Best Bering Poems
Professor Hapgood’s studies on ancient maps were fixed
Einstein said his theories should be added to history’s mix
Perhaps it proved too big a leap for other minds to take
But his ancient culture findings, Hapgood would not forsake
6000 BC, before Egypt’s pyramids were built
Millennia before Pompeii’s lava had been spilled
Or small fishing boats hugged the Mediterranean Coast
And Columbus’s “daring” voyage was not even close
Ancient seafarers drew with astounding accuracy
Maps of the world they once knew, the fishermen’s legacy
Antarctica sans ice and closer to the equator
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge once an above-sea sky scraper
Siberia touching Alaska with no Bering Strait
(Palin could have seen Russia without snow from her back gate)
Cuba, England, Sweden, too, on these maps appear clearly
But Sweden’s fully glacial; England’s blanket an ice sheet
If we believe Hapgood, a civilization once thrived
Thousands of years before language; maps keep memories alive
Technology to chart the seas was lost in ancient times
With latitude and longitude measurements quite refined
Sea kings’ cities may have succumbed during the last Ice Age
Surviving nations lost their skill when history turned a page
Geography to be found again when the Earth had healed
“Discoverers” reinvented the forgotten ship’s wheel
Magellan, perhaps not the first to sail around the globe
Admiral Byrd not the first man to visit the South Pole
Spirits from a colony of seafarers can be found
From deep beneath Antarctic ice, they try to spread the word
But laugh they must as scientists forecast global warming
And man attempts to alter life and heed their dire warning
Shifting poles? Natural cycles! Men would be well advised
To study the maps Hapgood found and open their closed minds
To learn more about Professor Charles Hapgood’s map studies and the comments made by
Albert Einstein, you can visit http://www.crystalinks.com/crustal.html.
trawlers steam out from dutch harbour
patroling the frozen waves
serching for gold under the sea
to feed my family
in the wheelhouse the stars shine in
skyes dark and air so thin
no mater where this vessel takes me
my heart is yerning out for you
heaven on the water
is where im dreaming of my love
i see your face on the misty spray
as im calling out your name
heaven on the water
it wont be long my love
for a few more days i know you`l guide me
guide me home to you
icey winds shiver my spine
as we bring out catch abord
empty net and broken dreams
as the waves come crashing down
storms break loose with a crash of thunder
rolling across the bering sea
up and down around then under
but still i dream of you
heaven on the water
is where im dreaming of my love
i see your face on the misty spray
as im calling out your name
heaven on the water
it wont be long my love
for a few more days i know you`l guide me
guide me home to you
i see you face as the boat goes down
sea whispering my name
beconing me to the river
where we first found love
heaven on the water
im still here my love
watching you and our daughters
from the stars above
heaven on the water
calling out your name
calling out your name
heaven on the water
calling out your name
I was taken from this life
in the black night, blindfolded
to be clubbed to death
so that I
might be born again
in spirit song, dance and name
given by my great ancestor
who, ten thousand years ago or more,
crossed the Bering land bridge from
Siberia to Cowichan and the Salish Sea
warm land of the raven,
the black bear and the salmon.
I have suffered
four hundred years
of dislocation of the soul
in this barren culture, nameless
but for “primitive squaw.”
I have lost
Tamanawas, the sacred ritual dance
the Potlatch feast of giving and
my children and my language.
I will endure
four days and nights
confined and cold and hungry
while all around the rhythmic pulse
of elders’ drumming, chanting
guides me back in time and space
to voices still resounding
stories of a dancing flame
light upon the earth
And I will rise in cedar forests
and walk the clamshell middens
feel our language on my skin
and see with startled eyes new life
the Soulfire I’ve been given.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was for the Shaman's Way contest but I think I missed it.
Cowichan --used to be pronounced coWEEchan now it's usually said like, Cow i chan.
The Canadian government outlawed many Coast Salish practices until the 1960's--the Spirit Quest, Potlatch feast and
Tamanwas dance among them. Children were placed in residential schools, away from their families, and were forbidden
to speak their mother tongue. More recently, the spirit quest ritual has been revived as (loosely) described in the
poem. However, it is also now used as a form of "intervention" to help address an array of problems frequently
attributed to colonization (e.g., drug and alcohol misuse). So, where in the past, young people would go off into the
forest voluntarily, it is now often the case, (at least in Cowichan) that young people are taken from their beds in the
night. Initiates are first symbolically "clubbed to death" then "reborn" after multiple days of ritual practices.
Man of the Bering Sea
Met a man who lives near the Bering Sea
Whom displays a vastness of proclivity?
Or he’s often exposing his austere propensity
For unto many of his long-winded prolixity
Each and every day he foretells a fishy story.
Everyone knows of his many ideals of banality
Of him often failing to come to a finality
To his many unrealistic fish-catch stories
Many of his friends pretend to show expectancy
To his many frenzy of penchant of tales longevity.
His closest friends knew of his chance to be
In his chosen book of the Guinness book for brevity
For certain it may be labelled zero to none, not by
chance mon ami
For that man who lives on the shores of the Bering Sea.
Written: 6/20/15
Theresa Marie
GETTING TOO OLD
Her story told by old charts, scattered, water-drenched.
Portholes all broken, shaft and screw missing : a wreck ,
Grounded on concrete platform like an old man sitting on bench,
Battered funnel, broken hawsers, holes in deck.
Tell you stories about the old days when he mattered.
Eyeglasses cracked. Some say he has a screw loose :
Old man on a bench, like a ship in dry dock, rust splattered,
Battered hat, torn trousers, holes in shoes.
Endured war sagas at the siege of Malta,
Braved storms in the Bering Sea - ice cold,
Saw exotic island sunsets in Straits of Malacca,
With cargoes varied, they traveled the world.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for Matt Caliri’s Contest “Write A Backwards Poem”
Cold and icy passageway to trudge through.
Ships and warships sailed thru the Bering Strait.
In limbo 'tween two nations, iced, staid too.
When I first set out, for thrill I await.
Where ferocious beasts can hunt and roam thru.
Gray clouds with puffy tops hedge their offspring.
Calmly shifting layers, like a stack shades.
Wet and wild park made of stone tectonics.
Not to mention a beard made of green trees.
I saw two black wolves on Eagle Brook Road.
Mountain trails are plagued with random people.
At the outset, there were rocks and small stones.
There are blooms on the young pink rose jungle.
Here, among green discord of willow vines,
Aspen trees clump joined, stay comfortable
Alaska: home to the famed "midnight sun."
Where kids play and grownups lose track of time.
Reminds them that it is time to wind down.
When it gets quite dark they call it nighttime
Bright toughness is a trait with a tough tone.
The place where the Moon is second fiddle.
Matanuska vale's snooze-fest of a town
while moose and caribou withal trample
Move across the railroad ties one side down.
where the grass is green and soil is ample.
Alaska: home to the famed "midnight sun."
The place where the Moon is second fiddle.
Written: June 21, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 4 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
Checked by: HMC.COM/ 10 Syllables per line
Rhyme: Rhymezone.
Alaskan Friendship of Winter
winter brief
my golden moments
vibrate in your darkest hours
as our fingertips
entwine, to ride the rollicking
hellbent Bering Straits
Written for my dear Euro friend, Ellie Daphne
V Anderson-Throop 2013
The Arctic Fire Bugs
Ice nights are the playpen
For the kids born to this land
Skating rinks and bowling shoes
Never touched a hand
Or foot that kicked at blocks of ice
As thick as you are tall
They scoff at jackets toss their hats
While through the drifts they crawl
Gather wood and getting high by tearing limbs from trees
Boozing up to get a buzz in temperatures that freeze
Building up a bonfire that will signal all their friends
Friday night is party night till sirens scream the end
Now it comes the fun part when they run from chasing cops
Scatter all directions and ignoring calls for “stop”--
Game they play that irritates and costs the city bucks--
What else is there to do unless they steal the fire trucks?
Note: In Alaska outback, bonfire is the key meeting place for teens--this poem is based on my teen son and his mode of fun in Valdez, Alaska--350+ miles from the next city--a town at the end of a long road (the Richardson Highway) with only one town tat the edge of the Bering Sea (often called North Sea).
Fire and Ice Contest
November 27, 2012
Victoria Anderson-Throop
A lonely life it’s not easy being a fisher’s wife
but loneliness can be a compassionate companion
unbridled spite of bucking boss-mare-waves followed you ashore
her turmoil roiled the blood in your veins
and no amount of vodka
could flatline her seething heartbeat inside you
I saw her in your storm-full eyes eyes the color of stormy seas
you wore your hair in dark waves like hers a windblown tangle
I saw her in your storm-full eyes spindrift and steel blue —
rage of the Bering Sea against a canvas-sky the portrait of your eyes
your tongue-shard slashed at me like a broken bottle in hand
word-squalls blew and fist-storms
flew like splintered glass
piercing me to my marrow till I glistened
but… I could never glisten like her unblemished face at dawn
years of boss-mare-waves ground you down – razor edges worn smooth
your storm-tossed-heart now floats.. a lost raft on a tamed tsunami
your flat-sea-eyes the ancient blue of glacier ice
frosted over dull yet with a faint glow of stories you can’t tell
as you search a cognitive wasteland for words as harmless as sea glass
It's easy to lose your bearings in the Bering Sea
Or your yo-yo in Tokyo get what I mean
How about this
Being squished by a fish
The fish needs to apologize, that's totally obscene
Silly?
WRECKS
Battered funnel, broken hawsers, holes in deck,
Grounded on concrete platform like an old man sitting on bench,
Portholes all broken, shaft and screw missing : a wreck ,
Her story told by old charts, scattered, water-drenched.
Battered hat, torn trousers, holes in shoes,
Old man on a bench, like a ship in dry dock, rust splattered,
Eyeglasses cracked. Some say he has a screw loose :
Tell you stories about the old days when he mattered.
With cargoes varied, they traveled the world,
Saw exotic island sunsets in Straits of Malacca,
Braved storms in the Bering Sea - ice cold,
And endured war sagas at the siege of Malta.
~ In memory of Herman Melville, who lived a similar darkness to my own ~
~
The day star hisses,
Kissing the cold Bering Sea
As the sky blushes crimson rouge.
How many suns have set on the big blue ...
Finding the hand lance still in my clutch?
How many breaches have been hailed,
(Heart catching in my chest,
Blood coursing fire,
Throwing arm in a twitch),
Only to be put asunder?
One spout even washed the ship's side!
We could have taken her clean and dry ...
Without as much as putting longboats to wake,
Yet the order given was "Sail on!",
All for the sake of a bedlamite's obsession.
Now I watch one more sun daub the horizon ...
Milky Way washing up the eastern sky,
Polaris winking its steady gaze hell-ward,
As if to mock our empty holds and pots ...
No rattle of the fin chain or sweep of the mincing knife,
No tangy odor of the blubber ovens,
And not a drop of blood to whet a single harpoon,
(My lance always first to find purchase).
I shall put to hammock this night with a prayer for my kin,
And an oath to my mates, that we survive ...
For we are now at the mercy of madness,
And on the elusive, deadly trail ...
Of a white, finned demon.
~ Honorable Mention ~ in the "Completely Your Choice 6, Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Your Favorite Legend" Poetry Contest, Chantelle Anne Cooke, Judge & Sponsor.
Not long to go now until we are
told we will know
How the next 4 year's are bound
to pan out
As the way it's been reported on
it's almost like we have a casting
vote or have a say in it ourselves
Bering in mind however or whichever
way it pan's out it is entirely up
to them not us
I highly doubt they care what we think
anyway as they have far more pressing
problems to deal with
And when such a big deal is made
of Russian interference why or how
come we don't feel the need to but
out either
If you believe in the supposition
that the news media are the so
called all knowing visionaries
they proport to be like our very
own BBC
Then this election is moot anyway
And just how much power can
or does a President really wield
in an actual democracy
Only a Dictator who rules by
an iron fist is trully blessed
with the gift of absolute power
Ask any old ordinary folk who lives
in say Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan
or Saudi Arabia
On the basis of if no one is looking
over there shoulder or they are
reading verbatim from a script
Pause, smile for effect praise
the leader and maybe you will
see your family again
fuulisdec ascades dash bravened break drastic little pond ex mariner once sadi this
vergreener times two houndered thumder thugga kitty cats plenty of tracks
digital dilusional infuzsions cervival constelllation caner called me pathos
in regressions kent yerr i made to barboas elevated my perception
hitters of reckless ambition thunder silent submarine good buy
blessed appeantently unfilled fractionbs expo exposed mets met jets
r5ussel in my brand on hertz gigabite fisrt wifi liked turtles cherry terror
observe it mission of her worth mopre precious t5han HEAVEN Isabella
Chistina the pain spain spanish exquistions pond grizzls bering strait
at thje lake a soldier bluuf yes ivan i9n gustyu winds chicago lift umber
comiited anderson into a ckinic for his chest arapaho center light rails
right there north deatrh throes sersi yurri siberiann warriors casualy dressed
camaflauger newton as Issacs son in two suns angels spoke disaster fell
astroids hit jupiter fraizer sicioatric artic havoc arestsia master freinds
\venice vietnam pecan pelical gaum lahoste rau warsaw geneva code
divinian divinci michaekangolo mistrees mya exististence rightfull ower of trump
industries bad bamb seashells goodbomb mason thirty second cleapatra
alexanders christmas tree no li9ght in my head still to the nines
HISTORY IS UNTRUE
Columbus discovering America? Yeah? Who says?
Only after a small army of Vikings from overseas
Traded and raided on the coasts for centuries;
And Brendan had navigated from Ireland to the Bronx;
Not to mention precolumbian wrecks of Chinese junks
Found in the sandy bottom of San Diego harbor;
And the Mongoloid footsloggers who tiptoed south to Ann Arbor
Across the floes of the Bering Strait a millennium before.