Long Galleons Poems

The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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The Rhine Salmon Complaint, Translation of Etiemble’s Complainte d’un salmon du Rhin

						For Yvon Belaval
(A lilting musical poem of varying line length in quatrains with a refrain and much internal
 rhyming; end-rhyme scheme: alternate rhymes in...

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Favorite Carolyn Devonshire Poem

History Rising from the Sea

Treasure from the sea
Golden doubloon
Sixteenth century artifact
By ancestors hewn

Earth's history lays buried
Beneath five oceans
As undersea tremors
Create violent commotions

Freeing from Spanish galleons
Precious metals, gemstones,
To greet early beachcombers
History on loan

Memories...

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Edward Kenway was a pirate
He sailed the Spanish Main
He plundered British merchant ships
And the Galleons of Spain

Once he was a farmer
He walked behind the plough
But now he ploughed the oceans deep
He was a pirate now

He...

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The Nap Master
HAIL the astral world of utterance,
     one befalls to eavesdrop whisperings of their sweet nothings, 
          breathlessly whisking up a...

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This man o' war,
comandeered!
By men to be feared,
the likes you never saw

The hunt for gold doubloon
in the Spanish Main
Must end soon,
the buccaneers getting restless again

To take a treasure ship as a prize
To see,such wealth with...

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mallards... a pair
koi carp can't compete... duck feet
strang orange shapes
~
sunshine... summertime
fickle spring... climate changing
muted cuckoos
~
Jenny wren... begging
let summer have its way
seasons confound spring
~
first orange tip
fluttered by... seeking partners
tortoiseshell denied
~
sloe... blackthorn blossoms
cover branches... bumper crop
sloe gin......

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Do dreams come true?
Certain as the sea is blue
I know that somewhere grass is greener
Lands that sleep brings ever nearer
Where rainbows sail across the sky
Just follow them and hope to find
A pot of gold, full,...

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In the cathedral of eternity, where time itself kneels in reverence,
Where stars are candles burning on the divine altar on high,
There Jesus, Savior and Sun-giver, makes His presence felt,
In the hearts of Christians - a...

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The school bell's chorus wakes a drowsy room,
Sunlight spills, a golden, dusty plume.
Desks, once dormant, morph to galleons grand,
Ready to set sail to each uncharted land.

Chalk, a spectral hand, whispers wisdom's lore,
Unveiling mysteries on the...

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A world in Shame


When I was younger many places I travelled
Spain and France to name but two
And my eyes did many wonders see
And I felt the history of both
I SAW THE GALLEONS THAT SAILED THE...

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Nature’s Single Dad’s
THE LEAFY SEA DRAGON

Gracefully swaying without need for speed 
Are creatures of beauty, disguised as seaweed.
Up to twelve inches long from tail to snout
These delicate creatures just drift about.

They carry, as they move...

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Barefoot on the paving slab chill, concrete
feet feel frostbite emanations in their callused souls;
rooftop mystique clamours silent slate triangles,
perched the stray cat observers, red-eyes smoking coals.
Down to the river's edge where swaying reeds
feed mongrel contemplations...

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Sir Henry Morgan was a privateer,
And a ruthless, mean buccaneer;
Considered a pirate by the Spanish,
He became, in time a millionaire.

Henry was born in Wales to a farmer,
Gaining fame and fortune by valour;
He made a...

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Mermaids

I have seen them in
the gray, untimely dusks,
gleefully playing with lost ships
among coral rock,
golden hair tossing about
like mad witches,
as they flit in and out of
barnacled portholes.

They ride on autumn tides
near sun bleached inlets
sailing with north...

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oh chant to me those ancient runes
      brimmed lands lost, long, to ices
         soft, sorrowed songs of gilded tombs
   their...

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"Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to...

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Midst mild and wild tumults like eddy, vortex, swirl, and whirl,
A maelstrom is a summation of curl and twirl and hurl;
Weather and season get amalgamated with currents,
Winds, storms, gales, squalls, haboobs, and wuthers become deterrents;
Vacuum,...

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IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE : Part XXXI

IF you pull a long lagging-behind face
You deserve your copycat status in more than one way
Marco Polo brought back cracker-power not to powder face
Noble Savage Injuns and...

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Fishwives 

In junkets to 
     the golden shore 
Beside the cobalt 
     sea of lore 
Was told of dwellings 
     and rapscallions
Of ramshackled...

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THE CAMPFIRE

Throughout all the worlds in days of olde
Around the campfire legends were told
From the sinking of galleons in various seas
That were laden with treasure and un found for years
To the Dutchman’s reef through word...

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A cold brittle Moon runs singularly in a shaded sky.
With ghostly cloud galleons a full sail 
In Deep Seas of ebony, indigo divinity.

All alone, full of frost…
The bitter chill of Rivers flow
crystal Moonbeams glow
rain into...

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Winter’s eve is on the horizon and marked on our calendars. Are you ready?

We’ll wake warm beneath our covers and watch the full moon set with a twilight sunrise.

We’ll celebrate and drink strong coffee laced...

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Adrift on azure seas, where sunlight softly spills,
Feathery clouds, like galleons, climb imagination's hills.
Sails of purest white, billowing in the breeze,
They carry hidden treasures, secrets whispered through the trees.

No anchor holds them fast, these vessels...

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Autumnal mist quivers over meadows
like a galleons sails billowing gently 
on calm seas of jade green and yellows,
steering it's ghostly mirages deftly,

hedgerows with wildlife masked in shadows
preparing for expected change of seasons
from amicable warm winds...

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