The Coconut Muse

Category: Poetry

  • Sailing Toward the Grey

    Sailing Toward the Grey

    A whisper in the canvas, a heave in the hull, The sea is a sermon, steady and dull.

    Skies wear the weight of a world not yet cried, While mountains brood silent, with secrets to hide.

    The sailboat leans like a tired old prayer, Carving through waters too cold to care.

    No sun to beckon, no stars to steer, just wind and will, and a slight tug of fear.

    But oh, what grace in the grief of the tide, In the lean of the mast, in the moments we ride.

    For sometimes the beauty is born in the strain, In chasing the light through the marrow of rain.

    We are all this vessel, with compass and doubt, Sailing toward answers the storms won’t give out.

    And yet we go onward, heart beating through gray.

    For peace isn’t port… it’s the courage to stay.

    So bend with the weather, and ride with the ache, There’s glory in drifting, and pride in the wake.

    Let the winds howl and the heavens weep blue,

    For the sea knows your name… and she’s pulling you through.

    The Coconut Muse

  • Where The Quiet Lives

    Where The Quiet Lives

    In a world that spins too fast,
    where headlines scream and time slips past,
    there is a sacred kind of grace
    the stillness found in your own space.

    Not silence, but a deeper tone,
    the voice that hums when you’re alone,
    when morning light paints soft your skin,
    and all the noise is drawn within.

    Find it in the steam of tea,
    in dogs that dream beside your knee,
    in songs that stir your soul to tears,
    in laughter echoing through years.

    Hold tightly to your fragments, bright
    the scent of rain, the stars at night,
    the way your body sways to sound,
    the joy in simply being found.

    You are not made to chase the storm,
    to burn until you lose your form.
    You are the ember, not the flame,
    the garden that will bloom again.

    So celebrate your peace, your pace,
    the smile that warms your weary face.
    For in this wild and fleeting place,
    your joy is not a shame, but grace.

    Let the world roar. Let shadows creep.
    You’ve earned the right to laugh, to sleep,
    to dance, to dream, to softly be
    a universe at last set free.

    The poem explores the vital importance of inner peace and joyful self-connection in a world that is often loud, demanding, and overwhelming. It gently urges the reader to seek refuge in the ordinary moments that bring happiness and to view those moments not as indulgent escapes, but as necessary, powerful acts of self-preservation and authenticity.

    Stanza-by-Stanza Analysis

    Stanza 1

    In a world that spins too fast,
    where headlines scream and time slips past,
    there is a sacred kind of grace
    the stillness found in your own space.

    This opening sets the tone: the world is chaotic and relentless. Yet within that chaos, the poem suggests there exists a “sacred grace”, a kind of salvation found not externally, but internally, in stillness and solitude. It hints at mindfulness and the importance of carving out mental or emotional sanctuary.

    Stanza 2

    Not silence, but a deeper tone,
    the voice that hums when you’re alone,
    when morning light paints soft your skin,
    and all the noise is drawn within.

    Here, peace is redefined, not as mere absence of noise, but as a resonance, a hum that lives within. The stanza paints serenity as something that’s both gentle and powerful. The imagery of morning light is symbolic of renewal and clarity.

    Stanza 3

    Find it in the steam of tea,
    in dogs that dream beside your knee,
    in songs that stir your soul to tears,
    in laughter echoing through years.

    This stanza brings the abstract into the tangible. It names the small joys of everyday life, simple, sensory, and deeply personal. It asserts that peace can be found in these grounding moments of comfort and emotional connection.

    Stanza 4

    Hold tightly to your fragments, bright
    the scent of rain, the stars at night,
    the way your body sways to sound,
    the joy in simply being found.

    This continues the celebration of small joys and encourages the reader to claim and protect their happiness. “Fragments” acknowledges that these joys may seem small or scattered, but they’re bright, meaningful, and worth holding onto. The stanza also affirms the healing power of being seen or accepted.

    Stanza 5

    You are not made to chase the storm,
    to burn until you lose your form.
    You are the ember, not the flame,
    the garden that will bloom again.

    This stanza is a powerful reminder of our natural rhythms and limits. It challenges the cultural glorification of burnout and relentless striving (“chase the storm,” “burn until you lose your form”) and instead suggests a more sustainable, nurturing metaphor: the ember, which endures; the garden, which regenerates.

    Stanza 6

    So celebrate your peace, your pace,
    the smile that warms your weary face.
    For in this wild and fleeting place,
    your joy is not a shame, but grace.

    The reader is now encouraged to honor their own pace and find dignity in happiness. The poem pushes back against guilt or shame for choosing joy, particularly in a chaotic world, and reframes it as an act of grace and strength.

    Stanza 7

    Let the world roar. Let shadows creep.
    You’ve earned the right to laugh, to sleep,
    to dance, to dream, to softly be
    a universe at last set free.

    The closing stanza is a declaration of freedom. It concedes that the world will remain tumultuous (“Let the world roar”), but the reader’s response can be radically different: rest, play, existence without pressure. The phrase “a universe at last set free” ties it all together, suggesting that when we find our inner peace, we unlock our truest self.

    Final Reflection

    This poem is a compassionate invitation to slow down, cherish joy, and reclaim personal peace as a form of resistance and renewal. It validates the reader’s need for space, ease, and emotional richness in a demanding world, and makes clear that choosing happiness is not weakness or avoidance, but a sacred and powerful act of being.

  • Where Heaven Meets the Shore

    Where Heaven Meets the Shore

    I went down to the edge of the sea,
    where the world hushes and the sky kneels low
    not seeking answers, only stillness.
    But there, amid the rhythm of the waves,
    I found a voice too ancient to name.

    Each wave spoke in psalms,
    not of thunder, but of grace
    rolling forward with the patience of eternity,
    retreating like a whispered prayer
    too sacred to stay upon the tongue.

    The ocean did not preach.
    It pulsed with divinity.
    In its vast, breathing expanse,
    I felt the sigh of a presence
    that needed no altar, only awe.

    And the sand
    O, the sand
    a billion tiny miracles beneath my feet,
    each grain a story sculpted by time,
    each a universe cradled in silence.
    Not forgotten, but known.

    There, where seafoam kisses skin
    and salt baptizes the soul,
    I saw no burning bush, no thunderclap,
    only the gentle insistence
    that God is not far, but folded
    into the folds of tide and shell,
    present in the shimmer,
    and the hush.

    To find the holy,
    one need not look up,
    but down
    to the gleam of a single shell,
    to the hush between the waves,
    to the miracle in every grain of sand.

  • With Your Own Eyes

    With Your Own Eyes

    There comes a time, quiet, slow…
    when the noise of the world no longer stirs you,
    when the chase loses its thrill,
    and you begin to wonder
    what it really means
    to be alive.

    Not to exist.
    Not to survive.
    But to live.
    Fully.
    Fiercely.
    With wonder burning behind your eyes.

    Because peace…
    real peace
    isn’t handed down like a gift.
    It’s carved,
    soul-first,
    from chaos.
    From heartbreak and stillness,
    from standing in the middle of life’s storm
    and choosing to plant your feet anyway.

    You will not find it in the noise,
    nor in the glitter of what others call success.
    Peace is not a destination
    it is a reclamation.
    It is the moment you stop asking the world
    who you should be
    and start remembering
    who you already are.

    To see the beauty of this world
    is to choose to see it
    with your own eyes.
    Not through the lens of fear,
    not from behind the filters of doubt,
    but raw and awake.
    The sunrise doesn’t care if you’re ready.
    It rises anyway, bold, magnificent.
    So must you.

    Go climb the mountain.
    Not to conquer it,
    but to let it whisper its ancient truths into your bones.
    Let the ocean remind you
    that surrender can still be strength.
    Breathe in the scent of rain on warm earth.
    Let stars make you feel small
    so you remember how vast your soul can be.

    You were not born to rush,
    to break,
    to bury your light beneath routine.
    You were born to witness.
    To love.
    To feel.
    To heal.
    To stand still long enough
    that the world can speak to you again.

    And when it does
    when your heart is quiet enough to hear it
    you will know:
    peace was never far.
    It lived within you,
    waiting for the moment
    you opened your eyes
    and chose to truly see.

  • Everything I Lost, I Found by the Sea

    Everything I Lost, I Found by the Sea

    It began with footprints… mine, then gone.
    Washed away by a tide that seemed to know
    how to take what I never meant to give.

    The sea, wide-eyed and glistening,
    offered no apology, only silence
    and the hush of waves pulling secrets
    into the folds of its ancient skirt.

    I had come here hollow,
    salt-stung with a loneliness I couldn’t name,
    looking for something I thought I’d never find again:
    a smile I used to wear without effort,
    a hope I had buried beneath too many goodbyes.

    But the beach,
    that quiet witness to the coming and going of everything,
    knew better than I did.

    It placed small miracles at my feet
    a shell shaped like a heart,
    the warm kiss of wind on my cheek,
    laughter from children I’d never met
    but who reminded me how joy sounds.

    Then, you.

    Not like a rescue,
    but like a returning.
    Like a part of me walking back from the sea,
    holding out its hand and saying:
    “Here. You forgot this.”

    And in your eyes
    the soft blue of low tide
    I saw it all:
    the trust I lost,
    the fire I dimmed,
    the love I feared I’d never be worthy of again.

    So now I know.
    The beach doesn’t just take.
    It keeps things safe until we are ready
    to see,
    to feel,
    to begin again.

    And in its shimmering honesty,
    I found everything
    I had once believed
    was gone.

  • Whispers in The Whelk Shell

    Whispers in The Whelk Shell

    Press your ear to the curling cathedral of the sea
    a whelk shell, spiraled like time wound tight
    in the palm of your hand.

    Inside, it sings.

    Not merely the hush of ocean breath,
    but a symphony of forgotten tongues,
    laced with tide-born secrets
    and lullabies the moon once hummed
    to sleeping mermaids.

    There are voices there
    not loud, but layered.
    A queen’s lament in coral dialect,
    a sailor’s prayer trapped in brine,
    the laughter of children carved from salt wind
    and the sighs of lovers
    who kissed in storms
    and vanished with the foam.

    The shell remembers.
    It remembers sirens and sea gods,
    the bell of sunken ships,
    the beat of a kraken’s pulse beneath the deep.
    Every spiral is a hallway
    where echoes wander barefoot,
    never aging, never ending.

    It is a conch of dreams,
    a theater of phantom tides,
    where time does not tick but swells
    each sound a shimmer,
    each note a net
    catching the impossible.

    Hold it longer.
    Listen deeper.
    The ocean does not speak in waves alone.
    Inside this whelk,
    you hear eternity rehearsing its lines
    softly, endlessly,
    for those who dare to listen.

  • A Life Well-Lived: In Memory of Jimmy Buffett

    A Life Well-Lived: In Memory of Jimmy Buffett

    He sang of islands he’d yet to see,

    Salt-air dreams born miles from sea.

    From sandy bars to harbor lights,

    He charted stars on sleepless nights.

    With chords as soft as ocean spray,

    He painted worlds where palm trees sway.

    Through lyric tides and gentle waves,

    He gifted peace our spirits crave.

    We gathered close beneath his sails,

    A family built from pirate tales.

    Parrotheads dancing hand in hand,

    Anchored hearts in shifting sand.

    He showed us life, slow-paced and free,

    A compass set to harmony.

    Lessons found in carefree rhymes,

    Treasures hidden in simple times.

    And one soul, raised on inland streams,

    Caught wind of Jimmy’s island dreams.

    Imagined harbors far and wide,

    With Buffett as his faithful guide.

    No longer bound by shore or map,

    He found the keys in straw-hat chap.

    Philosophy of tropic ease,

    Where joy rides steady on the breeze.

    Though Jimmy’s sailed beyond our sight,

    His songs still glow in evening’s light.

    A lasting toast, a smiling moon,

    His voice still calls a gentle tune.

    So raise your glass, remember well,

    The laughter, love, and tales he’d tell.

    A Buffett life, a life well-lived,

    In endless waves of joy he gives.

  • Sunlight is Good for the Soul

    Sunlight is Good for the Soul

    There is an alchemy in sunlight, sand, and salt water that no laboratory could ever bottle, no poet could fully distill, yet the soul knows it intimately, like a lover’s whisper remembered in dreams. When the sun kisses bare skin, it is more than warmth, it is an invocation, a golden baptism that seeps into marrow and muscle, coaxing tension to melt, shadow to recede. Its light does not merely illuminate, it awakens. It stretches across the body in languid strokes, softening the edges of thought, reminding us we are vessels of warmth, of radiance, of life itself.

    Beneath the feet, the sand welcomes with tender heat, a thousand tiny grains pressing against skin like ancient storytellers murmuring secrets from millennia past. It is soft, yet yielding, comforting yet wild, shifting beneath each step like the delicate play of memory. The sand does not resist, it receives. It sifts through fingers and clings to thighs, tracing the contours of desire, of freedom, of utter, unrepentant presence. To walk upon it is to remember the body’s deep yearning for earth, for grounding, for sensual contact with the pulse of the planet.

    And then, there is the ocean, mysterious and magnetic, her breath salty and seductive, her voice a lullaby woven with thunder and sighs. She pulls at something ancient within us, something primal and unrefined. The salt water cradles the body not as a stranger, but as a mother, buoyant and bracing, alive with memory and mineral. She cleanses in ways unseen: rinsing the skin, yes, but also the spirit. Each wave is a benediction, each plunge a release. She takes your worry, your sorrow, your sharpest edges, and returns you softened, newborn in salt and sun and sensual surrender.

    Together, sunlight, sand, and salt water form a holy trinity of healing,a ritual not practiced, but lived. They do not ask you to be better, only to be bare. To be kissed by heat, held by earth, rocked by tide. They are not cure, but communion. And in their presence, the soul does not simply recover. It rejoices. It glows. It remembers it was never meant to be confined, but to shimmer, to stretch, to sway in the sacred rhythm of the sea.

    Sunlight spills like honeyed breath,
    a golden hush on skin laid bare
    each ray a finger, slow and warm,
    unraveling the weight of care.
    It kisses shoulders, soft and long,
    draws sighs from marrow, deep and low;
    its touch a song the body knows,
    from lifetimes bathed in amber glow.

    The sand receives with open palms,
    a thousand grains in whispered prayer,
    each step a hymn, each shift a vow,
    to ground the heart, to hold it there.
    It clings and slips and wraps around,
    like time itself between the toes,
    reminding us, in hush and hush,
    how deeply rooted freedom grows.

    And salt, the sacred ocean’s breath
    she calls with lips of foaming tide,
    her water cool, her pull immense,
    a pulse that throbs from deep inside.
    She takes the ache, the edge, the lie,
    and gives back salt and skin and truth,
    a baptism in rolling waves,
    a mother’s kiss, a lover’s proof.

    So let me lie where all things meet
    where sun ignites, and sand forgives,
    where saltwater sways the soul to sleep,
    and everything forgotten… lives.