Best Skiffs Poems
Seventeen skiffs and boats tethered
In twos and threes on the river Thames
With their canvas winter shrouds
And rows of seagulls perched on each,
Almost perfectly aligned,
Heads towards honeysuckle skies
Where low winter's sun declines,
Reflected in cold silver flow.
Close by them a solitary heron stands
Stationed on a gunwale,
Some feathers ruffled by a river breeze.
This beholder sees the autumn beauty
And foreboding of a winter's shiver
With its wretched frost and freeze.
Marshmallow clouds in gingerbread dreams;
makeshift skiffs sail cerulean streams.
And tethered to invisible ropes;
they ferry wishes and madcap hopes.
Turquoise rivers flow to aqua seas
where misty landscapes transform with ease.
And mythical monsters roam once more;
lurking in shadows along its shore.
Prodigious plumes span a massive rift;
as mobile mountains begin to drift.
And the purple-painted thunderclouds;
form anvils that lightening enshrouds.
Cotton-candy pink smears a blue sky;
where a scarlet sun has gone to die.
And as Sol slowly ushers out day,
trillions of ice crystals gild His way.
AWAKE IN LONG BEACH
awaiting the perk
from freshly brewed java
the lull in gull squabble over
a tide dredging up debris
blemishing beach
husband and wife
skiffs passing in night
each wake muster
“good morning”
sugar black coffee
crack boiled eggs
never a smile
their chink in armor
invisible
amour not at all
what it’s cracked up to be
TO BE BROKEN IS TO BE HONEST
Voice: Space Cadet (Wesley C)
The sand is a warm window;
from the sill,
I watch skiffs in the distance sail away from me.
Sea opens to self-sought solitude.
That one day, distant lands became familiar playground
for children of men, cruelly joined in time and place,
by dice thrown into air, dimpled cubes with my name
and theirs.
I hear those children laugh in their sunny day, ice cream innocence.
Their language a sound from once familiar foreign land.
I stand in pain, refuse the hand that asks
to help
And wonder:
if to be a child
is to be honest,
am I blind
to their askance stares? With each step will I
leave behind their glares?
As I lift my head from my feet, with eyes toward the sea, my scars
are only reflections of the footprints they perceive to be as me:
Lines in the flesh-colored sand,
wilted under uneven sea edges, remainders of the battle of separation.
Craters, crimson petals blemished in the glass sun.
A lonely pursuit.
A sand rose's stigmata on my chest.
Silence polished on my window reflection.
Yet I gleam, my back to a windowless beach:
With each day's dusk,
we all fracture,
light decays
myriad aspects
etched experiences
To be broken
is to be honest
July is here, the Rain is pouring down.
The Nets are set…the Fish on the way.
No matter what the weather or how much sleep they do not get,
My family gives their all Every Tide—Every Pick--Even Tired & Wet—
Summers are not spent on vacations and trips,
Fourth of July celebrations, we miss.
No Reality TV---No fame or fortune here.
Just our own fishing parade--full of good cheer.
Entries include-a Crew that works hard--with the meaning of True Grit.
Skiffs that were made with much care—
In hopes they will float--when filled with more than air.
We celebrate every season with the mending of Nets.
Some years the fish—--Well, they worry us a bit.
But whatever happens—My family will be there year after year.
It is just who they are and just what they do.
Copyright © fonda anne….mooreofme....mamao
In my bedroom the three of us all high:
her, her, and I: pass methamphetamine
in circle, her to her to I, our lean
mannequin forms pressed hand to leg to thigh,
one on my left, one with a school yard eye.
We three are, and have been since seventeen,
friends without borders, like grass without green,
throating for water from skiffs diver dry,
strung out on wire like trout with tin-foil breasts
and pupils bulging black as once-a-star.
In my bedroom, the three of us undressed -
took her, then her, now I - have logged too far
on thirty six strips of backward spinning crests
to hide our heal where love unpeeled is scar.
Clouds form fascinating shapes in the sky,
like shapeshifters on a sea of blue:
and I love to watch them go traipsing by.
Some seem magical; that's hard to deny:
for as they silently slip into view,
clouds form fascinating shapes in the sky,
Misty fantasies, clouds seem so nearby;
sculpted in shades of white with a beige hue:
and I love to watch them go traipsing by.
Mobile sculptures and a treat for the eye,
as their misty forms get reborn anew:
clouds form fascinating shapes in the sky.
Beyond mesmerizing, they beautify,
like a flotilla of dreams sailing through:
and I love to watch them go traipsing by.
An armada of skiffs, afloat on high,
ordinary, morphs into something new.
Clouds form fascinating shapes in the sky,
and I love to watch them go traipsing by.
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
A sea of tales:
calms and gales,
sardines and whales –
fishy with scales,
children with pails;
shell-homes of snails;
pirates, and barrels of
ales – a young boy's
imagination...
Incoming wave, flooding
village moats – drenching
all: Save the women!~
cats, dogs, pet rats; then the preachers
and teachers – Save the Popsicle skiffs!
The handkerchief sails on driftwood
tall-ships....
Could it be Columbus
started this way? Perhaps
Captain Hook? Stevenson's
popular book? Anderson,
thinking that a little boy's
finger could save a village,
perhaps point to a better
way – one tiny small hand
with just as small feet. His
royal-seal, a cigar-band –
learning of powerful tides,
beach...and of hourglass-sand –
Along the River
Along the river the wildflowers bloom:
Bright swathes of orange, blue and lavender
Join the swelling of buttercup mounds
Awakening scarlet petals of love.
Rowers slide by in painted skiffs,
Speckled fish leap to climb the sky.
I follow the Sun, always the Sun,
She stirs the world in the depths of my heart.
Let my love be radiant,
Let infants gaze into my eyes.
I held a baby in my arms for hours
And read to him Edna St. Vincent Millay.
He found my voice a solace,
I fell in love
With the boy who chewed my finger.
The Conference at Mantua
Ah, what a scene of tranquil learnedness!
The scholars nurse their tomes like babes in arms:
white locks: heads cocked to savor the address
of Pius, in his charming Latin: balm
floats in through high-arched, airy colonnades.
The lake is laced with skittish little skiffs:
those rolling lawns of Mantua could be made
to sport a kick-ass golf course. Oh, those cliffs!
But life just ain't that peachy. Belching blame,
the Cardinals did squat, but bleat and *****.
No representatives invited, came.
And Mantua was a cramped, unhealthy pitch.
Scarampo wasn't much inclined to linger.
With imprecations colouring the air,
he gave the Pope the metaphoric finger,
and rode away, at haste -- to God knows where.
The Lake was nothing but a sluggish stream.
It bred mosquitoes in malevolent clouds.
The croaking frogs made sleep a pious dream.
The locals were more oafish than in Stroud.
Bessarion stayed true, and Torquemada.
A basis, then, for troops to rally on:
but Europe's bookends? "Altar y espada"
is not much use among Italians!
At last, some envoys came -- but far from helping,
they asked for help! From Burgundy came Cleves,
but not disposed for listening, more for yelping
about the local petulance and peeves.
And when they paint the frescoes of your life,
they'll airbrush out the unappealing grunge.
They'll strip away the struggle and the strife.
And you'll bequeathe what's pretty (dung expunged).
This rusting chain is witness to an age
When slate was quarried from these ancient cliffs
And where one hundred quarrymen earned a wage.
This harbour, filled with steamboats, schooners, skiffs,
Became a hive of industry, back when
Demand for road-stone, roofing slates and bricks
Was at its peak, then never seen again.
In modern times it’s in the tourist mix;
From far and wide they come; their aim – “The Shed”—
A posh fish restaurant. Book in advance,
Secure your table, or disappointed
And hungry be, and float in fresh fish trance.
The smell of fish and chips wafts from the galley.
Move on, quick! Away! We dare not dally.
To the Invisible Friend
The dredging decades have floated by like drifting clouds in the beckoning western sky.
Hello dead friend of my distant youthful days under these erotic jacaranda blooms.
It is my firm hope that you are satisfied and settled inside your deep and cozy earthen confines.
We spent months hours and minutes tangled together in a passing parade of exquisite time.
We ate a plethora of flailing foods together inside the old quaint cafes in busy Uptown.
We talked unceasingly under whirring ceiling fans in the yellow eating breakfast rooms.
You and I drove in suspended romantic time down the Harbor lanes at prying midnight.
You pressed your tresses and closed your eyes upon my shoulder into the late kissing night.
What has happened to your young voice and your shy waves to me from the darkened distances?
We have moved away from each other in decades gone by like skiffs in a crescent watery breezeway.
We have left behind a thousand inter crossings and a hundred by crossings with suspended ecstasies.
So sorry that had to happen to you that morning in October when the sky hi jacked your future days.
Look to the west behind these eucalyptus trees that now cast long August shadows at twilight.
Look to the blue-laced north now and rest your tilted head upon my shoulder as it leans westward.
Sorry you’re dead now as you sleep in your grassy bed of jealous roses and wailing wisteria.
Sorry I had to see your white-sheeted body on the evening news lying there amidst the tragic landscape.
But now dear dead ghost whose faraway voice I can still hear even now from talks in the old evenings.
Did we not take long strolls on old cracked sidewalks under a curious canopy of jacaranda blooms?
Did we not seek and grasp great silver moments in the green-drenched darkness of hot skin and tears?
You and I know of those secret dances with the music turned down low in the swallowing darkness.
You and I remember the long floating ride down the deserted boulevard at prowling midnight.
We were irresistibly falling in love with the idea that this sensual drama in the dark would never end.
Goodbye dear dead friend of my distant youthful days under these erotic jacaranda blooms.
It is my firm and final hope that we’ll meet again outside your deep and cozy earthen confines.
Doctrine detaches your mind,
Away from rational thinking,
Makes you obstinate and rude,
Unable to be understood.
It proceeds your choices,
Causes insecurity and disgust,
About your normal feelings,
As it brings very low ceilings.
It does not free you to ponder,
On life's detours and skiffs,
On the real batters and drivers,
On real occurrences and odours.
It is never a positive theology,
But turns to a personality stern,
For life's precepts, principles,
For prison's rules and oracles.
Doctrine doesn’t listen to you,
But places you as insidious,
Because dogma is just dogma,
Without a beauteous panorama.
So don't ever listen to doctrine,
But place it as, that’s insidious,
Call it for what it is, dogma,
And see the whole panorama.
Along the blood road
there's thousands of ponds
carved out by American bombs.
An attempt to blast communism
into starry oblivion-
It'll take a hundred years to remove
unexploded ordinances(uox's)
Children mistake them for shiny toys
every day is black Christmas for children
who play along the blood road-
The metal from war doesn't go to waste
the skin of bombs are made into skiffs
that hum across the delta mist.
Some bringing blue round-eyed tourists...
Eager to see how poor communists live,
More often than not they'll be invited into a hut
provided a humble meal...
Sometimes by a widowed -one armed matriarch.
Today, the blood road is being devoured by jungle.
Natives still slave over rice paddies.
just like they have for a thousand years.
and will for a thousand years beyond...
Some of the bomb ponds hold trapped fish
where villagers toss hopeful nets...
and who said war is good for nothing?