Sailors Poems

Sailors and Locals

Sixteen sailors strode into a pub,
Then a group of them left to get some grub.
Those who remained got into a fight,
With some locals who drank there every night.

Although the sailors did outnumber,
The locals (who were also dumber)
Two sailors shy of a ratio of two-to-one,
They (the sailors) had lost and the locals had won.

But then exactly

What's Cooking?

Altho' fearless it was flightless
I do declare
and when it found itself earthbound
was the dodo despondent in despair
or even think
it would become extinct
if it knew it was in
deep doo-doo
somewhat akin
to the the missing link
unafraid of man
who thought them dumb
as they come on the quiet
an easy prey for sailors
a whole new different dinner diet
but there was nothing

Early Poems XXI

These are my early poems, or juvenilia.

Stars
by Michael R. Burch, age 22

Though night has come,
I'm not alone,
for stars appear
—fierce, faint and far—
to dance until they disappear.

They reappear
as clouds roll by
in stormy billows
past bent willows;
sometimes they almost seem to sigh.

And time rolls on,
on past the willows,
on past the stormclouds as they billow,
on to the stars
so faint

Sailors' Souls

Solitary seafarer sings sea chanties,
salty sea breeze serenity,
sea birds skim waves,
suddenly, so many sailors' souls
of the sunken WW II ship USS Indianapolis
started singing sonorous,
soaring from sea sepulcher,
stirring sacrifice so sacred,
such sorrow,
souls still scintillating, still seaward,
servicemen shipmates solemnized,
seared, sealed in spiritual solidarity,
salute. ~

Changing Tack

Enrolling as a pirate is much harder than it seems,
You’ll need to speak in present tense and chase your wildest dreams. 
Well, once you’ve trained a parrot and been measured for your hook,
You have to plough through pages of the health and safety book.

The pointed end’s the bow, whilst your rudder’s near the aft,
Our crow’s

The Ocean

The ocean is a brimming bountiful beauty,
of whales, porpoises, dolphins, seahorses,
fish, seabirds, plankton, algae,
sparkling brine of emerald and blue.
Her dead are entombed in her eternal body,
she rises in the merciless storms,
with waves that toss many craft.
Yet, she also lies smoothly as a
sleeping kitten,
mariner's timeless sea chanties in the
winds.

She is envious of the sailor's love 
for

Sonnet for Kellie

Some say your words act as a balm

A fleet of sweet tidings

Sailing into a gray dawn.


With white sails riding

On the heels of a grand mast

That sways without invoking

A need for true ballast.


It seems as though your rage

That spars with mine among the waves

Has now chosen to disengage

From me among the graves...


Of sailors lost at sea

Displaced

Hy-Brasil - Real or Myth

Hy-Brasil

Out a’high in lashin’ waves 
a’crashin’ anger’d sea

b’yond Albion an’ Hibernia
where mists a’shadow’d, lowly 

o’ magical Isle o’ Hy-Brasil
tentacl’d ocean beast ther’ tore

fear’d sailors away lest they would set
o’er realms o’Gods who saw

o’ bare foot giants wi’ call o’ crow
blacken’d eyes an’ skies sang red

they threw th’ rocks in war’s a’haze
their sea’s a’wet wi’ blood

upon

To See the Sea You See

Two seamen sought to sail the sea
to see the seething sea, you see.
This could have happened in B.C.
but no — they saw the modern sea.
In 2023 A.D.
the sea was like the sea B.C.
which is unlike the CBC
with no connection to the sea
but somewhat like the BBC
which does resemble the B.C.
without the extra C., you see?
I

Shopping Center Sailors

A leisurely coffee, conversation
that barely makes it across
the table before slipping back
into silence, shapes passing by
shadowed in the blurr 
of their growing distance.

They gather at ten, old men,
landlocked yet in their mind’s aegean,
letting out their long nets
beneath a vast shopping center ceiling 
arching over them like an endless sky,
horizons drawing them further out 
to where,

New Moorings

Moorings anew are easy as thought,
Vessels tethered, fixed as weather,
By an anchor, a person, or an idea,
Sure to shore up evidence of defense, of itself.

With every wave, memory fades soft as morning fog,
Providing wet hiding and reinforcing ties,
Binding us together, on shores of security,
Like seamen seining a weir of our own making.

Forgetting respawns our willingness,
To

Beachcomber

BEACHCOMBER

You comb the beaches 
Detailed to the inches
At least you might be fortunate
To get even a wanton mate
Your line you carry
You look like one in hurry
But your eyes are sharp
Ready to the unlucky one map
The bait is appetizing 
Drooping with mock rejoicing
But microbes it sports
Found in promiscuous ports
But sailors on it fall
And purge their worries

Young Sailors Dreams

There is a young man who loved the sea
He could read the stars and winds by age three
He loved to venture along the Alaska shores
Leaning the ocean at the age of four
He would read of the sea and mother natures storms
How quickly, from nowhere, the clouds could form
He was ready to go at an early

Sailors Lament

`

Under the chords of "white swan",

the disconsolate sailor cries,

copious tears of salt...!

Sailors Cove

hardy fishermen climb into their sailing ships
gilding away, looking as vulnerable as ants on a wet log
the silent cove looks on, unconcerned.
Unhurried onlookers’ murmurs merge with sea’s imagination
the north wind has not come down full force yet.
The ships hang out in the middle of the bay,
As if their inhabitants are exchanging phone numbers
I watch, enjoying

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