Tag: ship

Abandon Ship

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Branches like masts
Of ships sailing on
Ocean winds.
Leaves like cloth
Rigged to capture
The gusts

Billowing bravely,
Wanderingly,
Drifting yet rooted.
So the sail itself
Begins to rip
Away from its bark,

Tearing cloth and rope,
Shearing stem with breeze
Silencing wave sound
In the leaves
As they cascade
To entropy.

Breaking masts as they go.
Toppling crow’s nests
And shattering hulls,
Pieces of fabric
Lost and drowning
In currents of air,

Gathering someplaces
And marking paths
Of the ocean winds
So the leavers can see
There is still hope
In a currence elsewhere.

Their trees now islands
Marooned in the sea.

Leaf sails swirl
Like destiny.

Art

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I can make you hurt like I do
If I really wanted to

Some things aren’t worth
Going down with the ship

Lost on the seas
Drifting for years

Seems like everyone’s hurt
Already

I want to be a pianist and a painter
Passing by them on the waves

No one wants to climb aboard
Even though I’m always inviting

I paint the same thing everyday
And never tire of the waves

Tumult and turbulent
I ride atop it

So many canvases of blue
And sunrises and sets

Lay scattered on deck
And in the cabins

No one wants to see it
Through my eyes

They just want to be caught
Up in these passing currents

I’m running away
Forever drifting

No more dry land
After a couple more years

My beard’s getting bigger
Hands growing frailer

The paintings change
As I run away

So much time in this place
I call the place that surrounds

The boat
All the faces that mix and churn

All the people that look
For something better in the sun

Still I feel young
No matter the time

I’m with the paintings
I’ve always painted

And the scenes only I’ve seen
Of the surrounding sea

Fed by my soul
Starved by my ego

Am I any better than them?

I think and see my hand
Shaking with the brush

While I press it to canvas
Messy strokes and mixed hues

I still feel good

Forever young
I know what’s real

I have it all
Forever I want

I want to die
I want to drown

But I love the way
The horizon looks

I feel good

I feel good
I run away

Always summer
Night comes and goes

No place is home
Just seeing where I roll

Off the backs of waves
I feel young

Another painting done
Moving on and leaving

Over the stars
And the calming keys in my heart

I feel young

Laying down now
It feels right for this to end

I’m torn apart
So elder there’s nothing left to do

I’m afraid to drown
But I’ve never felt it before

Water sloshes my body
I’m staring at the sun

Pass through the days
So quickly now

I love the way this feels
Running away.

Smiling and
Crying

With the salty tears
Of the whole ocean’s sympathy

Paintings getting wet
Around me

Leaking into the water

Running away
Running away from the hurt

I’m staring at the days
Running away from yesterdays

I feel good

I feel young

The water’s so gorgeous
And the air is so inviting

Don’t want to get left behind
Don’t want to miss out

I feel so good

I
Feel so young
My time in this place is done

Chords
Please
Sing me away

Run me away

Fjord Passing

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Fjord Passing

I could call it a heaven
Or a hell

Maybe it was even
Purgatory

Where sailing
On air

Paddlers went by
With oars in hand
And they were rowing

Disrupting
Flowing

Slowly

Leaving wake
Behind

As a microcosmic
Ripple

To tell the tale
Of where each
Came from

Viking Voyagers

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Viking Voyagers

In the shower with her
I felt clipped. Vulnerable.
Like my wings were
missing, but in their place
was something like cybernetics;
when you know your heart is
pounding, but don’t know
what microscopic things are
happening to beat it as
a drum beats. Every cell
and nanomachine in lost wings
is a longship full of vikings,
each feeling the same pulse
by tempo setting figureheads.
Each cascading piece of water
is a morsel of vitality,
and like the drum, beats in
rhythm with its spray. As
my veins’ currents spray
along the hull of longships,
carefully surging once a moment
to the great drum basin.
Never to drain the drum,
but the water to drain
down the great shower basin.

To Kxzzyxin Sea

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To Kxzzyxin Sea

We waved from the gangplank
And they replied from the deck
Unaware that this would be
The last time they’d be seen

It seems really bright
To be seven o’clock

Waving from railings
On the tall dock

Not calm or collected
Watching them go

Triumphant collective
Coming back, we know

Fading into distance the ship
Soon disappears
Clutching others’ hands
Wishing we were there and not here

Carefree together
Some sort of tranquil

All properly dressed
And improperly thankful

Coming along
To cheer on from the dock

All the brave few who
Set out to nock

In our brave new world
There’s nothing left to see
Nothing left to see
Of the land we’ve whorled

Following fleets
Out to the blue sea

Stopping to look
At the unknown trees

Off of the coast
Of exotic locations

Where the ships went
We’ll never see the face of

Will-o’-the-wisp
Caught in cloth’s cradle
Rippling on a mast
Off now in star’s ladle
Into unknown cast
Our bold
Iconoclasts

We were on the pier
In our old world
From that last landing
Our wishes were clear

All of the people
Watching them leave

Were crisp with the thought
Of the fleet returning

Year after year
We would wait and watch

To see if our ship
Had found what it sought

Without rest
Went so many nights
Searching the horizon
For our brave ship’s crest

A heroic endeavor
First drafted from

A lust to see
What our world could become

All of the people
Watching them leave

Dreamed of the tales
That they might bring

From lighthouses
Looking all the while
Where hotter than a fire
Water’s light was doused in

Speculated wonders
Might be found by the men

Shouting their findings
Every where and when

Telling stories of things
And the flags they staked

A lonely legacy left
In their lulling wake

Going Vertical

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Going Vertical

Calling from her
On a distant golden beach,
Marooned, watching
Into the return of me
Not forgetting all the
Good and bad I was watched in.

How could I ever forget?
One instinct always survived,
Making me shoot flares
Equivocally from angled horizons.

S.O.S.

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S.O.S.

One ordinary day
After rough and tumble torrents
Of uncontrollable
Tsunami pourings

A glass bottle floated on by
Above submarines kiting on high
In the sea of voices shouting
Old oxygen’s soft carapaces

To be corked with pressure
By instinct and stifled
Only then written an S O S
Waiting out all who pass rest

Not the message inside
Red ink inscribed
In an old bottle of coffee soda
Smelling script by old loads of

Promises seen by the sea
Of dreamscapes and nightmares
Slinking along in the waves
To be picked up sating craves