Best Shoreward Poems
Les Algues
I have no heart
Without a mind
I stand alone
Next to my kind.
Near rocky beds
I still survive
Dormant at night
Yet much alive.
I can hide many
Might save a few
With higher reach
A better view.
I have no sight
So cannot rave
I feel the sun
I know the waves.
With current’s flow
I lose my grip
Float upward now
On foaming spit.
Shoreward bound
My fate decreed
Les algues de mer
French for seaweed. :)
This winter I am so much over
I need to run out in the clover
Time for spring to forward
Maybe I'll just move shoreward
And spend my time as a fearful rover.
Contest: Spring Forward
Debbie Guzzi
Can you get my point and drift?
It’s in my free verse and also rhyme.
They say ‘Life’s a beach’
I say, “All the time”
and there’s a beach for everyone, and all!
It accepts incoming the tidal withal.
From flotsam floating of every noxious kind,
Where you will beside the innocent the toxic find,
From grass,to plastic, garbage bags and all,
also the rancid sewers dark outfall,
And I see the littered beach
All covered & disfigured, spit headland and shoaly reach,
Then raised up with rampart fey
the most humongous tidal wave
And it is definitely and gravely shoreward bound,
Oh dear Lord, have mercy, I say,
For all of those who live nearby, and in the way
in Their lowly shed or fancy high-rise buys,
Already they suffer to live near this
Please avert your catalyst
oh!‘No’ says God, its course will run
its bounds and goals are set
As I set everyone,
Too much for me! my eyes I close
i just won’t look at scenes (that I suppose)
i await the crash! its deafening loud,
and I imagine the chaotic screaming crowd,
I wait ….. I wait….now look I must!
Before cold melts ice and rust becomes dust.
And What! before mine eyes a sight, the beach,
All pure grains of white, (are seen)
against verdant mounds of beryl green
The background sheds and townscape now stand serene;
The wave was a vision of God’s cleansing hour
Wrapt in an instant of unbridled power.
For the antiprigoligarchist was sent,
And the veil of worldly waste was rent.
There also is a literate beach
Where the antiprigoligarchist will also reach.
As antidote for pedantic bias, attention & thought
And scalar vision with true value nought
so with devoid headway misused opportunity
and selfish sway away! and
before the drift becomes a roar, better to
Clear such wasted ways from the literary shore.
Though a sad day goes,
And a sad night comes
(For my Dear's not here with me),
I will bring up living
Our first love's giving,
When out of the sea came she.
Her leap was as sweet wind was,
Singing sweet, and where white waves
Rushed downward, shedding brightness at her side,
Her spirit-wings went soaring,
The song of her was pride.
Her face flamed into rapture
As she plashed upon each wave;
High billows swelled against her,
But how low to one how brave.
Her hands, in easy motion,
Caught a foam-bell at her knee,
Caught it up and, leaning shoreward,
Blew it shining clear to me.
So light a thing, so fragile,
Yet it sailed above my hand,
While climbing through the combers
Strode all Beauty to the sand.
She, who saw me rising,
As in worshipping I rose,
She, whose tender love-poem
Was the pureness of no pose,
As I closed the reach between us,
Going softly through the tide,
Said to me, spoke words to me---
Great love-words undenied---
"Sing, O Man, make music,
Say desires here;
Our hearts have blended rhythms,
Our eyes make flames appear.
My limbs, and all my body,
My yearning blood and will,
For reign of thine are ready,
Thy loving lust to fill."
Huge waves crashed over gently,
Huge roar of them was sweet,
While flying ubbles shattered
All their flakes upon our feet.
Our hands were like half-flowers
Feeling glad again to rise,
Then the petals pierced together
And the sun shot from our eyes.
I knew her dreams were Passion;
I knew her name was True---
True Love of Full Possession---
That all my longings drew.
And though how scorched within me
My thirst kept welling up,
I knew my soul abstracted,
And speech spilled from my cup.
O Sweet Warm Mouth so perfect,
So justified to be;
O Rare High Brow a-shining,
Whose thoughts Love's deeds will be;
I sign my lips upon thee,
I sign my life and soul,
Shut out all gods but Beauty,
Make you my only goal.
Now with these waves competing
My coursing veins aspire
To be in your veins beating
Until my blood turns fire.
The opus leggy grasses sing in the gusts
Curious hands stretched across the blade tips
Inviting the musty scene of autumns blush
Candy orange blossom apple crisp
Cherry red brush ablaze over the fields
A meadows laughter, a meadows wish
Gathering dews drops that gently glisten
Harps of elation's pluck the birds of song
Soon they take flight for a journey, listen
The linger crickets ponder chirping shoreward
Soon naked birch peel their tender bark
Steel eyes from above cast their calendar forward
Lonesome nights straddle below the moons eyes
Shinning down like glass upon the a midnight hour
Lapping bonnets of quaggy fen and the eerie loons cry
Summer has stroked on by!
As I move forward in this life,
I continually remember what's been done.
Hilarities and happiness, sorrows and strife,
ever feeling like yesterday's son.
Some time ago I felt constrained by such,
as if yesterday's gravity held me fast.
Since, there's been happenings much,
a gradual release from chains in the past.
Yet I find, that release is part ruin, part reprieve,
from moments wholly sweet, wholly bitter, some both.
Some yesterdays I'd gladly of myself bereave,
while others, to divest my soul of, I'm loath.
I wake others in the night, cursing my post,
while I still sleep, plagued by today's grip.
In comparison, to the hardest yesterday I'd be host,
if only the Corps being a part of them, could I slip.
In every way, despite looking to tomorrow,
I seem to embody those whose course has run.
From yore and those before, words and ways I borrow,
ever and anon feeling like yesterdays' son.
A soldier, sailor in search of his song, seeking shoreward,
yearning for his own while echoing tales already spun.
He may be looking back, but is always moving forward,
and in this way I feel I will ever be yesterday's son.
Scattered Ash
by Odin Roark
The urn is tipped
Scattered ash enjoins
Jetstream
Jetsam
Flotsam
Atop the winds and currents
Nature's gathering
Knowing not yet
The next evolution of life's decay
Possibility awakens
This consciousness beyond our own
This departure from one actuality
Into the reformation of another
Molecular iteration begun decades earlier
Now roaming carefree among other airborne particles
Innocent stowaways enfolded in winged flights
Or ocean saturated driftings
Bobbing patiently
Awaiting new beginnings
As the journey continues
Feathers
Seaweed
Plastic cups and bottles
Provide passage
Shoreward
Skyward
Forward
A measureless journey this
Where matter exists forever
Where ash continues as yesterday's index
Referring to tomorrow's pages
Scattered ashes
Once of flesh and blood
Now returning to the vortex of cosmic chance
Where fresh finger-paints of infancy
Become infinity's next masterpiece
To mourn or not to mourn
Omniscience winks
I would help man evolve toward God’s Dreams for this life
And not strive just for mites (some ascribe to have worth?)
(In God’s Will) let us humbly trust Grace is God’s Gift
To a sinner who can’t save himself, find our pride
In Christ’s death on the cross! True Grace lived in God’s soul
Long before time began, the Big Bang, Word made flesh
Voiced first verse, praised in song, watched creation evolve!
Life emerged from the soup of our trembling sea womb.
Is it ‘faith’ we possess that won’t question itself?
(Though no man groks God’s Glory and lives! Tells the tale!)
I don’t need you to love me, to make me a wife
(‘Joined at hip’ as they say) but to honor the earth
We all share. Those who go it alone float adrift,
Lost in space they inhabit, perhaps can’t abide
Thoughts that they might be wrong, the Samaritan’s goal
To let faith be what saves. Let’s consider afresh
Acts that give some hearts pause (give death’s tomb
Too much deference!) Clearly, in life, there’s a gulf.
But to have-nots (not haves) truth appears a white whale!
Does your vanity whisper God’s mind’s His affair?)
Once though Hydrogen gas was the engine of choice
As first stars formed, ignited, aged, burned up this gas
The next elements blossomed, as if from desire.
Gravitation evolved, too (as change prospered change).
Soon the ash of spent suns also found a new place.
Star’s waste now we call planets, these ‘wandering ones’
Are seen drifting ‘cross fixed stars, while orbiting theirs.
While the whole mess disperses, increased speed at bounds.
Once the oceans held life (with the landmasses bare)
Till some finned folk moved shoreward. God gave them a voice
As to where they might live? Or survival ‘takes brass?’
(The first landlubbers won edge in what would transpire.)
Was one dino egg saved on earth’s omelet range?
Or did Adam and Eve then evolve to lose face?
You think Noah’s son’s wives loved the ark tons and tons
When their families drowned? Did God’s son praise soft chairs?
Let me pray to stay humble while making my rounds!
Long Tooth
April 19th in 2020
Unbound universe shimmering
Fiery orb of heat and light
This earthly ball's rotation
Oceans crashing shoreward
Majestic mountains rising
Mighty rivers rolling
Fruited plains abound
From molecules, the gift of life explodes
Fragile, persistent, prolific
The genomes exactly followed
With existence comes awareness
Then a searching for its meaning
An epiphany, realization
Praising, thanking, loving
Creator and created
Magnificent Glory found
She played the harp, I fell in love,
It was easy don’t you see?
I was only six or seven,
She was youngish, twenty three.
I was sitting with my parents
And her concert was in town,
Harp and voice reaching to heaven
Found me moving further down
Softly, softly, how she whispered
Come to me, love, come to me,
Row to row as I moved forward,
Life was just her symphony.
Her hands danced chords like angels sing,
Voice a warmth that wove its way,
Finding me like waves move shoreward,
Searching, searching for a bay.
All to soon the concert ended,
Knew I must be by her side,
By the time my mother caught up,
Asked my love to be my bride.
Other loves have all been less than
Hard to follow my first yes
Years have passed by at a gallop
Still I wait her, I confess.
Epilogue:
Ladies perhaps found it precious
One so young could be a fool
Insensitive to lover’s gift
Carelessly forgot the rule
Love’s gift must be always honored ,
Details change but sense survive,
In Love’s time was left a rift,
Precious hearts now less alive.
Brian Johnston
August 5, 2014
Tropical breezes waft across a sea of empyrean bliss as
a lost ship, the The Golden Dragon,
cast it’s indigo shadow upon turquoise waters.
Parrots preening one another,
were the welcoming party for weary travelers.
whispering leaves on trees twisted with the winds of ages,
graced the morning light upon the shore.
Down Anchor and a shoreward visit to
this seraphic isle, gave them a chance
to enjoy an idyllic splendor, they’d never before seen;
Fruit and nuts were gathered and some small animals for sustenance and a much-need good night’s sleep allowed them time to reflect, reconnect with one another and re-chart their course.
The preening pair watched
as the ship weighted anchor, turned starboard,
and vanished into thin air.
ocean's majesty...
whitecaps foam...roaring shoreward
...gently lapping sand
May 06, 2018
The path is shady
the gait, shaky
Destination known
elicits a moan
Tried to turn back
behind me all black
The only way, forward
to the vast sea, shoreward
No darkness of session
To light in the mind
I get the impression
That love is not blind
I can say with good reason
As I do in this rhyme
With love always in season
Stop wasting your time
If paddling shoreward
And leaving the glum
Put one foot forward
The other will come
If love is a reference
That you would make
Just what is the difference
A true heart does not break
So sing it aloud
Or on the down low
But always be proud
For the feelings that show
Search for your reason
Search for your rhyme
Even a heathen
Needs love all the time
Chasing my dreams I leave no stone unturned
and I reach for the stars even if the sun burns.
No holds barred, I tug myself forward
with unbounded strength, like a ship moving shoreward.
An everlasting love for life
I pull through bad times causing strife.
Limitless patience for I live in LA
Waiting is part of my everyday.
Infinite thoughts fill my head
I become ADD when my plate is too spread.
Eternally I will prevail
For I breathe in positive and then exhale.
( For Limitless contest)