Best Brackish Poems
"I wandered lonely as a cloud." William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a boat
a shallow dingy left behind,
alone in marsh of reeds remote
my paint now faint so unrefined,
my only hope the next high tide
on brackish water then I’ll ride,
in aimless drift left up to fate
the wind and wave upon the bay
on rhythmic swells, I’ll grow sedate
with naught to see through mists of gray…
on ripples pale so soft so free
my destination out to sea;
that distant place where lay the sun
across the sunset waters west,
the ambiance of cirrus spun
to brush with colors every crest
where I can bathe in shades so bold
of melting solar marigold.
Yet — let go I must of wishful dreams!
My lifeline dispossessed I strayed
and followed streams with other schemes —
now lofty tide cannot be swayed,
a rustic wreck in reeds reposed
their wind-song whispers I’m imposed.
There’s no escape their soldiers’ lance,
the blades of green so tall and crisp,
with waves they undulate in dance
and breezes ruffle tassels’ wisp,
though swans find beauty mid the reeds
—a wistful coward’s bitter weeds.
Susan Ashley
January 14, 2023
~ Second Place ~
Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 25
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ Poem Of The day ~
January 16, 2023
Poet’s note: this poem was inspired by, but not written for, the contest: “I Wandered Lonely As… Challenge”, sponsored by Natasha Scragg and judged on September 24, 2022. Thank you, Natasha, for the beautiful William Wordsworth quote and for the poetic inspiration.
Photo: gettyimages; Jay Fleming
Categories:
brackish, age, boat, fate, lonely,
Form:
Lyric
I don't need mawkish photographs to see
the drowning rowboat tethered to the dock,
a withered seahorse clinging to debris
as umber water seeps through feeble caulk.
The cord grass will have grown up through the planks
to marry splinters teeming on the pier,
putrescent pillars tilted by the banks;
a pallid corpse beside the marsh's bier.
Those summers when we sailed through brackish mist
have long since gone the way of floating sculls
that languish in the asters to be kissed
by empty oarlocks perched atop their hulls.
Your August ghost still flounders on the fen
then sinks beneath in nightmares now as then.
Categories:
brackish, death, imagery, metaphor,
Form:
Sonnet
"Wishing Well"
Plain Jane blew her wishes
down a wishing well
Lit long white bless'ed candles
dipped in holy water
Brackish
Crocodile tears from Hell
Witches hold hands together
Stand united
show and tell
Plain Jane
knows her subjects inside out
Sisters plain and simple
holding hands
united
standing by the
Wishing Well
(LadyLabyrinth/2019)
ljb/llb/klb/mlb/gvlm
ak/io/to
- ALL WOMEN -
Plainly seen, undecorated but never Simple
Competition: "She Inspires Series KH Poetry Contest"
Muse: ""Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do."
Katherine Hepburn
Sponsored: Maureen McGreavy
Deadline: Sunday 12/1/2020 12:00am
Categories:
brackish, muse,
Form:
Free verse
Thoughts that thrive on scattered dreams
shoot through the mind like laser beams
Hunger echoes a hollow song
Voices merge, intestines long
Lips are dry, and tongues are parched
Memories are pressed and starched
No miming board can take the heat
Hot irons that scorch the hands and feet.
Cold days flow into brackish nights
on borrowed hopes and collared pride
Answers wrapped in braided woes
Crushed, then scattered by angry toes
Worry stalks in cleated shoes
It leaves a track of pallid blue
Just when it seems to reach the rise
It folds then doubles up in size.
Categories:
brackish, confusion, introspection,
Form:
Couplet
The river looks calm and inviting,
a natural gift of beauty.
Waterfowl inhabit to feed and nest.
A gateway shared by creatures,
dangers hidden beneath.
The river is beautifully calm and serene,
its powerful dangers are often unseen.
Currents can swirl hidden from shore,
tragically become be a drowning door.
A natural resource to respect and admire,
a gift of nature that will never expire.
Unique with brackish water properties too,
with legends of sea creatures venturing through.
a white egret soars
diving into spawning fish ~
a river regale
9/5/2020 (edited 9/6/20)
Writing Challenge - Nature, Four in One
Sponsor: Constance LaFrance
Categories:
brackish, appreciation, bird, nature, river,
Form:
Rhyme
It was the bronzed bell of a tinseled Ocean ship.
Until destiny was scuttled by a fiery water witch.
In time, it became the haunting clang upon a reef.
A macabre Nic Nac for cliques that ruled the deep.
They returned like blue birds, lonely for a blossoming.
To pay homage to every sailor overtaken by the sea.
They lay bouquets of flowers, over shadowed grief...
as ghosts pared sweet memories into paper effigies.
Between shuffles of worn decks and ninety proof lips.
They spin tales of crimson seas and horrible dorsal fins...
Torn hearts and sails, forever on a starboard list
Drifting between a blue refrain and the salty mist.
In the graying vein of time, everything's forgotten.
The sweet angelic, the mundane, the eternally rotten.
Gravestones hoard salt within their granite cracks.
Tokens to a time when auroras bled into blackness.
One by one the crew will drift from this pearled realm.
Riding TradeWinds into the gilded scented heavens...
or becoming driftwood, in the brackish heart of hell...
as the captain sways to the clang of his beloved water bell.
Categories:
brackish, grief,
Form:
Rhyme
A tomb
So chill so deathly still
Where algaed bells hang dumb
Diffus'd
Her warted weaving spire
In eerie midnight sun
A womb
Come bubble bubble down
In gloom the vaulted way
To see
Through brackish ripple glass
By jaded light of day
Profound
Black iron gargoyle's heads
Resounding deathless ringing
To hear
The swaying sunken choir
Of chancel ghosts go singing
"TE DEUM
(eummm) LAUDAMUS
TE DEUM (eumm - eumm)
TE DEUM
(eummm) LAUDAMUS
TE DEUM (eumm - eumm)
Categories:
brackish, death, fantasy, imagination, loss
Form:
Free verse
Tidal Waves
Brackish debris filled surf retreats
depositing into hard sand graves
pictures stolen from post cards
Shards of a city strewn disjointedly
still ticking clocks idled in the moment
streets awash in decorative disarray
liquid mud roiling through the streets
ravenous pain stalking its victims
cold shock of sunshine’s failure
hands clutching grabbing
carried on the crust of fear
waving in silent farewell
luxury and comfort crushed
wild furor of seismic waves
expending tectonic energy
John G. Lawless
5/12/2015
submitted to - Show but Don’t Tell – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Thomas Martin
Categories:
brackish, horror, natural disasters,
Form:
Free verse
Hark, it is the sea that lures me,
It murmurs slowly, it roars out loud.
It brushes lightly on the shingles,
It washes roughly brackish crags,
And as its moods yields to its whims,
It holds me firmly in its spell,
It holds me in its everlasting thrill.
Every blessed day it sings to me
Just like a siren, magical and forlorn,
And calls me back to her enticing grip.
Oft I may wander in some country glen,
Or climb a mountain high,
Still in my mind I hear the call,
Haunting and taunting,
Enticing and beckoning,
Till my lonely soul would yearn
To smell the briny spray of mighty waves,
To sail upon the gentle breakers,
To feel the salty wind ruffle my hair.
Quick, quick, I run towards the shore,
I launch my little boat onto the choppy waves,
My tiller quivers, my sail flutters,
Soon around me I behold
Vast endless expanse of celestial hues,
And smell the mighty fragrance of the blue.
The wondrous breezes gently blow
As smoothly as we glide to islands Greek,
To new adventures and delightful views,
That kindles warmth within my ancient soul.
Shores fade away, mistily, afar,
I am alone at last like a lonely cloud,
Horizons loom or recede so near, so far,
Inviting, luring, restless as my love.
Mesmerized I steer my little boat away,
Ahoy there, let no one stop my way.
For now I am alone and tranquil,
Alone at last with my delightful dream:
The sea that I love so much.
Categories:
brackish, boat, sea,
Form:
Free verse
The orchid moon and I look in kind
at the dimpled ocean's
aubergine plain, meandering thought's
violet caves. I've lost my way
in the lavender vortex
of a tuberous begonia.
A July storm has passed.
Brackish petrichor lilts with the purr
of surf, now jade in lilac light,
unfolding on mulberry sand,
effervescing at my ankles,
gentle as cat fur.
This full moon buoys
out past merlot bluffs,
reposing on a mauve ribbon
between sea and plum sky;
periwinkle stars beg to spark
beside the aura of a steadfast satellite
that casts the grape of night
in fixed solitude.
Categories:
brackish, color, imagery, moon, night,
Form:
Ekphrasis
I'd hoped the sea remembered me,
accepting me so easily,
as evening peaks and
the moon draws out the tide.
She wrapped me in her icy shift,
eyes closed shut I'm set adrift,
and through the wash
I'm tossed with every stride.
Caught within her brackish flow
my beating heart begins to slow,
Katrina's won,
the pain will now subside.
Categories:
brackish, natural disasters, death,
Form:
Rhyme
tadpoles growing in a pond
anxious for the great beyond
decreased numbers, fairly grim
takes too long to grow a limb
hiding from the larger fish
trying not to be a dish
feeding on the larval flies
protein bars in strange disguise
gain a voice before you croak
caught up in a ghastly joke
wishing you could wave a wand
hop out of this brackish pond
finally you climb a log
live your days out as a frog
in the water for a rinse
back on lookout for your prince
Categories:
brackish, angst, animal, silly,
Form:
Jueju
Oxygen Rushes In To Me
Written By Brett Somers
12-19-16
The audible plunge,
On a Somers night.
Cleansing site.
My hands free of this fight.
I leaned back to throw.
In my hand a small window.
Moon kissed a glow.
Eyes fixed beyond what I did know.
Wind whipped my ear,
Reminding me of things I didn’t want to hear.
She’d stretched my heart,
And then let it go.
Like a rubber band,
She’d let me go.
My skin bare,
Standing on shores edge.
In my underwear.
I don’t care.
Up to my waste,
A tear I could taste,
I threw my ring.
To break free of the hurting,
To break free of the hurting.
Above mountain’s silhouette it flew.
Above, with haste it knew.
Times arch has come to an end.
Now, below, brackish waters bend.
To consume this thing,
To the end,
To the end.
Fell back into a salty sleep.
My new life.
And deep my breath withheld.
My body aching to be free.
Emerged above water’s edge,
Oxygen rushes into me,
Oxygen rushes into me.
Categories:
brackish, beach, break up, courage,
Form:
Free verse
"One with Spice"
Flow write a scene to be seen essence
grow in a dream in fields of gold and SOL
Flows... Spice write flight though Knight's
bright light and be. Write Sees. You.
Jewel of Arrakis. Flower not brackish
in the fresh of the Spice, yes... it is nice.
Desert Rose in the nose vision flows
with sense in The Pen's essence yes.
Melange the aware bright orange in air
and sand in the hands aware of the song
Band beats in a tune sweet plants in sun
Dunes of the Gods Wind chimes.
Rhyme. New planets seen in the beam
of the mind bright Light's sight in the Spice
Dream.Writes from a Soul to be seen.
Fluorescence the color of Poetry.
In a sense...Sensitivity and specificity
Beat of the Binary, originality. Recall it
and flow with a Write to Spike it.
Flow.Spice.Write and so Be It.
Categories:
brackish, imagination, lovewrite, write,
Form:
A well-water pump cranks out its iron-water
crooked wire remains -- once, sturdy chicken coops
The brackish, muddy area over there, the cowshed
some withered trees dot the hills, bereft now of their fruit
A few young lads herd goats, or perhaps they are living skeletons?
cows with ribs exposed, horses with manes as limp as rags ...
Some day they'll come again, the strong, determined youth
to bale the hay, to turn the rocks over, to plow and seed relentlessly ...
Categories:
brackish, farm, history, nostalgia,
Form:
Free verse