Short Clipper Ship Poems

she waits for her lover
watching every sailor as they disembark
from the clipper ship she knows best
recognizing his curly hair she lights up
Algeciras Bay, their sweet spot...

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The clipper ship sailed down the channel with nary a sound.
Blue sky noticed that not a live sailor was anywhere around.
Is it a ghost ship? The clouds asked the wind as it passed.
Sure might be, the wind agreed, for it is not going fast....

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A clipper ship for my birthday please.
I shall enjoy the spray of the ocean breeze.
I may groan and snarl and cough and wheeze.
It would be wonderful, so please do not tease.

Just a second, I need some space to sneeze.
Want to travel with me beyond these trees?
I do not mean to be an arrogant sleaze
But a clipper ship for my birthday please!...

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sailed into the pirate moon, is what we did,
South of the Indies with that whipper boy kid.
our clipper ship was bound toward Jamaica now
We would get there somehow, none of us knew how

the moon was frightening, the clouds were disappearing fast.
The only sounds were snoring, I lay down beside the mast.
An ominous night, frightening, swallowed up by this moon.
I heartily prayed that I might be shakened awake soon....

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She launched into sea in 1852,
And was build by Donald McKay.
She sailed from Honolulu, Hawaii
To New York in a whopping 82 days.

She set the fastest speed ever recorded,
On her second leg voyage for a sailing ship.
She logged in at 22 knots/25 mph,
Over a 24 hour, 400 mile trip.

She loved to sail the open ocean,
Sailing away with the breeze.
She was a Bostonian Clipper Ship,
Named the Sovereign of the seas....

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I inherited a worn out clipper which made me mad.
For the rest of the cousins got riches, big and bad.
One got emeralds, another got diamond rings.
I got a clipper ship, without the pirate loot of kings.

Give it a whirl around the cape, my faerie godfather said.
He is a crazy old coot, eccentric, not quite right in the head.
Now what do you think, isn’t this a bit of fun now honey?
It surely was! My clipper ship was magic, and manifested money!...

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Early Earth thaw
First gasp of breath
Heaves its snow chest
Like a blanket pulled back

Arches its cadaverous humps
A surfacing serpent
Along the street curbs

Slithers to the drains
Snakes away through the pipes
Spills over the dams

Swims in the rivers
Toils to seas
Butterflies as rain

Tombstone wave
Ten thousand miles away
Taps the cedar of a clipper ship

Once a snowflake
In this winter land

Marking a grave
In a frozen drift
Outside my kitchen window....

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