Best Merchant Poems

A swallow swoops for flitting flies
While Johnny rubs exhausted eyes
(As morning clasps the rising sun)
Confirming Captain’s day’s begun:
Slow streams emerge from melting snows -
The Merchant Ship’s in stark repose...

As Johnny frets with tingling tongue
A Vulture fleeces fields far-flung
 (Beneath a bleeding sun above),
And Captain culls...

Continue reading...

Jane Merchant (2)

Invalid of flesh (but not of soul),
She saw Creation whole,
And hymned the seasons come to pass
Beyond her bedroom window-glass—
December trees—and April rain-wet grass.

                    ...

Continue reading...

Moneylender 

You were rejected by your fellow man
A pound of flesh to heal your wounded pride
A just reward for squelching on a loan

Your hatred toward these men-- I understand
Burns deeply in your heart and it resides
You were rejected by your fellow man

They bully you, so...

Continue reading...

Deep ocean of azure blue

Overhead seagulls circling flew

In constant motion, heaving sides

The old merchant ship upon it rides

Rust scorched it's barnacled coat

Salt encrusted railings forever afloat

On the horizon's sinking sun's amber glow

Beckons enticingly along the flow

New moon appearing from out of the west

Silvery waves splintering...

Continue reading...

O Serenissima,*fabled city 
guarding the bluest lagoon, remain
the Queen of the Adriatic Sea;
on a gondola I glide while
the gondolier sings to luminous stars.

Under bridges of moonlight,
mysteries increase by the dozen;
standing on the Bridge Of Sighs,
a fair-haired girl leans forward 
blowing kisses to a gorgeous boy...

Continue reading...

My friend is shy, ‘cause we call her ‘Pumpkin’.
With great trepidation, she enters the gym
A look at her behind;
And the instructor declined.
“By the time ‘YOU’ are thin, fat will be ‘IN’”...

Continue reading...

He was turbulent, fearful, and a dipsomaniac. He was dead to the target, undeniable emulation of his father. So I've been told.

Equated with many of his uneducated and socially stigmatized peers, starting at an early age he worked menial jobs until he married and asserted...

Continue reading...

Are money and blood not just signs,
Of vitality, of love, sex and family?
‘Cos your relationships should be stable,
By definition they should be believable.

Just being related by blood to someone,
Doesn't mean you love them in motion,
And so you must engender the pipers,
Of goodness: trust, dignity and...

Continue reading...

There was a merchant who sold and said: -

Milk, white milk, give me silk?
Honey, golden honey, give me money?

And

There was a man who shared and spoke: -

Wine, red wine, for all divine
Fish, grey fish, five thousandth dish
Bread, brown bread, arise the dead




07/04/2010...

Continue reading...

Time comes in waves,
People, in places.
Words come out of their shells
as true colours always change them.
God is given to glory,
to glory- destination lands in two:
In the right hand of a creature that has breached its reading code
And in the eyes of a teacher,
leading a school...

Continue reading...

Fish flesh ceiling marinades evening in mandarin
  Paprika streaks Alaskan sky, an exploded pumpkin
  Garish stretch marks bruise tumid buttocks
  Jack-o'-lantern flicker silhouettes summits 
  
  Door open draught steers me over masts, a compass
  North chill Turmeric tingle...

Continue reading...

When in Spring with leaves turned to green
Eyes, hands & face
There lived one man with a thirst
To live in the moment between space & time
Selling his pots and pans to get by
Although the years would pass he had every reason to grasp
The true message of...

Continue reading...

Love is not a merchant
it doesn't keep count
it's not how much or what
but why and how it counts

Better dandelions
from heart of love
than diamonds
from heart of stone



Third Place Winner - Jack Webster: Workshop Adjectives Deleted...

Continue reading...

The merchant ship 
The ship leaves Rotterdam
sail to the med, and through the Suez channel
into the red sea, the vessel arrives at an oil terminal
and all you see is pipelines storage tanks and sand,
then the ship goes back the same way.
The sea in its different...

Continue reading...

5 cups of heavy cream
3 cups of pureed shrimps
2 cup of crawfish
2 cups of crab meat
1 1/2 cup of cooked polish sausage( minced)
5 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of olive oil and flour roux( 1/2 c of flour and 1/2 olive oil cook tannish brown)
2...

Continue reading...