Best Run Aground Poems
Call on me when your boat is sinking,
you’re blown off course, or you’ve run aground,
call on me when you’re lost in the wilderness,
call on me when you want to be found.
Call on me when the tough decisions
you have to make are too hard to bear,
when you have doubts, when the price seems too high to pay,
call on me, and I will be there.
Call on me when the future’s daunting,
when you’ve lost hope, when the darkness won’t end,
when you’re in pain, when you grieve, when you’re scared and alone,
call on me when you need a friend.
That tiny pause to skirt the truth, half-reals you'd paraphrase,
The subtle softly spinning gyre of cunning in your gaze,
Vague reflections from your skin - a shedding, sheltering plaque,
All concerned syllables sent swiftly bouncing off your back.
Ever adrift on fiction's lost sea, never blown to shore,
Too late I saw your hidden thirst - too easy to ignore
Evasion and avoidance - thus was piloted your ship,
You'd dance around, not run aground - you gave us both the slip.
I failed your buried, rooted pain, I missed the reddened tracks,
All facts would step aside your rime of displaced parallax,
I slighted each secluded wound, the false-trod thoroughfare,
So ends a life of wary silence, cloaked mutely in despair.
No one knew you as I did, my reward there sadly sure,
I'd like to think away now, yet the hard truths are too pure,
Blinded, perhaps, by my own fear, I let out line for years,
And all my stock of forward time now fills with bloody tears.
Upon my closing sight of you, muzzled words within your eyes,
Your final hour released you not - you'd walked too long on lies.
A THIEF CALLED TIME
“Time is the thief you cannot banish”
Phyllis McGinley writer 1905-1978
All that live upon this earth
dwell on borrowed time,
for the human race every
single day that passes by
is a payment off an unsecured
loan, that gifted at birth.
While time can be a wondrous friend
beware when of one’s greatest enemy,
waiting for it sometimes an age
when running out, be afraid.
Centuries ago, time became
a science a complex measure
yet never tamed, only caged
as it ticks and tocks away,
when it calls, one’s life becomes
a hired boat sailing
certain to run aground.
But time never ceases
unlike the human body
in need of a good night’s sleep,
as it steals away one third
of everyone’s life time.
© Harry J Horsman 2020
~
Amidst the changing scenery
as faces come and go
Names reflect the differences
of those we’ve come to know
Along a winding avenue
where store fronts sell their wares
Traffic lights of red and green
change too among the stares
Where sunshine breaks the foggy mist
and clear as any bell
A ringing forms about my ears,
a song I know so well
I look around and hope I see
this beauty I desire
A butterfly upon the wind
keeps soaring ever higher
And as I reach to grab a hold
those wings of pastel gleam
She flutters just beyond my reach
as if some kind of dream
I hang my head in misery,
another wasted day
The love that I was longing for
has somehow got away
Clouds now build in grey design
my smile has run aground
Happiness is not on sale
not anywhere I’ve found
While narrow sidewalks lead the way
quite keen to every crack
My focus finds a forward view
I just cannot look back
When there upon the front door steps
these tear filled eyes they spy
Waiting near the welcome mat
my precious butterfly
And suddenly the bluest skies
appear high up above
For in this changing scenery
I’ve found my one true love
I sing praises to you under moon's watchful eye
As the ocean waves calm above from the deep
and You transform gusty winds into soft breezes.
With your blessed protection I am able to sleep.
I am bathed in your peaceful tranquility my Lord
As my prayers ascend to your heavenly realm.
You are the Divine master of my wayward boat
as you guide me to shore when you take the helm.
I know you will always send Angel's to rescue me
Should my boat run aground on sharp rocks below.
They will lovingly guard me and see me safely home.
I'll sing psalms in praises dearest Lord, wherever I go.
9-18-19
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The platypus excels at evolution
And displays a super cool solution
For making his way amidst the muck,
He don't run aground. He don't get stuck.
Of this, the platypus would never dream
As a self-respecting monotreme.
Indeed, a platypus of station
Will employ electrolocation.
Early this morning, the song of blackbirds
quell the swell of silence enfolded by night.
Dim light on a distant ridge: the sun returns,
freed from Atlantis, drenched in the cloak of life.
Soft dew-drop showers dapple the dusty
garden with pops of pastels like lavender,
lilac, tea rose and pink, from clouds that carry
cleansing tears of a newborn’s young mother,
the potter protective her infant clay.
She picks up her child, a fragile bowl, chipped,
frail from thirty years spent running away,
now run aground as a twice sunken ship.
Her hands keep a promise, one quietly spoken,
made long ago when morning had broken.
- For my mother who sang me Cat Stevens'
Morning has Broken the day
I was born.
Cruising the Mediterranean
I don't wish to fight any more
I want to enjoy the sunset
On the sea I so adore
Please hold your tongue
In silence,
View the beauty all around,
Tend the sails with care
So we don't run aground
I'll make us Margaritas,
We'll dine in finest style
As our sloop carries us
Through many a sea mile
No fighting, please,
I beg you,
Let this be a sailing
in but total peace,
And anger and misunderstanding,
I pray that they do cease
So hold me as you did once,
No question of our love,
And watch the Albatross
As he flies off with the dove
The soothing sea to rock us,
As if babies in need of sleep
And the new memories we create
Forever shall we keep.
I am living steady
I am moving steady
In unsteady times
Keeping my balance and smiles
Though the world is unsteady
Keep moving and ready
To meet God in His kingdom
And live forever in freedom
Glorify God in good and bad times
So that you can overcome at all times
Cause the devil goes around
Stalking victims to run aground
Jesus the rock is ever steady
He is ever ready
To save those that trust in Him from troubles
As the devil strikes His grace is doubled
Two mighty boats beached
End of voyage reached
Captains’ judgement call
Rust consumes them all
Run aground and caught
Well-laid plans for naught
#1
Beyond this space called here and now where hopes are often lost;
across the seething sea of time where dreams are tempest tossed,
there lies a haven well desired to gain at any cost;
to lie at anchor there will be worth all the waters crossed.
The port is gained by following a narrow path, we know.
Many ships have run aground on reefs of sin and woe.
Sound the waves and fathom out the deeps that lie below,
and guide your ship to safety, watching ever for the foe.
In that haven time will cease; the sea shall be as glass,
and all the evils known to man will in the depths be cast.
No parting and no weeping, heartaches, too, will pass
for joy will reign on every ship whose tow line is made fast.
Put forth all effort, then, to reach that harbor through the foam;
cease seeking for the pleasure isles that call the soul to roam.
Mark the charts with vision clear by heaven's starry dome;
make Christ your helmsman; through thickest fog He made that harbor home.
Faye Lanham Gibson
Copyright, 1987
There is a dash of salt in me
Garnered from my years at sea
Neptune, I honored and did plea
For the eternal calming lee
Then a hurricane winked at me
Such a storm was that lady
I tried my best to sail and flee
But she was such a pretty she
Now we live beside a tree
My new anchor and salty me
Run Aground
Arr, Matey! Me ship has run aground,
In this shallow world, I search for character, but none to be found.
Through me spyglass, a foggy, distant world, unclear,
This incessant devil bird squawking in me ear.
A chest full of silver, gold, and jewels galore,
But what I treasure most is a love forevermore.
How silent lies a lone ghost ship
that lists, tethered to its mooring
having run aground
inside a dying dream, now distant.
Unearthly selenium skies hang
mute, limp and discordant
absent of air, breathing death.
I drift alone in an ominous ocean
devoid of water
hovering in a vacuum of anonymity
absent of that ever essential
liquid of life.
I am inert, obscure and obtuse
languishing in a catatonic state.
A yawning expanse of emptiness
marks a melancholy existence
as if Mars happened
upon a forgotten corner
of the earth.
I feel lost, as I look up
into surreal clouds
congregating
in solemn penitence
watching as they move
upwards and downwards
at random intervals.
Morose are the disturbing dreams
that can send a vulnerable soul
into the abyss of madness.
How freeing it is to awaken
to the renewing gardens of sanity.
Written on 3/23/2018
My love for so many years,
She boosts my spirit,
She dries my tears,
She arouses my senses.
I see her move across the floor,
No, glide, would describe it more,
Moving as languid as a lioness,
She thrills me with her prowess.
She is sensual, erotic,
To me she is hypnotic.
If I were a ship I'd run aground,
Simply if she were not around.
She is my love until life's end,
She is my forever friend.
Without her my life's an empty space,
For she, I know, I could not replace.
For our 44th Wedding Anniversary on 26th October
© Dave Timperley. September 2014