Best Albatross Poems
Fishing one day in the southern ocean
The sun had risen and was shining bright
Overhead me I heard a commotion
A snowy albatross gliding in flight.
With a huge wing span he circled around
The haul on my deck had caught his keen eye
Out of all the boats it was mine he found
He then glided down and let out a cry.
He landed on the water close to me
I reached to my catch and threw him a fish
Gone in a flash, he must have been hungry
I threw two more, for him a tasty dish .
Sailors who see them say it's a good sign
I hoped by my actions luck would be mine.
Written 16th October 2019.
Writing Challenge, October 2019 Bird - Poetry Contest
Sponsored By Dear Heart- Wiishkobe Ode.
feathers and bones at rest
a belly full of plastic
on our tab starved to death
* * *
our lives framed by beauty
stripped of life
the perfect photograph*
*Image of Albatross by Chris Jordan
Feathered wings to slice the sky
leaving a cloud residue trail
Shadow the size of a dime on the water
blends into the waves as they sail
Perfume of ancients in salt crested waves
carried toward heavenly things
Rise up like fury to catch the next trip
on the back of the albatross wings.
Albatross flying like a bright white balloon
let loose from a child’s hand
So close to be captured but just far away
to be lost from our view where we stand.
A beacon of sea life, a voice in the wind
at attention and ready to dive
Feathers of flight, dormant by night
“till the waves crashing morning arrive.
Farewell. Great lady of the sea,
your sad expression impressed
against the wry wind screen,
your final moment fixed
within a haunting mind. One by
one the family file out, dazed,
yet the radiator to be checked,
the headlights and paint work
to be inspected, red, yellow and
blue entrails to be rid of, blood
to be cleared, a final polish
to hide away the evidence.
I switch off. From the furore,
My eyes. Stray towards the hedgerow,
there you hang, ensnared beneath
a thorny crown, reminding me
of a Sunday story long ago.
Predator encircles above, soon to
play his part in nature’s garbage
disposal plan, a cruel mission
so necessary. Yet it was
only minutes ago, the heavens
were yours, the lonely ocean in
need of your presence, the lone
sailor, bearer of sustenance
in return for a moment or two.
I imagine your fledgling squawking
in anticipation, only then
to grow slowly weaker without
the means to understand, in this
a harsh expansive world. “Thanks to
Hollywood” Life is so cheap, even
yours. Only I among five give
you a second glance, so even
if I had the answer, to the
reasons why you’re mutilated
body is there, and I am here;
to whom. Do I tell it to?
© Harry J Horsman 1993
Lady Albatross
Our love span long on the wing
My one and only
17.10.31
Composed for Viv Wigley's
"Love Letter"
She chases her tail
She listens for his breathing
She hears each his lies
She hears each his lies
His false shadow, painted skin
Listen, quiet, still
Blue feathers, hidden
Glory birds, gold and orange
Listen, quiet, still
She hears each his lies
Monkeys running through the trees
Listen, quiet, still
She chases her tail
Drying paint on native skin
She runs through the green
Hark, the calls of birds
Drying paint on native skin
She chases her tail
Set to the Albatross, by Fleetwood Mac. (Hum along).
On love and astral travelling,
Through the stars we're wandering,
On the Universe we're pondering,
My eternal love, Napoleon,
Intangible man, but full of fun,
Our jewelled cloak of stars,
We've journeyed from afar,
Shape shifting, glittering,
On love and astral travelling,
I'm no Carlos Santana,
I have no scarlet bandana,
I am the oestrogen,
Old Josephine,
Where haven't we been?
I have no testosterone,
You're my "Yes, master," Napoleon.....
On love and astral travelling,
Sentimentally wandering,
Are you Angelus or Incubus?
Reminiscing, reflecting-----
Comical groupies for loving,
On love and astral travelling.......
albatross bathed
in golden rays -
picture takes pride of place
You float and soar the skies
riding the winds thermals
vast oceans you travel
majestic and mysterious
Thought by mariners of old
to be a harbinger of death
the sight of you a sign of doom
a bird bringing ill fate
How could anything so beautiful
have earned such ill repute
yet mariners feared you the most
and signed themselves with the cross
Albatross as you soar up high
you take my heart with your beauty
on your endless wanderings
and fill my heart with delight
For me the sight gladdens my very soul
as you silently glide above
your wings dazzling white in the sun
truly you are a Spirit Bird
30/05/2013
contest Mood Music
long before he started Fleetwood Mac I knew Mac I have always thought Albatross to be the most beautiful haunting piece of music ever I would die happily to its notes Did you know that Mac did not think it good enough for release? Lucky for us the record company thought differently.
They called you Grandma -
matriarch of Taiaroa Head.
Your husband of seventeen years,
Blue-Green,
named after the colours of the bands
they placed around his leg.
For over sixty years you
returned to this windswept
piece of Otago coast to breed.
The surrounding sea
a golden harvest of fish
into which time and time again
you dove at sickening breakneck speed.
On clifftop nest your last chick,
Button, crying to be fed.
You fished your heart out on
ocean voyage yet
he not yet fledged lost weight,
but forever present the keen eye
and caring hands of Shirley Webb.
Most of your life was spent at sea -
a radius of continents -
Chatham Islands,
The Sisters, Hello friends!
As always gliding majestically.
Born in 1927, you died in 1989,
no doubt in some bastard
foreign driftnet or deep water longline.
Nylon can’t fly
nor fools heed the curse
of the Ancient Mariner’s Rime.
So glide on Grandma,
glide on your satin silver wings,
for great will be
forever your beauty
the memory of you brings -
three million miles flown lost at sea.
Written: 1991
*Grandma was lost at sea aged at least
62 years.
*She was at the time the oldest banded
breeding albatross recorded.
*Taiaroa Head is in Otago, New Zealand.
*Shirley Webb was a conservationist
and guide who lovingly looked after
the albatross breeding colony.
*As of October 2022 Button still returns
to Taiaroa Head to breed. He is 33 yo.
Along the alleys of my old village
a squalid dog followed me
flee-bitten, rabbit-faced
Give me some leavings, he whined
just a bit of left-over heart
I am starving to death.
I was coming from the poultry shop
so I gave him some chicken giblets.
He said, Now you are mine
since I ate your heart
and he always, always follows me
ill-fated me!
THE ALBATROSS
Under thunder blows a colder wind, across an endless sea,
Like a voice from the call of a far off shore in the solitude we perceive;
For ago remained an innocent age, torn away by a thousand years
Where sincerity alone is tied to its own majestic grace;
But flow on the bluest waves over the oceans deep and wide
Waiting long for things abandoned
Forsake those condemned to the early dawn, far past ten thousand year’s,
Still in all its silent symmetry, flies by a bird on wing;
Mysterious seemed that outstretched arm, in all 10 feet in span
Grasping what came from the east, bound to rays of light;
For seas are blessed by both good and bad
Waiting long for what’s abandoned
Fifty years is doomed to its own intent, lost in its own emotion,
While all that we can hold, is a time fifty thousand past;
Come see what waits is a soul possessed, holding a daylights passage
Where what seemed lost is an albatross, staring through its blacker eyes;
But all we see is the bluest sea, left under tomorrow’s sky
Waiting long for things abandoned
Crashes still those crystalline waves, warmed by spring’s rebirth,
Until we see an albatross, departing as the seasons change;
And a hundred thousand years escapes, slips away from time and place
Bound to the cliffs and bound to the rushes of a land so far away;
For over the bluest sea, is the sunlight that we seek
Waiting long for those things abandoned
Surrounded is he who waits in the shadow, lost to the rhythm we’ve created,
While somewhere stands an albatross, and drinks its salted wine;
For now is past a million years, gone to the mystery of life
Lost in the worth of simplicity and the innocents of desire;
But now the bluest sea is calm, with no sign of what is past
Waiting long for things abandoned
Escaped the thought of an albatross bound to the symbol of its virtue,
Leashed to the seas and the sound of the waves, longing a far off shore;
Hold on to the meaning of our vision, past ten million years
And hear the call of an albatross, its beauty and its wonder;
For here we see the bluest sea, in a land of lost intent
Waiting long for those things abandoned
By m.norton
There was an albatross Jack Jack
He hung around Patricia's neck
When her husband came
A matter of shame
On her cheeks he began to peck
Think outside the box
Shed your shackles, chains and locks
Break through all the rocks
Stones will drag you down
To the depths until you drown
An albatrossed clown
Free your soul and mind
Be in one day at a time
And you will unwind
Find me where the albatross dives deep,
to rescue sailor's souls as maidens weep.
My time to brave the gales is at an end.
To golden shores I'll sail on softer wind.
My bones lie deep beneath the turquoise sea.
In Davy's locker; that's where you'll find me.
01/18/17
Contest: Find me at six
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud