Long Foreshore Poems
Long Foreshore Poems. Below are the most popular long Foreshore by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Foreshore poems by poem length and keyword.
"Into the Ultramarine"
barefoot along the path down to the beach
the memories follow me like seagulls
either side the honour guard of scarlet coastal banksia
and the sharp green scent of Bribie Island pine
wave over me
The wide expanse of a life
like the wild side foreshore
now vastly eroded,
the space between, much shorter
the tides in time
have taken
the sands further out
dissolving the childish past
past the dissolving
further out
the Ocean deep
calls me further in
shedding skin
like a Selkie
diving head first
bare feet the body slippery
into the Ultramarine
the Ultramarine
like a possessive lover
takes me
Candide Diderot. ‘24
At day's end, I take in the last light
seeping into the dark waters
across the bay and keep it here.
I gather the sound of departing gulls
smudged on the sky, the quietening
settle of birds in the cypress trees
along the foreshore, the giggle
of a child high on a swing
being pushed by a mothers hand.
I hold here the gentle sweep
of waves soaking into wet sand,
the slow roll of seaweed, bubbles
bursting around shells, wings
low over the water.
I draw in the evening and keep
it close with its lights
sprinkled around the edges
of the headland,
emerging stars hung soundless
in the heavens, the blinking
passage of a southbound airplane
heading into a long night.
From somewhere, the smell
of honeysuckle spilling
into the waiting air.
I make my way home, filled
with all that I have taken in,
having little space left over
to fit myself.
Despairing seafaring..can be
Lore of days of yore
Glories or gory
Bold stories told
Foreshore folklore
Hemingway’s…Old
Man and the Sea
Smiles..feeling chipper
Like a wee nipper
Reeling in a ripper
Serious delirious skipper
No not a wee kipper
More like stealing Flipper (ah remember Flipper)
Sort of caught
Trials snort beguiles
Rather overwrought
Wiles & guile..fraught
Palaver..how they fought
All went iffy in a jiffy
This grouper.. a storm trooper
All came a cropper
Squiffy party pooper
Proper show stopper
The line snipped…then ripped
Pip gripped but it slipped
Flipper well flipped
Hadn't read the script
Skipped...Pip pipped
Tripped then quipped
Simply ill equipped
Despite his devotion
No delish fish
Dish wish delight
In the commotion..swish..
Dipped back into
The ocean it sipped
Ought to remember what
We’ve been taught
Unless it’s been bought
Down at the port
This is a sort of sport
Where nought could be caught
That’s why fishing
Isn’t just dispatching
Santa’s sea grotto
Matching motto hatching
“It ain’t called bloody Catching!”
A butterfly's flight,
Lost in the foreshore of the night;
With tears in her eyes,
She hung from the trees and cried.
Her gaze met mine,
And in that moment, we intertwined;
With the moonlight as our guide,
She sang and spread her wings wide.
She fell from the trees,
Onto the water, as gentle as a breeze;
It seemed she had lived for eons,
As her wings glimmered like precious stones.
I touched them with grace,
And in that touch, I found my place;
For in the foreshore of the night,
Her peace and melody took flight.
As the night draws to a close,
And the shelter of dreams fades and goes;
The touch of her wings,
And the tranquility in her sings.
Forever in my soul,
Without fail, her beauty unfolds.
I come to this little cove often -
no work, I have time to burn.
See Asians plunder its foreshore,
I still fish - show no concern.
Red-bill seagulls fly in circles,
fight over scraps they have won.
Never giving a thought to Icarus
who flew too close to the sun.
Soon a woman wanders over
and asks me what I’ve caught.
I tell her nothing yet but “you’d
be a great catch” I thought.
I know the swallows smirk at me,
my appearance they detest.
I cast my line and ignore them
(or at least I do my best).
Things start spinning in my head
like what it’s like to drown.
Did King Neptune sit on a throne
and did he wear a crown?
I come alone to this place often
to remember and reflect.
A place of beauty and meaning,
a place where I can forget.
Written: 1992
———
Ladder Bay is a sheltered cove in
the northern beaches of Auckland
New Zealand not too far from my
home in the East Coast Bays.
Learning from various nefarious vermin Hermanns
Discerning the trigger bigger the lies fascism will rise
Spoof uncouth aloof truths won’t even try & disguise
Shermans embers burning remember the Germans
Trump encore will ensure war waged at every door
Implore more what ifs will only see the tariffs soar
Saluting Tangerine and Putin settling their score
Polluting & looting the pure Greenland foreshore
Highfalutin thugs shrugs who deplore rule of law
Russians again crushing Prussians not like before
Developing countries know it will kill the poor
Should we still call this the “Third World” War
Everything tanks in the Yanks new Wild West
China gives EU a shiner from their US diner
Deranged climate change zest was the true test
Damn it the planet we knew’s over & laid to rest
The morning waited
for me to take my seat
on the foreshore bench to begin
its play, perform the piece
it had scripted just for me.
Opening
with a prelude of waves lifting
until gravity collapsed
their curling height and gulped
down their weight, and,
at stage right, rocks bursting
big watery bags of ocean
into exploding walls of foam.
Then there were magpies
holding chorus
in the nearby trees,
accompanying the moment
with an almost Elizabethan lilt
whilst seagulls hurled their
screeching taunts down
from the galleries above.
Little dogs went chasing balls
and children spun, unwinding
on wound up swings, bike riders
in black lycra passed in a blurr
and on a patch of lawn
beside the pavilion, three women
practicing tai chi.
And so the spectacle ran on
as if the morning was inventing
new sights and sounds
for the sake of drawing out time
to keep me captive in audience there,
the same as I used to do when,
as a child, I held concert
for my grandmother
on cold winter afternoons,
stagelit by a blazing fire
and love.
not a bone to pick on beach walks
with my lover just pleasure and leisure
strolls in the sand of time and togetherness
joined at the hips of mind body and soul
sizzling fingertips and footsteps near the edge
of the water crested in undulation
two people one wavelength
vital force and universal calling
treading a path of happy destiny
every now and then we find a fossilised form
minute skeleton small reminder
that permanence does not exist
of the past being bygone
and the future yet to come
as long as life grants us more hours
sometimes there is a bit of amber to be found
majestic tree sap for jewellery and ornaments
treasure gems and relics of measured meter
and the wonderful presence of nature
resonating resin if fortune is kind
occasionally a fish gnawed to the bone
by a seagull like Jonathan Livingston
its meaning as melodious as a Bach symphony
while our strides become a concerto in themselves
the saunter resembles a poem
quietly recited without words
simply flowing to the sound of the waves
of synaesthetic delight with sea stars’ applause
to the magnificent galactic power of
sun moon and stellar composure
sorrows melt away with each further step
the foreshore fuses between our toes
as the covered bones print a trail
washed away by tidal command
gratitude humility love and compassion
truly not a bone to grind with each other
blessed by a union made in heaven and beyond
Setting sun carved a path over the Humber
From Hessle right across the river bend
To join the banks at Ferriby Foreshore
Where that path came to its end.
The great smelter chimney
Rising there darkly up high
Sent its stream of carcinogenic smoke
Crawling across the reddening sky.
The resident old transvestite man,
Beach combing the bank for wood
Let the small boat he pulled drift so it
Crossed the path from where I stood.
To my rear the Bridge dominated
Striding the river from side to side
Then the longest in the world
With its span totalling a mile wide.
That strange mixture of past and present
Not there to be seen anymore
For the smelter was pulled down
And taken to pollute a foreign shore;
And the old man in his strange garb?
Not even sure if he’s still here.
I’ve not walked that old path
For far too many years.
But the bridge, now second biggest,
Still spans the waterway
Carrying the road’s traffic
Day after day after day.
A hush in the gathering darkness.
Fading to silence bird song.
And as the sun lowered to earth
My scarlet path was gone.
When I think of my father my heart
starts beating in time with his 7 A.M.
footsteps on hardwood floors.
His image rests in the second chamber
of my heart. If I could shrink you
down and put you in there, you’d hear
the sharp, industrial twang of golf balls
alongside windblown, sun-wrecked dune reeds and shark
fins cresting the ocean’s ceiling.
My nose fills with scents of SPF 4
and scheduled coffee. Salt spray off
the foreshore permeates the air as he runs
up and down the neural pathways he forged
with white hot reaffirmations and ice cold habits.
If you were to run the needle over my
inherited, though painted skin, the music would
radiate in clouds of bookstore doorbells,
deafening sneezes and sports bar televisions.
This year I’m starting construction on a new
chamber in my heart; one just to hold
the memories of my father, a chamber filled
with the loud, consistent banging of beanbags on wood,
a chamber big enough for me to chase after
frisbees tossed with sixty-eight-year-old skill
most crucially, a chamber with integrity
enough to hold the blue, persistent flame
in focus long enough for me to light my own
cigarette, and smile as the smoke comes out.
The new room design has soundproof walls
and the door and locks are all fireproof,
withstanding flames as hot as the water my
mother uses to wash his greasy meatloaf pans.