Best Driftwood Poems
Still dusted with sleep or sand,
The daydreams wash away with the tide falling out,
I'll rise to wander this lonely drifting shore,
Gather belongings and clarity of sight,
If I could stay I'd never leave again,
And who's to say I cannot?
When I was but much younger than today,
You made me gather things then and walk away,
And when I asked why,
Why we all had to go,
Why I alone could not stay,
You told me the air was wrong.
So many airs I've gasped as since then,
All just as potent,
None quite as palatable,
But to go back and fill lungs once more,
I'd hold breath until my words had been replaced,
By golden grains of dust and misty ocean,
And I'd forget your lure and lies,
Like fish pulling away from hook,
Why come up for air when I breathe something more?
I'll forget about stuffing years into black plastic bags,
Forget how every moment after these was struggles,
Let it all go,
Let you go,
And float off beaches like driftwood,
Happier than childhood ever couldn't be,
Happy without you to rope tie me and carry me over shoulders,
Away from all light and destiny.
But a speck on an endless blue,
I'll look to the edge of sky,
And dream I colored inside these lines,
Losing all focus,
Losing all sight,
My fate is hers now.
Categories:
driftwood, ocean,
Form:
Free verse
fewer …
stars there are
in the heart of heaven
than the myriad ripples of brine that
gently placed me here -
tender tongues of tide that tossed me
and polished my bark away
shaped me smooth from jagged -
turned from beast, to beauty …
courses ago -
I was loosed from a tree
and lost to the sevens in a gale -
sundered from all I’d known
yet …
my journey was ordered
as all things are
made divine not by substance
but by ministration
and singularity …
for the universe, entire,
holds no other creation like me
the countless moments
and patient, boundless energy
that my trek required
would never have been wasted
on the unremarkable …
and though one sojourn has ended
something awaits
that is more infinite, even
than waves …
OR suns …
possibility.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, August 12, 2023
( photo taken 8/1/23 by Gregory R Barden, Ferry Beach, Scarborough, ME )
Categories:
driftwood, animal, hope, journey, metaphor,
Form:
Free verse
the tide pulls, the wind howls
but i do not cling to the storm
i am driftwood, floating free
unburdened by the weight of the waves
hands reach, voices call
urging me to sink, to fight
but i let the current carry me
where it wills, where i must go
the sky shifts, the water calms
storms rage but do not touch my soul
for i am not the wind, nor the tide
i am only me--floating free
Categories:
driftwood, freedom,
Form:
Free verse
I have built my fire where the mud meets the sea
on black-gumbo clay, that keeps water from land
with driftwood, branches and the boughs of old trees.
All gathered and piled with the work of my hand.
To comfort this soul from chilled wind that age brings
to cut through night as a flickering fire can.
I sit and ponder like the fate of man's dreams
rest on my shoulders or was lied at my feet
as I gape back towards life’s shifting extremes.
My bright flames of driftwood burns long past their peak.
Much comfort I found in the heat of His blaze
I pray to my Lord that my faith is not weak
as my driftwood fire slowly but surely fades
while night pulls inward to the darkness of graves.
Categories:
driftwood, faith, night, fire, fire,
Form:
Terza Rima
Driftwood memories
cerulean shoreline fades
ebony night dawns
Categories:
driftwood, imagination, nature,
Form:
Haiku
Where have you been my drifting friend?
What have you seen along the way?
Perhaps a storm has sent you here;
your earthly remains to rot away.
A force greater than life itself
ripped you from earth's nurturing breast.
The time had come to send you on.
We must believe our Maker knows best.
I can only wonder at your life's journey.
Your story's lost, your grave unmarked.
You may have traveled many miles
or only recently embarked.
So bide your time and rest your bones
on God's little beach of sand and sun.
Only your nature will change with time
but your spirit lives on when day is done.
Is this now your journey's end,
lying white-washed and ghostly upon this beach;
or will nature's cycle continue onward
and carry you away beyond land's reach?
And what of those you left behind?
Have your seeds grown into strong, young trees?
While you are dead, life continues on;
your essence is cast upon the breeze.
One day, I know, you will return.
Who knows in what form you will be?
When it pleases God, he'll send you back
to be born again on land or sea.
Janece Terry
Categories:
driftwood, analogy, death, life, metaphor,
Form:
Personification
Moon brightens
Crystalline sand of fine glass
Glowing jade under light of cosmos
My body like driftwood
Unnoticed by beachcombers
Searching for that blush
The rosey wine stones
Coveted by the stars
Star shine, moonbeams
Ever glancing down
At my body
Twisted as driftwood
Unbeknownst to
Lovers hand 'n hand
On the beach of amor
Dearest sun flares
Dry out my wet thoughts
Long ago of coming of age
Those stolen diamond eyes
The vino deep colors
Of your pouty lips
Travel far for your
Driftwood, twisted as I
Moon bright
Shine down
Raptured in thy cosmos
Peacock painted veil
Cover my quiver
Lip nor frown or smile
Stargazer, interstellar
Pathways yet to find.
Categories:
driftwood, body,
Form:
Romanticism
Just lay there in the sun
The colors lovingly fade
From slate, to white to coal
Rest there, listen to the waves
You've worked so hard
And traveled such a long way from home
Categories:
driftwood, ocean,
Form:
Free verse
stiff as a board lying
in the wake of another dream
an imprint of your body fading
from my bed's white shore
"when will you be back?"
the soft breeze gone unanswered
lost to the loneliness of the wind
"i want you to come.."
yet a sudden realization sucked breath
from yearning's end
although death was on your lips last night
i will not forget what we had
Categories:
driftwood, sea
Form:
Free verse
Leaves of reddened corpse
Fall on me like driftwood dies
When it leaves the sea
Categories:
driftwood, life, nature
Form:
Haiku
There are red-wings on the cattails,
loons calling on the lake,
reeds swaying with the breeze.
I see the feathered wing
and the seeds.
I hear the haunting call,
the echo,
the plaintiff reminder.
I feel the breeze,
sometimes gently,
sometimes fierce.
There is a pain in my heart,
memories I feel:
those days,
those impressed moments,
the sinking stone,
me like driftwood
cast casually
upon the shore of the world.
Categories:
driftwood, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Life’s Timeless Driftwood
Peering back at the shadow stretching,
continuance knows well the peaceful silhouettes from horizon's light,
ancestral sequences having frequented one’s shore many times.
All is as it has been.
One’s longevity holds firm,
like isolated fingers protruding in protest
from sequestered driftwood blanketed by sand,
unready to move on,
just yet.
Just as sandpipers scavenge wet bubbles along the beach,
furtively running zigs and zags,
avoiding swooping wings overhead,
we too avoid termination,
with luck.
Destiny continues to lap the shore,
its gentle hands tugging
into tomorrow’s warm waters.
man’s stubborn endurance.
So mighty…
This evolving limbed-strength,
accepting of journey’s tempest,
willing to ready again for the next leg of one’s odyssey.
Even as…
White caps thunder applause,
at the elongated shadow of remaining branches
fading into the day's dusk,
signaling a tide ready to lift
to carry to the next shoreline and beyond.
Roots have withered,
growth's ever changing leaves and bark
have become morsels of love and loss,
an existence mixing peacefully toward ghostly remnants.
At some point…
The water rises,
the fiber and strands of resistance soften,
dissolving into a new connection
as birth's salt and brine prepare the next iteration,
the next surge upward,
another tenacious wave of purpose
exploding its final power
into a mist imploring remembrance
before the oneness of completion
cycles again into its new existence.
Such is the gift of time and space,
the requisite condition for permanence,
where presence once created
evolves unfettered in perpetuity.
Categories:
driftwood, death, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Driftwood
Once part of a thing lone and simple,
That stood breathing sky through a spray of green
Held in a tangle of outspread arms,
Some circumstance tore you loose from your moorings
And cast you adrift,
A wanderer on the unframed seas
Whose eddies shaped and changed you
Into your present enigma: something more and less
Than you were when you were born.
My eyes follow your strange contours,
Pitted, twisted by lash of wave and solar fire,
And the thought forms in me of how circumstance
Carries us through the wild ocean of changes
We call a life,
Pulled loose from our moorings
To ride along a vast and silent deep,
Shaped by the lashings, burnings and turns of fate
That transform us by degrees into something lovely, mysterious -
Something more and less
Than what we were when born.
Categories:
driftwood, beauty, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Small pieces of driftwood
on the beach this morning
still wet to touch
with shapes and smells of salty wonder
Cautiously I move
Carefully I sift
I find a lucky piece on the high tide line
lovingly place it in my pocket
take it home
put it in a special place and watched it for a while
It doesn’t change
It stays lucky
It has a ledge along one side like tongue-and-groove board
a bevel on the opposing side
and a hole in the centre near the top like a keyhole
suggesting that it may have been part of a door
A lucky door perhaps
or a door to a magic kingdom
I feel a bit like a happy dog who has found a new stick
or a five year old
who has just realised that small pieces of wood
can serve some kind of important mystic purpose
If only we can work it out
We need to work this out
Lucky things can often exhibit magical tendencies
They fill our imaginations with unique thoughts
Adults can only think this way
when they think the way dogs and children do
We need to get it right
Let’s try to get this right
And for those of you who don’t believe in magic
and feel that magic plays no part in their lives
I will perform this small act of verbal prestidigitation
I will transform this piece of lucky driftwood into a poem
By the power of ancient spirits
I cast this driftwood spell for you
Categories:
driftwood, childhood,
Form:
Free verse
there in the imperfect silence of night
searching for embers of hope among the
burned bridges of your life
the driftwood theology of a wandering soul
wherever the tides take you
trying to find some token of salvation in
the star filled heavens
trying to find meanings in a grain of sand
as with any driftwood soul spend your days
searching for a shore to call your own
trying to find embers of hope in the
burning bridges of your life....
there in the imperfect silence of night
while you await sleep to overcome your busy busy mind
while you wait for the solace of letting go
drifting and dreaming
lost in the beautiful places that dreams take you
you find that the driftwood theology is a wonderful thing
carve your own inner beauty into the wood of the world
take the love i know you have in your heart
and give it as a gift to the world around you
and you will find that you are no longer driftwood
cast on the worlds stormy sea's
you will find you have always been home
right here in my heart
© 2016 mark john junor all rights reserved
Categories:
driftwood, beautiful, beauty, desire, destiny,
Form:
Free verse