Long Scuppers Poems

His heart is with the winds
that set his spirit free,
enduring breeze that sets the sails
and guides him out to sea.

Sea rover fair with eyes as blue
as ocean’s deepest depth,
he hails the morning mist
and keenly sets...

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"Paint" -Part the First-

Paint paint paint away...
Paint away this day...
Paint to paint our taint is paint...
Paint away this day...

Keep that paint away from me!
Says that Skipper to his krewe...

Why oh Captain... Why our Captain...
Should we...

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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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A life on ships, a–sailing
A–rolling on the sea
Misspent days and misspent nights
Ol' Davey Jones and me
A wayward list, to starboard, boys
A leeward tack we found
We'll spend our days on the briny sea 
And our coin...

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The tweet on the pipe called the muster fall-in
The cadets all fell in with nary a din
For now they’d be grouped for “Hands to Cleanship”
To dress up the ship afore the Old Man's pip-pip

Well-trained, ...

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'Twas dawn and all the sky blazed red.
The tell-tales snapped like waving flags.
The keening wind was full of dread;
all surplus sails were stowed in bags.
 
Though somewhere on the restless main
the sea was growling in...

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The steersman dry-heaves
into rolling scuppers,
the skipper dozes fitfully in his sodden berth                       ...

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A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intone words from the breath
of spray...

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INTO    THE    STORM     (PART  1)

A few drops predicting storm, large, heavy, hard.
Black clouds, low, hanging, turbulent.
Wind drops as a boxer lowers his guard,
Confident of...

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A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intone words from the breath
of spray...

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Footprints in sand, indelible till the tide comes in,
reliable impressions, etched, embedded, enveloped 
to form an album of traces:
crab hole excavations,
scurries of hurrying birds,
seaweed twirls wind-driven in curls,
tiny sand flea hop-craters,
crab claw side-step shuffles,
drift-wood scuffs...

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A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intoning from the breath
of a luminous...

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