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Nat Lipstadt Apr 2016
~
words given life's first breath by this comment from
SE Reimer  
"thy tiller has found a storied port"

~~

captain of a city street ferry,
upon the choppy holy waters of
scarlet fevered spotted gum stained
christened concrete streets

daylight guided by the starlight
of quartz sparklers sidewalk embedded,
resurrecting, overwhelming,
the grayness of men's mortared materialism,
these textured bright city lights,
from murk morn steam-pipe risen,
signposts of a city boys life,
navigation tools on his
steerage cruises

'tis only my poor torso
I captain,
my bus driving days retired,
single masted, obedient to the sun's paths plotted
on a personalized AAA TripTik,^
my cargo, my tiring physique,
the refined mettle product of a
sixty five year too short voyage of
deep diving mining defining,
and for surety, water divining

city walking life driving,
debtor-in-possession of a
city infection
of perpetual motion sickness

enabled inability
for standing stilled,
lane weaving,
people receiving and perceiving
as buoyed obstacle objects
to be passed by
in a higher lane
of shaken and stirred
city waterways

muscle's squeak in sonnet speak

Why speed thy errant boots
upon lanes of wandering men,
is there not time enough,
words suffice,
in history's future present
unlived long life,
to recompense
all your recorded stanzas,
mariner's tales and wrote recitations of seafaring voices?

sea nat run.
sea nat go.

dodging tween his fellow citified citizens
and the puzzled and puzzling drowning tourists,
sea nat write his unsecreted visions,
sailing from street to shining street poetry

this glorious grime,
this delicious dirt,
stuff of my blood,
genes of my children's children inheritance,
of thee I sing,
in thee I revel,
of thee I am composed

when my decomposing time scheduled arrival
lately comes on time,
bury me in its cemetery of memories,
within the soft earth of a watery grave
that the jackhammers drill bit paddles can uncover,
in rough canvas toss my worn smooth
failed frame overboard,
so I may become but one more
fable
in your fabulous liquefying
cement oceans

~~~

3:53 am
5/18/16
nyc

^
http://pearlsoftravelwisdom.boardingarea.com/2014/01/remember-triptix/
with apologies to all the great poets from  I liberally borrowed
The North Star Nov 2021
I've got to lay some signposts
Everytime things get tough
I find myself forgetting to count the cost

I'm chasing ghosts
Uncovering stuff
Unraveling the past

I need to lay some signposts
To remind me
How far I've come

Or fallen

I need to lay some signposts
To find my way again
To warn and avoid
Egaeus Thompson Mar 2013
Nearly home.

The bed
And the slippers grow ever closer.

A memory of things that give comfort seem palatial,
Euphoric in the mind's eye,
Though I do seem to ponder of its romanticized reality

Memories always seem so warm.

In reality,
The things that hold others close are affirming.
Love,
Shared events
Symbiotic empathy,
But given the current state...


The boring,
The mundane,
The trivial and the tedious that makes the most of a lifetime
Are omitted from the mind.

But why not have a memory full of nothing but the nothingness of life?
The train rides?
Waiting for the toaster to splay its insides
So I can feast on its wonderful toasty goodness?
Talking to the tenant who does not understand
That a bouncing leg
And constant time updates are signposts to *******?

Empty the files of my brain
And fill it with the moments of nothing.
These moments and these alone
Are your true self.
if you are a good person
Is not determined by
How many charities earn your pay
Or how many items stored,
What you are is chosen by the lonely,
The solitary,
The Tigress.

Only when you accept that person,
You are happy
And free.


But don't hold your breath.
Elaenor Aisling Jul 2022
Signposts

The signposts at the end of her life
Swam in watery fades
I don’t know if she had time
To forget how to read
But there were no books in her room
Just the echoing call of an uncertain bird
As we pointed the feathers out to her through the dusty blinds.
And later
When she was gone
I could not cry—
everything I knew of her
slipped beneath a frozen surface
Running like the sound of water
In underground caves
Unburst and unfelt.
I asked for a blood letting,
For him to stay with me
While I found something sorrowful enough
To bring the memories to the vein’s surface
And he held me while I sobbed
At a mother feeding her starving daughter
Trying to save her from herself.
I do not know
If my grief stays buried so deep
To keep the surface waters calm
Or if it had dried, and isn’t there at all
And I am digging a well
For an imagined thirst.
Prompt from a friend: The signposts at the end of her life
Zywa Oct 2022
More and more signposts,

I'm approaching the city --


Unfolding bridges.
"Snö faller" ("Snow falls", 2002, Tomas Tranströmer)

Collection "Rasping ants"
Sheila Jacob Mar 2016
Treasure your holidays
in Llandudno, Alice.
Skip along the promenade,                          
play tag on the beach
and when it’s time for bed                                
wave goodnight to the sea
as it drinks the sunset.

Go boating on the Thames.                            
Paddle your fingers.                                      
Listen to stories, doze.

Chase a talking  white rabbit
sporting white
 kid gloves.    


Take tea with a dormouse,
  play croquet with a Queen:
  
  this is not your dream
  but makes you smile.

  Don’t wish too hard
  for womanhood,
  it arrives soon enough.

  You’ll be feted, photographed,
   posed as holy Agnes
   and noble Alethea.  
                
  With "dreaming eyes of wonder" 
  Discover Alice
  in your own looking-glass.

   And when it’s time to dance
    in your bridal gown
    cherish the moment.

    Two sons will die
    fighting for their country.

    Remember them
    as flames that burn
    long after each candle’s
    blown.
A poem about Alice Liddell(1852-1934),widely believed to have been the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures  In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. She married the cricketer Reginald Hargreaves and had three sons,Alan,Leopold and Caryl.Alan and Leopold were both killed in action in World War One.
Edward Coles  Oct 2015
On A Diet
Edward Coles Oct 2015
On A Diet

The country is on a diet,
drinking coke with no sugar,
eating burgers with no bun,
running on the treadmill;
it's powdered protein for lunch.
It's straight tequila in the evening,
a light head and guilty fries at night.

The country is on a diet,
doing yoga over yoghurt pots,
training their minds with sudoku and solitaire,
rubbing salt and condition into their hair.
It's 6 a.m. gym sessions,
it's squats on the living room floor,
the country is on a diet, my friends,
and so we have no time for truth, or war.

The country is on a diet,
avocado in the breadcrumb,
aspirin in the salt-shaker,
food numb on the tongue
and those slim-shakes always failed to deliver.
Thigh gaps and mind-the-gaps,
all these signposts for a cleaner living,
no dust on the shelf,
no bags 'neath your eyes to hide
the lack of sleep
and your ailing mental health.

The country is on a diet,
drinking tea with no milk,
eating carrot sticks with best-value dip,
running on the treadmill,
we never get too far.
It's straight tequila in the evening,
it's "anything goes" in the dark.
C
You can hear a spoken word version of it here: https://soundcloud.com/edwardcoles/poetry-and-music (4th performance in)
Medusa  May 2018
rain shrouds
Medusa May 2018
rain love fell a dream tonight
you were not there, but felt close
seeing nothing in mist of trouble
walking cloud of forgotten shrouds

no one, dank street, cruel houses
no dry place no cats about
wearing red and yellow slickers
long while cats hidden entire

wandering one wet world
slick pavement sky so asphalt
empty windows gaped calling
out deceptively catch the unwary

windows, concrete, no trees
mother's voice laughs soundlessly
no signposts, no streetlights
oddly forlorn, my hometown

unmarked, without direction
darker than hell's moonless night
this is my town, my place
one learns, find a way

feel the way, march in tyme
crawl slowly out the pier
knowing bay so full tonight

use poet radar
you will not
fail
Taking a walk in my town is strange, there are literally no streetlights, no sidewalks, and a bay at the end. On the many foggy or moonless nights you could swear you are on the dark side of the moon, not a car or person in sight.
Khoisan Aug 2019
A God walked on water, saving humanity
from chagrin.
Humans travel the world on soulless
rubber, treading over corpses of nature.
Janek Kentigern Oct 2014
Today is the day. As in customary, we shall start with the weather: The morning is clear and cool, the sunshine weak but well-meaning, the wind sweet but sharp and the trees green and chatty.

This day has been a long time coming. This day has. For too long it has skulking amongst the future pages of some misplaced internal diary. It's long shadow has been edged with fear, dreaded like an exam. Said fear melts away like yesterday's clouds, replaced by sunny optimism, for this date is now set in stone, frozen hard over night it now stares me down with oblique neutrality.

I'm not going anywhere, it whispers softly. You're fears are misplaced. Your fear of me is a your fear of death. Useful up to a point - but essentially irrational. Whatever will be will be and it will today.

The morning gather pace and after momentary brief salutations and briefer negotiations the train is boarded. The destination: no one knows. We know the names but they seem oddly sterile now, the sound cold hard lumps in our mouths, currency worn smooth: Edale, the pennines, the peaks, Absorbic. Citric. Folic, Formic Carbonic. Sulphuric. Deoxyribonucleic, Lysergic. Acid.

The absurd signposts of anonymous hamlets lazily swing by with increasing rapidity, blurring into one like the blades of a helicopter.

Post-industrial scabs and sores instantly give way to merry bucolic splendor as itchy, thick balaclava of the city in torn away. Laugh about nothing as we are hurled headlong into some postcard image of an England long lost between 'then' and 'now' where trees sing, walls are dry-stone and happy cows and sheep await noble, happy deaths; all wrapped in honey-coloured sunshine.

Rolling mounds of soft green matter undulate gently to a halt, and we emerge intrepid coloniser of a galaxy far far away. Locals eye us warily, the hot sun looks down angrily now. The baking mud coughs dust in our eyes and yellow spears of dead grass stab our tender shins. The warm fuzzy nostalgia that we are draped in gives way to...something else. Illogical patterns snake across verdant valleys, breathing and twitching. Harsh blue sky melts into hazy horizon, like oil on water. Panic sets in.

Pleading looks are exchanged and whilst reassurance is sought, none is found. Each gaunt face is scoured for hints of strength. Leaderless we wade through a sea of shimmering heat, collecting beads of sweat, losing hope of succour. We seek solace in plastic pound-shop distractions, only to find we are rendered too numbskulled to operate children's toys. Terror turns to horror. The yawning maw of madness, death is now so close we are caressed by it's putrid breath...

Release! Baking savannah morphs to cool,  mottled-green grotto and everything has already changed. All is bathed in verdant peace and ears can feel the cool lapping of a friendly stream.
Not finished.
n White  Jul 2013
paths
n White Jul 2013
there are paths

that we know

with our familiarity

we set off surefooted

toward our known destination

then as dusk settles in

we begin to doubt

to wonder

the markers and signposts

appear to have shifted

perhaps tampered with

and our assurance dwindles

replaced by confusion

unsettling in the fog

questions arise to which we believed

we already had the answers

and what was known becomes lost

along with

our selves
T Zanahary Sep 2013
Disconnected linguistics leave a broken fragility
turning tongues tumbling to trite truths,
tales spun seeking refuge in imagined worlds,
realities left shattered in their wake
while the crumbling crust reveals
heart held, beating in its embrace.
Thoughts turned towards musing,
secondary perception detecting that creeping chill
sliding as ivy from toes
to engrossed mind constricted,
comprehension continuously catching
the cold of ancient rites,
a reoccurence of yesterdays',
it echoes on in such melodic disorder.

With sweet venom she sang my way,
understanding aural shortcomings
allots no egress of racing choruses
coordinated to keep pace on her tongue,
lacing time so delicately, a feat
of only passionate disdain
tastefully recounted in every syllable
crashing in with a vicious viscosity,
leaving life to buckling knees,
forcing haggard steps
while the mind abstains from physical obfuscation,
knowing contact lends focus
to the surrounding mists, draining away

these rains you called, in echoes
of cries once denied
harmonies gaining pitch in perfect paces
found once allowed to resound
in the dark halls of your eyes,
until tomorrow fell to
yesterday's reign of essence,
breaking escaping waters to essentials
encircling columns we've yet
to deem pedestals.

It is in your service
that's found purpose,
an audition of caution
refined to presence,
I step into those commons
you still hold.

In nightshade and baby's breath
your song still emanates,
guiding through corridors
while the ceiling fills with
observant eyes of those predating sorrow,
unwilling to be its end,
or allow a Freudian slip
in which to reveal
a true identity,
they hold our hope
just within reach
though grasping fingers do naught
but brush aside that shadow
cast overhead, if only for the moment.

In this maze I am flanked
by hedges of stone,
mortar,
a mixture of
one part water
to every action
allowed to cement itself
in habit.
Reformative shifts scaling
to emerge a new horizon,
walls become signposts
as you echo inwards,
or up,
directive differences
falling to disorientation
either is understood
your path.

Catching firefly notes,
we've lined our world
in an unaccustomed passion,
all requiem and maladroit,
It was ours.
In the center,

our masks sufficed,
not having the time
to trade selves after
skirting two terrains of lucidity,
this reflective core the only stage
for our melting embrace,
idyll frivolity now perceived reality
in which falling apart proves
a simple concepts,

it's marked, our time now conceding
to the allure of situational  gravity,
spiraling downwards is the start of
constant uphill struggles,
crawling when called upon,
yet refusing to take knees
to provisional tears,
and finding conceding timeline tears
commonality.

For now though
we'll sit beneath this eldar tree,
sinking to material dissociation,
as the wish of a lover's kiss
washes upon us,
left surfacing somewhere past
these leaves of fall
in time to release
the seas of change.

And as waves pervade
she wraps her palm 'round mine,
whispers collecting in tense tendons,
sketch a note between innocence's evidence
and dust's barefoot impressions.
Signed in years marking its begin,
we addressed it
to any that may return.

— The End —