Seawall Poems | Examples

The Bigger Picture

Minehead, or Skegness,
she never could remember which.

A monochrome ‘Box Brownie’
a smirking strange man.
She's young and beautiful.
They sit on a low seawall,
my four-year-old-self
between.

A passer-by took the image.
the lens was held too high
only the top of my tussled head
is in frame.
Despite this she had a copy made.

She claimed
there were other lost
pics of just us,
but only this one peekaboo image
has kept surfacing,

and I always feel twice blessed
by that invisible day,
in Minehead
or Skegness.

A High Rain

Yesterday was hot, it nailed
its peeling skin to a desiccated air.

This morning, rain is falling,
but it has yet to land -
a weightbearing sky creaks
though it does not break.

Above straining clouds
a dam has broken, perhaps the deluge will
crush all before it,
but not yet,
earth’s frying pan is lit and smoldering.

The wilting dawn cannot wash its face,
bedsheets smell of damp dogs.
The electric fizz of insects
scratches at our drowsy minds.

If I shift a sweat leached inch
I might tilt the world over a hidden seawall
drowning in the middle
of a dry prayer for rain, or perhaps soon

the light might undress itself
to leap into the clear pools
of our openly grateful eyes.

Island

Miles of beautiful sandy beaches with
    stunning ocean views …
The Seawall that includes the longest
    continuous sidewalk …

February Gray

February Gray


The weather and my mood, dismal as KING 5’s Headline News 
reports of politics, war and a cold rain forecast for tomorrow,
makes me take a break from TV or staring out the window  
at gray Seattle skies to take a walk down on the waterfront.

Only 5PM, yet pier 62 dock lights are already on, pale and heatless
halos of dimness in the hard as iron air slowing everything down.
Dark waves caress the seawall, rolling rhythms of shushing silence 
murmuring me to wonder, When was the last time we whispered?

Suddenly, as if a dream could control weather, the sky brightens.
Beams of soft sunlight, glowing rays from a blue lip on the horizon, 
radiate a warmth felt on my face. I smile for the first time this day,
as wet forecasts and despairing news recede with the setting sun.

Hurricanes

The banks here were overflowing
The trees bent down, down like twigs
The wind howled, blowing to and fro
We didn't know the storm would be so big
I'm talking about down in Texas
Hurricane Alecia
Hurricane Ike
And Hurricane Beryl
They crashed into the seawall
The skies were dark and bleak
Storms in Texas are a squall
They happen any day of the week

Speaking the Waves

Waves came in
as big as buses, smashing
on the seawall and exploding 
into clouds of watery shrapnel.
I felt the sound inside of me,
guttural, pushing up and shaping
the word "whoosh" in my mouth,
ballooning against my lips
to open and speak it.

"Whoosh" I said on each crash
of water, the shock waves
becoming my breath to speak 
its might and power,
my voice commandeered 
by the moment.
Whoosh…. Whoosh….  Whoosh
I kept chanting 
until I was emptied and there came 
the most perfect still.

Masters of the Wind

They stand in regimented
order, lined up on the seawall,
all facing into the wind. 
A slight turn of a body 
catches a squall and sends
an errant gull off balance
forcing it to take flight.
Overhead, some hover,
others bank and sheer off
into the distance,
coming back to hang
in the air before
descending to the ground.


Seagulls are masters
of the wind, feathers tuned
to ride each gust and gently 
float the chaos that boils
beneath their wings.
The air is home to them.
Then suddenly, such mastery
collapses into to a ball 
of feathered fury, all grace gone,
fighting over the remains
of a big mac flung out
of a car window,
but leaving the pickle.

Split Sea Soup

The soup tonight is matzo ball
    A night of wonder for one and all

  Crossing the Sea on foot is a tricky proposition ~
    There's poetry in the majestic seawall


  ____________________________________  
  3,350 years ago tonight, Moses lifted up his
  staff and the Red Sea Split...

The Sightless Sea

Lowing fog horns
shake scales from rooftops.
We see the seawall drowning,
the surging waves rising
unfolding spume and brume
into mountains.

From the pub on the harbor front,
we can hear the buffeted gulls feeding
on the sluice of passing squalls.

"Look out the window" you say
(the window is a hundred pieces
of sky caught in a fish-eye).

"No boats will fish today," I whisper,
but we both know
that there are small boats out there,
they call out like cows, as wind- ghost
lead them through gray havens.

Quiet and Still

I walk down a quiet street, 
in the darkening gloom. 
The evening air, softly sweet,
with the hint of perfume.

The evening is quiet and still,
sounds have faded away.
Street lights come on at will,
the close to another day.

I move toward the seawall,
to watch the changing tide.
Until the darkness of nightfall,
prompts me to go inside.

I decide to walk along the beach,
leaving footprints in the sand.
I dance out of the waves reach,
seeking the warmth of dry land.

Soon I am at my own front door.
The soft glow of light welcomes me.
This is my home, along the shore,
I find peace, here beside the sea.

Pare Wharf

On the seawall a rocky jutting shore
  and white breasted gulls and shags flit the sky.
Yes, there was a time but not anymore
  I gazed the stars over Whenuapai.
Crazed by lunar tide and hearts asunder -
  some Anglo-Saxon lass or native girl,
or some legless dumb fool fallen under
  feeding the fishes with a mighty hurl!
Its dark undercurrents reminiscent 
  and its depths of malaise I drank away,
but now my star glows less incandescent 
  upon these springs of youth in beard of grey.
By the salt marshes of this cold gulf sea
I carved my name for a posterity.


           Written: February 1995

A Matter of Time

Whenever I’m alone, 
As usually I am these days, 
I make room to acknowledge 
The weight of my own presence
By minding the tide of my breath. 

It flows in on a four-count 
With the ease of deliberate intent
Advancing toward its seawall limit.
It flows out on an eight-count 
Revealing a beachcomber’s dream.

In that moment my mind envisions
Outstretched sands littered by time
With everything ever’s been lost
By all romantic searchers
Navigating treacherous seas.

It isn’t hard to feel unloved.
It’s easy as taking a breath and letting it go. 
Letting go of everything
Is all one really gets to do.
It’s just a matter of time.

Stronger By the Hour

Stronger by the Hour
David J Walker

It is
            Afterall
Only a wall
Made of words
How many lawyers does it take
            To make
A wall of bricks
            So thick
That not even air can pass through it

Not even sunlight
That might
Allow passage
but willfully won't

There is a nimbus
Surrounding the border wall
There is an order to
Maintain order

There is a cold fog
That eats the light of
The seawall
on the West Coast

There is a ghost who will
Not rest unless it has
Raised a glass in a toast
To those it is about to devour  

 
There is a storm
In the middle lands
That is growing larger
stronger
By the hour

Metamorphosis

The ocean beast leaps forward,
Then slinks back, lying in wait.
It tosses its billowy mane, and,
With a snarl, springs up and pounces
On the slippery black rocks of the jetty,
Frothing at the mouth and
Pawing at the slick wet stones,
Sending a shower of salty spray
And spume foaming over the seawall,
Drenching the cars creeping by
And the slicker-clad pedestrians.

The sea, raging in its fury,
Reaches me in that secret place
Where anger and frustration dwell.
I stand on the shifting sand,
Wave my fist and shout into the wind,
And the untamed wildness shakes out
My carefully tended hurts and slights
And tears open scarcely mended wounds,
Washing them clean with antiseptic
Sea and salt and sound and sight.

Tomorrow my wayward thoughts,
Just like the beach, will be swept clean.
The sea no more an angry beast!
A newborn day will find the bitterness
Dissolved in early mists of morn,
And my spirit once more lightened,
Free from petty gripes and fears!
The sea will sparkle in the rising sun
That glitters, dancing, on the waves.
And, deep within, there will be peace.

Nor'Easter

The waves dash themselves
Against the rocks,
Sending geysers of spray
High over the seawall,
Half drowning the cars
That are creeping slowly
Through the sandy lakes
Forming on the road.
The wind screams
And pounds its fists in a
Tantrum on car windows.
The angry sea hisses
And spits a frothy foam
Onto the curling mountains of
Emerald and blue-black water.
A lone cormorant dips and bobs,
Appears and disappears
In the unaccustomed,
Roiling surface of the salt
Pond across the road.
Beyond, the trees whip and
Thrash their arms,
Moaning and keening
In the driving sheets of rain.
Pieces of their shattered limbs
Litter the roadway, and
A single strand of wire
Flips back and forth,
Sparking red in the gloom.
People park their cars
Away from falling limbs
And dash for leaf-strewn
Porches, chairs all spun awry.
They shed their dripping coats
And watch the raging storm
Wreak havoc, safely, from inside!

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