Today you turned up washed,
Almost if a wave passed through the sheets of your bed.
Your hair is a mess,
As you etch a careful drawing in pen.
Careful to not miss a mark,
There's no erasing it,
Or anything you've done.

I'd like to take you to the beach in Marblehead,
When the summer nights are warm.
Take you out to dinner,
Show you the riches of my homeland.
Then I'll hold your hand, walk you to the sands,
Where we can be hidden from the world,
Hidden enough to dance amongst the waves.
Spinning, dipping, gliding across the grains,
Hands on your skin, lips on your own.
When we tire we can retire,
Down on a blanket, I'll cradle you,
We can watch the stars fly by.
Maybe I'll get to watch you,
Dance another groove.

There's a beauty in the ocean,
Like nothing else.
A deep feeling,
An echoing dark.
There's a feeling of foundation,
Like the marble columns of old.
A strength within the storm,
An arm refusing to strike back.

The distance between us  
Stretches, vast and dark,  
A storm of broken senses  
That tears me apart.  

Out here, I wrestle  
With nature’s cruel game—  
Waves whip and lash me,  
Salt brands me with shame.  

Mountains of water,  
Crash, freezing my skin,  
I’m anchored to the seabed,  
Crushed with guilt, and sin.  

Fear is my existence,  
Hope feels far from home.  
Encircled by water,  
I’m fighting alone.  

Memories surge,  
A flickering reel,  
Each one a wave  
I can no longer feel.  

Numb to the light,  
And the glorious view,  
A break in the storm—  
Leads me to you.

By Darren Wall ©

She was a girl with oceans inside her,
waves made of dreams too fragile to hold.
But the world is indifferent —
it pulls, it drowns, it takes,
leaving salt in the wounds it never cared to see.
Her tides fought back,
rising, crashing,
begging to be enough,
until exhaustion felt like peace.
Now she floats,
not sinking,
not swimming,
just there.

Sunset kisses,
the ocean’s skin.
Orange light cradles,
in the waves' arms.
And the sky’s darkness,
finds a home,
in the ocean's heart.

I stood by the shore,
Watching the waves pass through,
feeling its currents go against my feet.
The force was strong.
The water was cold.
My toes gripped firmly to the sand.
I could not move forward.
I did not want to move forward.
If it's this much here,
it must be worse there.
Little did I know that,
what lies ahead is better.
For as you go deeper,
water embraces more of your parts--
your body adapts to its temperature.
And there, the waves once so intimidating are calm.

I am here waiting for you
on the soft white sand of father's beach
and in open water, you float
thrashed by the waves

Do you remember your promise
on that fated early morning?
Whipped and judge by the Manta ray
to remember this in the light of day.

of the molecules of the water they will
swim in, that flow by my citybounded
abode in a tidal estuary
heading fir dispersal and aspersions
into the Great Atlantic Ocean
which I will visit
come the spring,
and are etched yet then
within the relentless
waves of the those very same atoms, upchurning and upspitting
white foam which will
very lively likely contain
new poems, perhaps,
perhaps even,
those writ by fish
in their dreams,
for who actually knows
the original origins
of the dreams
we drink daily,
not I,
who finds them
when the wet smoke of
fog of evaporated
water
kisses my lips!

P. S. perhaps I have written poems
authored by the very same fish
you held in your grasp once upon
a time in a photo)