Pretty bird
was flying by
I fell in love
So loved felt I
Pretty Bird Pretty bird
Singing
Jib Jib Jib
I couldn't help but
Feelin' high
I didn't know
Jib Jib Jib
I'd have to say goodbye
Pretty Bird
Pretty Bird
Sing for me again
She sparked my heart
My perfect muse
Melody of a meadowlark
I fell in love
So loved felt I
Jib Jib Jib
Gettin' high
I went crazy
For that Lady Bird
Pretty Bird

Pretty Bird Lady Bird
I believed every word
I fell in love
So loved felt I
Gettin high.

All the jibs in all the land
The cut of yours is best.
One day I chose a jib for me
And yours outshone the rest.
You said that I could borrow it
If in a bad jib rut,
And I could sail around the world
All jibby in my cut.

~~~

Far off in the distance,
a thousand dreams or so,
a winged syren beckons
of land, of hope, of home 

An alluring vision rises,
between port bow and port beam,
above the windward gunwale,
above the Devil's seam 

The main and mizzen struggle
against the howling wind,
the staysails strain
against the sheets
hauled taut and closely in 

But the course we follow
cannot reach our destination true 

We must tack and then again,
until our bow is set dead on,
and find a steady
wind and fair  
to fly above
the pounding waves,
to free the maiden's hair 

Just beyond the bowsprit,
a thousand leagues at sea,
the flying jib will lead us where
our spirits find their peace

Long hair, mixed feelings
love strains, people stop
early spring, late awakening
trailing with fear, outsiders glance
giving up, walk so strait
histories curse, the curse that all jib
but find it following to meet you no more.

Anyway, Anaplasmata act aptly and abstractly
Backhands ******* balky baklava
Caractal chasm chant "Catty cavalry can't"
Dactyl dada dawns Djakarta drab

Larva ask dab-tap shabby knack lad
"Ever elect effete experts elsewhere?"
A clad daddy wants a dark jab dart
Fleece fleets flee flecked flyspecks

Cleft feet eve expels three resew eres
Gentle germs gelde grebe's geyser
Cede effects leek fell pecks self lyfes
Hellbent helmsmen helped hexed herders hence

Glen's remelted eggs be Serge-Grey
It insistingly implys impish ipsissimis insipidity
He held next her belched sender heel
Jiggling jibs jinx jimmy's jill jig

Its smilingly spiny impish mississippi I-I-I Is It dinty?
Kidding kibitz kick killing kings kitsch
sigil sign jimmy jib jingling jil
Livid linitis limits limbs limp

Big **** kid kicks thinking gill's zit kink
Midriffs mimics Mis's minimizing mistypings
Slim villi distils it, mini blimp
nil ninhydrin nihilists nicks nyxis nightly

Ms Mmisty's zip disc, if firm, is miming mining
ontology on top of oophoron ostomy.
Hindi hint silly lynchings. Skinny nix I stir
phonology 'pon phytol plywood poops polyglots pompons.

Polygon hoof-moon on poor toys toot
qophs
phony thong ploy loops monolog poppy.  Woody plop! Psst!
Rooks romp rootstock rods

"Posh" - Q
Schoolroom scoffs scoop shockproof snort stools
Mock stork pro or door toss
Thyrotomy 'top torpor tot's torso

So-so rooftop honk slots. Morocco sloops off
Usufruct tu upchucks
Stormy troops root to tot trothy
Vulgus vult vults

**** such curt cut ups
Wrung wctu
Vulgus vult vults
Xu

Wrung WCTU
Yummy yurts
Xu
Zulu zymurgy

Yummy! Try us!
Lawman scandal any pay at a scab yap tat tartly
Zulu zymurgy
Almanac-scratch that-clay tract vacancy

Apple red cheeks blushing from conversations with cherry-picked lips.
I ponder the track that your mind runs on.
A lover's affreightment as between sailors and ships
Nothing compares to the grass on this lawn.
Days of old have left rips in your sails
But no need to sink the zabra
For I brought needle and thread
I will sew up your wounds but if all else fails
I will still love you til the day that your dead
Call up the boatswain and throw the anchor off the port bow
I have found my piece of the sea
No more sailing the open ocean now
Because I found my lover and he has found me

they don't read poems
poor souls, scratching and headless
don't write them either


country lane bike ride
T-shirt flapping like a jib
three sheets to the wind

Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah, heave her short again!
Over, ****** her over, there, and hold her on the pawl.
Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full—
Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all!
  Well, ah, fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love—
   Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee;
         For the wind has come to say:
         “You must take me while you may,
      If you’d go to Mother Carey
      (Walk her down to Mother Carey!),
   Oh, we’re bound to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!”

Heh! Walk her round. Break, ah, break it out o’ that!
Break our starboard-bower out, apeak, awash, and clear!
Port—port she casts, with the harbour-mud beneath her foot,
And that’s the last o’ bottom we shall see this year!
  Well, ah, fare you well, for we’ve got to take her out again—
   Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free.
      And it’s time to clear and quit
      When the hawser grips the bitt,
   So we’ll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from the sea!

Heh! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her!
Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall!
Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy.
Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul!
  Well, ah, fare you well, for the Channel wind’s took hold of us,
   Choking down our voices as we ****** the gaskets free.
      And it’s blowing up for night,
      And she’s dropping light on light,
   And she’s snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea,

Wheel, full and by; but she’ll smell her road alone to-night.
Sick she is and harbour-sick—Oh, sick to clear the land!
Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us—
Carry on and thrash her out with all she’ll stand!
  Well, ah, fare you well, and it’s Ushant slams the door on us,
   Whirling like a windmill through the ***** scud to lee:
         Till the last, last flicker goes
         From the tumbling water-rows,
      And we’re off to Mother Carey
      (Walk her down to Mother Carey!),
   Oh, we’re bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!

I
The stars are double-weighted tonight.
bulging, beating, they sink
from their proper lurches.
One by one across the murky
evening they sputter out.
What natural light remains
seeps from that subtly gaudy
bauble of a moon.

II
Peeled eucalyptus, ice-plant, new-mown summer grass,
dandelion, sloping hill, carved stone bench,
the view, the reflected city-light off the bay water,
white-washed near-tenements.

I am firmly locked up, chained in a bone cage
of chemically manipulated cranial plates;
serotonin, synapses, dopamine, dendrite
create a web like seaweed constricting the sea;
this computer of a head calculates, oscillates,
and processes the sensory.

III
My body is a tattered jib sail
flowing in the light sprinkling rain:
the simmer of the gale:
a hollow cathedral abandoned
by the believers:
a vessel for my marrow:
an imaginary catalyst for profundity:
an incarceration: a hull of particles
arrested: some part of an experience.

After the storm,
the spider fine tunes its web-
spiraling inward,
plucking at strands
strung lyre-like
between the apple branches.
   Shrinking fingers of light
slip from the underbellies
of  low slung clouds
that stream by
nearly snagging the tree tops.
   The wind fills the web
like a jib stretched out
before the slapping bow of a ship.
   Meanwhile, our small planet
hurtles forward, circling
on strands of patient gravity
spun by God knows who or what.
   Satisfied with her spinning,
the spider finally
settles into place
at the center of a billowing universe,
waiting for some small
something to come sailing by.


Tom Spencer © 2017

Sitting in that cafe
was like sitting atop the tower of Babel
a cacophony of language
like a hurricane was going on all around him
the homeless black men
who spoke with their own jive and jib
he knew some of the language
but was far from fluent
there were the Arabian men
talking into blue tooths on their ears
or into cellphones
or arguing with each other
outside over cigarette after endless cigarette
nothing but harsh blunt sounds,
it was beautiful in a way
and there is the Russian couple
bombshell athletic blondes
it was hard to determine whether the relationship was
Mother and Daughter
or coach and athlete
they were seemingly
all business
broken with interspersed bouts of laughter
and their were the Asian boys and girls
coming from Korea or Japan or China, or some other place
talking fast and easy
gesticulating wildly with their hands
and of course their was English
thick and arrogant in its tone
it was a language for movers and shakers
money makers and deal breakers
it sounded nowhere near as special
as the other languages
And there was him
sitting silently in the corner of the cafe
his language
the chitter chatter of the keyboard

In the end,
It was a brief
Affair.
In the end
It was a ship
That fared....
Too full,
A draft too
Unsteady
To stay it's course
My perfect friend
And listing
O're the force
Of winds
That ripped
Her jib sails
To shreds
And small pins;
I full of pain
You, unable
To hold on....
Against the
Winds -
"A shame"
They'll say
Or maybe
Not
I know
I know
I know.......

In the fullness
Of time's course
We'll see
Our time
Entwined
Was far, far
too brief
To be......
You so full
Of fear
I so full of grief
But we loved free
That is true
And love, in itself
Can beat the tide
But only if
The mainsails' true
I know
I know
I know.........

Your tears were
No secret
To me,
Your wetted eyes
Let me know
You'd -
Had your fill
Of heart pain
And sorrow
And sometimes
We need to go
Aside ourselves
To heal the wounds
I know
I know
I know......

In the playing
Out of time
I'm sure
We'll appreciate
That we
Struck before,
Before the sea
Was ready
To endure us
And so the
The long rock
was struck
And strewn;
We loved
Too early
Or perhaps
Too soon
I know
I know
I know......

The hurt will
Come later
The movement
Changing slow,
My countenance
Will remain
The same
But my heart
Will lose it's glow,
To think
We may not sail again
It is the
End of the affair
I know
I know
I know........