weird hum in the sea
a floating human-less hump
a humpbacked whale
hungry and hunting
hurrying to hurl krill
hoary humpback heaves with happiness
heads home to retain place
as hermit of the High Seas
I miss the barn, the hay loft,
a place to listen to the midday sun
creaking through old wood.,
the small clouds of horse flies
moving as one in their jet-pack bodies,
that rose and fell
their small engines stuttering.
The humpbacked skeleton of a tractor
where goats built their castles,
the oily emptiness of its heart
as it clanked under their hooves
into a gearless life once more.
When the empty stalls echoed a warning
to the horses that no longer stabled there,
I would get up into the sagging rafters
where feather whiskered winds
rustled dust through broken boards,
It used to take them an hour
before they knew I was missing,
later they knew where to find me.
I miss the soul-deep smell
of dry leather tackle long unharnessed,
the empty cans of linseed and engine oil,
the old shotgun so rusted
it grew out of a dirt-caked bucket
as brown as a whittled flower stalk.
All gone, the barn, the farm house
and ‘they’ - gone now.
Yet sometimes they call to me
as I dream in a lullaby loft,
and I still a little disappointed
to be found.
TALKING WAVES.
The sound the waves make on the shore
Seem like they’re trying to say,
“I’d never seen this rocky beach
Until I did today.”
“Before that I was out at sea,
Miles and miles away,
Racing with the ocean,
To talk to you today.”
“I’ve seen the cliffs at Dover,
And the road to Mandalay.
I even passed Australia
To get to you today.”
“I’ve seen the gentle humpbacked whale
And a giant manta ray,
I even saw a penguin
In a cold Antarctic Bay.”
“But now we’ve had our little chat
I really must not stay,
I’ve got to talk to someone else
A thousand miles away.”
A youngster, humpbacked with wisdom, and an old man, burning with love, both of them, commuting to work on a subway, see a lot of interesting people: a budding manager with a red-hot lightning instead of his tiepin; a public toilet's volunteer; a ballerina, sleepy and yawning like a mermaid on ice as well as lobsters and other crustaceans too. I don't commute, ergo, I see nobody and sublimate my social life in the commentaries to Poertrysoup.
Here we have an illustration of the deficiencies of a freelancer's lifestyle.
yonder is my town's old bridge,
grayish, humpbacked, but still strong,
still spanning my gaping years
like lyrics weaving my song;
like a bright picture postcard
framed by my car's glass window,
stirring youthful memories
that gladden my soul, you know.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.