In the middle of the journey of your life
you had wandered from the straight path.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and you took both of them.
You broke on through to the other side
but came back stateside pretty often.
Being lied about, you stopped lying.
From men and women you could sometimes require
the lineaments of gratified desire.
Clouds may wander, lonely,
but you’re pretty good at finding company.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   Every Poem is a Translation

Wordsworth considered his rainbow up on high
And what he saw and felt through it, he wrote -
Translating an arc of refracted light
Into a transcendent vision of life

But his considerations through paper and ink
Are but darkness and silence without readers
Because the rainbow needs our vision, our joy
Without which there is no rainbow at all

We open the book, the page, the words, the light
To find the rainbow that he wrote to us

Like sprightly spring and autumn's boredom
We are two lovers, different from another
Cold as cold is, the old man holds a sneeze in
With war around, vulnerable people wash their sins

A snowflake sits on the roof, melting overhead
The sun shimmering, as cleansing as an ablution
Underneath two crystal gazers cover the grass
Warmth to warmth, ashen leaves and stalk

Thistle to thicket, the birch covers the sun, a gas giant
Her eyes encompass all as eagles perched atop everyone
Grey with age, blue, gelid like ice, looking for some silver
The mountains echo her eternal reflection that disturb the conifers

O! I went to the loo to do a number
    two
Only one cubicle was vacant, the rest
    they were all taken
"Looks like a full house today" I
     thought to myself
Man! I was bustin' to go
As I sat there on my throne in my
    cockpit all alone
There came this funny rumbling
    sound from down below
And then, this fearsome volley.... a  
    fantastic farting
And then, a great release
As finally I dropped my bombs with
    studious aplomb
O! what a relief !

"Man! ", I said to myself, " I must
      lay off that Aloe Vera juice
That stuff it goes right through you "
But then, something strange, from the
    cubicle right next to me
Came this other big thunderous ****
    explosion
A big fat blubbery balloony one
It sounded like a tuba gone wrong
And then! And then, another one! this
    one further down the line
This time a big bubble and squeaky
    one
And then! yet another! a funny little
    flute-ey one
Like it just squirreled out in the nick
    of  time
And then finally, another!!! a big Big
    Bellow like from some wonky
        trumpet
A real rasper, he must have thought he
    was doin' the solo
Man! It was so funny, one right after
    the other, you had to laugh
It was.... well, it was Gas !!!
Lucky no one struck a match
Or else it might have been... yea!
    Jumpin' Jack Flash !!!

It was like listening to a whole scale of
    *** notes
Such a strange symphony, these
    wondrous excursions in Sound
For a moment there, it reminded me a
     bit of Beethoven,
It was no celestial choir that's for sure
It was something altogether more dire,
Like something you'd hear in a
    farmyard byre
The animals all gathered at the trough
It was like all the bottoms were
    conversing with one another,
        having a chat
Plotting a rebellion even, an uprising,
    a coup d'etat
Against that other much more
    celebrated Opening
That much vaunted Hole in the Face,
    the Mouth!
That puffed up preening Prima Donna
    with his preposterous outpourings
His Monstrous, pompous inflated Self-
   importance
Sitting up there stuffing himself and
    forever spouting nonsense
"Sure, we do all the work down here",
  the Bottoms were saying, " and we
    talk a lot more sense as well"
They posed the question "Can a Bottom speak more Truth than a
    Mouth ?"
These defiant derrieres, these proud
    posteriors
With their proud exultations
Sticking a firm ******* up at that so-called world of respectability up
     there
That world of petrified good manners
Suffocating! Oppressing! with its
    stifling mores and traditions
Yea!....for sure, the rebel Masses, they
    were just a bunch of Bad *****.

O! the air it was blue just like Pepe Le
    Pew
I could have sworn I seen a big blue
    gaseous cloud ascending
Heading up toward the ceiling
Like a great Cloud of Unknowing
    except with a bit more foreboding
Reminded me of William Wordsworth
    & his lonely cloud a-wandering
But then I thought, did Wordsworth,
    Shelley or Keats ever write
An Ode to His **** ?
Was it too dark a side to show, too
    dark a place to go
The Dark Side of the Back Side
The Dark Side... of the Moon.

Pepe! Pepe Le Pew, that old Don Juan,
    Casanova of the old cartoons
It was then, my Love, it was then I
    thought of you
I smiled and said to myself"I know
    what I'll do
I'll blow out another sweet blue
    raspberry one just for you....
Oh yea!....that one was lovely, that one
    was true
I think that one had your name
    written on it
O!  I do".

And now as Pepe might say " Adieu! adieu!.....Sweet, sweet Adieu! ".

                       Ende

Eck Ramsay, a retired underwire manufacturer,
bought a boil in the bag cod slice at his local Spar shop.
Upon removal of its cardboard outer garments
he was surprised to find it contained a small book.
The book titled the Plaice of Cod
(a philosophical treatise on theology)
contained many essays on the ancient rites of summer,
several of which were wildly inaccurate
and a few that were accurately wild.
In the appendix there were twenty-three songs
attributed to a medieval troubadour,
who led a travelling medicine show called the Rollwrong Stones.
  
William Lancaster Blake built himself a chocolate castle
on a hollow hill and sold it to his mate Bill,
a scribbler of worthy words who wrote of the hills and lakes
and how long it takes for the ghosts of soldiers to cross the fells especially when led by centaurs.
  
Self-proclaimed king, My Other Pen drags on,
took to haranguing passers-by with tales of dancing seals
and Jewish fiddlers who wouldn’t play marriages on the Sabbath, and how the wedding guests always got ******.

Stan Tony and Drew made up the crew
which some say numbered sixty-nine
or seventy-two, but no-one could swear
how many were there especially
on the Whispering Nights……… when nothing seemed right
and the cattle lowed on their knees.
And the slightest breeze on a pewter plate
would vanish the seed that couldn’t be seen,
and dreamers would dream
of jumping through flames
that carried the names
of those who were soon to be dead.

Goats head soup
with yarrow root
was served to the guests …..whose favourite request
was Wort of Sacred Johnny,
they'd dance all night …..till the Isis light
sent the Oak root bones …..scurrying home
to the place where the days are shorter.
When the dew on the grass  …..comes to pass
and the herbs have been nailed to the doorway,
when the heron's been kissed…and all are well dressed
and the False ones only moved slightly
the cuckoos will sing. "a new day I bring"
and the treetops will shake with the dancers
the day is but done and the Knights just begun
to get a little bit longer.
   But stranger than this was the wish of the dish that had it away with the spoon. "hey.. kat play that fiddle"
And riddle me no riddle
I need to get high as the moon….
"which moon?" enquired the hare "Kieth or the very Reverent moon?"
"Oh either will do…. Their just different shoes
to the ones I'm currently wearing"
and with no more ado…… Stan Tony and Drew
the Stones roadie crew
withdrew
for the next seven years
their horses drank tears
and everyone's fears
were fried up for breakfast
with marmalade toast
two sausage
mushrooms
and beans
eggs over easy
rashers done crispy
a fried slice or two
and a teapot of glue
to ensure it stuck to the belly.

The mushrooms of course enjoyed these proceedings to such an extent that they were inspired to compose poems praising the nights adventures, these were subsequently published in the society pages of the Lost and Found trade journal.

In a “wise passiveness“ I sit
Able to conquer any fit.
Wounded is my melancholy
When he meets his deft enemies
My Serenity, and Spirit

Ya.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCXLVII)


Blue heavns with clouds as fiberfill gone stale
Jist floating lazly in morn's vague suspense,
Where coffee scents the air with half a sense
Of yonder whilst mine owly eyes in pale
Excuse take note of aught reply t'avail
As wont, sans words to roll oer fer intents
My tongue, and silence shifts as twere from hence
Without a voice as I leave that detail.
So later, from the kichen window fer
Mair than whatever, watch a wolf chase to
Effect some shapeless form, which as it were
Is caught just as his mouth decays in blue
Seas no, erm, Jolly Roger haunts in tour,
And wonder if that signifies aught too.

05Mar19a

It is in the woods
In the world
That i may find peace
Whether resting on the banks of despair
Or wandering through a thicket of feeling
I come to find
Deep seclusion
That grants me thought
And while i may take pause
It is then
And then alone
That i am
Truly at peace
All this world has beauty
And it is i who finds
Great these scenes

I can feel it all within me
My blood courses through my veins
Akin the coursing river i pass by
It is not easy to acknowledge
But i often grant no thought
To the world around
Blind i am
And blind i remain
But in this world i am given
Tranquil restoration

Until i am dead and gone
No more flesh
No more bone
I will contemplate this world
These mountains
And rivers
Trees
And cliffs
For the great care that has been given it
Will be continued through me
And when i am but a soul
A spirit
Drifting
My harmony with the world
And serenity will
Carry on

But oh
Death
I deny it me
It cannot steal me
From my pleasure
I bask in creation
And all around me
The earth shakes with shivers
I know all too well
Until my thoughts are thoughts no more
I will hope the future
Will ask for me

I thirst
I thirst for what i do not know
What i cannot see
And what my eyes have recognized but my heart has not
The nature i lose myself in has caused me
To lose myself
I know not what i be
Or what i’ll be
But the times past are no more
And i weep for them

As a man i am curious
What lies beyond
The cries of fallen brethren
The sad harmonies that the animals we’ve displaced
Escape their bodies
They mourn
And so do i
I am
Compelled
To tell their stories
To sing their songs
In a major key

I am a slave to it
The world i’ve ignored
I need not the society
I abandoned up the road
Nature has stolen my heart
My thoughts
My life
My me

I catch a glimpse
Of who i was
The things i once found true
And i shudder
For mother nature was not
And is not greedy
She cares for her children
In ways i could never understand
It brings her joy to raise life up
And we deny her that
Day after day
Yet still
She smiles

We walked this together
You and i
Recalling that once our mother would be there
Waiting
Calling
But now
It is only me
I am alone
And i wander
With sorrowful thoughts
And despairing diction
With a mother who is not mine
Mother nature
Who welcomes me
And embraces me
Yet still
I am alone
The moon highlights my path
And where there were once two sets
Of footsteps
It is now only one
The ghost of you --
Dear sister --
Trailing further and further
Away