Best Coastal Poems
They hang like a beaded curtain
in a fortune teller’s parlor,
each buoy a bauble
from the sea’s own trove—
sun-faded,
barnacle-bitten,
unstrung from nets
that once strained tides for omens.
Now they sway in the wind,
rattling secrets and guarding
the doorway to elsewhere.
Who dwells behind the curtain—
a castaway witch, perhaps,
who brews fog in mason jars
and weaves seaweed into capes?
A fisherman’s widow still waiting
for him to return from
his final fateful voyage?
Or maybe no one at all,
just wind and longing
and salt-stung light
curling around a chipped enamel cup.
Or maybe an infinitely
unfolding maze that traps
who enters in eternal twilight
where each corridor breathes
with the hush of retreating tides,
walls papered in kelp and longing,
ancient air that smells of old shipwrecks
and unanswered questions.
Some say you can hear a voice
calling your name—not as it is,
but as it was
before you forgot
what you came looking for.
And yet the house remains,
perched above the tide line,
porch sagging like an old shoulder,
paint peeled by salt and time.
Through warped windowpanes
the ebbing light still flickers—
not warm, exactly,
but not unwelcoming.
Seagulls gliding in a gyre.
A foghorn’s distant intonation.
And always, the buoys tapping,
as if to say:
You’re closer than you think.
Categories:
coastal, house, imagery, mystery, ocean,
Form:
Free verse
coastal sunset -
dropping into the sea also
the juggler's ball
Written February 23rd, 2016
For the What Goes Up, Must Come Down Contest hosted by Catie Lindsey
Categories:
coastal, beach, devotion, image, imagination,
Form:
Haiku
Sun
Peering
O’er the sea.
Prismatic waves
Reflect painted sky.
Colorful ripples dance,
Pelican silhouettes glow
With halos of pink, orange, gold.
As the orb climbs higher in the sky,
Bright light casts its gleam as stars and moon fade
Categories:
coastal, nature,
Form:
Etheree
From the east, a breeze
Sent from lands across the seas
Dancing with the trees
Categories:
coastal, nature, sea,
Form:
Haiku
World shifts, the air thins
In a coastal town...
slatted blinds, every hue from
Warm reds to harsher blues
Hardwired to heaven
Homing instinct with
Different wavelengths
Sunlight scatters
They're more elusive
Ubiquitous in nature
Occasionally frightening
Peaceful yet troubled
Superficial beauty
Bewildering imperfections
Sunlight fades to darkness
What mischief, what gentle
Assistance they can give
In legend, lore
Contest by Charlotte Puddlefoot, " Something Completely Different: Cut-Up Poems
Categories:
coastal, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
ship rotting near shore
prismatic colors dancing...
ocean’s reflections
nature kisses sea
multi-hues will fade at dusk...
another dawn waits
*Based on the photo of the ship in the sea at sunset.
Written by November 5, 2011 for PD’s Sunset contest
Categories:
coastal, nature,
Form:
Haiku
smoldering cattails
mosquito swarms kept at bay
gathering mussels
Categories:
coastal, imagery,
Form:
Haiku
Green turtles are listed as, endangered
and are mainly found, in tropical and sub-tropical sea oceans
they are one of the largest sea turtles, to have ever embraced our oceans
and are the only Sea Turtle herbivore, and a great sea ocean mentor
Green turtles graze on seagrasses, that helps maintain beds of seagrass
and when they have digested, going to the dunny release’s vital nutrients
for many species of plants and animals, as they thrive with stimulants
and seagrass beds are nurseries, for species to amass their social class
Sea turtles need beaches for nesting, but humans are encroaching
and they harvest their eggs, and hunt the adults for greedy investing
Coastal development, vehicle beach traffic, and other human activities
are destroying sea turtle nesting, and climate change is male declining
Categories:
coastal, animal, beautiful, earth, education,
Form:
Rhyme
At lowest tide, you shimmer at my feet,
fluid glass thinly glazes my squirming toes
Pacific respite from today’s prevailing heat
The cycle of waves, on and on it goes,
a watered source of lifeforms grand and small
Your mollusk, Pisces, star, survive and thrive,
‘neath waters dark and deep with cloud and squall,
Your oceanic underworld abides
Above, below, each day these worlds collide
Horizons far delineate both spheres
On liquid current surge the wild things ride
Our lives lived out, separately but here,
entwined by water, air, the sand, the sea,
where waves will pass and creatures come to be.
Categories:
coastal, deep, life, ocean, weather,
Form:
Sonnet
We parked on an old quay
Amidst a quaint coastal setting
Surrounded by platinum clouds
Minds soon interpreting
In poise our thoughts now action
Thralled by the essence of her perfume
No longer are we in said quandary
Now down to our birth costumes
Torso's dance in front seat tangle
Steamy windows our canopy hide
Oops! we've gone and hit the handbrake
Into the water our car now rides
Phew! within moments we disembark
Facing the actions of our cahoots
Penance our thoughts now interpret
All a quiver in our birthday suits
Written 18/02/2021
Categories:
coastal, birthday, car, color, people,
Form:
Rhyme
The sky is gray, as far as the eye can see.
At midday, no light filters through.
The drab color, reflects upon the sea.
An enveloping cloud of filmy gray hue.
A winter storm was coming this way,
but a nor'Easter came instead.
Whiteout conditions, to display.
On this island, a feeling of dread.
High winds, across the island blew,
forcing the snow into drifts.
Walls of snow, with no way through,
until the gusting wind shifts.
Snow falling through the night,
to continue through tomorrow.
The dunes landscape, becomes white,
as small creatures hurridly burrow.
Upon arrival, the storm was tame,
but in time it's power grew.
A raging blizzard it became.
On this island, these events are few.
Frigid cold, the wind's bitter chill,
warning all to stay inside.
Debris flying through the air at will.
Streets flooded, by ocean's high tide.
The day will soon become night,
there is hope that the storm will move on.
In the morning, at dawn's first light,
a ray of sunshine, the storm is gone.
Categories:
coastal, anxiety, sea, strength, sun,
Form:
Quatrain
Choppy sea below the cliff,
Obdurate ground beneath my feet.
Admiring the landscape,
Stimulating to my senses,
Therapy from nature.
Azure sea that meets the sky,
Lavishly growing heather and gorse
Punctuated between the ferns,
Absolutely beautiful,
Tempting me further along the path,
How I love my walk.
6th September 2019
Categories:
coastal, appreciation, beautiful, blue, nature,
Form:
Acrostic
As centuries pass
The seas advance
To take away the land.
Lost to the waves
The ancient graves
Reside below the sand.
Cliffs that crumble
Remains lay humble
Eroded by the brine.
The final tomb
To meet the spume
Clings to the shoreline.
Categories:
coastal, england, environment, history,
Form:
Rhyme
Black Rhinos are listed as, critically endangered
They are found in deserts and grasslands, of Coastal East Africa
and are the smallest African Rhino, with two horns that are ravaged
and they are browsers rather than grazers, eating on leaves and trees
Humans encroach on their land, which stops them from being grand
and with a lot of poaching going on, their lives are not looking long
Their horns are black-marketed, for the use of medicines and ornaments
but their lives are important, and should not be used as human servants
Categories:
coastal, animal, beautiful, earth, education,
Form:
Rhyme
The clarinet waves touched the moon.
He walked like a rooster in the moonlight,
bewitched by the music and the light. The
caparisoned elephants swayed their heads
to the drumbeats. A dozen half-naked virgins
danced around a bronze devil. “Human smell!”
Everything vanished in the blackout. That
escaped fisherman appeased the dark deity…
With a wavering voice and goose-bumps,
my wizened neighbor recounts thus the
myth behind the coastal festival. I enjoy
the false beauty. There is no analyzer in
his thinking system. Superstition is highly
inflammable in his illiterate inland. Such
beliefs flourish here in the thick Fantasy
Forest, where the reason rays never fall.
First published in The Literary Hatchet
Categories:
coastal, myth,
Form:
Free verse