Pier Poems

The Pier Can't Always Keep You Where It Wants You To Be

You stand with your suitcase like a buoy,
bright, bobbing in the shallows,
and I am the pier—
rooted, barnacled, smelling of old salt and rope.

You tell me you’ll stay
if I keep my hands wrapped round your ankles,
but I know the tide you carry in your ribs.
Even on windless days
it pounds against my palms,
shouting for the open mouth

Stark Bare Trees on Piermont Pier

Visibility is low, wear a bright vest,  
Cycle with lights on, caution is best.  
Stay on the bike path across the Tappan Zee
The Hudson's below, but you can't see
  
You can't see the water, the fog is like a wall
It might be a blanket, it might be a pall
You peer through glasses

encounter on pier 39

encounter on pier 39


 she sat inaudibly alone on pier thirty-nine

 watching colorful sail boats go lazily by

 i didn’t know her name but she was a friend of mine

 and it hurt so badly to see her cry



 with my guitar in my left hand and wishes in my right

 i approached her quietly, careful not to intrude

 the waters were

valentine on the pier

table by the sea,
music from the crashing waves~
moonlight on her face.


February 9, 2024.

Broken Pier

Once it was strong and full of life
Now it's a mismash of signs and rails
Place of the working man and his wife
Abandoned wood and left over tales
Now its dead with a forgotten past
Deserted on the beach as the birds fly
They soar upwards wild and fast
Up and up into the sun drenched sky
The wood is rotten

Pier-less

The hurricane was weeks ago,
Yet now I get to see
The damage, or what’s left of it,
That was described to me.

We walked the route we always take
When down here for a visit,
Past lovely homes with water views,
Expansive and exquisite.

The local park’s in ruins 
And some trees and plants have died,
But the lovely pier we strolled on
Shows

At The Pier

Contemplative bliss communes with the serene,
into the spirit of the placid marine crystalized in my mind.
As the sun’s reflection spreads glitter upon its open sea,
throngs milling to the melodious tunes of the guitar.
Strumming troubadour, slim and rangy toe headed youth
grins modestly as his tip jar fills welcoming spared bills
And to the sounds of the seagulls
gleeful

Summer

Summer is the main of seasons 
Anyone who disagree 
If you wish, give me your reason
If you don’t, its fine by me
Summer is the best in August
But I like it more in June
Longer days make nights look bogus
Fading light dies much too soon
Ephemeral sun comes down
Flashing waves, that lick the pier
Tiptoes out the sad white

Hanging Out At Santa Monica Pier

Hanging out at Santa Monica Pier,
wining in dixie cups, dancing in the sand.
Chants of drink…drink…drink.
I took no time to think…think…think.

I wake up with a cacophonous surf,
unlike the gentle roar of a seashell,
and my head pounds, my eyes barf
in the light bright of dawn’s scarf.

Where am I, I wonder…how did I…
Asleep around me, are surfboards.
The breakers

'Pier-less'

   Laying the ground in Gaza
     for a humanitarian pier 
   attacked by terrorist explosives today
     though the world does not find that weird…

   For it’s ‘normal’ for Hamas, which governs the Gazans
     to deny them basic

fisherman at the pier

they gather in groups 
casting their lines out at once 
waiting for big one

Thoughts Thrown From a Pier

It seems nothing is ever lost
but is transmuted, returns
to another state
or resurrects 
into something new.
Take thoughts thrown from
a pier into the dark 
water lapping below.
They make no sound
as they sink, resigned 
to their fate,
becoming whispery filaments
of what had been 
spectral inhabitants
of the head.

Long threads rise
to the surface and float
free to catch the moonlight,
becoming strands of

The Pier

people hang over 
mesmerized by blue waters 
watching seagulls fly

On Myrtle Beach Pier

I remember the high arc of your line
casting into horse-maned waves,
strong hands as yet untroubled 
by trembling, easily reeling smaller fish
to throw back in, again and again, a circle
of give and take, and how after searching
salt-surf, the jolt of fierce life banging 
the rod down almost to breaking cut
a smile across your face, the frenzy
to

Ellen and the Naples Pier

With the surprise arrival of the stormy might
Came to pass the long-feared fight
First standing proud and quietly brave
Then bled white by wind and wave

The ocean rose, there was no lee
Her trusted timbers stole by the sea
And as their initials floated away
Pained authors huddled ashore to stay

Her planks once were the open hand
That invited us to

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