Rams have two horns
on top of their head
the better to butt you
and leave you for dead
which is why you should never
cross a ram ever
unless you’re a giant squid
or a large bull from Madrid
I would take in liters of air of
confidence and honesty,
after that, I would dive
in the deepest parts of the
political ocean
to hunt politically apathetic, callous
dishonest squids
Breath-taking fish follow our footprints
into the booming sea.
A multicolored native child lives there
it walks upon the pushed-up swell,
bell-diving while standing
on the deep dark waves.
You may well dream of this
as the sun plays across your closed eyelids.
You may ask yourself
why the songs of the sea are always sad
even when the sailors fiddle and jig,
and why these images
are so tantalizingly inexplicable
like a saltlick on the moon.
It's the whales you see,
their peace roars, their size expands
even the very smallest places.
It is the alien giant squids of grace,
that does not belong anywhere
yet it floats in a balloon
of eternally penetrating silence.
For all dry-docked and new-laid minds
there's a pulsing birthing canal
still open and waiting,
find it inside a closed seashell of time
within the rippling molecules of tsunamis
where the native-born are spawned.
We are watching the surf roll in and out
and it is certainly not strange
to suffer a moment of absolute exile,
a real 'home sweet home' solitude
and a tidal homelessness.
In the Med aboard the Byrd,
Captain spoke and gave the word.
Rough course ahead, but still on track.
If not on duty, then hit your rack.
For Rob and I, we had to know.
So, topside bound to see the show.
Ship was pitching left and right.
Walking bulkheads with all our might.
Reached the fantail, but not alone.
Several Squids were standing prone.
With arms akimbo, we latched on.
With watered walls, the sun was gone.
Then up those walls to Neptune's peak,
To witness the chaos we did seek.
Shining sunburst on rolling seas,
With crashing waves and salty breeze.
Right back down to where we started.
Loved the rush the seas imparted.
Port to starboard, we felt the pause.
Ballast held to level the cause.
But when it froze for way too long,
Gut met throat to stifle song.
We broke from chain, one by one.
Back to bunks, like all had done.
Hours later, with humbled pride,
Will always reflect on natures ride.
Oooooooh bagels and bread by golly
Rumors and ramekins, fools folly
This attitude aggregious
But a knick knack fecicious
Hold a tick, did you say napkins?
Not for glass jars and captains
A twist off jammed and stuck in a rut
Threads on a screw doing all the scut
A nail has it easy
All smooth and goes in easy
But time and hammer gave a chance
As long as it was done in baggy pants
So a squid with a quiver
Full of arrows did deliver
Down the narrows did they float
But on a paddle not a boat
So he ate his breakfast fast
And wiped the ink off from a blast
Broke open the container
It's no crazier than saner
Built the shelter speedily
With headphones on greedily
Balanced atop a wooden oar
A raft, no no, just such a bore
Not very analytical
But we won't become political
Since it was a higher ranking tenticle
Who made the inky wooden popsicle
A little poem nonsensical
Where sense is reprehensible
This morning is dangerously close to truth.
The sunlight is in bold print,
the figurative blocked out in black and white.
The under-brain
(that sleepy chameleon with diamond eyes),
blinks at a high-rise concrete reality,
eschews poetry for a stark reportage.
The summer blooms and hummingbirds
are not wooden, yet their picturesque
mien and dress
belong in a less brazen realism.
Nothing much flies in more subjective skies.
Beneath an introspective sea
just a few fanciful thought-threads
dangle loosely from misty metaphyseal squids.
The mind must turn to arcane myths
for unobjectified mysticism,
however a short-sighted ground hog
dismisses these inner reflections
as it eats an existential
bright red geranium.
Who found me in the shadows where I was hiding in dark seas?
cowardly of hiding in the depths that are thought to be courage was my disease ,
My intention was to hide with the shadows spewing from this squid
Fake people who are ravenous, I'm tired of your squint.
what was that?
the sun's lights do not reach that deep.
even it reach, I was hiding in the shadow of the squid.
is this a witch squint?
no, oh my god it's a mermaid...
Will she be able to pull me out of the shadows?
who knows?...
It was a battle like no other.
We lost my daddy and my brother.
My relatives continued to screech.
The day those aggressive clown fish took the beach.
The battle was savage, the rewards given to others.
We had sad eels, squids, and octopus mothers.
Those clown fish ruined our lives that day.
But I guess all is fair in war in the fishy wishy bay.
Where Lucy was right
and Gods we spite
when squids were game
and happinesswassquashed
The gem a bit is queen
of strangness never caught
if i have died
you weren't in my thoughts
see i broke a dimension back there
was i talking to you
or was i talking to me a me to follow
sea a note to follow pulled stretched skin
oh mist of Whisky spitltled drizzle
take me to the land of your everaporations
now tell me thats not a line
dancing hand in hand with disappearing
disintergrate before the iron dies-
now this is for geeks it could be about
Chaplins Greatest death
or my thoughts on globes swarming
Money at its
hi
establish i mean't ever rather than eva
9 lines back i wouldn't look
i've been watching he did
don't checque please
are you sure cheque
pleas
did he mean
glow ball warning
i know i am watching
him write it down
but i keep reading
watching the show
but never see its ending
The ocean is a place
Fill with mysteries and unknowns
You wonder how deep is the ocean
And how many layers are connected
From my understanding the lost
World of the Atlantis is sitting at
The bottom of the ocean’s floor somewhere
It’s amazing, how a world
Was lost to the ocean
The ocean can also be a spooky and
Scary place to, fill with creatures like
Sea serpents, giant squids and
The loch ness monster and other
Horrific creatures, that will scare
The life from your body, if they
Don’t eat you first
The ocean is also a thing of beauty
And a natural calming to listen too and
Hear the ocean, pounding waves
It's been said that what’s on land is in water
Some I know is true, like sea and land cows
horses , turtles and more but humans live
On land, need I say more
I’m not sure
I have the strength anymore
To be discovered
Stepping into the cold black lake of February
Clopping to work in frozen slop
Snow snarling at my ankles
Car coughing
Windshield gritting its white teeth
I wear a body double of fur curved
Like a polar beast on my back
Then the Voice of the Turtle whispers…
And sprinklers spritz in a mist of sunrise
And rows of palm trees unfold as a breezy outfield fence
Blue sky a homerun boundary
Free to swing away you can’t miss
Buckets of baseballs flung to the green sea
Leather-gloved squids
Eight kids per position
Waiting their ground balls and pop flies
Legend to rookie 60 feet and 6 inches from the big show
Chin skimmed and bum chapped with red dirt
Tip of hat flattened to home plate
Get up swing back at that
Unfamiliar crack of doubt
Deep from winter inside you.
A hot sun is a bird perched on the bill of your cap
#10 Numi eternal rookie in us all
Spread your wings and fly to Detroit
The Old English D forever on your chest.
aquarium seas
tuna whales sharks dolphins squids
ride wave vehicles
The dramatic screenplay off the grid
with twists and turns, bent and half-quid.
Time rides loopty-loops, rebids,
yanking bucket eyelids -
trite for spilling squids.
rewrite acid,
book on skids -
forbids
kids.
11/7/2019
Rhyming Nonet Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Charles Messina
In my mind somber sorties unfold
When morbid movements scar a hundredfold.
Normalcy dead, transparency scared
Empathy bearded, intransigence endeared.
In my mind sordid scenes grow cold
When vulnerable voices no longer hold.
Brash brands undead, harsh hustles prepared
Phantom forces deployed, evil enamels ensnared.
In my mind torrents of tears no longer dry
Victory vessels victimize, vile victuals bereft of shame fly.
Flies on excrement multiply, sties of scorn sniggle
Spies of blame bloom, pies of putrefaction giggle.
In my mind orifices and offices of ordure spy
Voices of Hades hustle, choices of straitjackets sigh.
Worms of wilderness sparkle, whiffs of death dodge
Squids of insanity soar, weeds of vanity splurge.
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.
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