moved on, outgrown--
But empty echos carried on the sea,
Anguished groans of souls whose hearts
have been disowned.
I hear the broken tears of one I know
Who night by night must weep alone.
I hold his hungry spirit in the empty shell
And wish it were his hand I held.
I struggle to caress his heart with words
Knowing that the meager offering of my pen
Will never fill the empty chamber;
Perhaps a lighter note will soften
The somber tones of the Abalone
A note that says you have a friend
a quiet one with a willing pen
Who understands and cares.
Donor Cozeners
by Odin Roark
Seduction eased into town long ago,
Thought to be natural.
It was
Praised as stability,
It was
Embraced as destiny,
It was…
Procreation ruled the nights,
Delivery rooms the days,
Time passed and like flies to a sugar fix,
Victory swarmed
Bank tellers on payday,
Local bars on Friday night,
Churches on Sunday.
Workweek habits continued,
Sexual harassment ‘round the water cooler,
Ass kissing ‘round the bosses,
Entitlement ‘round the calling-in-sick phone.
Then something happened.
Times got rough,
Unemployment rose,
Businesses shut down,
Preachers sought donations elsewhere,
Enticement stumbled out of town.
Darkness lured memories of enticements,
Cob webs hung furtively,
Tying unlit lamp post to shattered neon signs,
Side streets to alleyways,
Locked doors to broken windows.
Summer storms passed over,
Leaving muddy puddles,
Their rippled reflections
But gurgling echoes to the moon.
Goodbye waves of regret.
Today…
Not far down the road,
A new infestation of passionless hunters
Perfect their duplicitous smiles,
Awaiting yet another bounty of ignorance
For buying into the inducement
Of both flight
And fright,
Believing this,
Believing that,
Unaware that allurement
Is barbed with many disguises.
Hopefully…
Conscience will remain conscious
Never forgetting that on a clear night,
Or a dew covered sunrise,
Deception’s abalone color
Will flicker from the incandescence of
Beguilement’s lure,
Turning tomorrow’s entrapment of dreams,
Like the broken wings of flies,
Fractured rainbows are sucked
Into the black hole of deceit.
Below earth, streams release the arteries
of the undersea teeming with precious
abalone, granite and shells,
as a roulette of lotus defies gravity
soaking on the chlorine of a wind
only piles of sand can bestow…
and gentle the wavelets murmuring
hymns of serenity , somewhat delicate
as ocean mouth is to fish lips in the moist pulse
of swelling spaces for wooden fleets
to beckon the blue.
Like so, guardian of water observes the cruise
of a ship rustling a masthead…
intrusive vessels are aliens
to the underworld: greedy eyes, black hands
that rake mothers of pearl and babes of dolphins.
Fierce dugongs roll along, shaking the basement
of hunters’ boats on inlets
to pound doors of Neptune’s bed,
reflecting mirrors of an island scented
with coconut and tresses of women
bathing along coasts of such innocent gulfs.
Below earth, a divide between friends and foes
is honored; that beyond words,
a sea keeper rises to acknowledge
the kindness of strangers,
if they are kind enough to respect the gift of privacy.
10/2/2015
Chase Trevi's Contest:
Open Sea - Sailing, Creatures, Treasures
Flip flops slip off slowly
My barefoot touches the warm sand
Cold waves crash against my body
I feel the hot sun on my legs
Smell of salt water is in the air
The ocean breeze lightly blows through my hair
Seashells sparkle covering the ocean floor
Tiny pepples hiding in the sand shine through
Sand shimmers in the sunlight
Waves crashing gently against the rocks
Suntan oil feels of silk, smells of coconut
flip flops, beach towels, sand castles, suntan oil,
sunglasses, beach balls, body boards, iced tea,
barefoot, straw hats, beach chair, umbrella,
volleyball, ice chest, margaritas, jimmy buffet,
the beach boys, boardwalk, lifeguard
sand, waves, seashells, rocks, sun, ocean,
hermit crabs, abalone shell, sea otters, whales,
dolphins, starfish, shark, sailboats, surfers,
cruise ships, fishing boats, scuba diving, wind
surfing, seagulls, high tide, sunset