Replication, O photon.
Atmosphere. Molecules.
Phase, like seasons. Here, then gone.
Tools, tremors, toadstools.
Occipital ridge, troll, bridge.
Billy goat, thy horn.
Pestilence, thy name is midge.
Freighter, fain, forlorn.
Lightning bolt, fruit of the gods.
Eat one and become.
Mycelial, goldenrod?
Mushroom, just stay mum.
Sign of salvation, sea-bass?
Shark, set eyes on same.
Liquid legend, O my lass?
Sure. I'm glad you came.
Tympani, crush. Firefly, flee.
Knock thrice, then flit, thrush.
O behemoth, swim thy sea?
Death, you've had a brush.
Enormous or gigantic?
Titan, which to choose?
Oil on surface, stiff or slick?
Flickering fate, fast fuse.
Race, a trace of turkey wild.
In the corn, my child.
Charnel house floor, stains a-tiled?
Ululate, red riled.
Racket, informed packet?
Data, grow in trees.
Weather, wail. Jail, jacket.
Pain, poisonous to please.
Waking up with bleary eyes
to a chicken ovum as it fries,
I brushed aside ten thousand lies,
my memory to jog -
a vision of the backward walking dog.
Had my brain been so badly mangled
it could not be disentangled.
Yes! Before me, the image dangled.
I could see it through a fog
(of pea soup) - the backward walking dog.
Could it be the devil's nature,
an omen or fate's nomenclature?
The body from a westbound freighter
thrown into a bog -
it was the backward walking dog.
Perhaps in this rancid rubbage heap,
philosophy or something deep
could make me return to sleep,
knowing, I am but a cog,
and forget the backward walking dog.
A visage or a psychic scourge,
no act of man or God will ever purge,
and there is no truth to yet emerge -
just crawling from that hollow log -
the backward walking dog.
I was more of a stepping stone than a stepson.
A tiny stone leading to the heart of my father.
You played the game well... though
squeezing a ring from the coal of his lonely heart.
So, there I was minced by little boy blue grief.
Then tossed into your beehive whirlwind.
You wisely hid your wicked side...young bride...
Many times, playing hopscotch on my hide.
The lessons to make me into a man.
Started around six, I recollect.
Scrubbing those greasy plastic dishes
until they were no longer slick.
You knew that it was an impossible task
for six-year-old hands.
So over and over and over again.
You'd plop that greasy plastic back into the suds...
until well past dusk...
(Now, even as a man, it's always well past dusk.}
I became more like your whetstone.
Something to sharpen your barbs upon.
I'm still waiting for karma to change the color of your hide.
Make you scrub a freighter filled with your greasy plastic dishes.
distress alarm went out over the Dunkirk Sea
french bunnies in the water, capsized, maybe three
tugboats and rowboats raced to try and help
argentine bunnies were pulled out wearing gooey kelp
I rescued four, Michigan, a freighter captain said.
we have five here, announced my uncle Fred.
altogether they rescued nineteen bunnies that day.
boats of every color and country, many from far away.
On the cliff at the Worm’s Head
High above the horns of the bay
I see the surfers ride great waves
With horses’ manes
That ever fail, but never end
In the strong Atlantic surge
In the estuary at Dartmouth
Where the oyster boats dredge
Turning and drifting in slow shadow dance
Great nets of shells are hauled up
And poured out on to the decks
As I plunge upriver
Tacking along the wending Dart
With bent-puzzle oaks on either side
I hear a sudden hush descend
Upon a lonely river hythe
As time and air, smooth and still
Forever glide, like Mayflies
On cold, clear water
In the seaway by the port
With its unmistakable algal aroma
Of the British seashore
I hear the heavy horn of a freighter
That plies its path
And never sinks, yet ever diminishes
Beyond the waves
And far from the pier of the seaside town
Where sandpipers probe
In spiral casts
I hear the penthal call of the curlew
Like silver flourishes on a black cloud
That never moves, but holds dominion
In the cold morning air.
She had me restored to my mummy
After disappearing like a needle
And made me quit acting dummy
And worshipping a TV Idol.
Clearly My social mother
Also, on merit Biological
Quieting a hostile Brother
Increasingly rashly illogical …
A woman who could’ve given birth
To such as I
And my freighter ship berth,
Where it can be picked with the eye;
Now, I have grown too fast
For her assured comfort
And have long shadows cast:
A Fine Escaping Effort …
No longer a moth
That expires on palms inhuman
A steady rapid growth
Quicker than that of a human.
And now too I don’t courtesies keep
For a woman twice my age …
Over her in the streets leap
While she tries every wedge.
Cause the world keeps turning, burning
flipping upside down, my feet can walk fast forward
And I built a bridge too far!
I'm an angelic being without a reason or host
On wheels or wings, my engine thrums
I'm a born freighter a bringer of fire and light
I'm a man cast in shadows of blight,
I'm a real destructive disaster born again holocaust
'Cause the world keeps turning burning flipping upside down,
my feet can walk fast forward
And I built a bridge too far! Too fast to last!
And my feet can walk fast forward in tracks of fire
And I'm a bridge too far gone to support its own weight
I'm an angelic being without a reason or host
On wheels or wings, my engine thrums, hell in my frost…
Gone in the last world, in the middle of the border
towns born of madness as holocaustic ashes….
Gone into the end of the worlds, into the blue vast.
Blazing in the morning sun cooling in the setting moon.
Clutching ashes…
When the Isle of Man Master Baitor
Got a gig on an Irish freighter
To Scotland they sailed
Until they were hailed
When seamen splashed an aviator
When the wind catches the sails at night
And the masts protest with screeching,
Sailors say the ghosts are causing a fright
From deck to crow’s nest beseeching.
The captain already gone below the deck
To spend an evening with a book relaxing,
Is never summoned out of great respect
To return to the helm, his day was taxing.
By dawn the night noises are commonplace
Especially when the sea is a soothing calm,
As the sailors pick up their workday pace
Accompanied by a sea-shanty or a song.
In a week or so the port comes into view,
The crew eagerly plans spending time ashore
To discover in this exotic place what’s new,
Freight unloaded, it is time for sailing lore.
More than fifty ships go through the Suez Canal on any day.
However, a very large freighter has blocked the passageway.
The ship called the "Ever Given" comes from a company in Taiwan.
Unsuccessful efforts to move the vessel have been going on.
Tugboats and personnel are trying to get the big ship free.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other craft have been stalled on the sea.
This incident is having a negative impact on the world economy.
From a story found in the Los Angeles Times.
Excessive Horn Haikua
Deliver Down River and God Is Giver
always deliver
down what is wide river
God has been giver
do me a favor
we know now that a neighbor
carries sword in sabre
appeared a skater
ran over alligator
on a fast freighter
was some stoic style
trump on turbulent trial
which he did defile
ate ball full of fuzz
which always would be because
my cat always does
Jim Horn
Agoraphobia
Voyaging from Cuba to South Korea across the Pacific
takes about three weeks on an old freighter, but we knew
it had a beginning and an ending.
We have been held up in our flat for three weeks with
no ending in sight, next week it is said or perhaps the week
after that, if we are indoors long, we will get agoraphobia
and unable to leave the flat
Fearful of the world outside full of people and automobiles
agoraphobia is not a joke I have suffered from it on and off.
Once I stayed on board a tank ship for six months not leaving
the ship once I was saving money for further education
I needed help to walk down the gangway.
Once in Liverpool, I had another attack unable to leave the house
but I got help by a psychologist who lured me on a bus trip,
he was going to wait for me after four stops; he wasn’t there
I had to walk home among a throng of people
So, it might happen again because I tended to prefer
loneliness.
We always wonder what was the matter,
With all of the clatter and loud chatter;
Took big break;
Made more cake;
Overflowed using my self raising batter.
May have been made by a mad hatter,
Who always found self growing fatter;
Disturbing wishes;
Broken dishes;
Smelled so bad we started to scatter.
We wonder which one will be greater,
A slow boat to China or fast freighter;
Would see Pope;
Had much hope;
Preferred beautiful elegant educator.
Jim Horn
Awoken at 3:30 a.m.
On Mackinac Island at the Grand Hotel
By a freighter blowing its foghorn
Like a calf half separated
From its mother
Bellowing out there somewhere
Lost and meandering
In the thick fog
Stunned by the freezing May water.
Up from bed
Out to the balcony
I felt for the iron side of the passing freighter
Only to find
The sticky wool of lamb
Clutched to the fist of my hand.
Every father has this instinct.
Every mother becomes helpless.
The baying fades away over 45 minutes
Its cry shrinking through the shroud of cloud
Over the Great Lakes
Under the Mighty Mac
On to Wisconsin perhaps
The story like all stories always unfinished…
I go back to bed and lie wide awake.
Trump Took Fast Freighter
To China, Trump has taken a fast freighter;
While on the way he became chaos creator;
Caused a mishap,
Using wrong map;
Never on time and always two hours later.
Jim Horn
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