Semaphore Poems | Examples

Confessional Booth Number 9

Streetlight dander. Jawbone asphalt.
Blink razors carve her iris script.
Rib stars ovulate in feral grates,
mechanical tongue juts a bloodline breath.
Keystroke ruin writes in collapse,
a waveform lodged in sternum glass.
Lipsticked rodeo—a gash in faded denim
Banana-knuckled hands torch filterless ghosts.

Tree-call through copper root systems.
Wire-pluck storm,
vapor chews the stock market 
Cancer caught in molar hush,
brined in citrine static.

She opens her throat like a coin purse.
Spine bows in semaphore.
We dismount the edge—
An incisor cusp,
the confession still blistering
beneath the flesh of no language.

Unintended Innuendo

We spoke in semaphore of smirks,
A dialect of sideways quirks—
Our mouths full up with mirage and pun,
Unconscious artists come undone.

She, a flower in a field of noise,
Parsed our pose as preening boys—
Not cruel, but tuned to frequencies
That echo long through apologies.

Our verbs wore vests too tight with charm,
Syntax stitched with latent harm.
We hadn’t meant to start a war—
Yet metaphors, once launched, implore.

Intent becomes the alibi
Of those who never learned to pry
Beneath the comfort of a jest—
A laugh can undress all the rest.

She read our pause, our sideways glance,
Not as a walk, but a strange dance
In which the lead was vague, and yet
Each footstep left a silhouette.

Layers of the Unconscious Mind

In layers of the unconscious mind,
Where desire and fear are hard to find.
Through symbols and there metaphors,
We seek to find those open doors.

Through corridors of thought, we roam,
Hearts beating like a metronome.
A subconscious dream within a dream,
We search for truth in things we've seen.

The introspection we are searching for,
A message wrote in semaphore.
This message we don't understand.
Whilst dreaming, we're in no-man's-land.

Self-Reflection in the things we seek,
As wild eyes flicker in REM sleep.
We awake within our lucid dream,
To find things aren't quite what they seem.

This false awakening controls.
Whilst sleeping, searching for our soul.
Our soul search late into the night,
We fight our way towards the light.

A cryptic sign which makes no sense,
We wonder, lost in dreams suspense.
In search of truth, we must explore,
A paradox found at every door.

In the labyrinth of our complex mind,
Is a truth one day I hope we'll find.
A dream with secrets hidden deep,
Dreams secrets kept, yet whilst we still sleep.

Going to Semaphore Beach

Hot summer afternoons 
and the call 
of glistening water lapped
a child's mind with a want.
Just home from work
we would pester our father
until he relinquished
and took us to the beach.

At low tide,
feet had to splash through 
what seemed like a mile 
of ridged and rippled shallows 
before the water was deep 
enough to swim
and wheeling arms 
could be swung 
without touching the bottom.

Heated all day 
by a January sun,
the water was as warm 
as pee. Long tentacles 
of dead, brown seaweed 
clung to arms
as if trying to snare
a soul in revenge 
for some storm torn horror
that had ripped it out its bed.

But all too often 
it ended the same.
Tramping back to shore
across the endless shallows,
feeling hotter than when
you first went in. Flies clouding 
sweaty faces and then
there was the hot vinyl
back seat of the car
to burn bums
on the way home.
All washed micraclessly 
from memory when, next day,
the mercury nudged 100
and a want
beckoned us to the beach again,
still no wiser 
than the day before.

Port Boy Or Girl

knew him as he walked in
A Port boy by the size of his grin
That went from ear to ear
And we shook hands like old friends dear

There was sea water in his veins
And a story for each move of his game
Growing up there was some time around
In Rosewater Ethelton  Henley Seaton and Semaphore bound

For the summer it was at beach time
At the carnival Semaphore road for mine
I remember laughing with my mates
In those days when fun was our fate

Being a Port boy from a Port family 
Meant that there was no hiding easily
Aren’t you the son of.. was for real
So you had to stay on an even keel

Even though we may move away
Coming back it’s like we stayed
For we are forever bound to the place
As a Port boy with some grace.

© Paul Warren Poetry

Summer Kitchen

sun hat
on a yellow peg

semaphore light
shape-shifting
on spanish tiles

buttermilk blinds
flap
broken slats

a trapped sky hums
lazy crumb songs

light spreads sticky wings
over marmalade bread

Advice For New Cat Owners

It is most important to not hurt a cats soul
for it is the perfect balance
of nobility and ridiculousness,
be gentle with its finer feelings
they are more sensitive than yours.

Do be not laugh
if it scares itself in a mirror.
A cat is instinctual to the core,
a bewhiskered accolade of slapstick.

Clean its litter box, twice a day if need be.
It will refuse to poop on its own poop
unlike some humans.

Your cat needs attention,
it expects you to admire its coat,
its signaling semaphore tail,
its delicate pink tongue and beautiful eyes,
failure to do so
may result in fur balls in your bed.

Be warned
cats are not naturally forgiving.

Cats Not the Musical

Cockroaches backstroke lazily 
in pools of condensed milk.
Stacked newspapers pile up,
yellowing ingrained tabloids.

Her bed has a curved spine,
her couch is a witchery shaped coven,
a semaphore center for twitching tails.

At her whirling core, she is mad,
the way angels go mad,
with bright-eyed ecstasy.

The cat food cans are collectible,
labels brown in a mold-tinted twilight
all else decays 
with the half-life of stale urine.

She calls her pink-tongued children
by secret names,
names handed down by necromancers
to generations of neurotic felines,

cackles, while she sleeps, spinning fur balls
the size of small planets.

Far Away They Die In Our Sleep

Another dawn has won over a defeated night.
The wounded and dead, as always
are hidden between time zones,
a brutality too far away, and not enough
to tremble grills in backyards or rock local beer barns.

From the East perhaps a bird or two will arrive
bearing seeds of survival,
but for now the pinpointed and targeted
tread no trace, thread no words.

The collateral and forever damaged dream for us,
the smashed-down wave hopeless arms
like far semaphore signals
they come to us now as muted morning guests;

fortunately, we have many soft and spare pillows
and they cannot disturb our rest.

Lace

Brightness peeps into
yellowing net curtains;
brief wafts of a semaphore sky.

An elderly lady has planted her mind
in an apartment,
lightbulbs burn out, are never replaced;
sunshine squints through thin drapes.

Daily she shoos the world away,
discourages rumors
of unnecessary things.
Mail piles up
on her unwelcome mat.

Surgical Strikes

Stars blink out;
another dawn triumphs over a defeated night.
The wounded and dead hidden by time zones.
Echoes of a brief brutality, too far off
to rattle backyard grills and beer cans.
Let us lift up our hearts in song
to drown out the drone
of arrowing smart bombs,
for we have taught our ears to un-hear.
the distant dead, their surgically dismembered voices
just sparrows chirping upon pleasant lawns,
We forget to regret the weakening wink
of their semaphore signals,
and no nocturnal flames dare pierce or mar
our pillowed and peaceful rest.

Shells Ii Death Is Dead Once More For Now

Recall the midwife

To the cenotaph

War is over


For now at least


Nothing but poppy petal buttercup remain 
in tact to blow away this coming eve

Or grow from flounder's red sodden field

To flutter on a chasten solar breeze

Up and up so only downward grave
can see

So pray the world outside relent drunken
on the floral scent

Sprayed by white tailed doves formation 
flying overhead

Signaling in semaphore

Death is dead once more

We've little left to fill a casket

Apart from surplus faulty armaments

Scattered across the length and breadth 
of no man's lands

To carry these giant's home

To mother's

Wishing they we're never born

Or had a daughter instead

Amen

My Wish Guitar

In my study, against the wall
Stands my wish guitar. And I
Caress it in my arms, let fly
Some chords; Ocean spall.

I feel deep deep down I can
Play and make up a tune;
Sure would be over the moon
If I could play the Twang.

In my study against the wall
Stands my wish guitar;
It's an acoustic semaphore 
With notes of rhetoric squall.

In my study, against the wall
Stands my wish guitar and
That's all it is, on its stand ;
Redundant on its stool.

Old Lace

Daylight slips in and out
of yellowing net curtains.
Sunny wafts semaphore the sky.

An old lady has planted
her mind in closets, 
in drawers where
an off-white linen recalls
lavender scented dreams.

She could to the garden,
but it has grown alien,
rank and beyond her.

In the apartment
lamplights go out
then never replaced.
The sky still squints
through fading lace,

Ghosts claim to know her,
but she shoos them away
when they talk of tomorrow
and other unnecessary things.

Not a Secret Message

You will not need an enigma machine
or a code breaking book.
A knowledge of Morse code
or a semaphore instruction book
this message is real simple
and not hard to understand
there’s no secret hidden meaning 
and it comes straight from my heart 
May your sunsets be a crimson red 
and when you rise out of your bed
may the  coming day be beautiful 
and you find good people in your day .

• Short Semaphore Poems
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