Last Commented Ballad Poems (503)

tommy was the skipper on the tugboat 'whiskey smoke`.. he lived for his two husky dogs and loved his rum and coke..

twenty one and crazy.. I was rougher than the quay.. tommy was like a father.. who saved myself from me..

tommy told a story.. of a girl he lost to time.. and the price you pay forever when you discard something sublime..

"I'll call it the bookstore and let me make this bold.. no book in this here store is ever getting sold.."

" nineteen hundred and fifty-six.. I first met Vanessa fair.. her eyes kinda made me seasick.. I'd go swimming in her hair..

but I was young and foolish, couldn't keep it my pants.. I was ruled by rum and other blondes.. it was just a temporary dance.."

"every book I have is her memory.. I can read her anytime.. but I've paid the price of losing her.. every dollar, cent and dime"..

tommy died ten years ago.. I now skipper whiskey smoke.. he left me his two huskies pups..

I call 'em rum and coke

on a spring time morn
was wonder born
a strange fluke cut
the sky

from eddied hair
a magic stare
told me that truth
can't lie

a girl who smiled
from a face so wild
my breath did leave
my mind

I somehow knew
that girl was you
and to nature
I was blind

in a wheelhouse stark
both bright and dark
her eyes they light
the way

a rippling whirl
midst seas that churn
all darkness
ran astray

my nets that trawl
her song and call
a creature
made of prayer

you can take my life
my boat my knife
but she
is always there

on a spring tide morn
her currents warm
I never
saw her more

yet I heard her song
all coast along
the inlets
speak her name

all was as before on strawberry hill.. spiders gamboled in spoiled air.. a feathered note from the grass troubled a horse.. and the city looked up at those walking down

all was as before on strawberry hill.. brothers made sweets in their father's shop.. and at the median of a work day.. figures opened doors to buy milk and bread

all was as before on strawberry hill.. sounds of play rose and fell..
settling behind weathered walls.. forever bivouaced in happiness

all was as before on strawberry hill.. lovers met under clocks and archways.. steeples punctured slate grey skies.. and arias were sung in the minds of dreamers

all was as before on strawberry hill.. boats ebbed and flowed from a visible moon.. a mechanical sound waxed and waned.. as a songbird exited.. and listened

all was as before on strawberry hill.. pale light folded over the ancient roads anew.. the curve of the earth found a mooring in feet.. and a woman made of prayer, smiled

all was as before on strawberry hill.. save bracken was cleared from the boreen of thought.. and you wore new the ring my labours bought

I came from the sea.. I came from the sea.. is that woman still there.. does she still wait on me..?

I took a life.. I took a life.. as a life tried to take mine from me.. so I left my ship and hid inside the bark of a lonesome tree.. until hunger of the heart and mind did lead me to a door.. I didn't want to live inside a tree anymore.. a pair of eyes met mine and two more below in furs.. a dog that took chase against some distance noise that wasn't mine or hers.. the clock above the mantle swung its hands around the hours slow.. as if by chance the roaring fire's bars had never been aglow.. and days came and went as tide outside the door.. and her loneliness wed mine and was no more.. and though fear could not replace the magic in her stare.. she told policemen in plain clothes.. that I was never there..

I came from the sea.. I came from the sea.. if there is a god I hope he prays for men like me..

I told her how my story was sung from the lips of legal spin and how I had killed a man and robbed him said his kin.. his blade to my neck neither mentioned nor referred.. but justice was seen to be done and thus justly served.. and though I knew our new world was indentured to a mortal life.. I called her son my own and this angelic woman, wife.. fate did intervene two years inside our fated chance.. some off duty cop sniffed something off.. at some off duty dance.. a smile upon lips that had never seen a smile before and my hand in her's too much for this neighbour to ignore.. she made a call and suddenly all my world was filled with iron bars.. assorted characters.. lawyers, judges.. cars.. she waits in dreams with the son who calls me fondly, dad..

the only time of love and peace.. my madness ever had..

I see you every day
it's not important you see me
I'm the man who moors his boat
near your house beside the quay

your son is older than me
learning issues t'would appear
he follows you like gravity
like a worry follows fear

you never appear angry
in the face of nature's mirth
every day he walks beside you
every day a brand new shirt

you always seem to have a smile
as you fumble for your key
I'm humbled by your kindness
you must be north of sixty-three

I think about your life
as the water soaks the sands
you hold your son so tightly
an umbilical cord of hands

"who looks after you" I think
but there's steel around your home
a dignity past this modern place
a swan a'swim in chrome

to a five penny piece
I shrunk to the size
as life made me hard
in the head and the eyes

so press ganged was I
on a leathery ship
that lived in a pocket
on the side of her hip

and life wasn't easy
and life wasn't hard
it was tough to bed down
'neath a sharp credit card

I dated a quarter
but often she snoozed
we'd laugh at the condom
that never got used

a religious medal
and I became mates
and we sung drunken songs
in between great debates

she'd spill us at parties
she'd drop us in cars
she'd hide us in restaurants
she'd lose us in bars

I fought with the euro
but rarely it budged
her lipstick was messy
and often got smudged

when the end came
it was ruthless and clean
that's how I got here..
in this vending machine

I met her in the winter.. in a bar upon the hill.. when the dark was carved from starlight.. and the moon had paid the bill

I came in from the wilderness.. from the howling wind and rain.. I was weary from my journeys.. around other people's pain

"You are bearded broad and ugly".. said the prairie girl in fright.. not one for moralising.. we shared our bones that night

I told her of my story.. from the famine ships I came.. from a world of madness hunger.. where I killed men.. to my shame

corruption took our homelands.. our humanity and our dead.. I hated a world that priced our lives.. in the currency of bread

I left her at the dawning.. as a coyote fought the moon.. one night was our forever.. she'd be over me by noon

my road ís a lonesome one.. thrown far by a devil's hurl.. so I bellow out a fire.. for the prairie and the girl

the 'Raven' is a diner
that lapps the sea foreshore
it haunts my mangled memory
as it raps upon my door
apple tart and finest cheesecake when I can't eat no more
yet alas quoth the raven :

ordermore!

broad bearded, prone to rages
I have slept in many cages
but I've always paid the wages
of society and more
but this subtle evil keening..
like the ghost of hungers meaning
darkens up my mind demeaning
all the goodness in my chore
still yet quoth the raven :

"ordermore!"

after working in the oceans
and toiling in it's potions
to the gym with weighted motions
to rid my thoughts of lore
ice water by the bucket
and the urge to utter 'f*ckit' '
as the ghost of fried chicken
knocks upon my chamber door
still yet quoth the raven :

ordermore!

with my car key slowly listing
and my sad eyes sadly misting
I find myself resisting
that dark relentless shore
yet the road it takes me quickly
to a shore that makes me sickly
to those arches painted thickly
with blood red signs above the door
yet alas quoth the raven

ordermore!

with my sanity at its border
the smiling waitress
takes my order
as my savagery implores her
to feed me more and more
with the devil in the kitchen
and the smells emerging bitchin'
I devour like a lion
all the carcass blood and gore
still eternal quoth the raven :

ordermore!
ordermore!
ordermore!

I sit transfixed
as thought it flies
to see warmth twice
inside her eyes

reflected in
the glassy pane
two pupils flower
past disdain

a look of summer
dressed in light
a thirst beyond
the drink of sight

some lust for life
and flirt with death
a carraige full
of moving breath

my logic screams
in measure new
though all before
wore beauty too

for even Yeats
or Neruda's verse
would paint her well
but paint her worse

a foggy smudge
her breath it seems
can not distort
the shape of dreams

(or the unwitting brilliance of someone who didn't know it)

you never walked.. 'twas more the curve of the earth.. found a mooring.. in the shape of your foot

you never sang..' twas more a distillation of vibrated yearning.. and what emerged.. saluted a starved ear

you never smiled.. 'twas more the agents of joy constructing.. permanent dwellings.. beneath your eyes

you never painted.. ' twas more you sketched what joy displaced.. and a magic kissed your brush

you never sought numerical truth.. 'twas more the starling cloud of value, settling.. on the branch of your logic

you never carved out a career.. 'twas more the align of the heart.. synced with restless thought

you never swam the spring tide

'twas more the sea inhaled.. and the normal laws of physics.. let you pass