Was that a giant head bobbing out of the ocean?
The sightseers got out their binoculars
Something massive, a monster
Looked like a giant head
Captain of the cruise ship had seen this before
It is an ocean sunfish, they weigh four thousand pounds
They do look like giant heads
Their main food source is jellyfish
I felt relieved
I thought the head of the statue of liberty had fallen off
Categories:
sunfish, fish,
Form: Free verse
Between the lily pads and soft sandbars
Lay the saturated words of idle time
Among bloated carp and feisty sunfish
They linger in a sunny dampened rhyme.
Fleet Dragonflies of thought dodge darting Terns
The silent lure adrift, a bobber’s hope
A crusted turtle suns itself alone
Atop the edge of river’s muddy slope.
The river paints its beauty on my mind
Dares me to recreate it with my pen.
I fail, my words like Egrets, standing still
My vision trapped between the now and then.
Is there no hope, no freedom from this curse
To capture nature’s beauty in pure verse.
©10/7/2022
Categories:
sunfish, poetry, writing,
Form: Sonnet
Heaviest bony fish at five thousand pounds
The ocean sunfish is the roundest of the rounds.
Looks like a giant head maneuvered by a frilly tail.
Eats jellyfish by the dozen, ten foot long is the male.
It cannot move daintily, delicately or very fast.
If you meet one in person, the memory will no doubt last.
Categories:
sunfish, 1st grade, 2nd grade,
Form: Rhyme
death strikes from the cover of shadows...by poet.
tight schools of sunfish
swim atop a coral reef...
sharks stalk stray shadows
(Haiku)
03/03/2022
H Forms - Traditional Nature Haiku Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
"How Many Syllables"
Categories:
sunfish, angst, anxiety, beautiful, fish,
Form: Haiku
Troubled Times
In troubled times, I have the sea
It's soothing sounds bring peace to me.
An ocean breeze,salty climes
I have the sea in troubled times.
Gulls swoop and dive, we wouldn't dare
unless a safety net was there.
We fish safely, to stay alive.
We wouldn't dare, gulls swoop and dive.
I've seen sunfish, seals and whales.
Smoked some kahawai, told some tales.
But this is true, it's not rubbish,
seals and whales, I've seen sunfish.
A quad bike ride, along the beach,
search for treasures lying in reach.
Changing contour, shifting tide,
along the beach, a quad bike ride.
When times are bad, the ocean calls,
kids go swimming, kick beach balls.
So many happy times I've had,
the ocean calls when times are bad.
Categories:
sunfish, ocean,
Form: Quatrain
Distance Squared
The speed of light
is exactly how fast
my heart sends;
every prayer,
every good thought,
every perfect wish!
The bright candle between us,
it is the sun itself.
The solar wind fills the sails
of my forever ship,
longing to journey to you.
Mermaid,
sunfish,
nova
eclipse,
the moon is full,
and I am lost in space.
Categories:
sunfish, appreciation, chocolate, desire, eve,
Form: Free verse
Tranquil Waters
Steady goes the stream of pure tranquility
Clear blue water rushes over smooth polished rock
The landscape is so green near this water of fertility
To this mountain lake nature's Beings tend to flock
All the sounds of nature make it so peaceful here
Admiring from above this breath taking treetop view
The frigid waters look so very pure and clear
Dazzling with its very own enriched color of blue
The wind is dead calm stirring no ripples in the glass
Watching the colorful fish in their under water dance
Blue ones, pink ones, red sunfish, trout, and bass
All together in this classical mountain top lake romance
The sound here is so silent exemplifying the word peace
A world full of panic never touches the beauty of this lake
Here there is no need for armies, government, or police
It is so sad the things for granted we as humans do take
05/17/17
Submitted for poetry contest: "Mountaintop Lake"
Categories:
sunfish, appreciation, beautiful, earth, life,
Form: Rhyme
(Written about 2005, as a sonnet, but I cannot recall why I used 13 rather than 14 syllables per line. Maybe Petrachan? Forgive me if it fails the sonnet test.)
For My Wife and Daughters: STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
eighty percent water in me wants unity here
oscillating in bones, gurgling words in my bloodstream,
verging on vigorous waterways, my own river
converging dreams, I take our daughters to park and stream
few, if any, waterfowl and fauna peek at us now
tiny tributaries of separation bring dirt
now, even in spring, the waters are still running low
no flowers or flora frolic between sky and earth
we inhabit deltas of exuberance, then the freeze …
shallows of calm showed my girls sunfish, pebbles galore
abounding like diamonds in my land of jealousies
now, as streams in the world begin to slow, run shallow
I am one in the God of all, born of Africa
my daughters’ bloodstreams murmur songs of America
Categories:
sunfish, america, fish, nature, spring,
Form: Sonnet
Sunlight blinding him,
Swirling dust choking him.
The bronc gyrating
Nearly throwing him.
Feet braced and pounding,
Pounding the ground.
Jolting his spin,
Up, and again down.
His head jerking,
Neck snapping,
Daylight beneath him,
Then SMACK!
Down on the back,
Of the writhing cayuse.
No eight second buzzer.
To call the end of the ride.
Ignore the pain.
Remember the Pride.
Sunfish, slam and jerk,
Hanging on any way he can.
Fighting to win this battle,
Between beast and man.
The brute gathers his muscles,
Leaps over the rail.
Running, running, running,
Like he’s on freedom’s trail.
Sides heaving, legs shaking,
The horse slows to a stop.
The cowboy turns him homeward,
And says, “Now you learn to walk.”
Categories:
sunfish, adventure, animals, cowboy-western, education,
Form: Cowboy Poetry
Balanced on a Red Rider wagon,
a wooden boat with flaking paint;
split transom
poorly repaired. Ten year olds
with borrowed tools, untrained
in fixing leaks, or boats,
or knowing what a transom was.
Christened the "Neversink,"
but often did, with bamboo fishing poles askew,
the used nine sixteenth nut sinkers
spilling into warm water;
sunfish laughing.
A doomed soup can ship,
crewed by worms,
going down.
Young toes to search the liquid silt
for clams.
Categories:
sunfish, childhood
Form: Narrative