Best Vessels Poems
Amidst great ocean of life --- voyaging
I’m blest with the Lord’s granted fellowship
partnership-bliss in faithful stewardship…
Captain is Christ by His love’s engaging.
Along life's trip, I've learned Bible ships’ facts
attesting the Creator’s supreme hand
working by His omnipotent command
assuring sweet peace from evil attacks.
With God’s sovereign design, notable
Noah’s Ark in Genesis does prevail
as Earth’s first ship fulfilling divine sail
to preserve creation, grandly noble.
As a floating zoo against water might
Almighty-propelled vessel was haven
for animals while showers poured from heaven
bound Noah’s family with home’s delight.
One sea-vessel expressed by the Scriptures
showed baby Moses on his gracious trip
handled by the omniscient Father’s grip
the buoyant basket wrought great adventures.
Victorious ship in the Old Testament
surmounted grievous horrible tempest
when Prophet Jonah passed obedience test
admitting guilt for pardon fulfillment.
The greatest was the ship* of Jesus Christ
encountering numerous miracles
with the Saviour calming all debacles
by His truth and guidance, mercy-sufficed.
In this journey toward eternity
sailing with my Captain in reaching-out
as fisher of men midst soulwinning bout
I’m safe in His friendship of grace-bounty.
*Mark 5:21 And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.
November 7, 2021
4th place, "A Noteworthy Ship" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Robert James Liguori; judged on 11/11/2021.
Categories:
vessels, bible, christian, faith, god,
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
We are all empty vessels on the ocean of consciousness:
navigate mindfulness to awareness, then awaken.
There are many lineages, some shallow harbors.
Enlightenment remains always on the horizon.
To understand oneness, universal consciousness -
embrace "nothingness", "no-self", "emptiness".
If it seems contradictory, that's not an illusion.
Let go, allow ego to dissolve, fall into emptiness.
Dismiss judgmentality and raging individualism.
Look into suffering with karmic loving-kindness.
Open to your Buddhanature, your Buddhaself.
Tame your mind on the meditation cushion.
Resist grasping enlightenment, enlightenment finds you.
Empty your vessel and be liberated.
Fill your life with love and compassion.
Become the other.
Categories:
vessels, heart, introspection, judgement, love,
Form:
Free verse
God has hidden great treasures
in vessels of seeming dishonor
who are out of funds, luck and favor
being different they incur our displeasure
Many stars are hiding in their shell
a beautiful soul masked as cursed
full of mistakes, failures and costs
allow our expectations to crumble to hell
Still many of these late bloomers
dream up a life many do envy
living beyond our rat-race slavery
they see our world with the eyes of groomers
Pruning our world with their dreams
thoughts, words, inventions and arts
from great deeds to such little acts
their legacy is to harvest our joyful screams
God has hidden star treasures
in odd vessels within plain sight
that we may learn to fear His might
learning not to incur His grave displeasure
Such lonely stars twinkle in the blue
heavenly treasures unknown to you.
Categories:
vessels, art, beautiful, change, creation,
Form:
Quatrain
Armada of clouds,
Sailing across ocean skies:
Unknown horizons.
Categories:
vessels, nature, sea
Form:
Haiku
Born a soul into a vessel of life
Innocent and pure a spirit riding its ship
The maiden voyage launches without major strife
Where will it guide ones wondrous trip?
The path of night or path of day?
Traveling along every twist and turn
Is it the path where all its dreams lay?
For what end destiny does the heart yearn?
Guiding forces often push one down unintended trail
Heavy burdens carried on vessel’s back
Guideposts and lurking shadows do not avail
Waiting weather and hidden beasts do attack
Sherpas help keep vessels moving along
Opening canopy signals the right way
Guiding vessel toward the summit where it does belong
Vistas become available with the light of day
All senses absorb the astounding view
Site, sound and touch are at their peak
Framed portraits both old and new
While embracing the ultimate destination you seek
By: Richard J. Long
December 2011
What has Nature to teach us in regards to the Soul?
Categories:
vessels, adventure, happiness, life, places,
Form:
Rhyme
I see more of them every day,
Vessels devoid of any beliefs of their own,
Compassion not listed on their cargo manifesto,
Empathy never having been loaded on these vessels,
That fly flags of convenience.
Their code of ethics determined by what they see as normal behaviour,
In the group at the time,
Be it good or bad,
No soul searching or due diligence attempted by these vessels,
That steer clear of other vessels that carry cargoes not sanctioned by
Majority view on the day.
I see more of them every day,
Empty vessels that sail wherever the winds of change care to take them,
Until the day they sail into port flying the wrong flag.
Who amongst us can say they never provided timber that was unsound,
Maps long outdated,
Or a compass that gives false bearings,
To the captains of these empty vessels,
That I see more of every day.
Categories:
vessels, analogy, atheist, betrayal, change,
Form:
Narrative
Cigars and whisky for dinner
Prostitutes for my prostate
Pardon my french,let me rephrase that
Escorts for my ego
Last night,one big blur
****! it’s 6am,7 missed calls,8 messages
Where are you? On my way to the airport
Cruising altitude,mad hangover with a slight case of emptiness
Empty skies.Endless oceans
Fasten your seatbelts,we are about to land
*clicking sound* heavy sigh
Rye for the spy.Lie for the sky
Oh ****! I think I’m still high
Sharpen my blade, I’m out of ink
Draw blood,let it spill
Directly into that vessel,yes,the cracked one
It will hold.Im certain
It’s held lava from lovers
Walked on thin ice with a heavy heart
Treaded the atlas,forming roads
Burning bridges
The last bridge,a bank teller with a best seller
She was perfect and I wasn’t
Somewhere in that line, lies the truth
Stellar thoughts.
Skies don’t need pilots
Oceans don’t need sailors
Vessels do need cracks,they add character
JGM
Categories:
vessels, allegory, art, corruption, imagery,
Form:
Free verse
In what one may think as a final hour
Tense vessels tighten to squeeze out any blood that may be left
To supply an already weakened body
Suppressed by lack of freedom
Surprised by the intense unpredictability of life
Attacked from all angles in a moment’s notice
without relent.
No light shall shine today nor tomorrow
A pot full of hot water can only boil so much until
An eruption.
It has happened.
But instead of a release,
The water keeps on burning
Until soon there will be no more water
The pot, empty, left to melt if it’s plastic
It is plastic.
Cheaply made and inexpensive
A perfect representation of our government
Oozing from flames beneath
Causing an awful, unavoidable stench
Toxic…
This time the vessel cramps in the calf
She knows now this is not minor stress
A thousand bricks upon her chest
And so, each day she rises, not to know
But hopeful, that another problem thrown her way
Will be the final one today.
Quickly move, it’s late
Another day to pretend she’s okay
Why ask how are you?
The answer will always be the same.
“I’m doing well, are you okay?”
She doesn’t ask that anymore
She knows and says nothing of the sort
Because reality is far from “doing well”
She’s drinking from a poisoned well.
A poison that she didn’t know
Until,
She fell.
Head first she hit the cold, hard bottom
Filled with black sludge and centipedes
How they crawl up the walls in a hurry
The dark, thickened water splashes
All sides of an infestation
There is no way out
Perhaps try to climb some rocks
Slippery little rocks aren’t meant for climbing
Unless you have 100 legs
Only thing she has
Is 100 different types of pain
The tunnel becomes her escape.
Slip away
Into the dark side of a hole in which will briefly be your last home
Feel the bottom of the earth
Swallow it whole.
You have nowhere else to go.
The faint light at the top
Gives way to darkness
Close your eyes
The poisoned well will soon enough be gone, you know
One day you will wake again…
Until then, another knot
Straight to the neck
Suffocates any blood
This time none comes back
Let yourself go
Let yourself go…
And in letting go
You will be reborn.
Categories:
vessels, anxiety, birth, dark, death
Form:
Free verse
Though the crease begins to crumble
These old pages still run blue
Currents pulse beneath the surface
Pen-leaked ink that bled your truths
Pen-spun words that writhe like veins
Under skin and paper skies
Cold to touch, crept through your core
Settled clear in frozen eyes
So I’ll read you like a book
And I’ll write you pretty lies
Just to fill the empty space
That’s revealed between the lines
Won’t you move a little closer?
Let it spill into your ear
The tide of breath that harboured
All the words you want to hear
Well I tried to kiss it better
Blood and bones to fuse the cleft
Bruised and broken, lips split open
From the effort, nothing’s left
So you say that I’m a sinner
Preach of hearts and ribs and fists
Well I may have made the plunge
But you revelled in the twist
Now you’re tearing at your wounds
Sanctimonious with pain
Because it helps you ‘hear the music’
Yeah, it helps you play the game
If I pour a little salt
Will you smear it in your eyes?
Feel its grain twist round your lids
As you soliloquise
About the blame you tried to forge
All the nights you wept and claimed
‘You can’t comprehend the world
Balanced firm between these blades’
No one told you it’s a lie
And the story really goes
Constellations, superstitions
Are that Ancient’s only load
All the pretty rhymes and perfect crimes
You try to hide behind
Well they just serve to remind me
How you once spoke those old lines –
‘Your tongue is as a rudder
Guiding vessels safe through storms
Moving mountains with inflections
Making ripples in reflections
Hollowed hull meets hallowed shores’
Categories:
vessels, allegory, angst, depression, friendship,
Form:
Colonial master:
A lot was doing faster
Many stubborn chains able to loosen
Like the vessels whom Christ had chosen.
Colonial master:
Hatefully fought by Rasta
But they were also safeguarding Jamaican rights,
Which sometimes would their sanctity lose
In the darkness of tragic nights
At the hands of The Conquered by booze.
This Great Master though was a great slave
To every African cultivable soil
And ready to hysterically rave,
If we twice looked in the direction of our own crude oil
Ever willing to perish wherever it was in huge deposits:
An assertion of blacks and white being irreversible opposites
More than fifty years now he our bridges built,
Whose survival lengthen our Engineers’ guilt
For having worn the same bowler hats
And chances had to use the same enormous CATS
Beside daring to look as much decisive
In the rarest of bow ties, very massive!
Categories:
vessels, betrayal, child abuse, corruption,
Form:
Rhyme
My home is not made of spacecraft.
My heart is not made of fear.
My soul is not made of isolation.
No, my home is a resilient capsule that no one can breach.
I am there whenever I am weightless.
I am there whenever I am problem-solving.
I will be there whenever I return.
Yes, you can enter.
But first repeat after me:
My heart is not made of fear.
My soul is not made of isolation.
My home is not made of mission control.
My heart is not made of steel.
My soul is not made of duty.
No, my home is a boundless orbit that no one can contain.
I am there whenever I am adapting.
I am there whenever I am repairing.
I am there whenever I am observing.
Yes, you can enter.
But first repeat after me:
My heart is not made of steel.
My soul is not made of duty.
My home is not made of Earth.
My heart is not made of gravity.
My soul is not made of limitation.
No, my home is a celestial journey that no one can diminish.
I am there whenever I am floating.
I am there whenever I am persevering.
I am there whenever I am discovering.
Yes, you can enter.
But first repeat after me:
My heart is not made of gravity.
My soul is not made of limitation.
My home is not made of splashdown.
My heart is not made of triumph.
My soul is not made of completion.
No, my home is an eternal exploration that no one can halt.
I am there whenever I am resilient.
I am there whenever I am courageous.
I am there whenever I am transcending.
Yes, you can enter.
But first repeat after me:
My heart is not made of triumph.
My soul is not made of completion
(Sunita Williams Homecoming on March 19, 2025)
Categories:
vessels, adventure, appreciation, confidence, endurance,
Form:
Free verse
As I listen to the pitter patter against my icy window
I am transported back to simpler times
I see myself, a tiny vessel
full of beautiful curiosity and untamed energy
The thoughts that consume me
are only those of each moment
Worry was not a reality
because worry is not reality
It is simply a manifestation of the mind
meant to tame the wild soul inside us
Set it free
and you will know life
Categories:
vessels, beauty, creation, fear,
Form:
Free verse
The first time I ever made you coffee I
handed it to you, black and just a little burnt.
with apology on my tongue, I said ‘sorry, there’s no cream.’
You, with your long black hair and snow
driven smile replied, with reassurance on your lips,
‘it’s perfect, I prefer it black’
It’s been 6 months, sweet love, and I watched you
making coffee with your short black hair
and the sun shone bright against the cold,
snow driven cream as it slipped into your mug.
And in this moment I am struck by
love’s elasticity. I held your love in a
2 liter carafe, the black coffee steaming.
Yet in an instant you seamlessly hug
the corners of the square cardboard carton
of half and half and I tuck it away in the fridge
door for safe keeping.
Categories:
vessels, love,
Form:
Free verse
Exuding
Christ’s
goodness…
…radiating bliss
serenely blest
midst turmoil…
…vessels of honour*
serve with love
indeed faith-driven.
*Tribute to our spiritual frontliners.
2Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
(My “Ascending Three” having three lines with words ascending in number: one in the first, two in the second, and three in the third.)
July 2, 2020
Categories:
vessels, appreciation, christian, encouraging, faith,
Form:
Verse
Just like this vessel, we all bear
Marks of struggle, signs of wear.
But beneath the surface, deep within
Lies the essence of who we have been.
Like a glass that has fallen
And shattered upon the floor.
You gather together its pieces
And hope it can be restored.
A jigsaw puzzle, a mosaic of colors.
Carefully rebuilt, one part against another.
Showing the beauty that creativity can weild.
Love the glue with which it is held.
All its flaws and imperfections
Make it even better.
You can only create diamonds
With extreme heat and pressure.
We like this vessel all have our scars.
Our traumas and experiences, uniquely ours.
We all are broken in one way or another.
It's what's inside the vessel we need to discover.
So let us embrace our cracks and dents.
For they are the marks of life's events.
Each one is a memory of a lesson learned.
Each one a badge of honor we have earned.
Our flaws the colors that paint our designs.
Don't be ashamed,
we all have cracks.
Yours are just different from mine.
Categories:
vessels, deep, encouraging, extended metaphor,
Form:
Rhyme