“ Men of The Sea ” – obdurate beings –

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“ Men of The Sea ”

                  – obdurate beings –

On steel hull ships

In days of old,

Sail hardened men

The story told,

Of rusty hearts

And tempers short,

Whose tired grunts

Would find exhort,

Spoke fitful streams

Of words bone thin…

With guarded eyes  

And gnarled limbs,

They navigate

The lonely seas,

From dust to dawn

To burn or freeze,

Despite their brawn

Will find to cower,

As Lucifer spawns

Upon their superstitions…

In life replete

With boding myths,

And nightly demons

Who so disrupt,

The tattered dreams

Said heard compose,

The damning screams

Of obdurate beings,

That be men of the sea!  

                                  © Jean-Jacques Fournier                                               

                              written in Vence, Fr                                                                                         

.                                            January 20, 2002      

 Painting, Brager, by Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand                             

“ Finding One’s Legs ” ~ for walking you have left ~

You’d expect legs,

Knowing they be

More than we see

Do what one begs,

From beyond when

You knew not then,

Legs meant to carry

Shortly thereafter

We had been born,

Till body falters

Without we’d known

Legs made of bone,

Rust in wearing flesh

Yet hold their own,

Destined to walk

Or stand alone,

In just such stead,

Save loosing legs

Least not till we be dead,

Thus find no reason

To lament or beg,

Save fate chose compose

You won’t last the load,

Tho you want them back

Means to find one’s legs,

Be now cane, stick or peg

For the walking you have left!

                                                            ode to the pleasures of aging,

                                                                   and the friends who’ve arrived.

“ The Sum Of Me ” ~ plus flesh and bone ~

 

It be but flesh

And bone

This body

I have owned,

Since abandoning

The womb,

But until now

The sum of me

Was but life form,

In a world not flown…

 

As time gave shape

To fasten so within

Contours of my fate,

Wisdom took its place

Apposite to its state,

To have mind thrive

Should I by then survive

And so to cast about,

Tho if to grow alone

Would then want rest,

With not a heart of stone

Within my aging bones,

Alas with but the sum of me!