Sailing Poems
Rowing for Home
by Richard Randolph
We cut the mooring lines
and quietly paddled into the bay.
The ocean dared us onward
there was nothing left to say.
The stars, those distant travelers,
silently guided us on our way.
“Looks pretty rough,” old Johnson noted,
and spit defiantly into the sea.
“We’ll never make it,” the young ensign asserted,
......
A Death That Grieves No Stranger
by Patti Masterman
A death that grieves no stranger
Is witless as a mouth
That deaf eyes do not fathom
Mute singleness of route
As pines a troubled forest
For signs of seeded quarry
We herald the dumbest signpost
To break the traveler's story
A death that grieves no stranger
......
The Octopus
by Jeffrey Pipes Guice
Having just finished me tour of duty...
Been at sea for over a year...
I needed a pint of whiskey...
And a romp or two with me dear...
She saw me enter the parlor...
I fell in love with her on first sight...
She dragged me upstairs to her bedroom...
To love me long into the dark night...
......
If My Ancestor Boarded The Titanic
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
If he had boarded the frail proud lady,
My ancestor would have been a hysteric.
It would have been nothing new to him, though —
Boarding such a mighty vessel
With an unsinkable testimonial.
He had been on board Noah’s ark
For more than 40 days and 40 nights —
The first-ever lockdown in the first-ever
Flood pandemic.
He would have consulted an oracle before boarding
......
Our Day on the Water
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
The sun is hot
The birds all flock
The boats convene
Revelers serene
The drinks are cool
They make you drool
The wind blows soft
......
Full and by
by Joe Cyr
Advice to youth
In sailing ships of yore, on deck,
when you glanced up toward the sky,
if the sails were full and ship close to the wind,
then she was “full and by.”
You will soon arrive at the moment
to decide future and vocation;
that point in life to chart your passage
......
Our Day on the Water
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
The sun is hot
The birds all flock
The boats convene
Revelers serene
The drinks are cool
They make you drool
The wind blows soft
......
Rowing for Home
by Richard Randolph
We cut the mooring lines
and quietly paddled into the bay.
The ocean dared us onward
there was nothing left to say.
The stars, those distant travelers,
silently guided us on our way.
“Looks pretty rough,” old Johnson noted,
and spit defiantly into the sea.
“We’ll never make it,” the young ensign asserted,
......
A Death That Grieves No Stranger
by Patti Masterman
A death that grieves no stranger
Is witless as a mouth
That deaf eyes do not fathom
Mute singleness of route
As pines a troubled forest
For signs of seeded quarry
We herald the dumbest signpost
To break the traveler's story
A death that grieves no stranger
......
Renaissance and Thursday
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
With a low percentage of the summer’s borrowed flaws,
We coursed on the Main, so tamed and sinuous, from the city firth.
I swear to the ceremonies of farewell when a muted bugle signalled
From wetted resonance the beginning of the drift.
It was somewhere beneath dawn’s yawning spree – on the breath of
8 a.m. and a little further.
Thursday waited to puke on me the vestiges of dreary, gloomy filth.
And I stood sentry on the forked way of depression, expecting grease,
Weed, tangles and fogs of a depraved autumn...
But then, her Leo spoke in jest of the usual tragedy of the fourth day.
......
