Starboard Poems | Examples

15 July Coup Attempt Turkiye

Life goes out but faith will not from this body
Heads may be cut but Islam will not from this land
A holy town of Quran you are at your starboard crescent
Mountains and rocks all cry out freedom and word of testament

Did not sell himself for a few bucks to a few predatories
Shielded his chest to dishonests that are coming by F-16s
Did not give his liberty his sovereignity his future
Left his mother his father and his lover
Left his wealth but hasn't left his homeland

There it is real army real soldier
Inside it private every patriot
Went out at 15th July and showed heroism
It is impossible not to show him admirism

Walked on tanks shielded himself to bullets
As long as don't let country be given away to zionists
Today Gülen is death and coup plotters are at jail trap
USA's forty yeared project in one night has gone to trash 
Turks has showed how Muslims are to America's stepsons and CIA

Beloved Prophet

Every Companion is a star at the sky of that Prophet
Every tradition of him is post of heavens and the earth

To be his ummah is the holiest of dignities
Full of lessons each of his nights and mornings

Behind him left his marks on the path of paradise
Next to him Abu Bakr whereas Omar is at left resides

More than thousands carried that blessed starboard
Some stabbed a sword and some spread the holy word 
It was a destinty that this case will reach to day of wrath

What he recited was compassion and guidance
What he ruled was complete justice
When wanted he wouldn't reject, he was the most generous

He didn't leave neither gold nor silver 
To the mankind Quran was his inheritance

Sailboat

Sailboat

sails set
starboard sheets taut
west winds ten knots
wheel steady in my hand
not a cloud in the blue sky
fresh salt air

Take a Trip from Reality

Embrace the sea,
Far out, a salty binge of air.
Embrace the sea -
Take a trip from reality.
I’ll find a beach, beyond compare,
Where natives play with much fanfare.
Embrace the sea.

Coconut palms,
Port and Starboard sway, in warm air.
Coconut palms,
With their tropical-scented balms.
Cut fruit open, sip island air.
Underneath tree, hold rounded fare -
Coconut palms

Ship ahoy sad!
Steering in the wrong direction.
Ship ahoy sad -
I care not to head home. I’m mad.
Warm tan - I’ll miss this complexion.
For the sea, I’ve such affection -
Ship ahoy sad.

Mother

M
  a
    y
 I, you may
play dress up
with showers
treat your crown
to flowers
trade in the cold
for warmer hours

M
  a
     y
 I, you may
tiptoe outside
whisper
to the zephyr
eye the blossoms
as they sashay
port and starboard

M
  a
    y
 I, you may
remember
Mother’s Day
with tears
and smiles
and cheers

M
  a
    y
 I, you may
look forward
to Summer days
with a plentiful
garden of praise

Tuckered and Tucked In-dodoitsu string

tuckered and tucked in with him
ebb and flow of pillow head
personalities have dreams
we walk on the sea

we see no sun, with eyes shut
lily pads and no frog legs
and the sky’s a blinding blue
our feet toss and turn

pebbles rise into the clouds
a curious sight, indeed
even in the darkest night
distressing whale song 

whistle salts breeze into face
we walk our separate ways
sleepy fits of temperament
hopeful peppermint

a couple buoys apart
harbor of port and starboard
ahoy, matey…don’t walk plank
drop splash to the deck

wakey…wakey…the seas wake
the blasting siren alarm
no one cares less where wave crests
it rests on the bed

that is the crumpled bed sheet
only need to straighten it
a boat left in the harbor
the sea’s now placid

Untitled

there was a young man from Altoona
who went to the ocean to catch tuna
the boat lurched to starboard
he was flung overboard
and he met a shark that was out to catch humans

Yellow Words

Yellow Words—Used 10 times in the poem

Under the warm yellow sun
floating on the calm Yellow Sea
fishing for the sweet tasting yellow fin tuna.
My mouth waters at the thought of
tuna steaks slathered in spicy yellow mustard
while my old yellow lab snoozing on
my bright yellow rain slicker will have his share covered
in a yellow egg yolk sauce.
I tie the yellow lure to the leader anticipating
a rugged fight with the ferocious tuna.
A wayward yellow canary, blown to sea by the wind,
lands on my cabin roof. Perhaps I will have good luck.
I wear my yellow tinted sunglasses and look to starboard as
I prepare to stalk the elusive tuna.

Sand Castle

You ran roughshod over my sandcastle
Without a flicker of commotion
diverting the starboard
and finding ourselves
at a yawning  beach

Did you see yourself
as a seashell
Did you cast an enchanted look

There's always a sea song
for a remedy overdue
Shake off the foam
and clear your head

Did you see yourself as a crab
yet noted the World didn't care enough

Vanishing

and in my meditation I float in an aura purple
I swirl among and above the clouds beyond my earthly realm
and come to land upon a sandy shore 
I see my sail boat waiting, beckoning to me
her bow is bobbing, her stern secure
her starboard tilting and her port welcoming 
her sails flutter in a wind, her lovely sails flung wide and white
below a perfect sky of azure
the ocean waves caressing her hull are aqua green
and I want to swim and dive deep into the crashing waves
the cool water washing over me as I swirl
drifting on the waves 
I see white ocean birds flying, soaring
but my meditation is silent . . . 
oh, from birth to this moment I have lived
known grief to young, walked with the angel of death
have known defeat, and deep love, beauty and ugliness
have climbed from the pits of hell to begin new over and over  
and it has been a good life . . . 
but my time is over, heaven is calling for me
and so I will sail my boat into my true north today
until I vanish  . . .

A Shipwreck She Salvaged

She came aboard my sinking ship
a death blow to the bow,
attempts to bail and keep afloat
this mariners tattered sails.

Plot a new course and navigate
in storms and angry seas,
this vessel lists in the swells
life plundered by piracy.

Now this new maidens charge
is to steer starboard side,
for a new sheltered port 
with rising tides.

This once scuttled ship
ill winds cast adrift,
is now tacking leeward
this sailors gift!

Bells

It was the bronzed bell of a tinseled Ocean ship.
Until destiny was scuttled by a fiery water witch.  
In time, it became the haunting clang upon a reef.
A macabre Nic Nac for cliques that ruled the deep.

They returned like blue birds, lonely for a blossoming.
To pay homage to every sailor overtaken by the sea.
They lay bouquets of flowers, over shadowed grief...
as ghosts pared sweet memories into paper effigies.

Between shuffles of worn decks and ninety proof lips.
They spin tales of crimson seas and horrible dorsal fins...
Torn hearts and sails, forever on a starboard list
Drifting between a blue refrain and the salty mist.

In the graying vein of time, everything's forgotten.
The sweet angelic, the mundane, the eternally rotten.
Gravestones hoard salt within their granite cracks.
Tokens to a time when auroras bled into blackness.

One by one the crew will drift from this pearled realm.
Riding TradeWinds into the gilded scented heavens... 
or becoming driftwood, in the brackish heart of hell...
as the captain sways to the clang of his beloved water bell.

Scandies Rose

Will you remain with us, Scandies Rose?
We'll always be your rugged salty crew,
chapped by the ocean's kiss.
You were our mainstay and our vessel,
you faded down the depths with us.
The sea with her surface of blue glass,
of swells of tempests-
Our sweet Rose,
twenty foot seas and icing,
forty mile per hour winds.
You were listing on your starboard side,
and now the oceanic beauty has our bodies
in her tidal bosom.
The sun gifts the brine golden,
yet, there was never a promise to return to
a misty welcoming harbor.

Neath eve stars,
our wives awakening from dreams without
rest.
Our children's faces stream with tears
trickling down into the receiving seas of
our spirits.
Will the mysteries, the finality of the deep
turn them to another life on land?

In the moss-green waves,
in the seabird's cries our souls
are sealed.
Yet, Poseidon's loss,
as we are everlasting sons
of our Lord's keep. ~

Shore Leave

shore leave 

The ship, in the bay, had a load of grain from the fertile soil
 of Ukraine, loaded in Odesa, and sent on its way across the Black Sea.
In the Dardanelles, a stop for inspections to see if the ship had
gods other than grain, not on the manifest.
She voyaged the Mediterranean to the Strait of Gibraltar, turned
sharply, starboard, up the coast of Portugal and anchored in Cascais.
Some of the crew was going ashore, shopping and drinking a few beers
as they waited for the launch on the larboard of the ship.
The ship was due to be unloaded in Lisbon on Monday, where other
crew members could go ashore and see the sight of the great city.
The lot, god’s will, for a seaman to be eternally outsider, passing
through, but only at home on the high seas.

Straight On

“To die … will be an awfully big adventure.”
       - J.M. Barrie
      
           ~

grown gray, had I, with stiffened bones
the pains and aches that old age owns
yet I could still dredge up that vow …
(the one I’d made long years from now)
to cheat the reaper’s blade … somehow

I swore that I should not then roam -
that second star, far-flung from home
and yet, the hope that wrote my chart
(from hopes mere flesh did not impart)
that quest - to save my childish heart

so, twice to starboard, sextant free
I set course through a dream or three
to leave that mortal world behind …
(and mortals, quite the dearest kind)
for Neverland … deep in my mind …

for … Neverland!







Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, January 18, 2023

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