Best Gull Poems
I am known as a sky rat, or a beach thief,
most call me a seagull and a nuisance.
I love to fly across the ocean freely, soaring with
my wings spread while darting into the water.
I see a photographer, maybe I will be featured,
instead I go unnoticed as whales are surfacing.
My eyes are keen as I search for crustaceans.
Feeling bored I decide to move onto the beach.
I tease humans with my little show and dance,
always winning a few scraps for my troubles.
No one knows my struggles to exist with my flock,
we squabble, fight and bully for food until bloodshed.
Crabs are our delicacy, it’s like finding the jackpot.
I will win you over with my beauty and charisma,
until you leave me with your lunch as you swim.
It then becomes all mine, except for the wrappers.
Yes, my reputation precedes me again!
7/09/2020
Contest: Bird Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Constance La France
I’m soaring through a sunset – violet
as sun drips into water cobalt blue.
How peaceful is this twilight time. I let
my eyes take in the total gorgeous view.
My mates fly with me. Beachcombers we spy!
We squawk and squeal and circle with delight.
Then down to where the humans are we fly.
We need to look around while there’s still light.
Before the sun into the ocean dips,
I hope to find some food upon the ground.
I relish scraps of fruit and yummy chips!
Oh joy! I see my lovely mate has found
leftover crumbs. She shares them all with me.
How glad are we to be birds of the sea.
Jan. 30, 2021
The calling gull leaves her nest
her wild magic cleaves the nimbus.
An avian aerialist suspended aloft
she sails on tapered feathers of cirrus silk,
ruffled sea breeze ironed ‘neath her lustrous wings.
A wind witch, she defies and defines the w-i-n-d…
a weaver of worlds, knotting strings of stories as one wampum belt
in union with the sea’s connection to land and air.
She steals the sough from the surf and the sigh from my sinew;
my guide to a mindful haven. This nurture-maven
glides among bouquets of pink-peony-cumulus.
She; my blue-sky-muse in celebration!
She; my compass rose, mediates my meditation.
I unfurl fresh wings, a night-to-day tern, and claim my turn with the wind
no longer a granite stone asleep on sand. I soar
from the glacial-age strand and lift through fog.. brief my tryst
with mist. Eyes blessed by the crest of a humpback’s breach.
I distill myself, my will; a droplet, tear, a sphere free of guise.
An ascendant of moon-magnet tides yet a descendant
from stratus to stratum, I settle upon the cliffs along the coast
in union with my soul’s connection to body and breath.
In the cup of my hands I hold the sun and drink its yolk,
white-cap breakers below chant a soluble sonnet.
From my inner dark, a flint-spark flares as I find what I lost.
My heart, a wild cranberry, reborn from the womb of dawn.
I inhale the moment. Red clay cliffs, lifeblood, fire-skies merge.
Windswept pitch pines croon as I grow roots for my tabernacle,
cosmic beams stream through stained-glass-eyes.
The calling gull rests. A distant, silent witness to my quest.
My pulse a psalm as I emerge; a cathedral lit by sunrise.
Everyone has to learn...
To be a gull
One day...
It will be your turn
In a sky...
Perfect too
Upwards I flew....
To meet you
For, in us all
Is a Jonathan Livingston
Bursting through
Gulls flight...
In me and in you
It is the spirit that takes us all...
Reaching new heights
New skies
New flights
We all dream
Some chose to be....
Gulls on the sea
This is me....
As I sit, watching the going down of the sun
The gulls swoop and turn
I savour the thought
Can I become....
One of those...
Who fly until the day is done
One day....
I will come as a gull
Fly over the sea
Swoop and turn with glee
What it is to be free
One day it will be
I sit on a rock
Looking faraway
Where the ocean meets the sky
Forming a huge circle
I hear
The sand gently
Lapped by waves
A gull flies by
Glancing at me with a smile
Seeming to say
Isn’t ocean vast and beautiful?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They rise on thermals we cannot feel,
these white-winged wrappers of the air~
shuddering their thin, translucent skin
against the fist of every March wind.
No nest to claim them, no song to sing,
just the hollow rattle of their flight,
the way they cling to chain-link bones
like ghosts who forgot how to fall.
Sometimes, in the slant of dying light,
they almost fool you~
drifting lazy as herons,
dipping like terns over parking lot waves.
But watch one snag on barbed wire,
watch it thrash and twist,
and you'll know:
this is a bird that cannot die,
only tear itself smaller and smaller
until even the wind says goodbye.
One legged swaying
Stiff breeze chills
Soldier crabs scurry
WINTER GULL
If I hadn’t seen the speckled splash
hadn’t heard the cry -
unmistakable
piercing
a forlorn sound
lonely
reaching out to distance -
I wouldn’t have this shivered-thought
Yet? The joke’s on me
The gull
A bird for all seasons
Loves to trigger imagination
He’ll shriek at wedding or wake alike
He’s just hungry
But I wish to hell
on this gray late December day
with ball descending
He’d drop his load on someone else
The cliff tops were bare, rocks lay scattered across the beach, the nearing harbor holding all in its silence. Along the bay the ripple of a kayak hovered on a waters edge. All was quiet, or so it seemed.
Overhead clouds rolled and arched a landscape in blue, held by a shimmering backlight in grey-orange hues. Up there, amongst the rocks, movement issued the break of day. Columns of fledged juveniles headed out to the shore on surrogate wings so new in all their mottled grey glory. Clumsy at first, innocent of death, they practiced their art.
Many years ago, decades ago, before our monopolized greed, these wings could learn their craft on broken hills and rock face to a sanded shore now desimated by poisoned or starved waters. How the human spirit lives on.
Year by year, in urban habitat, overwhelmed by our desire to regenerate, encrypted in a culling desire, no co-existence, just hate, a lack of education, a provision of landscape in need, forcing extinction to deaths lonely door again and again.
Today I watched the bonded pairs high up on the roof tops, a tireless nurture, their weakened bodies, their empathic care. I look down through the alleyways, broken wings fall or on discarded earth or through my town, hiding in corners. We are the invaders, not them.
the roaring crashing
music of the blue ocean . . .
a sea gull gliding
________________________
May 5, 2018
_________________________
Added after judging of contest
Poetry/haiga/contest/sea gull gliding
Copyright Protected, ID 18-1019-924-01
All Right Reserved. Written Under Pseudonym.
Written for the contest, Haiku/Haiga
sponsor, Mick Talbot
Fourth Place
My feathers are misted and moistened from the sea spray
As I glide above the busy shore on Frenchman’s Bay
The sunrise displaying beautiful pinkish and purple hues
While the tide is out, no fish and the crustaceans are few
I soar above the boats all docked along the shore
While searching for a safe landing and food to score
Spotting tourists, seated while eating their breakfast food
I quickly land at their table, hoping they’re in a giving mood
Instead, I get shooed off with water thrown and screamed at
Flying off, I soon spot a trash bin with bacon pieces, crisp and fat
I dive into the barrel, feathers tucked, beak landing into the bacon
Delighted as I also feed on some toast crumbs and a cinnamon muffin
I feel the barrel moving, again I am screamed at and shooed away
I fly toward the sky, soaring high as my droppings splatter and splay
I soar above the surf, my feathers spread wide enjoying the sea spray
Spotting some crabs washed ashore, now dive- bombing for my lunch today
Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 10 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
I meditated till it came
Pure and free a gull it was
I wanted to catch it and it escaped
Was it my vision or a moment of trance
Flying high in the sky it was so light
Worldly affairs could not bind it
It enjoyed nature's bounty
It dipped itself in the fresh air
The depth of the ocean was no more scary
New heights it had reached
My mind wanted to attain the gull's achievements
Mother Nature had to give me freedom
My soul wanted that liberty
Flying high in the sky meant salvation
A soul mate was found in the gull
inspired by Nett's sense of meditation and struck by her gull in poem 'Fleeting Visuals' (free verse)
I know you so well now
that I can instantly
capture your moods.
Watching
as the tide ebbs -
you regretfully reveal
hidden treasures.
Children with small nets
probe into
your very soul,
and seabirds
plunder your bounties.
If I listen carefully
I can hear you cry.
Oh but the tide incoming
is a different matter.
Water gently
chuckles through
parched crevices,
small creatures return
where they belong.
Behold, seaweeds dance
in joy, and
once again
rejuvenated
you count your losses,
lick your wounds.
Written: circa 1994
———
Gull Point is in the East Coast Bays of
Auckland, New Zealand. An old haunt.
As a child empowered by youth,
All is wonder,
All is truth,
Faith projecting as a wake,
A child of God,
Runs free these days,
Oh Lord, I have been so blessed,
To know your love,
Feel your caress,
Now I watch as the children play,
And loving tears swell,
...Thank you for this day.
To feel the warm sun, wind and sand,
A glorious gift,
A glorious plan,
Watch the seagulls as they wheel and dive,
Searching for scraps,
Screeching in delight,
Never do they question - nor do they ask,
For more than they need,
Or more than they have,
And in this spirit so free and strong,
I live, learn and love,
As my gull wheels on!
My Gull Wheels On
aka Michael Wilson
If, I were a seagull;
The wind would tickle
And lift my fine feathers.
I would extend my wings,
Bend my knees,
Leap up into the air
Flapping my wings
Taking off and fly,
Feeling the favorable
Brisk briny breeze filled sea.
Glide and vanish into the broad sky.
I'd fly among the shadows of the clouds,
Embrace in natural warmth
Of heavenly sunshine,
Overlooking uninterrupted view
Above and among endless, blissful line;
Along the coastline,
As it calls.
1/30/2021
If I Were A ? Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Judged 2/4/2021
3) if I were a seagull
Poetry Contest:'NA Poem From a February 2021 Judged Contest -'
Sponsored By: Constance La France