Long Masthead Poems

Spider’s Rigging
“I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind
on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed
anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the...

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PAINTBRUSH 

Fingertips the bristles of a 
pagan paintbrush 
painting a Tree of Life
on pacified cheekbones 
instead of in liver
from whence it sprung
now it burns to feed
HeartSpace with witty
wood for Eternal Fire

From cheekbones
it slid to jugular...

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              To wallow in the fires is a tempting 
surrender.
A swan dive into the maelstromic implode 
of mushroom clouds, return to 
sender....

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They said she sails forever the seas off Cape Horn:
See her and wish to God you never was born. 
Laugh if you wish but  there’s  countless bones  
And hulls been sent to...

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Cap'n & the Wench *part the second*

Says the Wench to the Cap'n "I thinks I'll have Me a Tequila!" 
So says the Cap'n to the Wench "Go right ahead Me Dear~
I'll be hard a'lee ta...

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THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND

Two mighty workhorses, colliding Titans,
Leviathans of the Saint Lawrence river.
Devastation’s maritime wrecking balls,
Slamming head on, even after the warnings 
Sounding, had been given, by Captain Kendall.
Emerging on the starboard side, a distant...

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This poem is from a book I'm working on of poems based on great poems I love. I have taken their format and the basic style and tried to craft my own poem like it....

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Below earth, streams release the arteries
 of the undersea teeming with precious
abalone, granite and shells,
as a roulette of lotus defies gravity
soaking on the chlorine of a wind
only piles of sand can bestow…
and  gentle the...

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The sea gathered her voice
on the crest of the waves
as dark clouds were herded
by the wind as he raved
in a symphony orchestrated
through elements of sound
composed by the air
from his drafty compound.

By the drum of the...

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and lost while wracked in pains of change,
wilted seed in wintered eye,
hands clenching white in advent rage,
knee bones scuppered, bleaching age,     
knelt stung as tears run dry,
writ black ink in masthead...

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BLOOD-coated 
discourse 
exposing 
features
of BASIC 
heathen hearts

INSPIRED 
INSTRUCTIONS 
for errant humanity 
executed by ordinary 
vassals served 
divine fountain pens

BOLD script 
prescribed
BEFORE 
our very birth 
that mortals should 
not turn to ugly fish 

LOVELY 
red letters
from...

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He sleeps in thunderstorms,
temporarily cocooned
from a fathomless death.
When his ship sunk
he had swam away from a life
to an island in his mind.

He sways hammock-less
as a crashing gale
rolls him inside an acoustic guitar,
a sea-going instrument
that can...

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in sponson's wake of beetled prow,
cold foam formed horizons far,
gray mist above, blue black below,
pitted keel thrum anchored flow,

splintered spar led teakwood jibe
dawn broke on that deeper now,
luff and taut blown by four winds,
hidden rough...

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