Giving words license to dance on the waves
There are a lot of grand fish tales in this month's collection of Cape Cod Times poetry winners. Some of the poems are about boating, but still …
Most importantly, these are memories of a place and what it means. And that sense of place is something that draws so many to this peninsula.
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Ryan Munnelly is a Nantucket native living in Falmouth, a fisheries ecologist, and an outdoorsman.
Poem inspiration: This poem is dedicated to the memory of my graduate mentor and fishing buddy, Edward J. Chesney. The ocean provides livelihoods for watermen of many industries and an affirming sense of local food security, source of recreation, and wonderment for coastal communities and visitors. The events described were experienced while living between Southern Louisiana and Florida’s Gulf Coast and reflect cultural commonality with Cape Cod
There Are a Lot of Ways to Boat
By Ryan Munnelly
I.
The morning of the opening
of the inshore shrimping season
began as a grand-prix of ramshackle vessels
maneuvering through the shallow marshes.
On the shore it was a county-fair spectacle
as onlookers cast out amidst
the twilight glare
of bug fires glowing in the sunrise.
Gradually the captains found a harmony
and fixed their distance from one another
at every twist and turn,
as onlookers mouthed the names off every stern.
II.
The weekend was a long one.
A ‘three-dayer’ on the cusp of summer.
One to savor.
One to slobber.
They fetched the ‘Viking’
from the boat yard,
and embarked upon
their first voyage of the season.
It was a nearshore excursion
in a 41’ sleeper cabin yacht.
They circled the town pier,
and cruised the beach while crushing beers.
III.
The ‘Sea Frog’ would be its name.
Now all they needed was an engine.
Calling every shop for miles around
they finally found one.
The trailer, well, it held together,
and they got it on the water.
The rivets only vaguely leaked,
and that engine even started.
At the head of the pass were the remains of an old lighthouse
where the old man had said to take a cast.
And just as they’d had their fill of hardhead cats,
the water churned with breaching redfish.
***
Brian Pilling is a retired architect and published poet living in Sagamore Beach.
Inspiration: We are surrounded by oyster beds on Cape Cod. We understand the delicate ecology required to sustain them. The poem is an ode to our natural environment, the holy creations we give too little thought, mistreat. In "Misfortunes," we see the mindless consumer. We reflect on the ecosystem of materialism. Perhaps we can see the workers who we give too little thought, or misuse.
Misfortunes
By Brian Pilling
Discarded oyster shells,
vacated basilicas
irregular and broken,
pried open and shucked.
These empty sanctuaries
are forever scarred,
their opulent pearls lost
beneath roiling waves.
Miles away, naked bathers
hold tight to porcelain
and mermaid’s tales,
as they bathe themselves.
With frantic distractions,
they give no thought
to the creature cast-away
from his diocese.
They only see the sluggard
as a reflection appearing
in spit-shined wingtips,
as a faceless grotesque.
They watch his protruding
and bony Adam’s apple
as it moves up and down,
as if forecasting the markets.
***
DJ Foley is a wash-ashore who loves poetry and finds there is no shortage on Cape Cod
Inspiration: Decorating for Christmas every year, I brought out a wind-up snow globe featuring a tree with toys and playing "O Tannenbaum." It made me smile and set the mood. One year I unwrapped it to find it broken. Since then, I mourn its loss and look for another in thrift shops and Christmas displays. I have never seen one I like as well, probably because I have perfected it in my mind’s eye. As such, I remain snow globeless.
SNOW GLOBE
By DJ Foley
Arms reach the sky
Face upturned
Red mittens
Knitted cap
Because of her
The snow is dreaming
Freezing her within the globe
Swirls streaming
Capturing the feeling
Forever in time
Lost in the moment
Telling the story
In one view
Only to end
And, then,
Shaken again
***
Jim Barker lives in South Yarmouth and is a member of the Rising Tide Writers.
Inspiration: The inspiration for my poem, “The Angler’s Tale,” came after reading an old edition of "The Canterbury Tales" that I found in my parents’ basement. Though I’d read the work previously, and being also a fisherman, I noticed that there was not one fisher among the journeymen and wrote my own (newspaper friendly) version for the pilgrim that Chaucer forgot.
Prologue to the Tale
By Jim Barker
Our Host checked his hourglass, glanced to the west, the gold orb was setting, for time they were pressed.
“Pray quick with your yarn you old fisher of men, regale us to wit for this day’s nigh at end.” (Canterbury Tales)
The Tale
One day in the harbor ‘twas a tug on my net.
'Til then I’d caught nothing, but was anxious to get
Whatever I’d snared o’er the side; in the hold.
I struggled a might being less young than was old.
I cursed, “Fie on thee ya’ scaly, finned brute,
You’ll not escape from this gray bearded coot.”
And struggle we did forth and back for a while.
'Til o’er the gunnel I pulled in Herculean style.
I thought, are ya’ dreamin’? when I saw on the deck
Floppin’ ‘round, closed my eyes and then opened to check.
From her waist to where her feet shoulda’ been was a fish’s tail of a silvery sheen.
And the top half of her body bade the features of a beauteous maid.
Struck dumb was I, quite unable to speak, but she commenced in a loud, high-pitch squeak,
“My father, Poseidon, is waiting for me to return from my journ to the top of the ocean.
In lieu of my freedom one wish I will grant. State thy desire, quick, quick what’s thy notion?”
“Mer-woman,” ‘gan I, “I’ve just been a-thinking,
The wish you shall grant,” I eyed her and winking,
“Is that you join this old angler in a wedded bliss.”
She asked, “To be sure, wed another ‘ll be the end of this?”
I nodded confirming my nuptial pact.
The mermaid just smiled and winked at her tact.
“Oh fisherman today you’ve just met your match.
A scheme to woo me, ye’ thought to unhatch.
The offer I made let me back ‘neath the sea,
By deceit you’d have made a kept wife of me.
But your words, which were not well thought or well said,
The wish I have granted includes not me, instead,
Since you only expressed want for someone to wed
Ashore find an espoused old wench in your bed.”
The old angler then turned to the traveling group
He sighed, sadly smirked and said to the troupe,
“The lesson I learned at the end of that day,
Don’t trifle with mermaids you catch in the bay.”
***
Miriam Riad now lives in the Greater Boston area and has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Ruminate, and elsewhere.
Inspiration: I wrote this poem thinking about the peaceful quiet of the Cape in the winter, some of my favorite memories of Cape winters, and the things that I look forward to every time I return home.
Where I’m From
By Miriam Riad
Where I come from, the winters
Are quiet, very quiet
Like the deer and her fawn
We used to wave to, in awe,
As they tiptoed through our wooded yard.
Where I’m from, everyone lives
A quick drive to the beach,
And sunsets stretch themselves out
Across the sky, like a devoted mother, after a long day
Ready for sleep.
Where I come from, life revolves around
Summer, and we look to late April,
Early May, for the OPEN signs to appear
Outside our favorite ice cream shops
And seafood shacks, boarded up since October.
We roll our eyes and groan at the tourists
Who double our traffic, disrupt our quiet.
We wait till evening to go to the beach.
Peterson’s, my favorite grocery store, has the best
Chocolate chip cookies.
And Albert, who has known me since
Elementary school, works there still, always smiling.
Where I come from, even the woods
Can smell like the sea. Sand lines every car floor
And mud room and shoe, all year long.
The cranberry bogs, where we used to ice skate in winter
Playing tic tac toe in the snow coating the ice
Are now all overgrown.
Weeds crowd each other where we used to spend
Our January afternoons,
All wet and frozen and delighted.
Where I come from, it’s hard to go far
Without bumping into a familiar face.
The waves always return to the shore, right?
The Cape has a way of keeping you.
***
OC Phillips is a poet in Hyannis.
Inspiration: I love walking the sands of Veterans Beach. Looking back, past travels, as Zweibrucken, Germany, down East Main and various other beaches, recall the rain against my window in Germany as well as sounds hitting sidewalks, God sent, and it all pours down on Cape Cod, wherever we are, can link us to home. The same waves that also whips the sand that it throws gently.
The Sun and the Sea
By OC Phillips
Round the house on the Strassa
The wind whips and beats,
I am far from the home
Where Strassas are Streets.
But the rain that beats down
On the sidewalks and sod,
It’s the same that the heavens
Pour down on Cape Cod.
When the sun through these windows sends golden light,
It’s the same sun we watched sink,
In the harbor at night
This ocean who’s waves ripple over toes,
On some beach on the Cape whips the sand in its throes,
This world that stretches over land and sea,
is linked together by ties far stronger than we.
The sun and the raindrops
The waves turned to foam
Wherever we are
Can link us to home.
How to submit a poem
Here’s how to send us your work:
Submit one poem single-spaced, of 35 lines or fewer per month *
Poems cannot be previously published (in print or online).
Deadline for submission is Feb. 1, 2023.
Submit by email to cctpoetry12@gmail.com.
Poems should be free of hate speech and expletives (profanity, vulgarity, obscenity).
IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL, send your contact information: name, address, phone number and title of poem; then, IN A WORD.DOC ATTACHMENT include poem without name or any other personal info, so that the poem can be judged anonymously.
Poets not previously published in the Cape Cod Times are welcome to submit a new poem each month; those poets previously published in the Times, three months after publication.
Poets will be notified only if their poem is accepted.
Poems will be selected by a panel of readers on the Cape and Islands who are published poets and editors.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod's winning poets tackle tales of the sea
