Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Poetry Time Again
The River
Young it
leaps and dances
to its own music
over and around
all obstacles
As it grows
it settles
in stately flows
past green places
it nourishes
Nearing the sea
it goes haltingly
laying down
the burden
it has carried
for so long
in the delta
of what
might
have been
Labels: Poems
Sunday, October 26, 2014
You
In the quiet hours
The still time
When night is adamantine
And the Dawn never seems to come
I think of you
Gone
Come back ghostly
At the corner of my eye
Gone again
... and I cry
Labels: Poems
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Forsake Flanders Fields
innocents fallen from the sky
children in the hundreds kidnapped
many die because some die and vice versa
pitilessness piles on pitilessness
and now
the poppies row on row
mark only hatred
we are the dead
Labels: Poems
Thursday, July 04, 2013
Just for the Heck of It
In my humble opinion, Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill" may be the greatest poem in the English language. Here it is:
Fern Hill
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughsAbout the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,The night above the dingle starry,Time let me hail and climbGolden in the heydays of his eyes,And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple townsAnd once below a time I lordly had the trees and leavesTrail with daisies and barleyDown the rivers of the windfall light.And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barnsAbout the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,In the sun that is young once only,Time let me play and beGolden in the mercy of his means,And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calvesSang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,And the sabbath rang slowlyIn the pebbles of the holy streams.All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hayFields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was airAnd playing, lovely and wateryAnd fire green as grass.And nightly under the simple starsAs I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjarsFlying with the ricks, and the horsesFlashing into the dark.And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer whiteWith the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was allShining, it was Adam and maiden,The sky gathered againAnd the sun grew round that very day.So it must have been after the birth of the simple lightIn the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warmOut of the whinnying green stableOn to the fields of praise.And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay houseUnder the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,In the sun born over and over,I ran my heedless ways,My wishes raced through the house high hayAnd nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allowsIn all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songsBefore the children green and goldenFollow him out of grace.Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take meUp to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,In the moon that is always rising,Nor that riding to sleepI should hear him fly with the high fieldsAnd wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea.
Labels: Poems
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Vintage
The sun
the soil
yeast and vine
life and death
redolent in the wine
until the dregs
are tipped
into the glass
sweet and bitter
echoes of the past
.
Labels: Poems
Friday, September 23, 2011
Regrets
Alone
with memories
afraid of ghosts
a chill breath on the neck
a smile fled
an echo of a laugh
nothing left
would all be bearable
if we could forget
.
Labels: Poems
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Memories
.
You Left!
before you felt the pain
You Left!
before I could complain
You left!
with no need to atone
You left!
... but left me all alone!
.
You Left!
before you felt the pain
You Left!
before I could complain
You left!
with no need to atone
You left!
... but left me all alone!
.
Labels: Poems
Sunday, July 25, 2010
curiosity saves the cat
.
here on a tangled bank
reflected in ape eyes
meaning eludes us
except in facile lies
against all odds
knowledge comes
worn about the edges
and dearly dearly won
living is to learn
learning is to be alive
each the purpose
and the breath
that stopped in one
insures the other
dies
.
here on a tangled bank
reflected in ape eyes
meaning eludes us
except in facile lies
against all odds
knowledge comes
worn about the edges
and dearly dearly won
living is to learn
learning is to be alive
each the purpose
and the breath
that stopped in one
insures the other
dies
.
Labels: Poems
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Our Time
.
shoots thrown
for a season
off an ancient stock
we are an illusion
tendrils that weave the air
and take the briefest grip
to disappear
with no resolution
.
shoots thrown
for a season
off an ancient stock
we are an illusion
tendrils that weave the air
and take the briefest grip
to disappear
with no resolution
.
Labels: Poems
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Living Well
.
living is
collective art
the orchid sings
the kama sutra
to the bee
the lion tends
the zebra
and protists
harvest all
to feed it
life must shoulder
life aside
for room to grow
and chance to change
dying is a duty
.
living is
collective art
the orchid sings
the kama sutra
to the bee
the lion tends
the zebra
and protists
harvest all
to feed it
life must shoulder
life aside
for room to grow
and chance to change
dying is a duty
.
Labels: Poems
Friday, May 21, 2010
Housekeeping
.
The sun in inexorable illusion
climbs down Earth's edge to die
while night weaves ebon cobwebs
across the eastern sky
After clockwork slumber
the light returns to reach
like an old woman's broom
into remotest corners
with just the faintest sigh
.
The sun in inexorable illusion
climbs down Earth's edge to die
while night weaves ebon cobwebs
across the eastern sky
After clockwork slumber
the light returns to reach
like an old woman's broom
into remotest corners
with just the faintest sigh
.
Labels: Poems
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Warning!
.
Okay, I won an internet poetry contest with this:
Winding Sheet
by John Pieret
Cast among the ruins
entropy exists
god winds down
and we are left
pirouetting shades
even pale in twilight
passing out and in among
the echoes of our past
Each and each
in turn
in transit
cross the faded sun
until what light fails
time collapses
and the darkness
come
Between that and a certain melancholy at my wife's death, I may be inflicting my veryfew select readers with occasional original poems, such as my last post. I'd apologize but ... tough tittie ... it's my blog! And I'm pretty sure I've alienated more people with my less-than-respectful opinions than I ever can do with my bad poetry.
But forewarned is forearmed.
.
Okay, I won an internet poetry contest with this:
Winding Sheet
by John Pieret
Cast among the ruins
entropy exists
god winds down
and we are left
pirouetting shades
even pale in twilight
passing out and in among
the echoes of our past
Each and each
in turn
in transit
cross the faded sun
until what light fails
time collapses
and the darkness
come
Between that and a certain melancholy at my wife's death, I may be inflicting my very
But forewarned is forearmed.
.
Labels: Poems
Overcast
.
Like a scudding sky
the dark invades the shore
leaving merely
echoes of the light
alone
Memories brightly flash
but fade until they're gone
and only replay regrets
that in the night
resound
.
Like a scudding sky
the dark invades the shore
leaving merely
echoes of the light
alone
Memories brightly flash
but fade until they're gone
and only replay regrets
that in the night
resound
.
Labels: Poems
Friday, January 01, 2010
Requiem
Thirty-one years, ten and a half months.
More than half a lifetime.
You cannot share that much with anyone
without regrets
... things left unsaid, left undone ...
... better having not been done.
But now the air is thin.
The sun is wan.
The chill cuts closer to the bone.
Time, still rushing
... faster, faster ...
mocks us
by pretending now to slow.
Labels: Poems
