Best Becalmed Poems
oh precious, dulcet diva, ocean-tide
you, of sand and foam and spindrift -
all your moods and meanderings
speak deep my spirit, wistful and wan
musings captured, gist enraptured …
I listen, close ...
on those warm and windy days, your
voice cuts clear, carries with it the joy
of sun sprites alighting on wave tops
hopping crest-to-crest like so many
gold pieces tumbling from pockets, laden …
I listen, rapt ...
becalmed days, the lull of low tide ...
gentle swells reach their arms ashore -
the cold brine washing sand and shell
like breezes sweeping the grasslands
rolling, as imagination rolls in the mind …
I listen, soft ...
whispering in my ear of the secret
dark places in my heart, exquisite
shadowy realms where passion and
reverie hide, pulsing with urge, aphotic
warm, enigmatic feelings flow and ebb …
I listen, true ...
an ocean storm's raging beauty, thus -
somber clouds, splashed Payne's Gray
swirl cruelly as Neptune flits his tresses
sea sirens lament with angry screams as
their backs are broken on reef and rock …
I listen, soft ...
gentle swells lapping brief, the sand
moon rising to the lullaby of a bell buoy
its tender peals coaxing the moonlight to
shore, Luna's beams tiptoeing gently atop
to join the phosphorescent waterline
(not to wake the slumbering breezes) …
I listen, sad ...
the gulls and terns laugh at the folly -
a man strains his ageing ears to the song
of the tides that he loves so completely -
the most divine and elegant aria known
and a voice so immortal and pure, that
it will croon on, long after there is naught ...
left to listen.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Your Choice (9), Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 7" Poetry Contest, Mark Toney, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "New Poems Only" Poetry Contest, Emile Pinet, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Voices" Poetry Contest, Silent One, Judge & Sponsor.
When Whitman said
make your life a song,
had he spoken to old whalers?
Did they tell him of nights becalmed
on a pacific salty sea,
when no sound of lapping waves,
or rope stressed wood,
could interfere with the silence in the hold?
Did they tell of a time beyond sleep
long after the oil lamps were shut down?
When the silence of the briny deep
was broken by the eerie songs of whales,
oozing through the wooden walls.
Did they know, then, what they heard,
or did they talk in hushed tones
as ancient seamen did,
of harpies and sirens and
devils of the deep.
Did some say, "Those are our prey."
and recognize the song
and even familiar melodies and laments
from earlier seasons spent
plying these same seas.
Short songs and long songs,
and new songs built upon old songs,
pod songs and fractal songs,
and interminable songs of pain
and love songs that can be heard
by those who hear
from one edge of the basin
of the sea, under to the other edge.
Do you have a song?
Have you worked on it each season?
Is it short and repetitious
or have you worked to improve its sound
each turning of the moon?
Is it deep and subtle?
Does it provoke a laugh?
Would I recognize it far away
on a dark and briny night?
Would you mind if I wove my song
in and out of yours?
Do you have a song?
It was out in Venezuela when I ran into this sailor
He was sitting at the bar, right next to me
He was rugged he was mean and he wasn’t very clean
But I listened when he spoke about the sea
There were stories there were tales, of the hunt for killer whales
When his leg was bitten off below the knee
How en route to Senegal they were shipwrecked in squall
He survived for sixteen weeks, tied to a tree
Came the time in Kathmandu, him the captain and the crew
Were becalmed for seven days, and in a stew
So they hauled him up the mast, where they tied him good and fast
Then they fed him with baked beans, until he blew
After that there came the beast and the native king and priest
It was really getting far too much to bear
As the yarns grew more far fetched, with my patience sorely stretched
I decided that I really didn’t care
So I bought him one more rum and I said, “the time has come”
That I needed to go out, to use the loo
So he said “young man be fast, for you haven’t heard the last,
Like, when I first met your mother, in Peru
Ponded and becalmed after the downpour, lying in shining stillness, I reflect an earthly existence; above me newly leafed limbs, and beyond, the wild beauty of motley skies in the afternoon’s brightening quietude. On the side of a country back road, I daydream. As leftover clouds drift in light and dark moods across my mirrored face, I ponder the possibilities of ‘what ifs’. What if life had taken me elsewhere - to a different time and place, filling another space, in another form and shape? What if I had fallen soft as a summer drizzle instead, dressing spider webs in misty strings of mini crystal beads.. or had filled a rusty-relic watering can, left behind ages ago beside an ivy-smothered stump.. or maybe had been wind-whipped with a vengeance into a swollen river rough and ready to ride the rapids.. What if, I had fallen as snow eons ago and now was found deep in an ice core in Antarctica.. how exotic! Straying cumulus find themselves captured in my imagination as well as in my liquid looking-glass oval, and my thoughts stray back to the soothing smoothness of my present reality. I know my time here, though sweet, is short-lived; and so I set my pondering aside and decide to seize upon the moment with contentment in my tranquil state of repose.
placid puddle mulls
lost in reflections of clouds -
spring rains laid to rest
Susan Ashley
May 1, 2019
~Third Place~
Contest: Happy Haibun
Sponsor: Caren Krutsinger
The dragon hissed into the room
as I lie hidden in my niche.
Upon his back I saw his doom,
there she sat, a beautiful witch.
She sang a song of mystic dreams
and becalmed the snake to sleep.
I watched it curl into a ball
While hidden in my closet keep.
The beauty of the song she sang
no words, a simple tune of love
enthralled me with a gentle twang
that rustled my heart like foxglove
The dragons eyes spied me hiding
scared I froze as it approached
through the door it brushes by me
with purring voice it reproached.
Meow it said as it drew near.
The singing stopped, my wife just stares
the look she gives, so very *****,
she asked me, "Why are you in there?"
I close my book and move away
She hangs the clothes and sighs a sigh
I kiss her cheek and whisper dear
and stroke the cat as I walk by.
04/28/16
"Petrichor "
Two minds
have made an entrance
magnetic bodies electric
minions babble
it’s just wasted white noise
sandpaper against back stories hit
The Wall of Wasted Time
He’s read most between the lines
He’s all hard hot and cool
unruffled piercing eagle eyes
forever on the hunt for willing prey
She’s incognito in disguise
seeking a challenge amongst
the spoilt and unsoiled
green-eyed fray
the two watch
in studied silence
like heat seeking missiles
they will find each other
poles apart
opposites
light and dark
fascinated
they are each other’s mark
the ozone is now charged
the crowd dissolves
invisible all their faces
unread their lips
unheard their madding mob words
whispered all graceless
passionless empty pages
time departs
the fuse is lit
Two minds’ eyes connect
both burning id reflect
the moment before they met
neurons travelling at lightning speed
through pulse to fingertips
reach out towards
each other’s mortal form
to touch the cerebral net
then later
find fingers reading skin
like braille and thirst
to drink from reigning lips
the moment before the
welcome storm hits hips
to taste the salt in
the cumulonimbus bursting
blue feral hollows
of their naked terraform
the Two minds
like absent gods
high and lost
in each other’s ocean
bent and tossed
live their story
tattooed at the place
where bodies leave clean sheets
and souls connect
electric bodies ignite
La Petite Mort
wave after wave
their drowning moans
ecstatically deplore
their final becalmed
silence approaching
the sweet mercy of
Petrichor
(LadyLabyrinth/2018)
https://youtu.be/5hFCZ1tzWR0
"Body Electric"/Del Ray
"I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul"
I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman
(American Poet, May 31,1819 – March 26, 1892)
"The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect."
I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman
Reverberations
Moist, heavy air settled upon my skin
tauntingly teasing undulating hair.
Reaching out I clutch at the mocking wind
as its fading coolness flees into cloud
my tongue tasting the torment of the air
inhaling brimstone scented vibration
roiling within a billowing terror
striking in a blinding flash of fury
trembling as reverberations thunder
through the cornerstones of my DNA
heart racing to escape a dormant fear
the percussive aftermath of lightning’s arc.
Stillness becalmed on hope’s sporadic breath
exhaled within the darkness of a cloud.
©2/14/2018
submitted to – Describe a thunder storm without the sense of sound – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Brenda Chiri
I wandered lonely as a cloud
Captive to the wind and season
Storms around me raged with fury
I was becalmed without reason
Oh, the wind was fickle some days
And at times it would cease to blow
Then I would meander softly
Unpropelled and no place to go
'Twas the sea and it kept me there
The domain of mermaids and whales
I was akin to Davey Jones
And belonged in seafaring tales
The wind in the mast sails afloat,
Is enough for those of us so chosen
A salty yarn of days long gone
Of a trip with a drunken bosun
Oh, I would go back to the seas
If I were of able body
All I ask's a fellow rover
And a full tankard of toddy
1-29-20
Contest: Famous Poetic Lines That Inspire
"I wandered lonely as a cloud' by William Wordsworth
Sponsor: Silent One
I come here often, stop,
and from the river bank, watch
the ribs of an old wreck break through
the surface on an ebbing tide.
After all this time it still seems
to crave for breath, to air
its last remains.
Whatever past it has
no longer resides in living memory
but in a paragraph inked
in a shipping registry sunk
deep in the basement
of the Maritime Museum,
or is somewhere forever becalmed
in a photograph,
time frozen on a sepia sea.
But this morning I took it in,
gave my mind
to its hollowed out hull
and let imagination
lift it from the mud and make
it whole. I sailed it
out of the suck of time
and set it upon an open sea
and as its sails billowed
across my mind, I got the sense
that throughout all the wear
of passing time,
it had been waiting for me.
Placid river barely moving
Clear of sediment now settled
Summer reeds are gently writhing
Bed is lucent, pebble speckled
Willow fronds moved by faint zephyr
Twine in lithe adagio dance
Aspens whisper trembling measure
Senses all becalmed, entranced
Movements so decelerated
Where compulsion to align?
Days of sun intoxicated
Let the clock subdue it’s chime
Too soon: life’s twilight; drawn: the blind
May time pass slowly; I’ll not mind
"On the rocks?", the bartender called,
As I asked for a double Scotch,
To revive my spirits keel-hauled.
By my sleepy shift on night-watch.
On the rocks the liquid gold poured
Making the cold hard ice cubes clink.
Drowner of sorrows, now on board,
Dismay was dragged back from the brink.
On the rocks the ship did flounder
With no stormy tempest in sight,
With watch asleep, the rocks found her,
Not at night, but in broad daylight.
On the rocks now, the storms will rage,
Mercilessly blasting their might,
Building seas, to roaring rampage,
Defying quaffs to set things right.
On the rocks, becalmed distraction
Leaves sails flapping, wanting a breeze
Postponing the need for action,
To get relief and be at ease.
On the rocks, cold as cubes of ice,
Enticing Scotch will not suffice.
(Valentine's Collection)
14.
My Valentine
I find you within my heart
A beloved rose
My heart is becalmed
Your love the ship I do sail
ripples of desire
My soul is aflame
You light my fires of passion
love shines in my night
My love is flowing
It runs into your ocean
Our hearts sing sublime
My Valentine
I find you within my heart
A beloved rose
18/01/2019.
I have soared above the Redwoods in their youth
Touched tips of frosted frigid icy peaks
Lifted weary aching migratory wings
Swept through the oily tint of present day
Enraged the sea, drove ships upon the rocks
Becalmed the mariners upon dead waves
Caressed the vibrant hope of snowbound buds
Blew north an icy chill that still resides
Crept, in fog-like cape, through darkened streets
Swallowing the darkness of the night
Lifted into sunshine the billowing of clouds
Mussed the unkempt locks of playful youth
I have cooled the tears of red-hot passions
And rocked the empty cradles of your dreams
"LIONHEART"
My LIONHEART walks with me
Fierce is His courage
Becalmed His voice, He raises me
Never knocks me down
My LIONHEART walks with me
TRUE is His LOVE
My ONE TRUE KING
Who truly leads
My LIONHEART walks with me
Hands me His heart and says, "Stand with Me"
(Lovejoy-Burton/April 2018)
"Pearls"
More than all the Pearls in all the deepest Oceans
LOVE
Mother Daughter Becalmed
(Lovejoy-Burton/April 2018)
for Georgia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QKEpoDYqdo
"Becalmed", Brian Eno
Isaiah 43:2 (g.n.t.)