Don Bouchard: Favorites

Aug 2023 Don Bouchard

THE GYPSY

Aug 2023 Don Bouchard

John F McCullagh

The gypsy lady told me
On that dark and fateful night
That one day you would leave me
And it turned out she was right.

She took my palm quite roughly
As she told me my dark past.
She was gazing into the crystal ball
But all I saw was glass.

She said I’d know the darkness,
That close cousin to despair,
When I’d wake up to discover
The bed cold and you not there.

The gypsy lady told me
On that dark and fateful night
That one day you would leave me
And it turned out she was right.

For much is gained and much is lost
In a life lived on a bet.
Brief was our time together
Just like the gypsy said.

Intended as a song

Feb 2023 Don Bouchard

The Sting in Gabriella's Song

Feb 2023 Don Bouchard

Marshal Gebbie

The Sting in Gabriella's Song

Vermillion streaks in stratus, dark
Against the very heart of night,
Bands of deep red in the shroud
Portend approaching cyclone's might.
Morning shards of fractured cloud
Stream across a shattered sky,
Smothered sun in shadowed orb
Against where apprehension's lie.

South East winds arising now
Tussock billowing in dale
Trees commence a windward thrash
In lieu of kiss of coming gale.
Greyness of a leaden sea
In the lee of storm's approach,
Beneath the streaming sand dunes
The seagulls shelter, in reproach.

Mounting gusts of boisterous wind
Cascade along the lamp lit way
Schoolgirls shriek as skirts fly high
And ominously, skies turn grey.
Supermarkets, in the city
Teem with queues in panic buy,
Grab bags now the urgent item
Just in case the flooding's high.

Traffic blocks the bridge and byways
Wan in headlights falling rain,
Anxiously, the need to be home
Frought anticipation's pain.
All the birds have disappeared
Vanished, in the sudden still,
Eery in the misting rainfall
Frightening, in a mystic chill.

Havoc as she sets upon us
Howling wind and teeming rain,
Horizontal onslaught blasting
Gabriella's Song by name!
Bridges under siege with flooding
Trees down over roads,
Monstrous waves in tidal surging
Causing coastal overloads.

Imprisonment by sandbags
As flooded rivers overflow
In blinding rain of maelstrom teeming
Anywhere and everywhere you go.
Inundated cars on freeway
Flashing hazards submerged deep,
Rescued souls lost, bewildered
In sudden-ness disaster reaps.

Massive trees are torn asunder
Blasted foliage thrashing wild
Torrents rage through streambed gullies
Gabrielle, destruction's child!
..............
Aftermath of horror's silence
Hollow eyed and gaping jaw
A nightmare for your sanity?
Nay, Gabriella's Song.... is flawed.

M@Foxglove,Taranaki NZ

A direct hit by Cyclone Gabrielle on a vulnerable New Zealand, adrift in the vast South Pacific Ocean

Jan 2023 Don Bouchard

The Visitor

Jan 2023 Don Bouchard

Glenn Currier

The Visitor

Driving home from the airport
from High Ridge Road we peered at downtown.
I told our visitor
this is the view tourists like
looking at the city from afar
or driving past its monuments.
But if you really want to see the city
you have to smell the streets the morning after
or visit Aunt Stella in her trailer.

That night we did just that
laughing with the folks
sitting on her old stuffed couch
and on rickety folding chairs
she’d fetched from the bedroom closet.

We listened to Fred
leaning over his old guitar
playing it as if it were a woman.
His voice was gravel
but when he sang falsetto
I could see him in his mother’s arms.

Stella quietly left for the kitchen
and brought back beers
and saltines and sharp cheddar cheese,
Fred still crooning softly.
We were completely mesmerized by him
and his humble country charm.

As I sat there with our visitor
I was again a boy at home with Mama
and Daddy who’d just got in from the plant
in his khaki pants and shirt
smudges of oil on his sleeves
smelling of the day’s sweat.

Jan 2023 Don Bouchard

A Country Village ..

Jan 2023 Don Bouchard

Randolph Llewellyn Wilson

A Country Village ..

I want to be in a town renowned for its evening-
crickets , front porch laughter & lightning bugs
For fish fries and shade tree mechanics
For kids playing games beneath streetlights
Friendly constables , helpful neighbors & church-
bells , iron kettle flower pots , walking the rails ,
I need to separate the dirt from the chaff ,
to draw the cool aromatic smoke of dried-
tobacco , the kernel from the cob , earth from-
share , cold babbling water from slippery-
rock , soaked shanter from brow , molasses from-
the wheel , wheat from the stone , the honey forfeiting-
the comb , Spring from Winter , crust from lakeside ,
- kudzu from sweetgum , Scripture from torrid-
novel , music from razorback squeal , **** from shovel -
, decay from iron , turpentine from the tall pine ,
cracked leather from calloused feet

Dec 2022 Don Bouchard

Farm School ..

Dec 2022 Don Bouchard

Randolph Llewellyn Wilson

Farm School ..

If you ever want to teach a young buck discipline-
have him hold a nail with one hand against a maple block while -hammering it with the other ....

Dec 2022 Don Bouchard

PRAYING

Dec 2022 Don Bouchard

Lori Jones McCaffery

PRAYING

Dear Father
I’m alone in a very scary place
And I’m not certain how I got here.
I lost sight of the footprints I was following
And wandered off the pathway you laid out for me.

The wind is cold and the sky is dark.
I just heard screeches from the nearby woods
And this path ends in only brambles.
Kneeling on the rocky ground
I beseech the Lord to rescue me.
He either doesn’t hear my cry
Or this is where I need to be
To learn to never take my eyes
Away from the light that guides me.
ljm

Day 5 trying to post this. Feeling lost.