Best Portside Poems

Your pillar of truth
Our beacon of light
Show us the way (of the)
Starboard and the portside
Illuminate me now
Bedazzle me white

See me so small
Im blinded in sight
Thy tower so tall
Empowered to write

Exposed by your beam
Ghostly ship in the night
'pon steely hard granite
Imploring your rays (like)
Coved dish of...

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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...

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This was the worst ship disaster, with the greatest loss of life at sea
A German ship that was overloaded, with over 10,600 war refugees

Sank on the 30 January 1945 by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic sea
By Soviet Naval Officer, Captain Alexander Marinesko, who died...

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standing midnight watch on the quarter deck
shipyard worker reported cries for help
Officer of the Deck sent me to check
on the portside sounded like a dog’s yelp

I knew of the barges on the portside
from port sponson saw man in the water
I tried pulling him out each...

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The sails billow as they catch the wind
White crested waves put our ship a sway
To portside ye mates and scalawags
The merchant's ship shall be our prey

Fly their country flag the captain yells
So at twilight they can see
We are friends and countrymen
Their fast galleon shall not...

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One day—
The sea will be my backyard
Every morning, standing upon the deck
Of the one called Going Numb
A “Greatest Dad” mug in one hand
My last vice burning orange in the other

I will watch the sun rise like the formidable Phoenix
Warming the blue green sea with her...

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A Message 
Our old captain was pensioned off, he had been 
the master on the same ship for ten years and at
sixty five he didn´t know where to go as his whole 
life had been the sea. The first officer was taking 
over. He had...

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17

the narrow path took a sudden turn
I pushed the main sail west
where tiny tugs push giant timbers
portside down shivering rivers
to the end of broken islands
and ravens who fall asleep
no more stealing noon day’s sun
havoc on the steel grey highway
I asked where to my friend
listen to...

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The ship has set sail
Through the lighting and thunder
The pirates all ready
For adventure  and plunder

The rain hits the deck
They all sing a chantee 
They raised their sails through
A storm thick they can't see

This does not scare them 
They keep sailing onward
Captain cries out portside
He...

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I turned into the fight with a burst from my guns
Please don’t jam on me now
Pouncing unseen onto a ME One One Zero
He’s gonna go down somehow
My cannon have hit the iron heart of this beast
Causing his progress to falter
Ripping in hard to his starboard...

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Capsizing the Costa Concordia

Divers wreathe silently through
the submerged corridors of a 
140,000-ton wreck. Little fish
dark haphazardly through
the juxtaposition of tilted ballroom,
granite bars fixed in place.
Black waters lit green by headlamps
provide a surreal spotlight
for a loveseat drifting by
A vase of Chinese dollar plants poised delicately
on a marble counter.
Across...

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Storm 

The waves in the storm raged Pacific Ocean waves became 
deep ravines and tall mountains; in the binoculars, I saw 
an American hangar ship, its massive deck was glistering iron 
swept of all human activities, this was not a day for wars 
The bulk...

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With thoughts of getting fish-faced on a Friday night, 
I dropped anchor in a portside bar 
To contemplate the crooked path to closing time; 
Couldn’t guarantee I’d get that far.

I ordered a tequila, called myself a salt, 
And I joked about a mocking bird. 
The...

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Window Gazing

Maureen Staley Cary


Might her mood be blue

like the curtain or the shade of sea
 
stripes on her dress

staring portside, about to take a step

through the open frame

lured by the soft lapping water, 

a distant seagull,  flapping sailcloth

a fleeting moment

rendered constant

on Dali’s canvas...

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We patronize those ships
that traverse these oceans,
for they sustain a set schedule
and not as spontaneous as others. 
Their fixation of the seas proves their 
genuineness and the portal to our harbor, 
is easy to navigate. That revelation fixed the
mood for intrigue amongst the crew of...

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