Best Navigators Poems
The Smeaton Eddystone's architecture
First lighthouse protecting navigators
Light blinking, pulsating, luminously
Loud foghorn resounding resonantly
Guides shipwrecked mariners vigilantly
Or swarthy seafarers incessantly
On oceans perilous, tempestuous
A sailor’s salvation eternally
09~19~14
Jan Allison
Contest: The Lighthouse
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Form: Rhopalic verse
~awarded 1st place
Wind-driven, deceptive, mysterious,
cries vixen's pulsating, debauchery
with haunting arias, mesmerizing!
The lighthouse, fearlessly, captivated,
by siren's symphonic orchestrations
shines brighter, exclaiming calamity!
She cautions vigilant navigators...
fog's mirage masquerades mortality!..
______________________________
Inspired by Nette's Contest: The Lighthouse
9/23/14 By Carrie Richards
Most are related to shipwrecked ghosts,
accomplices of my blood
that can still be found
in geographically scattered albums.
When there were cities to occupy,
they lived one level below expectations.
Like defective fireworks, some went off early.
A more dedicated few grew old and medicated.
They built defunct railroads and dug ditches
they later fell into.
They were navigators of small shady schemes.
Their brief settlements and abrupt departures
left fuzzy lines on blacktops and concrete.
As a family, we are estranged and unknown,
but we do speak to our dead
if they come to call, of course
only after a respectable period
of life-long disinterest.
Stilled again across the canals broadening
Girth;
Mesh cages of rock-filled Gabions
Reinforcing patches of exposed and arid earth,
Reflecting the glints that gleefully
Twist and dance in the hot glare of the sun...
Provoking images and stirring indefinable feelings
That begin to irrevocably up and run;
Pictures and voices crowding into my mind:
Immersing me in the flooding moments
To which i am briefly resigned.
Now momentarily staid by the shimmering
Instance
In which i find myself inextricably caught,
Perplexed by something rather intangible,
Seeming almost to tease and laugh
Whilst confounding upon my evasive and
Fleeting thoughts;
As glancing across at the opposite bank
Where drawn up a line of densely packed trees..
I swore...I heard the reel of a high squealing
Fiddle -
Playing ever so briefly alongside a tricky little
Breeze.
For stood there I, wondering,
On a grey painted swing-bridge:
Of brightly painted Steamers, dirty Trampers
And of double masted white canvassed Brigs.
Oh! The everlasting glory of a New World order
Redefined:
Entrusted to those instructed in her Majesties
Construction of sprawling Victorian sublimes!
The men who heroically dug, picked, blasted and
Strove:
To securely fasten an Iron cast girdle around
An ever diminishing blue globe.
Dreaming of long ago, dutiful, Golden-Age days
Rigorously pursued down, what are now,
Weed strewn, abandoned byways.
Faustian clothing and a Velveteens cap;
The thick buckled leather gaiters held about
By the strap.
Many the word spoken in a soft southern brogue:
All hail the glorious navigators -
The navvies of old!
Staunch and desperate men forced to resign
Their native Gaelic shores
And burden unto themselves with
Mattocks, shovels and garishly painted-up whores.
Under the high flaming beacons
And over the obscure little brow -
They carved out the new waterways
To float the laden down prow.
Yes! Men of the Emerald Isles
I salute you and your kinsfolk
From lands cast westwards afar:
The magnificent "Paddies" from the verdant island -
Of Erin-Go-Bragh!
Through veils of bright red pain
They bring us to this life;
Through tears and laughter
They love their small pink wonders
Through all those gates they must pass
On their way to full humanity.
They are lilac-love and discipline
Navigators of our stormy seas
Heedless of themselves for our sakes
They bring us all the soft sweetnesses of home and hearth
That ever call for our return.
So from every tongue
There falls the sacred one-word prayer
When the wide cold world affrights us
When the hand shakes, palsy like
As the heart beats hard against its cage:
In deep of night
When something unseen stirs
The whispered hope is "Mother".
When the flat grey weight of grief
Lies hard across our shoulders
The word that lifts the stone is "Mother".
For scorch of stove, for frostbite sting
We conjure cool and warm with "Mother".
In the place for giving birth: "Mother".
On the battlefield: "Mother".
Whatever pulls us to our knees
To rudely remind us how small we be
In the Grand Scheme of Things,
The idea of Her pulls us up again
For we are hers entire
In a way unique to Her -
Things will be alright
Because She says it shall be so,
And one may never never Never
Disappoint that Sacred One:
"Mother".
A poem I shall attempt to write of heavenly delight,
About all the wonders that shine deep in the night.
There is so much more than the Moon and stars above,
From the earliest navigators that fell heavily in love.
All those that sailed across all the known seas,
They all relied on the stars and many of these.
Often they would follow the morning and evening star,
Just one of five planets that they knew of so far.
Mostly guided by many and many they certainly knew,
Galileo saw much beauty in the Southern Cross too.
The Earth spinning at one thousand and forty miles per hour,
Still, they could master the art of using star power.
So what could they do when a storm came through?
Just stay at the helm and keep the wheel true.
And what could they do if the wind blew them off course?
Pray to the heavens that their sails could take the force.
For life as a sailor meant much more than hard labour,
They had to read stars in constellations to favour.
Forty-eight constellations before eighteen hundred and eighty-eight,
They existed well before the others gathered at a later date.
Then becoming eighty-eight constellations for a general to know,
And used the Pole Stars that never disappeared as they go.
Using particular stars that would always rise and set,
Knowing portside and starboard and which side they met.
In the third century BC, the Greeks used the Little Bear,
These days called Ursa Minor, now navigated from there.
Once Draco was closest to the North Pole than Polaris,
Between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are the stars over Paris.
The sextant became the most used instrument for navigation,
Before then they had to understand the winds interpretation.
Today a compass is used with the true direction of North,
Every ship you will find has one that leaves every wharf.
But a star gazing soul has no use for a compass rose,
They'd rather get lost and just follow their nose.
For there is something to be said for this lost ancient art,
And I'm sure a true sailor is born with stars in his heart.
I don't know what to make of it,
strands of an errant dream,
when hyacinths sought rebellion,
and a mechanic plied uncertainly
across an eastern sea.
It lies there out of reach,
the tail end of a tale,
of vistas far and unknown,
of stories almost told,
of gulls that fly stationary,
caught in an offshore breeze,
of small boats launched into exile
by hapless navigators,
from a gray and gloomy beach,
just about midday.
There's something about
a romantic revolt,
by some who should have known
better,
and flowers stolen from a vase,
and thrown to the street below,
a desperate signal that
the game was over,
and all involved must flee.
One loved one left
for sacrifice,
to cover for the rest.
A sense of loss and of despair,
no home, no friends again.
The story told, intrudes my thoughts,
of when hyacinths sought rebellion
and the mechanic plied
uncertainly
across the eastern sea
I spied a ship and descried the flag it flew.
It was nothing like the flags I had seen before.
It was red and blue, with white circles and yellow stars
The highlights of white and yellow stood out
like stars at night, and town lights bright.
The red like the color of the dawn and dusk.
The blue the color of the deep blue ocean.
It was clearly the flag of a sea faring nation.
As the ship got closer, you could clearly see its details.
It was a large primitive Polynesian outrigger voyager vessel,
a ghost ship as no one appeared to be aboard.
Where it had come from, the fate of its crew a mystery?
But the vessel sure knew how to sail
and knew where it was headed
as it sailed fast and free,
passed our sailing boat 'Snail'
on a true heading for a spot on the horizon.
For many years the Polynesian voyagers were decried as flotsam and jetsom.
How could these primitive people navigate through the vast open ocean
between tiny islands, pin-prick dotted in oceans of space?
It was assumed they migrated and populated the far flung oceans randomly and haphazardly
via their fishing trips and day trips being blown off course.
But research has descried their skill and fabulous knowledge of navigation.
Each island has a gild of navigators.
They use songs and stories to memorize navigation methods:
including the movement of the stars, wave patterns around island,
local currents, clouds, weather and bird behavior.
Polynesian navigators used the rise and setting of particular set stars on the horizon to set a heading.
They had wooden instruments, string and fiber maps of wave patterns and star movements to guide their way.
They skillfully know when they were near tiny islands
from the change in the wave patterns, currents
and their vast knowledge of birds and wildlife.
So don't be quick to decry Polynesian navigation.
Instead, descry its beauty, simplicity, nouse, proficiency and elegance.
Maa’mool winds wash over me
In antique moonlight I merge with the spirit of Wadi Shab
Following the worn paths through the orchards
To discover the hidden mysteries of Mibam
Commonplace melodies of the qanun and maqrum
Become new again passing my ears
Dancing sweet Arabia off the ancient walls
A midnight song of prayer sung to no one and everyone
A resonate stone rippling my very soul
Looking skyward the heavens reveal
Familiar skies of the desert navigators
A tapestry of moments past, now, and eternity
Yet only for myself
These small memories I forever commit
As I swim in the sweet pools of Wadi Shab
Gazing high into the desert night
To the waning Arabian moon
While maa’mool winds wash over me
NOTE:
Maa'mool is a sweet Middle Eastrern incense
Wadi Shab is a beautiful paradise like place outside of the ancient city of Mibam
A Qanun and a Maqrun are Arabian instruments, one is a "double clarinet" the
other is a stringed instrument.
I walk around in the
parks of Oslo
A bird scrapes
Ibsen’s ear with its
beak
The ash-colored
seagulls
Strut on the square
They resemble
unsightly hens
An ensemble from
South America
Plays music of the
Andes
With long violent
colored flutes
The summer night is
so generous
The day can’t fill
itself with
obscurity
For a long time
Here the greatest
paladins
Aren’t princes with
swords
But valiant scouting
navigators
Who gave other
dimensions to the
world.
Their unyielding
spirits
Are not in museums
They wander
unceasingly on the
fjords.
Somali Pirates prowl the Gulf of Aden
For merchant vessels with cargo laden
From the tenement rows of Puntland
Poor fishermen, ex-militia turned brigand
Now pledge fealty to the lucrative capitalist brand
Which polluted their waters and denuded their coast land
Fitted mercenaries scout the narrow strand
Booty and hostages from itinerant ships to remand
From mother ship, crafty navigators plot vessels' course
In speedy skiffs, armed with guile and every pliable resource
Stealthily stalk their prey gratuitous demands to enforce
Their mantra greed; ransom and loot their tour de force
Battering ram of rocket, grenade; calm hands from cargo to divorce
With hooks, ladder springing aboard, subduing crew with little discourse
Pilfering their bounty; enslaving the crew without remorse
The Lighthouse
Splash amidst plethora hullabaloo,
Dark skies reflecting illuminate,
Act beacons, vigilant navigators,
Mask lighthouse's glistening magnificence,
Guides marines, bewildered mystifying,
Roars rise , evanesce scintillation,
Deep ocean heritage disparages,
Waves erode abyssal operations !
Written September 24th, 2014
By Dr. Upma A. Sharma
For nette's contest 'The Lighthouse'
Castle Heartstone sank into the mists of magic
The Princess of Magic, spell cast
For one day,
we shall return
When Faeries can play
When The Wise Ways,
will always last..
Our enemies will never have..
What lies in our hearts
Wonderful things
Magic, love
The colour of the seasons
What it brings..
Masts creaked,
sails held strong
A fair wind
for the Heartstone throng
The Four Kings,
having command of the ships
The Princes,
the navigators
for they encircled the world in wind
Queens, for strength
Princesses, for love and laughter
Faeries for, joy
An ocean , so blue
Its' light reflected in the Heartstone
Brilliant fire,
felt in the hearts of many too
The night, so clear
You could touch a star
The Faeries brought one to light the way
For, Faeries can, at play
Illuminate their hearts,
to all those they hold dear
Such a Tapestry of Stars
Only a Faerie could weave
For, they left the world
Such hearts , grieve
Soon, the land disappeared from view
Masts creaked
Sails held strong
A sense of something new...
The Castle was gone...
Disappeared by the Princess of Magic
Its' beauty not to be despoiled
by those they had foiled
Hidden in the mists of Magic
Castle Heartstone, lost in our memories
such thoughts detected
on an ocean , so blue
in its' light
feelings reflected
A King , cannot stop the sea
Storms blew
The ships held fast,
for such things never last
Beautiful treasures were not left behind
The Heartstone
The Tapestries
The Book of the Wise Ways
Seeds from the Whispering Trees
Water from the Stream of Sighs
The memories you can find,
for you are not alone
The Eagles of Heartstone,
came too
Upon golden wings, they flew
High up, above
The ocean , so blue
The Swords of the Knights,
were brought too
Faerie magic, sometimes not enough,
to stop an enemies bluff
The ships were filled with song
The beginning of the end..
The end of the beginning..
Hope and love,
in the hearts of this happy throng
Days filled with golden sun,
a little rain too
Upon oceans of blue
Each day
The king of air launched the Eagles
They soared high,
to find the land
that was meant...
For, magic cannot die
Sailboat afloat on a journey of light
Seagulls take wing, navigators in flight
The sun is a timepiece, seconds in the sand
The clock tells no time, it's missing a hand
The wind is a dancer, to the rhythm it sways
As the waves become angry, looking for prey
The journey of light is now at an impasse
In a darkness so fragile it shatters like glass
"Anchors on strings, hanging from sails"
Lifeboat capsized by a humpback whale
On the waves of a nightmare in a sea of surreal
Dorsal fins circle, jaws needs a meal!
---
12/15/16
Making uneven faces as you sit displeased
Something unsweet has you sour
With adoration.I try to console
Beginning to hold, shockingly pushed away
What has become of us?
The navigators have become lost
This quest has changed us dramatically