Best Hulls Poems
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:
hulls, death, imagery, metaphor,
Form:
Sonnet
the gods …
awoke early that day
for the sun had swallowed the moon
and left a ragged, gaping wound in the sky …
it bled darkness like cold oil
threatening to stain
all that they had labored to create
not the least of which -
humankind -
had yet to suck a breath
or betray their common senses
but …
what of Byzantium, they pondered?
the horizon still ached for sails
but to weave an empty sky was doom
even for the regal bateaux of Valhalla -
‘breach the canopy’, they thought
sew the temporal seam with
threads of divine intent ...
net the stars like silver herring and
bind them to the gunwales, en masse -
grave the hulls on the cosmos
and set the sextant to unholy dreams ...
the day be damned
it would end nonetheless
and tomorrow would
still come ...
sail on!
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Standard Contest Number 145 Any Form" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
This poem did NOT place in the "A Contest About a Goddess or God - Not THE God" Poetry Contest.
Categories:
hulls, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse
A swimming cloud became the mist;
our morning peace stirred inner light.
Before the sun rose ending night,
our honesty lit passion’s flight.
We met sea crests as morning kissed
a gently rolling shore of gulls,
white-wings seeking sea’s tranquil lull
as dawn’s light winked on distant hulls.
Soft sands of gold, our walks I’d missed.
To cradle love at break of day,
we once began each day this way,
before our golden years turned gray.
Now, hands entwined, we reminisce.
Our laughter breaks the silent dawn.
Fond memories I thought long gone,
come flooding back to carry on.
I want for nothing more than this -
our worlds collide, a second chance.
With children grown, a new romance,
upon our beach, rekindled dance.
A swimming cloud became the mist;
we met sea crests as morning kissed
soft sands of gold; our walks, I'd missed.
Now hands entwined, we reminisce.
I want for nothing more than this.
Categories:
hulls, age, beach, love, romance,
Form:
Verse
Collisions avalanche, beneath the icy
Waves, of the North Atlantic.
Birthed in the cradled of Belfast,
A maritime giant, became crimsoned,
By champions shattered tradition,
An ironic omen presence to come.
For she bares tragedy’s mark, the name
Given to this colossus, the titanic.
An aquatic diamond gem, of ocean
Liners, refined and polished for the
Privileged elite.
A jewel shinning, with a brilliance fire,
No vessel could rival, this grand ladies,
Opulence.
The unsinkable legend survives even,
From under the brimey fathoms depths.
In the whispering wind echoes, carried
Just above the foam and sprays watery
Crest, a haunting refrain is spoken,
Ice burg dead ahead.
A sheer ice blade, is driven into the
Hulls breast plate, puncturing the maid
On her maiden voyage.
Death's fiddler plays an eerie tune,
As the screaming chorus sings,
Dooms lullaby, of remorseful regrets,
Of the living dead.
Abandon ship, women and children
First, but life’s greed proceeds protocol,
And man take seats reserved while
Others are simply left empty.
A once shinning star, is broken now
In two, rivaling in pain, she the
Grand lady, shutters, grasping for
Some hold, but fates evil hand
Pulls her beneath the frozen
Angry sea.
To rest at the bottom of titan's
Kingdom, in a crept mausoleum of
Seaweed, and coral debris.
Yet the Titanic still remains the
Diamond jewel of the seven seas,
Her mystery's beauty, a mystic
Inspiring mankind to solve
The questions that remain,
Unanswered.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
HISTORICAL
Categories:
hulls, adventure, imagination, inspirational, international,
Form:
Free verse
Only silence dresses her rigging now
To the call of the bosun’s whistle
Her hatches now stand locked and secure
Where long past sailors once lingered
She is the last of the old frigates
Moored in the shallows of Charlestown
Board her and hear her echoes of valor
Haughtily anchored her colors humbly fly
No blemishes on her hull show her battles
Her carronades still sit silently waiting
As she floats mythically at ease
For a moment I can hear the great moans
Her keel and sailors cresting Atlantic waves
To Captain Hulls orders to come about
And charge on the enemy ship Guerriere
On her decks I feel the plight of her dead
Hearing stories of centuries old bulkheads
Astounding feats of a morose pride
To have brought their foe to capitulate
Now she stands tacit though ever grand
And still on her decks and deep in the bowels
The mighty spirit of U.S.S. Constitution dwells
A monument of endurance softly whispering
“Lest we remember long forgotten sacrifices…”
Categories:
hulls, history, inspirational, loss, mystery,
Form:
Free verse
Sickle moon gray above the waves
The quiet directionless wind
On the earth, and in the sky above
A veil is drawn, cutting into dark spots
Slowly round and round,
Murals are etched into the sand
The statue waits with eyes unblinking
Silent wonder, solitary armless stone
Twisted, counter-pose, forever fixed,
Wonder, what does she see under water?
Rusty bows and sterns, shipwrecks,
Silvery fish fluttering in and out of hulls, a
graveyard outside hallowed ground
Archway, the great doors dark and closed
Murky, wet light pours in vaulted windows
Through water-worn edges of stained glass
Seaweed tendrils curl around an altar
Once, quiet processions marched up the aisle
They are now only filtered ghosts,
Murmuring, wavy impressions of what was
Forever, the tide calls upon the great steeple
And the lonely under-toe,
Pulls a mote in the sand around her,
To protect the bastion in the sea,
Dark, lovely, lost forever to those above
Categories:
hulls, art, confusion, introspection, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
The days are long and unproud, they brood...
and please not the weary soul wearying in its wake;
when gnashing snow and rain bite
cold and bitter nights ---
smite the weary traveler soul
The spray of oceans fierce, the tattered sail
and shattered galleon hulls,
whipping winds above the dead below the waves,
heave torrid warning weeps,
to forgotten realms...
to misty denizens deep,
buried 'neath the seas
Fathom after fated fathom, bugle from mermaids call,
belated beckonings, doom from harp ringing culls;
'ere the storm ends many men;
they sound the trumpet and bugle ---
and sea urchin minstrels again,
'ere the storm ends many men
The masts seem as wooden-braced ghosts;
shackled to grimly merchant (boors) for sailor eyes ---
aghast for Captain Bold and his pickled laugh ---
To the eye! Straight on! Through her gutteral seas we go!
'ere the storm ends many men
The crest of waves rise monolith and mighty,
scolding beam and soul,
lancing forthwith all aboard ---
visions of ill-fated meagre pay;
of wife and child far and away,
forgotten faces...
lost in venomous haze
Terrible is the vanquished soul,
smitten to meaningless display,
needless heroics of Captains Bold,
(summoning water thundered fates)
sleeping seas,
then silence...
sweet silence...
***Dedicated to the sailors who lost their lives at sea***
Categories:
hulls, fate, sea, storm,
Form:
Rhyme
In the deepest, darkest, dankest depths,
the creatures plan and hedge their bets,
they ponder just how bad we'll get,
and smoke their foreign cigarettes.
Concentrating on the Middle East,
they've hatched and raised a hateful beast,
and guaranteed they'll be no peace,
so war and suffering will not cease.
In Africa their foothold's firm,
so many die from spreading germs,
they love to watch the infants squirm,
their bloated flesh the food for worms.
Their goal is to destroy mankind,
plant seeds of hatred in our minds,
their pact with Satan's sealed and signed,
in blood upon the dotted line.
The rain forest is their target, too,
cage all the creatures in a zoo,
cut down the trees and plant no new,
and watch the greenhouse gasses spew.
Make sure the seas are full of trash,
and oil spills as hulls are gashed,
they want to see our hopes be dashed,
the dice are thrown, the die is cast.
They sit and chew on monkey bones,
and laugh as storms destroy our homes,
in league with trolls and hunchbacked gnomes,
they breed in secret catacombs.
The darkness glides on silent wings,
and is repelled by just one thing:
the song of prayer our hearts sing,
with love we can defeat this thing.
Categories:
hulls, life, mystery, nature, philosophy,
Form:
Monorhyme
Old ships come to die
on a silent beach;
once they ferried freight.
Side by side, they lie
broken hulls; now each
bide their rusty fate.
Image #1
Categories:
hulls, death,
Form:
Verse
The sherbet orange light of a fall morning in Connecticut crackles with the scent pine. The lake’s parking lot overflows by nine thirty. The S.U.V.s park in a haphazard manor. The boat crew’s flight from reality – or the emersion in it—began in earnest hours ago. Neon-colored, plastic, kayaks adorn the grass skirt before the water’s edge. Dressed in shades as lively as their hulls, the small craft owners match themselves up with their water-horses. They shove off at random intervals.
geese
land and take off –
squirrels scamper
Disturbed, Lake Lillinonah ripples with the dip of paddle and the morning breeze. The cotton wood trees chatter to passing egrets. The smell of powerboats, only slightly mars the bathing-beauty glow of the day. Days end will find a conga line of cars pulling in to a local dairy for homemade ice-cream. Truly, God is in his heaven and all is right – at least here, for these few hours—in the world.
pink tipped tongues
lick sprinkles from the cone:
eyes roll
Categories:
hulls, boat, fun, summer,
Form:
Haibun
I have spent most my life on ships of steel
Things of fiction now so real
I pray for my brothers who have passed
From every nation that laid their wrath
Under the water these ships can go
Where they go nobody knows
They are the oceans ghosts
Riding under the waves, Neptune’s host
These are mans magnificent machines
That patrol the waters so grim, so mean
The ones that survive and are here today
Pay tribute to those that have gone away
I often wondered if I would share their plight
And often slept a sleepless night
Imagining the thoughts that ran their mind
As their ship of steel met the unkind
A torpedo’s blow, a depth charge boom
Crumpled these hulls sent them to doom
Many a year I traveled the seas
Hoping this would not be my destiny
I pray for the men that put up the fight
To keep their ships from dying in the night
These brave men gave all for their country
Doing the deed, keeping us free
I have lived a beautiful life all around
Made possible by these men that are down
I just want to keep their memory
Very much alive for all eternity
There is much pride in the submarine force
So many men proudly stay the course
Following in their brothers steps
Hoping they will not be inept
I am about to retire and go ashore
And live my life forever more
Thinking about what these men did for me
And hoping that I lived up to their memory
If you read this poem please bow and pray
For the submarine force and the men that stay
They protect you while you are asleep at night
And are willing to die in the endless fight
Duane A. LaChance - 2012
Categories:
hulls, devotion, life, men,
Form:
Free verse
Mother Nature has all but consumed
Their little graveyard by the sea, where
Sands bleached white, slide
Across the cemetery floor
Drifting like pale capsized hulls
Floating between tablets marking
The long forgotten dead
It was here, fifty two years ago that
I held my Grandfathers weathered hand,
More so for the want of a brace
Than the sympathetic touch of a Grandchild
My little hand lost to the wrist, gripped
By a generation lost to the elements
I watched him kneeling by their angled stones
Tracing their names; first his father’s father, then
The mothers, with a finger crooked by age
The sandstone letters crumbling in the wake of his trace
Grit sifting through his heavy fingers; history, being erased
Returning it back – to where it all began
I followed behind his shuffling shoes
Kicking up dust that settles on the bones of ghosts
My Grandfather’s voice lost to an ocean breeze
Is he speaking to the dead?
Whilst our shadows lengthen, then dwindle into dusk
I imagined, back then as I do now
Of a graveyard full of pirates and thieves
With their ship resting - just out there
~ At sea
But for the stout chimney and hearth, beyond the grounds
Baring testimony to pioneers that
Once toiled this barren coast and now
Standing defiant, resolute against the
Advancing flotilla of sand
He is buried just beyond the little graveyard
My Grandfather, next to my Grandmother
On his farm; or
His father’s farm before that
My farm now…
On a hill
Overlooking the sea, where it all began
8 Dec. 2014
Categories:
hulls, age, farm, father, grandfather,
Form:
Free verse
The impressive mighty trees
Are birthed from such small seed
Drawing resilience from the sun
And earth’s fertile garden bed
Trees wooden trunk has shaped
And sustained for centuries many in varied ways
Some over and upon oceans wide
Where waves stroke shapely hulls
And lull to sleep the hapless venturer
Trusting in woods durable strength and buoyancy
And from such crafted boughs
And whispered sounds
Her meekness and strength is seen and heard
Like the creaks of grandma’s rocking chair
Where the hapless wanderer was first rocked to sleep
Trees have cradled and rocked in their arms
High and low of this world
The greatest of these was in a lowly manger
In an animals crib
But for this one tree its destiny was marked
Chosen before time
For on this tree’s wooden shoulders
It bore God’s greatest gift–
A Holy Child born - Like it-
For one purpose only –
To become accursed - on its wooden cross
To bear the sins of All
The Holy Son then rose - triumphantly from earth’s fertile soil
Into His Father’s arms
© Brenda V Northeast 11th March 2012
Categories:
hulls, death, devotion, faith, mystery,
Form:
Prose Poetry
[starboard port]
the ocean—an onyx plate predawn—
somnambulant ships preen with a swag of
warning lights
massive hulls: cargo ships, flotillas, tankers,
passenger liners loll; red lights buss
the somber slate of sky—spangled strings of
bawdy bulbs on the riggings—pole dance
beside the quay—ridged, behemoth smokestacks
toy with the flames of gold and white
[cabin’s lav—occupied]
waiting, my mind trundles to funeral pyres
Viking ships, then returns to marvel at
on-coming airport pot lights which
upstage the walled gasps
[very occupied]
the exodus to Singapore crescendos
we land—manned the plane performs
a ritual slide—ash and steam spew from
stacks of the other perpendicular
members
Touch down.
[the door opens]
First Published by Shooter Literary Magazine Spring of 2017
Categories:
hulls, love,
Form:
Free verse
Beneath the silent, cloudless skies
The Spanish Galleon swiftly glides,
For the Spanish Queen Isabella, in distant lands,
Its mighty mast’s unfurled by strong and sturdy hands.
She swiftly sails through churning tides.
Crashing waves reveal its mighty rage as God decides.
Pay’s no heed to thoughts so grim; setting of another day.
While through the night mariners taste salty ocean spray.
And sees a western sky afire; a momentary pleasure.
In her hulls; heavy chests filled with golden treasure.
The mighty ship tossed about by wildly western winds.
Amid reckless storms, the mariner’s inward strife begins.
Cursing winds summon demons of the mystic sea.
Ah, the sea, the sea, hear this haunting song, now death shall be.
Alas! Alas, the thundering fury; the dudgeon storm loudly roars.
The Galleon heaves and pitches while stoic sailors’ spirits soars.
True to her course the ocean battered this hapless Spanish Galleon.
The Spanish Galleon sunk by the ocean dudgeon.
The ocean’s wrath conspires sending the mariner to a watery grave.
For the mighty ocean imposed her will and not a mariner saved
Categories:
hulls, adventure, nature, poems, rain,
Form:
Narrative