Category: Nahum’s Poetry

Poetry Writing Experiment (04/2026)

On By NahumIn Experimental Poetry, Nahum's PoetryLeave a comment

The other day I attempted a poetry writing experiment where I wrote some verse based off ‘random’ phrases that I had found in various sources.  Initially, I compiled a list of 40 of them but then I whittled them down to 15, which you can see below.  The statements come from a broad cross-section of sources: one sentence is from the well-known poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge; another is from the novel Robinson Crusoe.  Some are from an Australian lifestyle magazine, one is from a Christian devotional, another is from a recipe book for diabetics, and some are from the sports section of a newspaper.  The quotations that I selected are as follows:

  • Anise hyssop
  • Mistletoe bird
  • The Pyjama Federation
  • Navicular hotspot
  • Muscle twitching
  • Simmering casserole of commerce.
  • “The naked hulk alongside came”.
  • Peering into the collapsed crevasse.
  • “Today we love what tomorrow we’ll hate”.
  • “None of the bomb damage was wasted”.
  • A full account of our calamity was sent.
  • So, how are your roots doing?
  • Don’t go wasting snowstorms.
  • The perfect way to embellish corners.
  • Desert is the new black.

I molded and adapted the statements to suit the poem that I was writing and what follows is what I eventually came up with; it’s cryptic and ambiguous, but it was fun to write.  The first two stanzas sound more serious but the last was more playful, one where I was able to find a place for the words “Pyjama Federation”.  It’s 138 words in length and was written in rhyming couplets of (mostly) hendecasyllables, where each line has 11 syllables.  Enjoy.

What Makes a Sailor Strong (Poem)

On By NahumIn Ballad, Nahum's Poetry, Open FormsLeave a comment

This is a poem that I recently wrote about what makes a good sailor – and it isn’t sailing through calm waters.  It is in the form of a ballad (245 words).

*

Through quiet pools and constant breeze

All travellers wish to ride;

Their ships upon such highways might

So calmly surf the tides.

From A to B they wish to have

A smooth and gentle glide.

*

Yet easy rides devoid of squall

Make not the sailor strong;

He must, I say, be worth his salt

When all the plans go wrong

And give survival quite the tale

Enough to sing a song.

*

Upon his weather-beaten cheeks

Are wrinkles scarred by sun;

His calloused hands deformed by rope

Prove battles lost and won

When ship and soul and cargo all

Were drowned alike as one.

*

Along the decks, amid the gales,

He’d drop his knees in prayer

As panic crashing down in waves

Becomes his only care,

When sturdy craft, dashed hard on rock,

Needs overnight repairs.

*

His brine-stained lips might crack a smile;

His voice would strain a sound

For that survivor had become

The sum of his surrounds

Who’d passed through fields awash with death

Past harbours, reefs, and sounds.

*

You’d sit and listen to his grunts

Of what he’d gained and lost

Against the tempests of the deep

Where strength was ground and tossed

For he had passed through hell itself

In heat and thirst and frost.

*

And at that time you’d see just that

You’d just the man to steer

You through the flummox and the flow

Of all your hidden fears,

That man who’d shed behind that face

So many lonely tears.

*

© All rights reserved.  Nahum H. Sennitt 2025.