Best Flotsam Poems
("Blue Egg in Red Sea", 2020, original oil)
According to our betters,
The Karens who rule the internet,
We should all be aware enough by now
To know what is expected of us,
And so suitably clothed
In political correctness
Never offend again.
In this way each generation
Will leap and bound
Ever adapting
To the latest trend
All together now
In harmony all
Flotsam on a tide.
(5/16/26)
While the shadows fall so widely
we shall embrace a moment
for a moment will fill
all the shells empty; holding nothing
but time—days n' days
without love
The wedding procession covered
you in flowers and white
floating through the candle light
dragging crisp white fingers lightly
through lilies fair
While the shadows fall so widely
and the candle light twirled through your hair
Twist a finger, twist a lily
While the shadows fall so widely
Blush the sun rubbed rose cheeks
lift a veil, let the sun shine off your green eyes
While the shadows fall so widely
You were left a drift
your beauty beyond our realm
of beauty
While the shadows fall so widely
Lift the veil from mine eyes tonight
as goes the cloud from under your star
I see
While the shadows fall so widely
your foot astray touched the water
and you bloomed embracing me
While the shadows fall so widely
we shall embrace a moment
for a moment will fill
all the shells empty; holding nothing
but time—days n' days
without love
(with a spark of God)
To govern a myriad selection
Of one mind and legion.
Top tier parasitic collection
From every living region.
It's not subjective good or evil,
Moral or immoral, right or wrong --
But, a wanton cellular mass primeval
Versus ego and super-ego strong.
Toxic algae over jellyfish abundant,
Floating in poisons of our making:
CO2, methane, livestock redundant.
Do Vegans dream of plant life taking?
Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram:
Brain-dead sheep of the clan,
Following blindly without exam,
Trading for virgins on Ramadan.
Black holes wandering
About Yellowstone caldera.
Plague virus pondering
A Thermonuclear plethora.
Anthropogenic extinction sirens:
Suffocating on dead Phytoplankton;
Lost in narcotics and hallucinogens;
Obsessive love via Keats and Byron.
At the precipice of an extraordinary evolution,
We must rid ourselves of ancient superstitions.
To continue our rise, or reverse in devolution?
Agnosticism seems wise -- so say my suppositions.
Flotsam
The debris strewn along the beach
Splintered boat so much out of reach
Slewed and scattered across the sand
Blue and red wood still to hand
Imagination running wild
The wreckage of a boat defiled
Once a vibrant vessel, seaworthy
Now flotsam tossed for all to see
One wonders what had happened here
Which caused this wreck that instilled fear
Did the captain stay alive?
Did any of the crew survive?
Tossed and battered on this coast
Beyond any help from the island's hosts
Her keel and hull torn apart
No mast with sail nor engine to start
The ocean's relentless, remorseless tide
Has wrecked this boat and flung her aside
While benign blue sky looks calmly down
The sombre grey clouds scowl and frown
People walk past oblivious
Ignoring the plainly obvious
Not knowing nor caring why
These timbers were hurled beyond the eye
This sturdy ocean going boat
Which carried men and cargo afloat
Now wreckage laying along the beach
Lost and forgotten - out of reach
Boa Vista 21 April 2015
Landed on the wind-swept shore
a chip---a splinter---maybe more,
small piece of wood in the surf
rubbing against the salt-sand turf.
A sliver from sunken battleship,
now an underwater sonar blip?
Cruise ship chair that came apart,
lost by a deck hand not so smart?
Splintered mast from racing yacht,
port arrival most probably naught?
She picked it up and rubbed it clean,
carried it along the ocean scene,
walked on the dock, gulls did flee,
and threw it into the white-capped sea.
The sea was calm on that fateful day
The crew keen and eager to get on their way
The cargo was loaded, all men were on board
The captain at the helm was standing tall
They raised the anchor with a mighty cry
And bade farewell with a heartfelt sigh
Leaving their loved ones with a fond embrace
Not yet knowing the perils they faced
They raced through the waters with rapid speed
The sails billowing out as the captain took heed
Of the clouds building up looking heavy and mean
Would they make it to safety and land unseen
But the seas became heavier, their faces were ashen
When the captain gave the order with gusto and passion
“Toss the cargo to the sea, we need to make light
Or we’ll not make it through the long, dark night”
They threw the cargo over the side
With speed and haste and nowhere to hide
But still they were sinking with no hope in sight
Of land, or man, or a guiding light
And in the still of the morning when all was calm
While the waves rolled in under the coconut palm
All that was found on the distant shore
Was flotsam and jetsam from a ship no more
On
the beach,
ebb & flow-
with no place to
go
Anthony Gormley's installation Another place
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2005/07/05/art_antony_gormley_feature.sht
ml
Each dawn's debris sort
of wreckage from day before
yields jetsam just junked
and flotsam break-up relics.
On the beach who can tell which?
Irrelevant boyhood arcane flotsam and jetsam...
Impossible mission to jettison
nonetheless laughter iz best medicine
more enjoyable with vignette aye fabricate
(think swifty taylor harried style)
ah... voila - metaphorical light bulb Edison
would appreciate.
Martha Groff a classmate
the youngest of four progeny
born approximately nine months after late
February/early March nineteen fifty nine
born December third
later same year, I speculate,
(why superfluous tidbit stuck in me pate
I'm noggin ha understand why nor postulate
rhyme or reason only ejaculate,
(albeit not prematurely) afore said date
inexplicable retention factoid remains
thus attempt to (poetically) communicate
and perhaps even entertain far fetched
scenario, where she responds, and I officiate
as designated dogfather toward fete,
perhaps birth of grandchild
thanks in part to manufacturer and affiliate
of friggin robust Groff seeds to active
courtesy after parents did consummate -
biological reproduction in utero
accomplished, completed, kickstarted
miraculous biological fate
begetting above named girl, I felt passionate
attended same school as yours truly late
nineteen sixties/early seventies,
and with exemplary grades did graduate
with honors Henry Kline Boyer Elementary
sometime thereafter, I lost sight
how her je nais sais quois presence did captivate
a presumption, she lived with birth family
at 306 Level Road and occupied residence
prior to ninety sixty eight
with two older sisters and a brother
if memory serves me correct,
cuz details sketchy, thus I will fabricate
ordinarily pathetically lame anecdote,
a pecker yule your faint recall state
with... ahem... great balls of fizzled fire,
this then puny lad, I swear to dog I intimate...
suddenly memory akin to blank slate
hence... fill in blank space,
how yours truly did capitulate!
We float amidst the flotsam and jetsam
Seemingly immune to the debris field
Moving past the invisible, the hushed,
Focused only on the we, of us
Our minds deny the truth of what we see
Refuses to face the rising of the waves
Cannot hear the crushing surfs refrain
“I’ve come again…..again…..a g a I n……”
We walk with naked feet on fresh-wet sand
Listen to the sound of stone-roll band
And wonder why it is we can’t abide
The rising of the flotsam-jetsam tides
He was a Professor of Difficult Sums,
Always kept a writing pad near,
Just in case of instant revelations,
With pencil parked behind one ear.
He could quadrate equations
With consummate ease
And quantum mechanicals
He found just a diverting tease.
He won the Nobel Prize so often
They let him keep the cup,
And he wore designer braces
To hold designer trousers up.
A benefactor of mankind,
Which used his flowing skill
To perfect better weapons with
Much more efficient ways to kill.
He lived in academic obscurity
Until the people learned his name
When he made the perfect mouse trap
Which brought him worldwide fame?
He was sent back into obscurity
When he just went a bit too far
By inventing a pollution free
Everlasting peoples motor car.
He beach combs now in Tahiti
Fitted with a silicon chip link
To wipe his mind of such thoughts
At the speed of an eyelid’s blink
For business is business
And everyone should know
The worst kind of fool is he
Who disturbs the status quo
I saw some flotsam floating by
Or maybe it was jetsam.
Whichever one it was, I know
The river always gets some.
It’s strange that if I’d spotted it
On sidewalk, road or street,
It would have just been detritus
That I had chanced to meet.
But floating cast-offs seem to take
A step up on the scale,
For, carried by the currents,
They’re explorers setting sail.
And where they’ll settle, we can’t know
But out there on the sea,
Unlike the city’s litter,
They are rambling and free.
The flotsam
From the deep of unconscious float up pieces of memories,
like torn pictures of a past, I can’t recall.
I see a child standing on a chair seeing his image in the window.
A man, in the street below looks, up smiles.
A war plane flies right through the house and disappear
Old dreams and forgotten memories have no beginning, no e;
they can’t be expanded and made coherent.
A mighty surge of fear passes through me, an unremembered
memory absorbed into my nascent brain before I was born?
The unborn but is silence it can’t be articulated into words.
I listen to an ancient hum to understand a future that has
no conscience of the coming.
Let assume the stars
galaxying and the sun
is for instance
shine to earth
and stay for a while and bounce?,
a star for a planet
somehow is a sun
like the sun that is going through?
or for each monster, a friend, a villanelle
like the sun to the earth or north
or like Jupiter or Mercury or Mars?.
Let assume something is the world
and glass
like funny yet fret.
In
our
landfull
sites today-
tomorrow's treasures
that will amaze in future hands.