A Short Sad Poem of the Coexistence of Cars and Deer

There was a deer in my headlights

The deer went through my headlights

Now the deer, and my headlights

Are sleeping down below.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,


And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;


And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,


And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking,


I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide


Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;



And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,


And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.


I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,


To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;


And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,


And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.


'Sea Fever' By John Masefield

Introspective People Watching

It's a strange sort of day
An odd day to sit on a cold bench
But the weather is not exactly cold
And people's ant-like lives
Are so infinitely interesting to watch.

Preoccupied, a man walks by
Coffee in hand, with suit and tie
A girl and boy in dialogue
But she looks down
And he talks to the fog.

It's on the hour
The crowd streams past
Individuals, hopelessly disconnected
You may be important in your virtual world
But from 100 feet up you are an ant.

What if a piano fell from the sky
Or a hole sunk into the earth
Well it wouldn't matter if it were your neighbor
But that's just another wonder of our evolving culture.

A Piece of Blue Sky...

It's clouded back over today. Not really what I wanted, but I suppose I can deal with it. I'm going to start working on German again. I don't know exactly why, I'd just hate to lose it all. The last few days it started uncovering itself in my mind and I'd try to remember the words and phrases for things. I forgot the word for Table - can't believe that- Der Tisch...

New-to-me cd of Yiruma, First Love. I like his creativity, but I almost wish he'd follow through with the Inevitability and let the ideas develop a little more. No need for new material, but just let the Inevitability work itself out and escape near-repetition. Unfortunately, most of the jacket is in Korean... one of the few parts in English is a poem he wrote:

When the love falls in your dream,
the time flows like a river in you.
When you're in love,
that is the time when the night falls.
But I wish you wait until the morning comes.
I've finally found you.

I was having this discussion of sorts with a friend about the importance of romance in a love story. It would be an interesting love story that had no romance in it, but wouldn't it be rather dry? It would just be so much work. Which was his point. I can see how that would be useful, but how is it realistic? True, our imaginations conjure up more romance than there actually is, but how could a love story exist without it? Every beautiful action taken in love is how it makes itself known. Those are the things you notice, and then you realize it's presence and it is an exquisite moment. It's true I am a romantic, so I suppose I should stop arguing and realize that the Romantic era is technically past with impressionism and and huge emotional paintings. Somehow the ideas still live on, though. With certain individuals who can't reconcile themselves to this age of technological advancement...   

A Change in the Wind

The past six months I've come to realize that virtually everything is perspective. I'm not sure how to explain it, but something to the effect of "one man's hell is another man's heaven." I suppose attitude has something to do with it certainly, but some situations can either be great or terrible depending on your perspective and what you want out of life. Some of us are so wrapped up in this need for security that we lose sight of all the experiences we could be having when we're working to keep that security. And then others of us are so far the other way that we stop trying to plan for the future. There has to be a fine medium in there somewhere, but where and how do you grasp it?

I just started Voyaging Southward from the Strait of Magellan by Rockwell Kent, which is proving quite interesting. He includes this bit by Bayard Boyesen after the introduction, rather intriguing:

Over the Ultimate

Who asks when
We that have done with doing and the blood-red tides of men
    Shall hold fast
    Ourselves at last?
Who cares when?

We that have dived o'er the morning and the thither sides of night,
What delight?
    Should we have your traces,
    Times and places -
What delight?

Ye that are day-things,
    Reckoners of north and south,
       Of great things ruinous;
      What should ye know of us,
Us that have stars for our playthings,
    Yea, stars that browse on our mouth?

What life saith,
    Shall we care,
We that have juttied through death
    And despair?

We that have joked with the mountain gales
    And sent them rattling home,
We that have held the morning's sails
    O'er the foam?
    Yet laughing at sails and mornings, all things that are still or roam?

What life saith
    Of its strife,
    Shall we care?
We that have juttied through death
    And despair,
  Yea, and life!
      Shall we care?
      Of what shall we care?

For My Friends

This is old, but it's most likely one of the best bits I've ever written. After saying goodbye-for-now to yet another incredible cruiser friend back in 2008, I was inspired to write this one, For My Friends. I'll let it speak for itself.

Fair winds
And a following sea,
That's always the parting
For you and me
We've been in port
Now it's time to leave
Our days were short
Spent accordingly

Now I find
It's much too soon
I'd stowed my gear
Before I'd met you
I came to know
Our paths had crossed
And they would go
Just as the past

Maybe a letter
Perhaps a memory
Would let me remember
These days gone by
You went your way
I went mine
I'll look out for you
In the corner of my eye

That part of me gone
I look back to see
The land slowly fading from view
And the only thing
That's been left to me
Is our laughter
Fading to blue.

Floating Papers...

Some poems I found from a while back. A few are decent. Most of them are either nonsense or plain misery. These are the better ones. I think the last one is the most poetic. The first one contains a reworded quote from Jon.

August 2009.
Don't you wish time would stop
So we could think and say
The things we really mean
Instead we live a puzzle
500 bits missing
Fill in the blanks with smiles
Tomorrow will be worse
Walking along the line
Don't look over the edge
Fate will take you all over
And bring you home in the end
Don't try to understand me
I guess you all the time
But perhaps it ain't you
Just the derangement of my mind.

September 2009.
Surrounded by these land sharks
I'm not a little surprised
How could this happen anyway
I can barely summarize
The face that I ain't in New Bedford
Nor shippin' out to sea
That I'm stayin' here in NorCal
It's sure dumbfounded me
But of course the saying's always been
"Jack Tar's a fool ashore"
And so I'll sail back out again
Where they'll be a problem no more.

October 2009.
Coffee warms my heart and soul
As I gaze through a misted windowpane
The streets are drenched in Pacific fog
Rolling from the ridge beyond.
Perhaps it's traveled from Hawai'i
Tahiti, Russia, or Japan
Now blanketing me with its presence
A thousand miles from home.
Is this the constant weather in England
I wonder as I watch
I've never been, so I wouldn't know,
Only what I've read in the books.
Then first it starts as just a dribble
That turns to a plop, then a pound
And my mind is off to Washington
As the rain keeps falling down.

March 2010.
Goodbye, the hardest word to say
Avoided until the end
Unhappy eyes that look away
Heart strings feeling a wrench.
Talk and laugh the minutes away
It's bound to come at last
Freely flowing, the unimportant
Cover the stillness in the air.
Until it's dropped quietly
Like a pin upon the tile
Could that little click mean so much?
Faces drop like birds in fall
The last syllable gone to the wind
One quick look, then gone forever
That's how our lives are spent.

Grasping Pebbles

Sitting on a log, thinking of you
The sun so bright, the shadows so slim
One could think it was summer again

Oceans between us, the endless depths of blue
And the crest of a wave that nobody caught
Leaving a salty dew

The sand it slips away, as in a glass it were
I reach and grasp, but only to find
The pebbles you shook from your shoe
They clink and rattle, and hit the ground
If only I could have found
You.