PAPER BOATS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
paper boats float by,
drifting on a summer breeze—
clouds above me dance,
sails of white against the blue,
who sends them racing with me?
ABYSS
Abyss, a Place of Redemption
solace space curling then unfurling
here we sail drowsy dark seas
no boats or oars, unaccompanied
converse with walrus and whales
black shimmers silent, we brook it
Abyss, a cloak of protection as
alchemy distills gross, grime, goo
a thousand fingers unseen sew broken
pieces of Life, loosen patronising hooks
Angels of Abyss appear as they wish
gentle as all other, except their wings are midnight blue, gathering loose threads
snapped nerves, false cues
Lady Nad visits here on occasion
casting charming spells with cymbals
duduks, flutes, xylophone
silence unscathed holding sound
we covet glimmer darkness, black coffee
it holds us safely swarthy
sardine swim inquisitive
incognito, poke tired flesh
individuated personalities shine
examine mine
we attune to F o r e v e r together
Abyss, a place of activation
no shadowy stagnation or sirens
no pothole sidles or humans with
placards, test tubes or empathy labels
no boundary walls at all
humming droning buzzing
om oomm ooommm om
I recognise Cosmic sound
protected, fall deeper
into black abyss
bliss
Paper boats floating in puddles of water
Every little child’s sweet desire we’d cater
Like paper boats we now float on life’s great ocean
Our great minds carrying our thoughts and notions
But let us travel light and not carry the weight
Or like soaked paper boats will we lose our state
fishing boats in the harbour ~ the watery stillness is deafening
One silly tune was running up and down
It couldn’t find the exit from my head
I let it out when I went downtown
To buy some wine and cumin flavoured bread
The tune came back again, this time around
It sounded more complex to my ears
The sun and shades were playing on the ground
The same old pantomime they do for years
I went under the bridge, and watched the boats
Beside my table they were rolling to and fro
Until I recognized the same old notes
It seems that silly tune had found its home
I leaned back on the bridge's stone cold wall
One silly gull just couldn’t stop complaining
Until I couldn’t hear anything at all
I sat there, and of course, it started raining.
Words flow like liquid starlight,
Spilling from quill to parchment,
Each letter is a paper boat
Sailing on a river of ink.
Thoughts, fragile vessels,
Laden with whispers and dreams,
Navigate the currents of time,
Seeking a distant shore.
Pages rustle like autumn leaves,
Their edges kissed by candlelight,
As emotions, once formless mist,
Crystallise into tangible script.
The reader unfolds each missive,
A cartographer of the heart,
Mapping the contours of love
With every carefully crafted line.
Their correspondence, a tapestry,
Woven with threads of longing,
Each sentence is a brushstroke
Painting souls in vivid hues.
Years pass, a relentless tide,
Yet these paper boats endure,
For love letters, once sealed,
Become time capsules of the heart.
And in the silence between words,
Where meaning transcends language,
Love echoes eternally,
An unspoken poem written in stars.
If the boats had never came and colonisers none
Genocide never happened, wars had not begun,
Darker skin I would have and life I would not fear
If the boats had never came, I would still be here.
Gathering rich bush food upon my mother land
I embrace my peaceful place drawing on gold sand,
Lightest zephyr prompting me in salt water to revive
With precious blue I renew every day alive.
Where quietude surrounds me all along in sight
When setting sun has begun sea eagle is in flight,
And now I hear my people singing up a song
How happy are my people healthy, smart and strong.
I love to dream of way back then when heart was just the same
A painless time in my prime, if the boats had never came.
My life is a boat
Details obscured
In dark waters
Language too complicated to wrap your head around
Calculations made to sail away
From any conversation
My words are the hull of this ship
My brain the captain
Keeping me afloat
Until I sink
The metal bowels break
Plunging me into the depths below
My mind is still not understood
By me or my therapist
I do mental gymnastics
Trying to center my navigational system
Blessed are the ones
Who can comprehend why they are upset
Who has the power of Jesus to calm their inner storms
When I feel the winds starting to pull my sails in another direction,
I cry
When I cry,
Tears run over the deck
Making it too slippery and unstable to stand on
I can't take down the sails
And anchor myself
My head is barely above water
I'm treading emptiness while I believe I'm swimming
My boat is sinking
We sail through life upon stormy waters
And sometimes calm
We need to keep stable
To survive and keep afloat
Sometimes we use a compass and sextant
To navigate steering in the right direction
Exploring new adventures
And avenues
With the wind in our sails
We journey hopefully
Toward the horizon ahead and the hanging sun
The folding waves
Wild and unpredictable unforgiving
Have taken
So many to their early graves
Foreboding dark skies
Lightening cracks
Tymphony drums rumble
Cymbals crash
We all need someone
To keep us afloat
Not to crash onto the rocks
Safely harboured and firmly anchored
So we don't drift away.
Buzz buzz go the jet ski's,
Chug chug go the glass bottomed boats,
The speedboats race leaving a long white flume,
The water bubbles from the pool aerator.
There's all of the beautiful people who stride around like posers,
There's the strange body shapes that just let it all hang out.
There's the floats and the balls,
There's the parents warning calls.
Children learn to swim from side to side,
You can see their parents so full of pride.
The many boats around sit in the harbour
One tailing the other now and then
Serried lined and flanked with one another
They pause for thought gathering day before them
The ferrous water sits so still in motion
As plankton line the sterns and afts like moluscs
Peeping over ropes and bobbing under
Waiting out the storming rain and thunder
They never see a passer by or vendor
Instead their vision remains steady on the water
Where promises of undulating sea throngs
Bring mystery to ocean faring wonder
A yacht named Archimedes passed
Behind the local ferry,
Both likely headed to complete
Today’s itinerary.
I know just where the ferry goes
And what it’s like to ride it.
As for the yacht, I’d love to see
Exactly what’s inside it.
My chance of doing that is nil,
But not so with the ferry.
How different would those two rides be?
You know the answer - very!
Boats
Best vehicles in the world
Buddy of humanity
Businesses all over the world runs by you
Buddists even praises you
Bisons have seen the rest of the world because of you
Beasts of north has seen east
Because of you humanity has seen the World
.......
In the hot A-Ga-Ming night
My wife and I skip the July 4th fireworks
At the sandbar down south on long Torch Lake
Start our own shoreline fire
Count the red electrified dorsal fins
Of the motorboat salmon swimming upstream
Migrating home from the explosions in the sky
20, 50, 80 a hundred 200 in an hour
Rainbow tsunami
Our dock leans rickety to the covenant
Lake soothes its wrinkles when the madness is over
Our souls sit back in decrescendo
Take a deep breath
To the cows mooing
Pastures away on Cairn Highway
Like foghorns from the lighthouse perched on the moon
While picking machines convulse in the cherry orchards
Tree by tree to trampolines
Whining mosquitoes if our ears were the hills
Moon slips behind the blueberry clouds
Campfire snaps its fingers for attention
A cricket chirps just outside our circle of radiant rocks
I planted decades ago
Every year he’s here too
Chirping
Chirping
To the embers of the universe
Until he isn’t.
Are they angry, annoyed
with alien landed gentry?
Are they just playing
a game shared, taught?
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