"Aye Ye Matey, Windward's the Name": A Collection of Poetic Short Stories

Aye Ye Matey, Windward’s the Name

A Collection of Poetic Short Stories

T.W. Sanford

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© 2011 by T.W. Sanford. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 06/06/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0585-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0586-1 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0609-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011907774

Printed in the United States of America

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About the Author

T.W. Sanford was born in Conroe, Texas with family in East Texas including two brothers and a sister. He has a love for the outdoors, sports of all kinds and a deep appreciation of art and music. He has been married to his loving wife for over 45 years and counting. His artistic flare is shown in his poetic pieces, his love of music and his artwork.

Contents

"Aye Ye Matey,

Windward’s the Name"

Treasures In An Old Attic

A Setting By The Sea

When I Get Big

Wooden Boats

My First Tall Ship

This, My Ship of War

Her Name is Anne

When I Come to You

Windward’s the Name

Papa Said

Kind James

Racing With the Madness

Stones and Boulders

Tainted Rum

Unknown Writing Hand

The Ship’s Hour-Glass

Captain Windward’s Address: This Ocean… She

A Sailor’s Sunset

Captain Left Ashore

Billy’s Being Mean

Cobblestone Ground

Ocean Play

Cold Silence

To My Son

The Will

The Windward Epitaph

The Littleton Evening Gazette

The Littleton School Reporter

Nature Sounds

Aspen

Amber Sunrise

Asphalt Trail

Balloons

A Summer’s Day at Bierstat Lake

Children Who Play Among the Flowers

Crossing the Street

Liquid Mirror

Marked Night

The Morning Tarn

A Little Mountain Cloud

Small Mountain Lakes

Mystery Face

Nirvana’s Gate

On My Way to Mountain Top

Little Otters And Dolphins And Butterfly Wings

Partake of the Sky

Rainbow Bridges

Rainbow Drops

Red Clay Earth

Red Clay Earth II

Scar Across an Uneasy Sky

Upon this Boulder

Amid the White Bark Trees

Man Talk

Man Talk

Adversary

Amber Sunrise

Ancient Men

Aroma Amour

Baby Christina

Beyond Belief

Big Bugs That Buzz

Billy Joe Bob

Black Hunter

Boogie-Boardin’-Wife

Broken Wings

My New Cellular World

My Christmas Tree

Cool Dude Just in Front

Daisies and Buttercups

Days of My Heroes

Dogma

Dominion Over All

Door Knockers

Dyslexia

Ear To Appreciate

Express-Lane of The Insane

First of His Kind

Flowered Graves

Foreign Cars

My Wife and Her Fountain of Life

This Fragment Of Time

Pocket Park 2 on Galveston Shore

Garbage Drive

Golfer in the Mist

Governmental Crock

The Heel-Spur Tale… Almost A True Story

High Beam Rider

High Man

House Gone Awry

I Never Heard The Thunder

The Ice Princess

Ingrown Big-Toe Nails

The Joyful Toy

Just Enough To Be Dangerous

Justa’ Mighta’ Been

Lady

Life’s Greasy-Slick Highway

Little Bird In A Cage

Lotto Man

Lumpy Glob

Majority

Mark And Cleo The Pair

More Than Twice

The Most Ghastly Thing

Mr. People-Watcher

My Dying Player

Not a Fairy Tale

Not My Day

Old Man In The Store

Out Upon The Jetty

The Pallbearer’s Prayer

Plastic Buckets

Point Of View

Life’s Procession

Progression

Right

Rock-n-Roll For Jesus

Runners

This Sad Place

Say Good-bye

A Small Child’s Plate

Sometimes

‘OOPS’

Swinging Doors

There Was A Hand

To Be King

White Whales, Fast Cars, and Full Sails

Who I Am

My Uncle Willard And The Clown

Mr. Willard Fortune’s Auto

My Winter Observations

Wood-Peckers

Work

Wrong Days Off

Yesterday’s Storm

Oak Philosophy

Oak Philosophy

An Angel For Her Grave

Angel of Tears

The Grieving Angel

Artist

Awakening of the Vessel

Classical Guitar

De-javu

Death’s Door

Death’s Floor

Dooms Day Resolve

Dying Verses

Eternity’s Child

Flaw

Fly on a Silver Bird

Gift

It’s More than Ink that Must Flow

The Inner Sound of Leaving

It is What it Is

Just a Tree

The Key to Evermore

This Leo

Little Black Bird

Magic Stick

Magical Time

Man and Mirror

Melancholy

Most Complex of All

My Guitar

No Time for Make-Believe

Odd Night Dreams

Odd

Opening

Passageway

Past Life Regress

Perfection

Phantom Bird

The Planet Eden

The Poet’s Dance

Rainy Days

Rope Tied Rings

Run Playful Run

Seasons

Serenity

No Spiraling Earth

Things that Break

To Be

Tomorrow

Unpolished Crude

When the Sleep Comes

Willow

Windshields (Having to do with Life)

Within My Tablet

Within the Calmness

A Wizard’s Call

My Wooden Box

Ye Seer

Garden Wall

Garden Wall

An Old Dog’s Tail

Little Angels with Stick-on Stickers

Autumn of Youth

Black Satin Dress

Brew of Desire

I Remember That Bridge

Calendar Angel

Candy McKinney Age Twelve

Sunshine Girl

Carlson’s Wedding Toast

The Carlson’s Affair

Dancing with the Doves

Echoes Submission

Echoes have wings

The Enchantress

For Karen’s (My Lady’s) Eyes Only

Garden Wedding

My Haunting

Her Eyes

How Could I

I Stole A Rose

If We Were Not Strangers

Joe Bob and Thelma Sue

Just How Pretty Can My Karen Be

A Small Angel With Ribbons

Little Blue Dress

The Lovers’ Season

Loving Games

Loving Playful Games

The Marble Pedestal

My Christmas Girl

My Love She Is

My Summer Lass

An Ocean’s Breeze

Once Upon A Time

One Cup

The Pillowcase

A Pocket Full of Twos

Porch Lights

Sharing of The Candle

Sidewalk Chalk

Skip Two Three

Sphere of Candle Glow

Spinning Little Green Globe

Star Bright

Strike the Match

Sunday

Tee and Karen San

A Sailor’s Letter Home

Thelma Sue’s Dress

This Man’s Perplexity

Totally One

The Wind’s Favor

Without Care

There is a Woman In the Water

Zinfandel Wine

Uncle Ted,

For all of the inspiring conversations,

The thought-provoking philosophies,

For all of the gifts of art and poetry,

All of the hugs, the love and the pride you have bestowed upon me without limit, boundaries or expectation.

With all of the love I cannot express…

the Fewmet, the niece, Candy

 "Aye Ye Matey,

Windward’s the Name"

Treasures In An Old Attic

It was summer vacation

And I was spending it at the ocean

At my family’s cliff-side home

And I was thoroughly enjoying the solitude

Of my being there all alone

The cliff-side house is the house

That was built by my great great grandfather

Few come here anymore

It needs some tending

But still a beautiful here upon the shore

The days had all been warm and sunny

The rhythmic waves never varied

From their constant washing of the shore

Sea gulls squawked their always complaints

Always heard above the ocean’s roar

Soon there came a day

Unlike the days as before

There came from out of the ocean

An early morning summer storm

An awakening lightning struck near the lighthouse

Huge waves crashed against the boulders

The wind and the rain and the crashing salty water

Made it all somewhat colder

This would be a day spent inside the old house

So I set myself to explore

And it was soon that I found myself

Standing at the top of the stairs

Opening the attic-way door

With a lighted candle

I entered the dark filled room

And every so often a lightning bolt

Would flash through the window

Creating the eeriest loom

Although dark and foreboding one would assume

I felt no fear… Not even the slightest sense of doom

I felt as a child-explorer on some adventurous park ride

An Egyptian lost tomb

What unknown treasures lay inside

There were treasures everywhere

There was an old diving-bell helmet

Made of copper and brass

With little round windows

Made of the thickest glass

An old set of English teacups with pot

I found newspaper wrapped

And so carefully boxed

An angled piece of polished wood

I found just lying about

A down-under boomerang

Without a doubt

An African shield with spear and mask

A hula dress

Made of long dried grass

All about me were strewn

My great great grandfather’s treasures

A man I never knew

And then… There in a dimly lit corner

Behind a painted oriental screen

The light hit it just right

From my little candle’s beam

An old sea chest

Filled with… Yet

Even more unknown wonderful things

There as I moved the decorative screen away

The sun came through the window glass

In a warm burst of rays

Quickly gone was the storm

That had set my adventurous day

I pulled the chest near to the window

Setting free the cob-webs and dust

Hinges and hasp all trimmed in brass… No rust

It was mine to open

And to know what lay inside… Was a must

The hasp was closed but not locked

So I slowly lifted open its top

And there in the light

As though on a spot-lighted stage

All alit were the treasures

That the old chest contained

There to the left

Among some charts and maps

All tooled in gold

Lay a Sea Captain’s hat

There to the right

Tucked down way in

A half hour glass

Still dry was its sand

Near the back

A shiny brass telescoping glass

And there in the front of the chest

A large compass pointing west

And beneath it all

I found a Captain’s uniform

All decorated with medals

Of shinning silver and gold

Here I had found a mystery

One that my family never told

It came to my mind

That maybe even they didn’t know

I sat the telescope

The sand time glass and the compass

Each on the floor

Carefully I removed

The Captain’s dress uniform

Perfect was the condition of its fabric

I noticed there were no moth eaten holes

For the chest was cedar wood lined

Everything about this old sea chest

Was of the finest quality of its time

When I removed the uniform

I uncovered a huge book

All brass and leather bound

Oh… What mystical treasure had I found

How old could it be

This huge tome

How many years had this book been here

Unread… Alone

I pulled it from the chest

Its long time darken grave

I removed it from its dormant rest

No telling how long it had laid

There I was seated on the floor

All aglow in the window’s rays

I opened its leather binder

And looked upon the elegance

Of a gold bordered page

An old family bible I had found

A book I suspected

None of the rest of my family

Even knew was around

I began leafing through the pages

One golden edged leaf at a time

It brought a kind of rush to me

This treasure… This wonderful find

The first few pages

Were intended to be for begotten names

Who begot who

And the times and the places

That all the begetting began

But a line had been drawn through

The title at the top of the page

And written in bold hand just below

Instead in its place

These Are My Children…

From God With Grace

Yes… These pages were filled

And I had never heard of

Any of the names

There was always the hint

That there was a Captain

And he was a little somewhat strange

I continued with what was now a quest

Turning the pages of the huge tome

Soon I turned to an inserted loose paper

Hand written… Just stuck in alone

The paper was signed by a lad named John

It told about how he wanted to be just like his Papa

And how proud he was to be his Papa’s son

It was a delightful paper that I read

It told about dreams

That a lot of little boys once had

It was a wonderful find

Those old thoughts… Written back in that time

And at the bottom paper… John Windward signed

Queried became my thoughts

Oh but… What other delightful morsels might I find

There I was seated cross-legged upon the floor

Still all alit by the window’s rays

I did not remove that paper… I just left it there

For I felt it was somehow a part of the book

And it needed to stay

The surprise of the unbound paper find

Seemed to quicken my play

It all felt like I was seated upon

And now a part of

A leather-bound…

Etched and bordered in gold…

Kindly shanghaied… Lured onto…

An old Captain’s stage

Leaf after holy leaf I turned

Being so very careful with everyone

Excited with each

In what might be yet to come

Many unbound papers I found placed therein

There I took the day and read each one

There I got to know

An old Sea Dog named John

I have reproduced those old papers

And placed a copy of each herein

So if you have a mind to

Here inside you might find

Someone who long ago

You would have called a friend

"Aye Ye Matey,

Windward’s The Name"

A Setting By The Sea

Here before you is unveiled

The life of a once small lad

He who had the dream to grow

To be the same as his dad

Made of gold were the waves in his hair

An ocean of blue-green were his eyes

A good little boy

Born with dreams

Filled with pride

A little toy wooden boat

Carefully tied

Secured by a string

Each evening by the ocean’s edge

He with his older brother

Always that little boat

The little boy would bring

His mother and father

Were taken away by a typhoon

To know the emotions of such

Came far too early… Much too soon

Karmic fate descends upon a spiral

And upon life it can prevail

Upon these found papers

There is a spiral

And oh so fated is the tale

When I Get Big

He set the course of his life

By the stars in the sky

He was a ship’s Captain

Ocean-blue-green

Were my Papa’s eyes

I remember his face

I remember being at his side

I feel I knew him well

And I have recalled them all

Everyone of his wonderful tales

And I have retold them all

Each and everyone

Ever since I was very young

"My Papa is a Captain

The Captain of a tall sail rig

I’ll gonna be just like my Papa

When I grow up and be big

There’ll be no string

Tied to my stern

I’m gonna be free to see the