Tag Archives: poem about the ocean

Davy Jones Locker, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle #706

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Davy Jones Locker: Davy Jones’ Locker is a metaphor for the bottom of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors and shipwrecks. It is used as a euphemism for drowning. Silver coins spilling from a pirate chest seem to be doing these victims of shipwreck at sea no good at all. I collected all of the shells and sand used in this piece from various beaches in Mexico. Even the plastic cup, once claimed by the sea, washed ashore covered in coral.

(Although I created the piece above for an exhibition 5 years ago,
the poem below is new, created for this prompt:)

Davy Jones Locker

Storytellers tell the tales of underwater realms
where sunken ships lie buried with sand up to their helms.
They lie countless fathoms beneath the emerald foam
of oceans only beasts and serpents of the sea call home.

There saints of the underworld have made more novel choices
other than announcing their presence through their voices.
Silver coins rolled to the beach, bones smoothed by ocean tides,
give hints of those deep regions where Davy Jones resides.

His ship now razed by currents that drew it to its death,
the ocean mist still carries vestiges of his breath.
He has become that element that once he sought to best––
a part of that great ocean that was his lifelong quest.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 706  the prompt words are: underworld realm beasts raze maps storytellers saints emeralds hood voices serpent mist

Yin, Yang and the Sea: Sunday Swirl Wordle 528

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This boy hand casting his line seemed to be either saluting or cursing the ocean.

Yin, Yang and the Sea

The sea strikes turquoise dissonance, then shhhsh’s it away,
releasing all the tension pent up by the day.
It speaks an easy language as it rolls along the bay,
but as often as it visits, we know it will not stay.

One by one, the waves roll in, devoid of parity.
They cannot seem to achieve any regularity.
With macho strokes of fury, they claw at rocks and beach,
gouging out in anger all that they can reach,
then turning female, lap the sand with gentle licks of tongue,
smoothing all the sand back that formerly it flung. 

The sea spreads riches on the beach, then takes them back again.
Theme after theme played out here in a continual spin.
Smoothing and then rippling, blue deepening to black,
all the sea might take away, one day it will bring back.

For the Sunday Swirl Wordle 528, the prompts are: turquoise, dissonance, tension, easy, one, female, shh, with, stay, themes, release, speaks

 

Tidelines

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Tidelines

The water laps from shore to shore,
From India to Ecuador,
bringing precious things and more—
dried starfish and an apple core,
a never-ending seashell store.

The water laps up ever higher.
The ocean wave will not expire. 
Tide on tide, it does not tire,
topples chair, douses campfire,
to the wind’s insistent choir,

The water laps around my feet
in the day’s insistent heat,
always destined to repeat,
to the moon’s consistent beat,
this constant rising from its seat.

The water laps against the dock.
Listen to its constant knock,
testing the seawall, block on block,
undiminished by the tock
of nature’s ever-ticking clock.

The water laps by halves and thirds
against the sides of ships and birds.
All its shores it scours, then girds,
undetained by  poets’ words.
To stop the sea? it is absurd!

 

For NaPoWriMo’s “repetition poem” prompt.

 

Undulations

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Undulations

The constant undulation and the murmur of the waves.
The crashing of the breakers as they beat against the caves
carved out by the chisel of the water making hives
at the edges of the world that ensconced our busy lives.

It craved us as its audience. It pulled us to its shore.
It calmed our petty grievances with its might roar.
When it chose to rage it could wipe away our world,
sweeping us away as its anger came unfurled.

At other times it lapped at us, assuaging all our pain.
That’s why we returned to it, over and again.
Walked along its edges, pierced its salty deep,
uncovering the secrets so long within its keep.

Every morning it brought treasures to our waiting hands
to examine as we walked along the morning-evened sands.
Dollars from the ocean depths, stars out of the sea––
left there to be taken or to be let be

for the next beachcomber to claim them for their own
to treasure on a mantel what the sea had thrown
like necklaces at mardi gras, cast blindly and for free
for denizens of dry worlds to collect on bended knee.

What we cast back on the waters determines ultimately
what the sea will one day give back to you and me,
and if we do not listen to the truth the tides may tell,
the music of the waves may be our funeral knell.

The prompt today is undulate.