A hail of cormorants dive down shooting hope into my fishing line
'Write Thirteen Beautiful Lines' Poetry Contest: Sponsored by Constance La France (April/May 2025).
Where hills are alive
with imagination
carried by clouds
toward their destination
Lakeland fells and sheep
Liverpool of cormorants
Wales with its dragons
Yorkshire and terrier dogs
in Lancashire towns
of redbrick and cobbled folk
who worked with bare hands
to build a much better world
beneath these beautiful skies.
Sunlight seeping through my sash windows, so bright,
A silver whisper, anemones in oak’s light.
Piscine fins capture daylight's faint gleam,
Cormorants align, a verdant, vibrant dream.
Lustrous ebony wings dessicate, eyes so keen,
A metaphorical dusk, where crimson hues convene.
Nature’s prose, the palette finds its way,
Desultory strokes where colours gently play.
A painting unfolds, a metaphor for change we see,
Mixing up hues freely, a painter’s ecstasy.
Art, a transcendence boundless and swift,
As shadows lengthen, a masterpiece adrift.
Hungry for ideas -
a fish dish would help,
an unhinged arm's length away,
way over the Yangtze River,
where, far from the nearest eyeball,
drunken cormorants dive
for silverplated carp.
Alas, any old iron skillet
will not fit this oily range,
I will have to cowboy it,
first, beans and baby powder
to talcum my muffins
while I break-in some roughhewn chaps,
then to rodeo this coal-black cooker,
as I lasso a China man,
a wise angler who knows how to catch,
the natural gas of an angry Puffer Fish.
I've almost forgotten it.
It got too big -
holes appeared,
entire towns fell through
my memory.
The Forbidden City
is a convoluted red and gold ribbon,
my mind cannot now untangle.
Images float off the ink
of curling maps.
Snapshots flutter
like flags in a desert sky.
I recall in parts and pieces:
middle-aged couple’s street dancing,
no revolutionary strutting,
just Quickstep, Foxtrot,
and Bossa Nova.
The young watching,
taking notes, as if
studying for an exam.
A small one-armed boy,
riding a peddle bike,
weaving through traffic,
four black cormorants strapped to his back,
their necks craning out of their wicker cage,
like sight-seeing dogs.
A quick look at Mongolia
through a hole in the Wall.
China got loose,
it escaped the hotels,
the tour buses, the itinerary.
It went down a crowded alley,
draped with roast ducks,
and paper lanterns.
If I were now to follow it,
it might lead me,
to a restaurant in London,
San Francisco, or Toronto,
or like today
come together again,
in the eyes of a girl
who sells me a smart phone.
How the wind plays
across the water
in changing patterns,
its skittish mood drawn
in ripples and rivulets
of sparkle under
a morning sun.
The small boats fidgety
at their moorings
as if roused by longings
of freedom,
cormorants riding
the unrest on bobbing prows
with outstretched wings
drying in the wind.
See how the day
is slowly being assembled,
putting itself together
with ferry boats
and dogs pulling on leads,
wired joggers, noisy children
in school uniforms
crowding at bus stops,
workers putting up signs.
How it all seems
to be following some hidden
script. And here I am, again,
walking the morning
looking for what I lost
in the long hours
of a sleepless night
when it doesn't
have a name,
being ushered by the wind
towards a somewhere
or nowhere at all,
helped along
my shuffling way
by a strange sense
of unhurried trust
that all will be OK.
Evening Dream
Dr Ranjit Dutta
With your ardour
In that green valley
You raised your hand
To the evening sky,
I remember too.
Looking two glazing stars of
That silvery evening,
Two cormorants were
Swimming in the morass
Chewing the verses
Fearing nothing.
Keeping aside
The gloomy darkness,
I was talking with my
Poetry of cosmic green
Who was grazing in your bosom.
Suddenly
Her rude face and
your blue costumes searched someone
In broken words .
The wan pink spread
silken perfume
On her cottony body,
My poetry fell in the bog
While you came close and closer,
The evening dream of
Blue and pink
Became pale green.
As a rainbow of the sunset descends
and the balmy breeze washes over sand
that tickles between toes and carefree hand,
I’m in the company of valued friends.
The deceptive calm of darkening sea
where the cormorants dive for their last meal,
the leeward shadows of the rocks turn teal –
I would not wish in other place to be.
The windsurfers had furled colourful kites.
Easterly wind had died down for the day
and sharks are out to forage and for play
in riptides, lurking out of reach of lights.
I lift my eyes to the offing distant,
the aspect of which is ever constant.
INSPIRED BY:
Sonnet VI,
by William Lisle Bowles
Poetic form: BOWLESIAN SONNET
***************************************************
*offing: (n) The sea-level horizon is the geographic horizon at sea level. One of the best places to see the sea-level horizon is a beach. The ocean and the sky provide a clean, flat line where the Earth seems to meet the sky. If you’re standing on the beach looking out at the sea the part of the sea that ‘touches’ the horizon is called the 'offing'.
The morning seemed unreal,
too perfect in a way -
the waking river
where small boats ignited
like candles on being lit
by first light and where
a cormorant dived
into a blazing sun.
And here, where
a certain magic began
to find its way into
the great, glowing bulk
of a passing ship
towing its fiery wake
down river
towards a grand idea
that was forming
in a corner of the mind.
I should have left
it there in the unspoken
margins of the morning,
to gather and let
it warm, as cormorants do
by stretching out their wings
to catch the sun.
I was too impatient
and fell back
into where all things
are restrained within
their own space
and have a name.
oars barely skim the surface
skiff glides smoothly
as if floating on the dense fog
cormorants perch on pilings
silence broken by hungry gulls
rising sun glistens water
salt air invigorates my being
memories engulf me
What if the sea stopped moving,
lay as still as setting concrete?
And all around the gulls
scolded a lament
as seals flapped aimlessly,
trying to raise a swell.
With cormorants stranded on a rock
as poised as a question mark,
while crabs scuttled everyway
as if dancing on hot plates,
becoming the uncovered prey
of seabirds and small boys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KIPWgFUFkI
Far away in the distance I see a light and suddenly
I want to follow
those inkling stars of beauty, in the gallow of my wishes
I hear a little voice inside that says,
Take me, take me, to unknown lands of mystery
fly me, fly me, o'er peaceful skies of every hue
Far away in the distance I see a light and suddenly
I'm missing you anew ;
Little rivulets accompany the quiet steps of sea
in pensive thought I tread, reflecting love anew
Why else would cormorants fly
if not for nigh and nigh
Far away in the distance I see you like before
a fading smile across your lips and suddenly,
you dissapear, behind the liquid stars,
away from me, away from me....
Words by: Pixie
I've almost forgotten it.
It got too big -
holes appeared,
entire towns fell through them.
The Forbidden City
is a convoluted red and gold ribbon
my mind cannot now untangle.
Images float off the ink
of curling maps.
Snapshots flutter
like flags in a desert sky.
I recall in parts and pieces:
middle-aged couple’s street dancing,
no revolutionary strutting,
just Quickstep, Foxtrot,
and Bossa Nova.
The young watching,
taking notes, as if
studying for an exam.
A small one-armed boy,
riding a peddle bike
weaving through traffic,
four black cormorants strapped to his back,
necks craning out of their wicker cage
like sight-seeing dogs.
A quick look at Mongolia
through a hole in the Wall.
China got loose,
it escaped the hotels,
the tour buses, the itinerary.
It went down a crowded alley,
draped with roast ducks
and paper lanterns.
If I were to follow it,
it might lead me
to a restaurant in London,
San Francisco, or Toronto,
or like today
come together again
in the face of a girl
who sells me a phone
at Radio Shack.
rough ocean waves
crashing sounds on the granite rocks
water rising, filling up nearby caves
winds raise nearby boat docks
to fall and crumble in pieces into the sea
as the seagulls and cormorants on the docks flee
to the seawater to swim free
waves crash on granite rocks as sea debris engraves
6/18/19
Contest: Writing Challenge 1, June 2019, Crumbling Rhyme Contest
Sponsor: Dear Heart
Clear blue sky and cool winds blow
waves pouring in and splashing high
toppling over jetted rocks
ripples mellow out and gently flow
Gulls soaring low, cormorants streaming by
distant sail boat tackling the rising tides
white caps roll, fast and furious
tangling seaweed strewn where barnacles lie
the ocean’s voyage does not cease
waves are traveling with a sounding roar
this vista plants a profound wonder
in my mind this is absolute peace
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