Tossing electronically-bottled messages
into the wild blue sea yonder
will they float like a boat or sink like a stone
it only makes me ponder
as optimistically-inclined
I often wonder why
some say, 'Send me an email,'
but then never reply
do my bottles circumnavigate the globe
or stay in the Sargasso for ever and a day
are they wrecked on the rocks of spam
while typing I waste my days and nights away
Categories:
sargasso, computer, humor, humorous, word
Form: Rhyme
empty vessels sail
the vast Sargasso Sea
tides and currents carry
what lost horizons see
in azure-blue waters
circling sharks seek appease
linger not sleeping
beneath churning deceitful seas
many men aboard
disappeared from sight
fancies liberated
vanished in the night
avarice prowls open seas
devoured by abyss
love and fools disappear
aboard their sinking ships
Categories:
sargasso, love,
Form: Rhyme
I notice the waves, the tides
of the lulls, the sargasso,
I live the sea in me ... I suffer
from navigated waters,
of the sunken loves ...
I am aware of seas of the universe,
all infinite oceans,
I sailed and still sail,
not for being a sailor
intrepid ... but for being
castaway still alive ...
Categories:
sargasso, allusion, confidence, imagination, metaphor,
Form: Free verse
Do you ever lie down in grass and gaze,
pretend no duties call and let mind float,
play which knight wins the furious battle
somewhere in the wisps above daylong haze?
A lizard morphs into war time schooner.
Raise those sails! Ready the scope! Man the wheel!
Take a journey crossing perilous seas--
with dragons rising from deep and horror
creatures lurch from Sargasso and bare teeth.
It fades before the appearance of Fido.
Floppy ears turn pointy mouse or scholar.
Few adventures require battles that seeth.
Mind or heat can equally turn so tragic
or fun filled when elves spiral down slides
or angels hop cloud to cloud, bring fire
to sky ablaze with pink, gold, pelagic
and hope rests in rising billow's spark
lightning, rainfall, nourish of tomorrow.
Dream is a need we must cause to flower--
decorate minds and our chummy wood ark.
So tell me truly, tell well what anew beams
think hearty, think faulty but do reveal
do you ever lie down in grass, gaze, for
on a passing cloud there floats brave new dreams.
9/12/2018
Categories:
sargasso, dream, fantasy, imagination,
Form: Enclosed Rhyme
Dad is long gone now - nearly twenty years.
I still see his face with the deep lines etched
at the corners of his mouth from the beers
he’d consumed with smacking lips - beer I’d fetched
home in a jug from the pub. Dad appears
the way he was before the day he retched,
puked, and lay back in his reclining chair
the cushion crushing flat his steel-grey hair.
Dad never got up from that chair again.
His body shriveled like an old apple
left lying on the ground in sun and rain.
He died within a week. At the chapel,
unknown mourners said, “He’s been spared the pain,
Thank God.” But we remained, left to grapple
with grief at the dimming of those bright eyes
hearts heavy as we said our last goodbyes.
But life does go on, pain passes. I see
Dad in my mind’s eye still - giving pleasure -
sipping from his pint pot of sugared tea
telling tales of finding buried treasure
on ghostly wrecks in the Sargasso Sea,
battling giant squids for good measure.
A boy’s own hero fearless, strong and proud
by all life’s terrors and, in death, unbowed.
Categories:
sargasso, adventure, appreciation, bereavement, celebration,
Form: Ottava rima
South Atlantic an ancient and
ominous death trap awaits unexpecting
ships and planes and tonight it has
claimed many lives again...well it is a
mystery that most likely will remain
unexplained buried deep in sin...however
I have heard it’s the remnants of Atlantis
and a great and powerful crystal...a portal
to another dimension well whatever it is
I don't believe it's a myth or any kind of
delusion...out of the blue come a green and
sinister fog spanning San Juan, Bermuda
and Miami engulfing the Sargasso sea
well I pray God watches over you in your
ship or plane as you enter and cross
over The Devils Triangle and his demonic
waters!
Categories:
sargasso, god, mystery, sea,
Form: Free verse
her joints,
creaking plank wood,
nails,
shellacked, splintered,
dark
long
hair,
sargasso sickly sweetened
blue crab scuttled,
lips both
brown foam'd,
in
tidal moaning,
her boardwalk secrets
fallen,
on
her beach head,
sand dollars,
insteps
ebb,
sand bars exposed,
while
gulls cry
for clamshells
neap'd,
my bucket
never full,
those swelling
littorals,
leave me
only salt streak'd
in
cold
board shorts,
and
rough glass
foot cuts,
rip current-ed,
again.
Categories:
sargasso, lust,
Form: Personification
I'd almost forgotten what we were like
so many thens, so many "do ya remembers" ago
the days fat with warm summer
dripping off golden smiles
melting like wax in the sun
it was all just a race against time
each tick a heartbeat lost
each sunset crash'd like foaming waves
but we had it down
a rhythm method to laugh in the face of the moon
tearing the days off cheap dime store calendars
using Tuesday and Saturday to roll our stale cigarettes
it seemed so simple then
in my complicated now
smiles + lingering touches + silica crusted toes
= the sight of you in my peripheral vision forever
but now an empty divot in the bed
your perfume on a stranger walking past
the formula unraveled for
we made kingdoms from sand and sargasso
terns our brave paladins
wheeling gull the court's fool
your hair my burnished pennant
snapping in the breeze
I never wanted the earth to turn
cooling air can't turn to black
as shadows fell upon your face
and the sea stole our castle back.
Categories:
sargasso, loss,
Form: Free verse
Becalmed, the doldrums bear down frowning.
Hull fouled by weeds, persistent barnacles.
The ship is steadfast in her silence,
The light alone enough to shatter us.
Beyond us, off the bow the dolphins plunge
And leap toward home
While we, a company of refugees,
Lie static on this open ocean.
Our eyes are burned by distance.
No breeze to flutter them,
Our tattered flags of truce no longer fly,
But hang like limp, compliant prisoners.
We pray for wind,
The puff-cheeked gods of weather
Drawn upon our useless maps.
A force 10 gale,
The flecks of wave tops on our faces
Rage, determined demons,
In our dreams.
James Andrews
Categories:
sargasso, voyage,
Form: Free verse
The night is speaking like a cascade.
She’s knitting filigreed lights and shadows.
Sunk in the deep sea
of Sargasso eyes
I stay quiet and don’t find words.
And the scars on your hand
are fading, in order to burn
in my heart.
Oh, sailboats after a long trip
with all the winds in the sails –
sand is calling you.
But it isn’t death!
Oh, it isn’t the end too!
The hand
is going to knock up a hut for you
and in the wide garden
it smells with magnolia and manuscripts…
And I am a sign.
Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.
Categories:
sargasso, love
Form: Free verse
Silken skies surround
Secure sailing sloop
Skimming Sargasso sea
Seeking salmon, sturgeon,
Shrimp, scallops;
Several savory species.
Suddenly stampeding storm
Surrounded, struck swiftly
Skies striking, slashing,
Savage surly seas.
Skipper sighted shoals,
Slammed, sending seamen
Swaying, scrambling, scurrying.
Swift southerly swells,
Sending struggling schooner
Smashed somewhere sandy shores.
Seamen survived swimming,
Suddenly savage screams,
Strange sensations, sounds
Seldom saw such sights,
Surrounding sassy Sasquatch.
Savagely slashed sailor,
Satisfyingly strange supper
Sasquatch slurping sailor soup,
Savory sauce, stew.
Categories:
sargasso, allegory, angst, fantasy, life,
Form: Dramatic Verse