Flotsam Poems | Examples

Villanelle of a flotsam state house

Let assume  the stars 
     galaxying and the sun
   is for instance 
    shine to earth 
    and stay for a while and bounce?, 
     a star for a planet
    somehow is a sun
    like the sun that is going through? 
    or for each monster,  a  friend, a villanelle 
     like the sun to the earth or north 
     or like Jupiter  or Mercury or Mars?. 
    Let assume something  is the world 
     and glass 
      like funny yet fret.

Flotsam Jetsam Tides

We float amidst the flotsam and jetsam
Seemingly immune to the debris field
Moving past the invisible, the hushed,
Focused only on the we, of us

Our minds deny the truth of what we see
Refuses to face the rising of the waves
Cannot hear the crushing surfs refrain
“I’ve come again…..again…..a g a I n……”

We walk with naked feet on fresh-wet sand
Listen to the sound of stone-roll band
And wonder why it is we can’t abide
The rising of the flotsam-jetsam tides

A Strange Flotsam

A running sea
chokes the throat of a cave
then runs away
letting it breathe again.

Starfish light-up
under a luminescent
and radioactive surf,
then are pushed into sandbars
to dry-up and die.

Beach balls are swept ashore,
bleached fingerbones
lift them over the surf,
plastic bottles pile up
with ghost lips
still attached to them.

Soothsayers think we don't know
what's coming,
but we do.

Flotsam

He was a Professor of Difficult Sums,
Always kept a writing pad near,
Just in case of instant revelations,
With  pencil parked behind one ear.
He could quadrate equations
With consummate ease
And quantum mechanicals
He found just a diverting tease.

He won the Nobel Prize so often
They let him keep the cup,
And he wore designer braces
To hold designer trousers up.
A benefactor of mankind,
Which used his flowing skill
To perfect better weapons with
Much more efficient ways to kill.

He lived in academic obscurity
Until the people learned his name
When he made the perfect mouse trap
Which brought him worldwide fame?
He was sent back into obscurity
When he just went a bit too far
By inventing a pollution free
Everlasting peoples motor car.

He beach combs now in Tahiti
Fitted with a silicon chip link
To wipe his mind of such thoughts
At the speed of an eyelid’s blink
For business is business 
And everyone should know
The worst kind of fool is he
Who disturbs the status quo

Flotsam and Jetsam

Do you strive to be poetic,
while forgetting to be a poet

Your words when forced an epitaph
to what you never said

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)

Flotsam of Existenz

floating aimless 
      a zig-zag in
           a time of discovery...
were these surreal 
             moments mine

lost in thought
        was life a code
poetic thoughts 
           appear
 then fade
          seeing the world come and go
in pictures of the floating world 
this ode came floating

                          to unfold

Flotsam and Jetsam

There is a place inside
where the crime and grime hides
All thoughts and fails lie lifeless hand in hand
In the shadow of lies told
darkness unseen
knees cradled
head bent
furtively looking up
in fear that darkness
will feed upon
this dead atom
My make shift soul
Trapped in flotsam skin and jetsam bone
Never felt the warmth
always joined never part
There is a place inside
were the real me resides

Mood Swings Flotsam Jetsam

Each dawn's debris sort
of wreckage from day before
yields jetsam just junked 
and flotsam break-up relics.
On the beach who can tell which?

Flotsam

The flotsam 
From the deep of unconscious float up pieces of memories,
like torn pictures of a past, I can’t recall. 
I see a child standing on a chair seeing his image in the window. 
A man, in the street below looks, up smiles. 
A war plane flies right through the house and disappear
 Old dreams and forgotten memories have no beginning, no e; 
they can’t be expanded and made coherent. 
A mighty surge of fear passes through me, an unremembered
memory absorbed into my nascent brain before I was born? 
The unborn but is silence it can’t be articulated into words.
I listen to an ancient hum to understand a future that has
no conscience of the coming.

We Are Flotsam

(with a spark of God)

To govern a myriad selection
Of one mind and legion.
Top tier parasitic collection
From every living region.

It's not subjective good or evil,
Moral or immoral, right or wrong --
But, a wanton cellular mass primeval
Versus ego and super-ego strong.

Toxic algae over jellyfish abundant,
Floating in poisons of our making:
CO2, methane, livestock redundant.
Do Vegans dream of plant life taking?

Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram:
Brain-dead sheep of the clan,
Following blindly without exam,
Trading for virgins on Ramadan.

Black holes wandering
About Yellowstone caldera.
Plague virus pondering
A Thermonuclear plethora.

Anthropogenic extinction sirens:
Suffocating on dead Phytoplankton;
Lost in narcotics and hallucinogens;
Obsessive love via Keats and Byron.

At the precipice of an extraordinary evolution,
We must rid ourselves of ancient superstitions.
To continue our rise, or reverse in devolution?
Agnosticism seems wise -- so say my suppositions.

Flotsam

Flotsam

The debris strewn along the beach
Splintered boat so much out of reach
Slewed and scattered across the sand
Blue and red wood still to hand

Imagination running wild
The wreckage of a boat defiled
Once a vibrant vessel, seaworthy
Now flotsam tossed for all to see

One wonders what had happened here
Which caused this wreck that instilled fear
Did the captain stay alive?
Did any of the crew survive?

Tossed and battered on this coast
Beyond any help from the island's hosts
Her keel and hull torn apart
No mast with sail nor engine to start

The ocean's relentless, remorseless tide
Has wrecked this boat and flung her aside
While benign blue sky looks calmly down
The sombre grey clouds scowl and frown

People walk past oblivious
Ignoring the plainly obvious
Not knowing nor caring why
These timbers were hurled beyond the eye

This sturdy ocean going boat
Which carried men and cargo afloat
Now wreckage laying along the beach
Lost and forgotten - out of reach

                                          Boa Vista 21 April 2015

Flotsam

Landed on the wind-swept shore
a chip---a splinter---maybe more,
small piece of wood in the surf
rubbing against the salt-sand turf.
A sliver from sunken battleship,
now an underwater sonar blip?
Cruise ship chair that came apart,
lost by a deck hand not so smart?
Splintered mast from racing yacht,
port arrival most probably naught?
She picked it up and rubbed it clean,
carried it along the ocean scene,
walked on the dock, gulls did flee,
and threw it into the white-capped sea.

Flotsam and Jetsam

The sea was calm on that fateful day
The crew keen and eager to get on their way
The cargo was loaded, all men were on board
The captain at the helm was standing tall

They raised the anchor with a mighty cry
And bade farewell with a heartfelt sigh
Leaving their loved ones with a fond embrace
Not yet knowing the perils they faced

They raced through the waters with rapid speed
The sails billowing out as the captain took heed
Of the clouds building up looking heavy and mean
Would they make it to safety and land unseen

But the seas became heavier, their faces were ashen
When the captain gave the order with gusto and passion
“Toss the cargo to the sea, we need to make light
Or we’ll not make it through the long, dark night”

They threw the cargo over the side
With speed and haste and nowhere to hide
But still they were sinking with no hope in sight
Of land, or man, or a guiding light

And in the still of the morning when all was calm
While the waves rolled in under the coconut palm
All that was found on the distant shore
Was flotsam and jetsam from a ship no more

Flotsam

I saw some flotsam floating by
Or maybe it was jetsam.
Whichever one it was, I know
The river always gets some.

It’s strange that if I’d spotted it
On sidewalk, road or street,
It would have just been detritus
That I had chanced to meet.

But floating cast-offs seem to take
A step up on the scale,
For, carried by the currents,
They’re explorers setting sail.

And where they’ll settle, we can’t know
But out there on the sea,
Unlike the city’s litter,
They are rambling and free.

Flotsam & Jetsam

On
the beach,
ebb & flow-
with no place to
go


Anthony Gormley's installation Another place


http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2005/07/05/art_antony_gormley_feature.sht
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