Tie the knots and patch.
Throw the net and make the catch.
Nets for one and all,
Not just for the basketball.
But useful and clean,
Work together as a team.
The Love-knots of unity,
Hold us all for Eternity.
By Jesus and the Holy Spirit,
Our net with Treasure in it.
Ballad
by William Soutar
translation/modernization by Michael R. Burch
O, surely you have seen my love
Down where the waters wind:
He walks like one who fears no man
And yet his eyes are kind!
O, surely you have seen my love
At the turning of the tide:
For then he gathers in his nets
Down by the waterside!
Yes, lassie we have seen your love
At the turning of the tide:
For he was with the fisher folk
Down by the waterside.
The fisher folk worked at their trade
No far from Walnut Grove:
They gathered in their dripping nets
And found your one true love!
Keywords/Tags: William Soutar, Scottish, Scot, Scotsman, ballad, water, waterside, tide, nets, nets, fisher, fishers, fisher folk, fishermen, love, sea, ocean, lost, lost love, loss
sun-nets:
...for realism in action...
there be
a sound of silence
as to such
natures wisdoms
they be
dated and buried
hidden in time
lists of dates
what be
such as combination
key to calendar
of poetic writings
be it
2020
2019
2018
or other?
stan sand
Rans nets, which bind and trap.
Ensnare and incapacitate all who swim in the oceans of life
I tangle thy golden skeins.
Your pearlescent webs that move in the voids between the 9 dimensions.
Your webs of final fate that float and dance between the worlds.
Ensnaring everybody in the 9 planes and all existences
may your golden Webs ensnare the wrongs
done to me and right them.
Without rhyme,
the words fade into the mist
Without rhyme,
the verse so begotten
Without rhyme,
all passages blow with the wind
Without rhyme
—so quickly forgotten
(Villanova University: January, 2020)
“Without rhyme, it’s like playing tennis without a net.”
Robert Frost
Unfit Gifts
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
At sunrise, I cast my nets into the sea,
dredging up the strangest and most beautiful objects from the depths ...
some radiant like smiles, some glittering like tears, others flushed like brides’ cheeks.
When I returned, staggering under their weight, my love was relaxing in her garden, idly tearing leaves from flowers.
Hesitant, I placed all I had produced at her feet, silently awaiting her verdict.
She glanced down disdainfully, then pouted: "What are these bizarre things? I have no use for them!"
I bowed my head, humiliated, and thought:
"Truly, I did not contend for them; I did not purchase them in the marketplace; they are unfit gifts for her!"
That night I flung them, one by one, into the street, like refuse.
The next morning travelers came, picked them up and carted them off to exotic countries.
she doesn't
wattle she
doesn't walk
like a pair
of nylons
she runs
but i
a belly
bloated
blowfish
don't dare
even to try
to even think
or contemplate
chasing her in a
marathon and
so s l o w l y
lag behind
my pace
maker
and
my
mile
marker
only at
five
and
a
half
inches
that's it
watches her
amazing
feat
The old fisherman sat in his dory
Empty nets, but concocting a story
It would sure mean his life
Should he greet his young wife
At the dock without financial quarry.
Now his wife was as fit as could be
With the girth and the might of a tree
He considered her ire
Then began to perspire
And headed his boat ... out to sea.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Tax & Finance Limericks - Old or New" Poetry Contest, Carolyn Devonshire, Judge & Sponsor.
Striking along an azure shore,
Lover’s footprints formed in our wake
Are like a school of funny fish,
With little spoon-like fins, which swim,
Midst gaping clams and scuttled crabs
Scattered about the wet smooth strand,
To a great rock beside the sea.
And who will know we blazed the way
Along this stretch of beach today?
For all the funny little fish
We left to swim behind our wake
Will soon be squirming; hauled away
By swirling nets of white-green foam;
Mourned only by a curlew’s cry.
out on the hungover gray moor
having morning coffee with the old man of the sea
we say nothing in this silvered wooden shack
lots of coats to put on, it's all very humdrum
the boat cuts through small yapping wavelets
possibly never to return, but of course we will
the mind vaults vast arenas in this place
we pass the westernmost cape on the continent
we lower the killing nets
waiting, trawling, smoking, it's a cold day
at this moment, the universe is so small, enclosed
like one cloudberry, in a much bigger bunch
all exotic fish we find like
two species of endangered turtles
even a few angry sharks
most of it unidentifiable by-catch
at the end of the day, what a haul of slime
all these words stinking in the shrinking twilight
regurgitated without end, coins without face
cliche, our deity, ready for blood sacrifice
a man and woman
walking on separate paths –
children scream loudly
rose petals falling
as flowers die on the vine –
three boys pricked alone
weeping willow trees
shroud their twisted trunks with limbs –
tree house and laughter
early in the day
sun shines above the frog pond –
boys, buckets, and nets
June 29, 2015
Men have two nets,
To stay in and to stay out,
One on the bed,
One on the sea!
Return
to the fresh ocean,
without tears of the storm.
A nice, pretty Jewish woman
told me a while back
that she thought Basketball was for Black people
What she didn't realize is that it used to be called
"The Jewish Game".
I passed through a period as a youth when
I wanted to become a basketball player
Well, I am now a poet
Maybe one day I will write a poem
about Elgin Baylor or George Mikan
Know who they were?
They were fine ballplayers
Memories of ballgames
are burned into my consciousness
ONE CAN ALWAYS DREAM!
Players of two teams were booting the Ball
Ball between legs not finding rest at all
Tolerating merciless kicks, hoping kiss with Net
Whiffing restlessly 90 minutes, 44 legs sweat
Flirted with both Nets, stayed loyal to Octopus Paul
( Oct 2010 - Won "Honourable Mention" in Members Contest... "Let's Limerick " held by Linda-Marie the Sweetheart of P.S)
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