"bails" poems
As one who's born in England
There is something I don't know
Exactly what is "cricket" ?
Please tell me so I'll go
Both teams dress in white
The bowler doesn't bowl
He doesn't bend his arm to throw
I don't understand the goal
The ball goes out it scores six runs
But it must go in the air
The ball rolls out it scores four more
Is this really fair?
The games can last for days and days
But what confuses me
Is that every game at four o'clock
The players stop for tea
A game is called a test
But is every test a game
some may last for just one day
The length is not the same
There's a throw they call a googly
I know what that means
I got hit there playing hockey
It ***** your breath so you can't scream
There's wickets and there's bails
mid slips, and those silly stumps
I'm sure that if it confuses me
What does it do to umps?
The biggest question that I have
Besides, what's a sticky wicket?
Is of all the players on the field
Which one of them's the cricket?
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:47 AM UTC
Kindness is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
she’s cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest
‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss her
lest she attract your notice
lest she presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence
Kindness is not like that –
Kindness pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption
Kindness defies convention
Kindness carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Kindness perseveres all the love-long day
Kindness doesn’t delay
Kindness is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts
Kindness confronts
Courage is her currency, boldness her language,
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms
Kindness transforms
Kindness weakens all defenses
and challenges all camouflaged pretenses
Kindness pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms
Kindness is not 'nice'
Kindness isn’t in this for the likes
Kindness bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Kindness never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight
Kindness is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
This Kindness is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble,
End-Game-level
monumental
Kindness is not 'nice'.
Kindness is loving awe-ful.
Oct 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020 at 8:45 AM UTC
Love Affair
When love fails,
and lover bails.
***** is gone,
just move on.
Plenty of fish in the sea,
doesn't require a college degree.
Date her sister,
date her friend,
this is what I recommend.
She lied and she cheated,
on your phone, number got deleted.
Let her love your dad and brother,
just sleep with her slutty mother.
Now she stalks your every move,
this is something, you don't approve.
The restraining order has no affect,
your thoughts, you must now collect.
For some reason, you get back together,
missing all that lace, handcuffs and leather.
Things are now better than ever,
a new chapter, you two enter.
You have made this a family affair,
you let them watch, they love to stare.
A little gross, but oh well,
just another way, to end up in hell.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
if he is not made of them wholly, branches, he will be soon. they are everywhere, and he steps on them, and they are arms from hell. he wears a child’s football jersey, torn at his size and his sorrow. he reaches into it and pulls out his heart, a red balloon given the what for, inside of which he blows his nose. he returns the heart.
a yellow adherent hangs from both nostrils, as two ropes being cut at and then loosed from his brain. the first keeps an arm from heaven; the second he catches and loops twice to put on his neck. one is never out of the woods here, and he knows it, knows here is Baltimore, Ohio. he has watched the people, some of them, leave; their happiness would be better called remission.
he is giddy when he comes upon a man wearing only a barrel and he tips it with joy and makes better his headway home. the rolled over branches shriek and wake the man who nakedly bails. the branches up their shrieking.
his mother he has no dementia of his time in her womb. why for **** the despondent are given captions like ‘blank look’ he can’t say for in his mama naught but canvassing eyes. she’s what he calls ‘at grocery’, shaking a coffee can she’ll buy because a done melon can’t hold pennies. she often at the neck is saddled with two toddlers but in his projection now there is just one making miracle of not kicking the coffee can into another’s back.
any girl that occurs lets him take her with his tongue only as she seems to know he was circumcised and after that much paddled.
he starts thinking on dad and dad’s laughing when mother’d say boys be home before dog because that’s how it sounded from seizures and of course rock candy in the summer. the barrel splinters beneath him to be forgotten and his legs go to bleeding stilts.
his last things by his face are insufficient; rock candy, barrel, and twin. I talk on the barrel, I don’t need it, not anymore.
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
All our country's taxpayers are becoming enraged
Bailing out companies which have been mismanaged
Countless millions have been forked out
Dollar amounts which are exceptionally stout
Ever the taxpayer is called upon to cough up
Filling the always depleted company's cup
Giving generously has got to cease pretty soon
Helping them is a cost that's gone well beyond the moon
Injecting our hard earned is too much
Just let them stand on their own crutch
Kick those CEO's into a reality check fashion
Let them not receive anymore of our kind ration
Money has been misspent by our former government
Never ending the out flow it's time for some abatement
Offer not another cent to those ailing companies
Propping them stresses the taxpayer's arteries
Questions must be asked about those per unit costs
Regularly increasing and so high are their imposts
Shores abroad can produce goods for lesser amounts
They run a more efficient book of accounts
Under a burgeoning payout us taxpayers are gripped
Vast savings we'd make if they were nipped
We've been supporting the big end of town for years
X marks the spot where we've been left in arrears
Yonder the companies can take their travails
Zilch is what they'll be receiving from our taxpayer bails
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 9:15 PM UTC
A storm is raging on the frothy sea
Mountainous waves toss the vessel all around
The ravaging gales impale with a deafening blow
Raucous sheets of salty spray
soak and pelter to and fro
A bucket bails the raged sloop
She moans and groans as she’s flung about
A sailor sails ― A sailor endlessly bails
Engulfed alone in the perfect storm
Two oars are manned on the stormy seas
The halyard torn and ripped from mast
To row and bail is an impossible feat
It’s hard to tell when you've sprung a fateful leak
The captain mans the forlorn skiff
There'll be No white flag of surrender flown ;
" I will go down with my ship! "
A furious soul laments life’s toil
As violent waves crash the gunnels hold
He screamed out loud,
***" My time has come ! "
" My ship is sinking!!! "
" Her broken pieces ne'er to be found ..."***
The rampart boat, well fortified yet built to fail
Plummets from hills of oceans pitifully tall
Cracks are leaking where the lurid light gets in
But so does the briny water, will drowning soon begin?
Lost hope floats the helpless, fearless one man crew
His soul now guides the ether voyage ―
A vessel drifts lifeless on the empty calming sea
Nothing but it can be seen for miles of skies
The free board is deep the salty water high
Two apathetic oars lay silent, is a lost soul inside?
© Harlon Rivers
May 20, 2017
May 20, 2017 at 1:15 PM UTC
in the annals of cricket
those of greatness get a mention
for what they've achieved on the wicket
these men stand head and shoulder
above the rest
their contribution
to the game
has
been written as the best
three men have inspired
younger players
in their homelands
they've accomplished
much on wickets
throughout the many cricket playing
lands
Steven Waugh(Australian Captain)
the master strategist
who had a captain's mind
replete with brilliant tactics
when he took to the pitch
the opposition teams
would quiver in their
collective boots
field placement
over deliveries
the weather conditions
all of these factors
actuated in his mind
so he could
bring an innings
of a notable kind
Sachin Tendulkar (Indian Batsman)
the king of the blade
who none can equal
in test matches
his cuts and cover drives
were worthy of an epic prequel
his style with the bat
twas magic to see
he had a prowess
of majesty
Vivian Richard (West Indies All Rounder)
he was never phased
he held his nerve
with the bat or the ball
a tradesman
who fielded what ever came at him
and in his relaxed style
chewed on a piece of gum
and demolish
the bails
with a Caribbean hum
cricket's hall of fame
that 22 yard pitch
where three greatest of the game
performances
did of fans
ever bewitch
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
There's a lot of *****
in a cricket match,
don't fancy catching them.
There's a lot of bats and
batsmen,
and batsmen bat the *****
An umpire calls the shots but
he don't bowl the ***** and
a wicket keeper keeps no wickets
but he looks after bails
which are not ***** but
if the bails fall
the batsmen do too,
are you
following this?
A no ball is still a ball
and no ***** are still *****
which is all *****
if you ask me.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 12:19 AM UTC
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."
I felt his coarse hands grip mine, too;
I lived through Mr. Hooper vicariously
as I looked down at open palms
spread to the heavens,
illuminated in the flashy brilliance of the glare.
I saw wrinkled, calloused eyes peer into mine;
I stood on that rickety old dock
in my fitted and worn wool cap,
faded denim shirt matching pants
and dingy white tennis shoes.
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Hooper."
My ego crestfallen as well,
pride in my intelligence proven in the Academia
withering, as the gritty gap-toothed
leery-eyed barnacle of a sailor
peered inquisitively into my soul.
He saw the smooth hands--
ah, but the callouses engraved deep between joints
on my fingers; a musician!
His eyes grilled, "In bourgeois leisure,
smiling meekly dwelling within milquetoast afternoon hours,
or,
from downtown haunts sweating jazz in the midnight hour,
dancing screaming cursing moaning lovingly?"
My eyes cast down again.
But I know not of the city as my abode!
I know the ****** and the farmer
more than any contributor to painted landscapes, nay;
they are my acquaintances, neighbors, cousins, brothers, and sisters!
For I have lived on the water;
I have eyed the vessels
commandeered by the gritty, grubby,
greased captains of my soul,
as I float buoyed in their wake,
eager to catch a semblance of the waters
that trail before them.
I live treading their wake,
eyes open and pencil in hand.
And lo;
I found sanctuary in the vast fields of the rustic farmer!
For I ate breakfast of the freshly-slaughtered calf;
I drank its mother's milk,
eggs fresh from the poultry den--
I squawked along with the mother hens.
I took in the bucolic smell of the country
atop the rugged tractor,
eyeing squinting
grimacing like a smile in the sun
burning burning down upon stiff backs
and leather necks--
I, the leaves of grass scattered
in the wake of the farmer,
I, the bails of hay furled tightly
sitting patiently in the once golden meadow,
I watched the tractors and their commandeers
disappear in the bombinate horizon;
the sound of insects ushering in the night sky
like unrolling the starry-eyed carpet
before the hazy late afternoon moon.
I watched, I lived,
waiting coiled in their wakes
eyes wide open and paper clenched in hand.
I lifted my eyes to once again
hear his curt admonition:
"Y'got city hands, Mr. Rhine."
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:37 PM UTC
Light hearted when I am with him
Devastated when we are apart,
I am a dreamer; he is a lay backer,
Without a genuine heart, our love is
like a unnatural clip from noughts&crosses
hate destroy lives, love can bring it back together
However, what is left of my Love for him dies each day:
We are apart, because it is impossible to settle this kind of love
We never dance; we never kiss on the dance floor
Our rhythm never entwined, he had no rhythm,
So I never experience a kiss on the dance floor,
Feelings alters when replace by loneliness
Love bails,
when a marriage fails,
wishing and hoping that our love would
be enough to hold them
Unlike a poor man's flowers picked fresh from the fields..
Without adversity
Free for plucking, never got a chance to blossoms
my love for him was marginal:
However, nothing but deep respect for him
a part of me will always have to choose,
so, I choose to be happy , I choose loneliness
before, confusing pity for love..
Aug 27, 2020
Aug 27, 2020 at 9:00 AM UTC
I was driving down an old road this morning, one hand clenched to the handle of a porcelain coffee cup, one hand clenched to the wheel; digging my nails into the rubber. I've always hated driving, it was always a better place to be sitting in the passenger seat, your hand enfolded in mine. Im rolling through stop signs hoping maybe a car will hit their brakes a moment too late. Each road line painted a bright yellow, the kind that reminded me of a sun we used to watch rise off the balcony of our house. I didn't want to think about it too much, it would of brought me back to a better time and place than now but they always told me to keep my eyes on the road. It was easy to do until I passed by this field of yellow daisies, the kind that were printed on the spring sheets we'd wrap ourselves in on the mornings that rain kissed the roof. The kind that decorated the church on the day that I made a promise on forever. A forever that should of lasted longer than sickness can control.
The golden sun grazed it's rays over the old barn where we once sat in hay bails and counted constellations. The rays were blinding, but so was the memory that lit up with them. The yellow dress your mother wore on the day we lay you down 6 feet too deep. The day a rock became your welcome mat. The day I couldn't find the right way to say goodbye.
I was driving this morning. I'm laying in a hospital bed now. I'm sorry that the yellow lights of that truck drew me in. Somehow I saw you smiling at me through them. As I lay on the pavement in pools of red, the yellow lines of the road by my side, heartbeat coming down till all I can hear is the softness of your voice; I finally felt like maybe this is the only way home.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
I stumbled into the train station, buzzed with integrity.
Apprehension strikes like a clock at midnight.
My math teacher never liked my hair. I never liked her husband.
I can still feel you in my presence, shining on me like the sun, even on my darkest days.
My childhood was a sad one, filled with corn harvests and bails of hay for food. Oh, cruel classmates.
Your smile burns me as if I were swimming in boiling water.
I never met my mother but I knew from experience that she hated pineapple and the scent of my hair.
We sit next to each other in class, but we know we want more. To feel as free as two birds in the sky.
My ex-boyfriend's husband told me I was too short to be a dancer but I persevered and became an employee at Subway.
Engulf me in your arms, like fire consumes a building.
My father's rabbit chewed a hole in my cardigan and I angrily cried daily for a day.
Take my hand tonight, we could run so far.
Nov 13, 2013
Nov 13, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
Rage is endless sometimes relentless and senseless. Rage in some sense is without essence or presence. Let’s assume rage confides and hides!
It lies abundant and dormant. Its silence consumes like violence! Some rage is just another caged page. Some an outrage that bails, hails and prevails. This is what I propose I suppose! Don’t allow it too boil or soil. Don’t follow, it’s hollow and shallow. It’s corrupt! Found profound as it rebounds and erupts! It’s bigger bound to trigger! Embrace this negative trace with inner-grace. With a grin, win this
race within positive face...
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 10:00 PM UTC
Love is not nice.
‘Nice’ is soft and inoffensive
‘Nice’ is careful and non-assertive
‘Nice’ is easy and effects no change
Nice is cotton wool trying to soften the pain
but not stuffed tight, just resting on the surface
ready to be blown away or pressed
under a muddy boot of disinterest
‘Nice’ is a damp whisper
a mouse cowering in the corner
hoping you will blink and miss it
lest it attract your notice
lest it presume too much
and cause a whisker of offence
Love is not like that –
Love pushes in, quick and nimble
a hero with no mask, unasked
unexpected, dodging the turmoil
leaving nothing unsaid and little undone
in her pursuit of creating a counter-disruption
Love defies convention
Love carefully aims her weapons of choice
and advances relentless and regardless
of any and all obstacles in her way
Love perseveres all the love-long day
Love doesn’t delay
Love is gleeful for the chance of invasion
ready to disarm with expert compassion
with her regiments of patience
armed to the teeth with gracious
placing tanks of good faith on all fronts
Love confronts
Courage is her currency, kindness her language
trust and hope are her passports to lands long unexplored
happily wearing all-weather clothing
for any and all unexpected storms
Love transforms
Love weakens all defenses
and challenges all camouflaged pretenses
Love pours itself out to fill unhealed wounds
and on shrapnel-seeded battlefields
she - blooms
Love perfumes
Love is not 'nice'
Love isn’t in this for the likes
Love bites
She’s a take-on-all-comers, undefeated delight
Love never bails from the fight
never fails, never takes flight
Love is nothing casual,
nothing incidental
Love is elemental
She is Avengers-Assemble, End-Game-level
monumental
So, don’t be nice
and I’ll say it twice
nice is a vice that will never suffice
And let me end by being more precise
follow Christ’s advice:
love one another
every day and every night
with all of your might
and do it in a way
that pushes
way
past
‘nice’.
Feb 23, 2022
Feb 23, 2022 at 5:43 PM UTC
Sadness in the eyes of a preacher,
As his church grows emptier by the day,
Religion is not as strong,
But for the preacher the days are long,
Night times are lonely,
Hymns go unheard,
Tired of the gospel failing the word,
Upon the crucifix he lays his truth,
Behind the bible of fables and tales,
Upon the blue sadness he drowns and bails.
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 9:04 PM UTC
a true friend will be there when a girl dumps you
or make fun of you for being insecure
regardless of what you do friends accept and forgive you
you make mistakes so dont be too hard on
those who do the same
eventually true friends have your back
and the fake ones disappear
no girl is worth a friend no friend is worth losing
when you have been friends for year
you both my be on different levels
but the most important word is respect
if you dont have it how do friends co exsist
trust one another through bad and good a true friend
never bails but true friends prevail
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 2:29 PM UTC
The first figure differs from the first reimbursing the pursing urge to splurge then comes second emended he is represented as father material the one who doesn’t poor your cereal areal in unreal he bails on real events when you want to vent to the competent he must have felt that wasn’t meant for a figurative roll can’t patrol what he doesn’t know how to watch you grow, why he is placed in second base when have home run is the one you are her son.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 6:57 PM UTC
The day fades away
Black and grey
And black and grey
Until all that is left
Is cerebral thoughts
Bouncing against the shattered window pane
Which shows the way
To everything we are too scared to know
The sacred truths of our flaws
Too beautifully ugly to be recognized
Too perfectly imperfect to fit the leftover jigsaw pieces
Jesus pieces ring with fibs of green backs
And crack was distributed to poor neighborhoods
So a lot of the time a welfare check or food stamp
Ends up more like "my bad"
And no news crews roll through
Unless the person who died
Shares my skin color
White guilt making me feel less stable
In my bitchings and moanings
Like my bad feelings couldn't possibly land heavy
Like haymakers
Growing up we used to jump from hay bails
Landing in loose straw
Running away from farmers and their
Combine harvesters
Now I run from life
Too afraid to jump from the ground floor
Into the clouds
Life is hard
Living it the way you want is harder
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 8:46 PM UTC
My blue tavern house in old Giverny,
with yellow bright daisies as a welcome.
We've swam on the wheat banks,
diving in absinthe and dealing in apathy.
Kissing the swirling midnight skies in secrecy.
Dark blue cascades the midnight hills,
I've spent another night in the open fields -
looking at hay bails like an old friend, and worst enemy.
I've met your sharp eyes at noon and known better,
with your white shirts, stained socks, and slick smiles.
I remember you told me of the women stealing jam,
east of La Seine near Clackaloze,
You said she reminded you of me,
good until gone, broken undeniably
and the way I say I could do it all quietly -
paint the shining night sky with ease and one brush.
But if I was what you wanted, I wouldn't be,
too stubborn, too jealous, and too mad, honestly.
So I may as well write you what I am - underneath.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
The Wealthy must pay their fair share
Here in the “Golden State”
Fifty three percent or so
Here by the golden Gate.
They will likely move to Utah
where the skiing’s just as great.
We rule by Proposition,
It’s Democratic and it’s fair!
But when we have to pay for Pensions
It seems the money isn’t there.
California pays its workforce
with Golden I.O.U’s.
We hope Obama bails us out
Before they all come due.
Our growing Mexican population
plans for la Reconquista.
They smile as each old ****** dies
They mutter “Hasta La vista”
Governor Moonbeam’s back in charge,
The Terminator’s gone
Pelosi’s back in Washington
What could possibly go wrong?
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 1:02 PM UTC
Government bails out wall-street
The world holds its breath and waits
Mortgage owners fear the worse
Corporate Greed the ultimate link
Automakers lobby in private jets
American workers losing their jobs
The trickle down effect takes time
Those who suffer now feel robbed
Whats is the world coming too
Only the insiders are protected
Oct 27, 2009
Oct 27, 2009 at 6:51 PM UTC
The birds chirp, it’s six o’clock in the morning
It’s the seventeenth summer of my life and still counting
The sun has risen for a brand new day
The night flew by and the clouds gave way
The windows and doors are being opened for the sun to enter everyone’s home
Even the rose chases the sun and bails out of its dome
Every kitchen is filled with the smell of pancakes, bacons, and sunny side-ups
Everyone is reading the morning paper while drinking coffees from their cups
Everyone else is starting a sunny brand new day
As for me, I haven’t got a single slumber come my way
I’d been up all night tossing and turning trying to get some sleep
I drank my milk, read a book yet I’m too excited to write this poem that on dreamland I lost the trip
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 10:56 AM UTC
Mind over matter
Your mind focused
on the latter
as you tried to climb to the top
with no perception for disaster
They call it high risk options;
sheer prayers for returns.
But all the bits of your brain
didn't care about who burned
Can't slap cuffs on an entity
So I guess it's lesson learned
in their equity
though one finds that the fines
can still burn
Every willing ear
mixed with the
right tone of trust
Acknowledgement in gold
soon traded away to dust
If the brain believes
its body should live forever,
then where's the fear
of a burn when confronted with an ember
so they never think a spark
can elevate higher
ignorance is fuel,
greed sets this structure fire
Man the troops!
The sky is falling!
The city's set ablaze
and the sirens are calling!
We're supposed to save the people,
but the people pay first
save the buildings with
these bails of water
even if the people thirst
New body, same mind.
It's done so many times
one comes to think its rehearsed
The ticket price is high,
the play leaves the people
feeling cursed.
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 9:49 PM UTC
Foundations were laid by hands that create the exploration of your Imagination when you choose to display your understanding of the Human Game
Either guided to expand or by your own hand it was all part of the bigger Plan which allowed the spaces of time to fill the cracks of your mind,
Progressing, regressing, following the Divine
Pattern of it all,
It's what we choose to involve,
Our Selves in
In the end it transforms the dusty cobwebs to ballroom floors and the hay bails to open arms, welcoming your Soul to take a seat, and relax in the strength of your Ancestors that rode so many miles before
To get you where you are, they rode through Conscious Expansion ******** with only FAITH that they would wake up on the other side with the same faces by their sides, in THIS reality
Forgiveness became key because it seems almost selfish to me to take the risk that could be, the end
Which they promise is the beginning
Which is a test of Faith, yet again
and again
and again
every time you blink, you think,
you are presented the opportunity
to change things
To BE a THOUGHT in the world that promotes
Positive Vibrations
Consciously
Keep faith that everything is working,
The words that find me are the words that have found you,
Through it all, we walk together,
Through it all, we smile
<3
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 1:27 AM UTC
Words you've thrown
My soul has a busted view
Breaking this window with your jagged stones.
Picking up the pieces
In a rush to beat the ticking of the clock
Minutes measure the moments as each
Pile of material must be put in stock.
Measuring the value in each item
Such my scale weighs very carefully
As not to miss a diamond in a mound of
Hay.
Sifting through the bails
Is worth my hard work
As life needs less weight of worry
As the winds pushes with a boat to sail.
Life's seas of wonder we travel
as friends are my crew
Aboard
My life boat to A brighter world
A destination of well discovered gravel.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 10:36 PM UTC