Nets are hauled and homeward go the shrimp boats
rolling slow and easy on a sunset path,
their droning engines chugging
over a rippling seafoam.
In the mangrove swamp
an egret sets its white sails and glides upwards
upon hot winds.
The sky opens for its passage
leading it through a cloudless window.
Cypress roots grip the darkening water.
their knees just above a brackish deep.
Mosquitoes dance in the dank
as shadows reach inwards.
Tonight on the bayou, grills will be heated,
pots filled,
while fishing nets are neatly reefed and mended
by rough and ready hands.
Children will skip and play in the barefooted
calm of late evening,
until carried away to their cots
sleepily listening to anhinga and loon
chant their native calls
beneath a far from sleeping lakeside moon.
Categories:
reefed, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Today captured souls sail on a Titanic-like ship
over a new Middle Passage journey on a turbulent sea,
whose waves undulate and froth with viciousness;
The captain and crew play ping-pong
with the chartered course—the crew often loosing—
abandoning ship or otherwise simply thrown overboard;
A strange manifest has this ship--shackled minds--
coral reefed like red mackerel packed in a tin;
Caught in a Bermuda Triangle-like whirlwind,
its destiny is beyond its strained confines
and its chaotic disorientation a vastness rivaling
the depth of the awe of a Grand Canyon;
As fate would have it, an unsecured ill-steered ship
is like a misguided nation in a political python sea,
hissing with trashing waves frothing with corruption:
both caught in off-course hurricane winds of change.
Categories:
reefed, america, analogy, betrayal, imagery,
Form: Prose Poetry
I ride the waves of innocence
on the ocean of The Now.
From the depths of dank
a demon stalks my bow.
On deck afraid, alone I stood
quelling fear the best I could.
Furled the jib and reefed the main
what you do when the wind's insane.
Then rising atop a stormy swell
the giant beast straight from hell.
Peering so deep in its deathly eyes
I could hear a thousand sailors' cries.
The chilling truth that I could see
was the evil thing in fact was me.
Categories:
reefed, death, deep, introspection, ocean,
Form: Couplet
DHJ at 35 Taxi driver...
Had two guys in the back seat plotting to rob him,
so he opened it up to 75mph,
and put it into a shuddering slide,
Reefed on the handbrake, stalled it died,
drew the crank-handle, 4 the attack they tried,
and outed em with the crankhandle below the ear,
and then he robbed them dear,
and left em on the side,
Dont play with johnson its suicide....
Don
my dad enjoyed a stoush....
He was driving a 1948 Ford Mercury flat 8
Categories:
reefed, adventure,
Form: Rhyme
Incredibly hung ,
with the one bung lung,
And kidneys not quite a failing,
He went to the dentist ,
Tooth reefed out,
Sucked ciggys without inhaling.
The guys in the bar,
Sucked on cigars,
Checked him, the toilet, ha,
Were enthral led with ,
The girth n gift ,
“how come it are”
Said, “Wear no jocks,
Or stinking feet socks,”
Too big for the average shiela,
She took one quick look,
Went back to her book,
Said jam it in a jam jar.
Aha.
Don Johnson
watch out for the jammy jars,
plum jam or apricot good tuckers are,
but not 4 jamming Jimmy...ha,
not 4 jamming Jimbob...
Categories:
reefed, adventure,
Form: Rhyme
Snatched and grabbed, reefed off me horse,
Just crossed over the watercourse,
Big white light it came and got,
Zapped me, jerked me up aloft,
A bloody flying saucer.
Saw the circle spinning disk,
With panels from one did whisk,
Beam of light had done the job,
In me pocket, thirty bob?
Darkness came within my head,
Aliens, bug eyed did me force,
Anger burned hot instead,
Tucker had, no bloody sauce?
New planet appeared with a jolt ,
Purple haze was a taking holdt
Pink of sky with glass buildings clear,
An orange sun was setting here,
Bugeye came and led me in,
To the glassy citadel,
Hover beds without support,
Lifted up no bed clothes sport,
A specimen in their jar,
Often watched and fed bizarre,
Jabbering bugs saw something rare,
Aussie drongo with whiskers there.
Not Just Any Sunset
Sponsored by: Paula Swanson
Categories:
reefed, adventure, me, light, light,
Form: Rhyme
But we soldier on
Fought the Jap in 42
Killed the Jap till they were few
Outnumbered mostly 5 to one
Kokoda tide turned and we won!
Don’t stay down, get up again
Reefed up by your bootstraps man
Sure you will be sad and blue
Be a man its’ what you do
Life’s a ***** and then you’re down
Soldier on, don’t wear a frown
Always rise, accept your fate
Rise again, it’s not too late
Be you happy in yourself
Standing, catch the world by scruff
Don’t be like a Dingo pup
Be a man, right bloody stuff!
Don Johnson
What Aussies do when they have been knocked down…
Categories:
reefed, family
Form: Rhyme
Dexterity, the fluid ease of two-a-penny vamps,
Their fingers locked as vices, seize the stomach cramps,
Abruptly tug and lobster squeeze the strands of flesh inside,
Felled down upon the scabrous knees with tongue and muscle tied.
Knot that slips around the throat and snaps the neck in two,
Constraint to keep the pain afloat and turn the tissues blue,
A mass of tension gets the goat, assuring all the while,
A polished wooden overcoat to end the days in style.
Tangled by the cords of life reefed ‘round the heart and mind,
Suspicions, panic, husband, wife, the toe tag ties that bind,
Confusion, stress, to drive the knife until one cannot cope,
Hang the days with strain and strife, give ‘em enough rope.
Categories:
reefed, allegory, angst, death, life,
Form: Verse