"bemoaning" poems
Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:26 PM UTC
A SOCIETY WRITTEN IN FLAMES; SHROUDED IN DARKNESS
*The tears flows in an endless way
Bemoaning the days of yore
Watching with eyes that sparks red,
Sunken and beaten from the tragedies of yore
Helpless and wishing for a relentless call
As tragedy hits her most sensitive part,
Bemoaning the tides,
All her days of glory,
Now a shadowy story*
*She had been ***** by her very own,
The children she yearned and bled for,
The men she fed and trained,
Where her rain fell full and vast, to soothe their hearts
Where she gave it all, and smiled, hoping that someday, they will realize her sacrifices and sleepless nights,
Her nights of terror and horrors
Where she stood in the midst of the stormy eerie night, shrouded in darkness*
*It was her ******* they ****** and clunged to,
It was her arms that shielded them from the shadows of the dark,
But when they grew and flew,
She waited still
Praying and wishing they would remember the days of yore*
*Then the dark hour rolled away,
And when morning came, it was harrowing.
It was harrowing how she waited abandoned and dejected,
As her sons and daughters peaked at the sky,
Trampling her down,
Relegating and belittling her
Painful it were, as she cried from the agonies of the days of yore,
Where she laid all her virtues down,
Giving it all to see her children smile,*
*It is this dejection that has brought her to tears,
It is this wickedness of a child to a mother, that has made her weep endlessly
It is this tragedy that have swallowed her glory,
As her children keeps flying above huddles, in peace and harmony,
Forgetting her,
It is this callousness, that pushed them to sapping her virtues and enriching themselves with it thereon*
*What is worse than a child abandoning his mother?
It is this penchant, that drives them
It is the love of greed,
It is the seed of corruption,
It is not an inherited trait,
It is a despicable decision
Like a monstrous shadow,
Twirling the back of the night.
It is the fire that burns within their heart,
The fire to **** steal and destroy
To take what she can never give again
To live,
To live big at the expenses of others sorrow and agony
It is this evil that has perused Nigeria and has rendered her a roaming wretch
And now tragedy looms,
It booms and blooms,*
A society written in flames
Who will save MOTHER NIGERIA?
Ovi Odiete© 2016, Oct. 31
All rights reserved
Note
Children here signifies the evil politicians and men that has sapped our country dry with their evil penchant
Oct 31, 2016
Oct 31, 2016 at 7:03 AM UTC
959
A loss of something ever felt I—
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was—of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect
A Mourner walked among the children
I notwithstanding went about
As one bemoaning a Dominion
Itself the only Prince cast out—
Elder, Today, a session wiser
And fainter, too, as Wiseness is—
I find myself still softly searching
For my Delinguent Palaces—
And a Suspicion, like a Finger
Touches my Forehead now and then
That I am looking oppositely
For the site of the Kingdom of Heaven—
3.4k
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar
*not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute*
a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected
naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?
here is the hard part.
your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am
*gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:*
I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM UTC
Enveloped in a haze of sullen clouds
Woebegone is the sky as it laments
Rain falls to ground in an aqueous shroud
Pooling its bleak anguish on the cement
All that is living drowns in the sorrow
Fearing long hours of the cold and despair
Hoping for warmth of a new tomorrow
No more melancholy could we ever bear
We mourn the sun's imminent exodus
As rain fall begins its sojourn of woe
And the joy of the sun's warmth leaves from us
To us the onus of grief it bestows
But with rain's end comes the tender sunlight
Ending the bemoaning war and sorrow's fight.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:39 PM UTC
Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
the moon in my city,
a hazy crestfallen hue,
those who gaze up to
its beauty, remain few...
the moon in my city,
betrays a tired air,
wrinkled stench in
reflection, oh despair!
the moon in my city,
glides the benign sky,
paddles a silver paddle,
bemoaning why, why, why!
the moon is my city,
but has a mother's heart,
it forgives oh so easily,
so gently does it part,
for at the break of dawn,
or on a pensive twilight,
look, there is the moon,
in eternal evasive flight!
the moon in my city,
the moon in my city...
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
I was looking when I got lost
ignoring the bill when I saw the cost
Saw my future in the turbulent waters
Of the porcelain pool into which I was tossed
Bemoaning yet accepting the fate I was enduring
Upon hearing the sound of the handles clank
I relinquished all control
as I began to roll
Gave no fight of self preservation. as I sank
The echoing swoosh left its sound in my ears
Then solid darkness closed in tight
So much more vivid than night in absence of light
The water was thick and seemed to be swallowing me down
Any oxygen of life seemed a fast fading memory
As all the while I could feel a gathering momentum
Like a ride through some putrafied tunnel of .... well...now all ephemeral in it's sudden ephemerality
As I was
Blasted loose from that officious muck
Propelled far far beyond the cascading flow
as a lust for life returned in a flash
I flicked one fin and then the other before allowing sweet gravity
To carry me down affording me that glorious splash.
Wow! It thought ' this is an enormous and wondrous bowl '
Oh oh oh!
That poor little goldfish that had suddenly become the hapless to happy victim
Of a frustrated and angry parent who had lost all control!!!
GOOD LUCK little one...you will need all you get!
Question/ riddle of sorts.
Anyone know the reason for my naming the. poem this ... bit of
i _ _ _ _ _ twist?
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 12:24 PM UTC
Not a wanderer stuck on the crest of lonely waves.
Nor running ragged on the sands of time.
Traipsing wearily through the wracks of sodden salty ****
As cold water laps over their feet abandoned on craggy rocks.
Not always at sea.
Vagrant migrants.
From rock to rock.
Hark,
Ungodly whistling, clicking and howling.
Wailing and bemoaning.
Poseidon knows that they're around.
They strut around the rocks, all knowing.
Their lives they live as one of two.
Choose their one for life.
Should you see one in your salty path.
Foreboding spirit, a warning of turbulence to come.
A past sailor boy seen in totem of bird.
Not so swell, an evil omen.
Moons long past, the only witnesses to a killing crime.
Saw Albatross have his feet cruelly hewed.
Tobacco pouch for jack tar and his pals.
Ancient mariners in a doctrine of distortion.
Sky sailors slept on the wing over night.
Such misdemeanour,
Their perceptions were not right.
The birds perished in the dead of night.
As they did not ever rest in flight.
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 8:46 AM UTC
Bemoaning Similes & Metaphors
(the lack thereof )
I cannot think in similes or metaphors.
I can, but it’s
An artifice.
A gift
I’ve not been left with.
Of course,
I’ve got Thesaurus –
My old pal -
To push me
In the simile
Direction.
Those
Whose
Aptitude’s
To see,
Their inner eye
Comparing parallels unconsciously –
A gift of gene and DNA –
Overwhelm me.
While I moan about my lack,
They sit with throne and luck
Expressing with an ease,
Anything they ****** well please
In metaphors and similes
I lie in bed,
This running through my head.
That’s why it’s here.
Bemoaning Smiles & Metaphors 1.13.2010/8.17.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 12:43 PM UTC
I was never your protector, you abused my stoic nature
Madcap ****** for days on end, and copious substances, abused
The blaring music, disturbing the peace, rattling windows
and you dismantled my structure, and yours alongside it
I am just a house
I was never the crutch you needed, nor was I a friend
Remember those long nights on the town with raving girls
and you were irate when I fell to the floor; rich man's art piece
Now you snivel and scratch because you flushed me in haste
I am just *******
Pair me up with old white friends in speedball imprudence
Meticulous measurements in early days but you grew reckless
Now your ghastly macabre silhouette on back alley walls
Is all that remains in this dead town that you still saunter in
I am just ******
You put too much emphasis on me, to defend the sentient
and you stare me down on the kitchen table, questioning
You hold me close and I feel your brow, indecisiveness
and now I'm caressing your temple; bemoaning barrel
I am just a gun
You sit and attribute voices to the voiceless and inanimate
because for years you have repressed your depression
When you should have asked for help and not escapism
and today you end it all, alone and weeping for something you know not what
I am just your psyche
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 10:04 AM UTC
3 hands
kidding hands,
an autocorrection title,
was supposed to be
kissing hands but either works
man overcome with an elixir of Sunday bed warming/charming/chilling, lukewarm "hot" coffee,
melodious love songs inducing
languorously hand-to-mouth,
five finger fore play love making
a potpourri of knuckle gnawing and gentling kisses
upon a hand borrowed from the a tablet holder,
while she reads the paper bemoaning the sorry state
of the world, the government permissions bad guys...
and weeps for the world we are leaving behind
a mood changer with 100% effectiveness
newspapers- a safe *** condiment
think I'll reheat my coffee
<•>
my hand
she cant sleep knows that I'm up at 2:08am composing.
and showed her earlier today
the kidding hands poem
just as the lights were going down, downtown on
William's Measure For Measure
so at 2:09am her hand snakes over and wrap itself
around my thumb as if she was weaning an infant from
what infants like doing, or weaning grownup old men like me from doing at 2:09am, what they should be best leaving alone,
like writing poetry or it could just be the woman
pseudo-sucking a poets thumb as a way of saying
can't sleep head buzzing and in between I love the
livening lying of living with your hands thumb in me
<•>
the facement of your hands
dr. mandy is handy with a needling drink of boo boo bo-toxin
that auto corrects the face's reflecting times drawing upon it,
our bodies facement; an effacement I suppose, or maybe a
defacement.
very little to be done to keep the hands couture covering
from revealing what devolutionary year it is for you: why I write of the facement of your hands and why I kiss them, your hands,
lovingly, hoping the natural toxins on my lips can ****** their aging,
and if they can't, then it is a great way of saying
I love you
<•>
2:53am
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 3:00 AM UTC
How cool I was with undercut
pretending then Mohawk
playing rugby pretending
brunching with fab hipsters
pretending enjoying arcane debates
about particle physics pretending
and social justice pretending
loving tall beautiful black boy
pretending and playing Tetris til dawn
or napping on the couch pretending
in fashionable Old City coworking
space pretending cuddled alone
as rain struck clear panes windowed walls
facade pretending that was my life once,
author in a zine pretending, cheese day denizen
pretending amid all that a sprawling
vacuum of identity pretending
and isolation pretending despite
lunching with a priest I met
pretending online or long, meandering
walks to the park pretending
with Mr. Wiggles and biking up
Passyunk pretending through the market
that smelled of live chickens and grease
bemoaning my loneliness pretending at
row-house holiday parties hosted
by midlife fairies & queers pretending
with dreams with drugs
pretending alcohol *** and roof deck
skyline views pretending pop up gardens
live music filling midsummer streets
pretending same streets
filled with seasonal dirt
artisanal water pretending
bottle cap eyes cigarette **** nose
garbage mouth snowman melting
away pretending going
the way of brotherly
love. How cool I was inhabiting
my urban life pretending
I was there.
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 6:16 AM UTC
Fluorescent flickers illuminate the stained cement floors of the hallway. Your slippered feet music an uneven pad and scuff. This ***** city is home, whatever that means. This ***** city holds you like you're someone else's child. A burst of joy and music reaches for you through the window; someone bangs a door and you turn on the tap. As water sputters onto your toothbrush you catch a whiff of Dakota Jim's racist southern drawl, a puff of his ketamine breath.
You walk to the window, toothbrush dangling.
[Oh London, I know you love no one, but nights like this I feel your heartbeat in your embrace.]
History swells beneath your feet. Your eyes land on a seated figure, his grand headdress of feathers overpowering the tableau, his gaze calmer than the other mad happy swirls that make up the crowd. It makes you wonder what he sees. Probably nothing. You will learn that when he seems profound it is usually an accident. You are penned in by jagged skyline hieroglyphics. History swells. Your heavy hearted story is a speck consumed in all this history. All the history you were taught in school was death, you remember your mother bemoaning this war generals and battle dates history. You wonder at how much death this place has seen, how many lives the city has birthed and eaten, hungry mother staving off starvation.
We all write our stories on other people's bones. Of course the greatest cities would leave the greatest scars. And what did you come here looking for anyway?
[Hello Momento Mori city. I see you. I see your rooftops straining to **** stars. Do you mourn for your dead? Are they heavy in your belly? Are you going to eat me, too?]
But now, if you drag your little mind back from the immensities, everything around you is alive. Everyone is dancing, happy to be caught in her belly. Or her womb. Not one of you knows which, but there you are. In the courtyard, the small, steady figure of Freddie Stitz brings a lit cigarette to his lips and smiles up at you in the window.
Wipe that toothpaste off your face, you look ridiculous. Go back to bed.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
The crest of solemn ocean wave
So early breaks on windy beach
Where fairest Phoebus struggles sadly 'gainst
Triumphing clouds.
His horns, his blares to no avail:
Fall deaf on Egypt's Temple crushed to sand
To make this morning beach where sail
The looming gulls.
They hunger as they soar, their lonely cries
Are swept away by dawn's uncaring breeze.
That shore I wandered all alone,
Apart from you in restless dreams,
Disturbing sand-crab holes with stepping shoes
Sought lenses lost.
Possess'd of power to see without
Refinings of their frame, my need mere want,
I walked, a pool, and filled with doubt
That proud waves tossed.
Would sharpening vision truly help me find
That which I knew was only in my mind?
When then in heaven's light aloft
I spied a weightless patterned kite:
I called not to my glasses, but to Thoth
To aid my sight.
The soaring toy like silent hawk
Without the weight of sadness flew so light
Beneath the clouds now heard to talk
Instead of fight.
It seemed to catch a fleeting floating bliss
As pillars of the firmament it kissed.
The time was chill, the morning swift,
Where icy waves brow-beat the shore,
Impassioned blew the wind and kite did lift,
Yet hues endured.
What children tugged upon its string
Wishing to live capricious life, to soar,
Bemoaning birth neglecting wing
And all allure?
Yet came a haunting cry, in winds was clad,
Reminding me that still the seagull's sad.
I reach the crest of rocky fold
Beholding barnacles held fast,
Sea grasses over corals bare and cold,
And broken glass.
Sight has no sway of nature's spell:
I ponder Neptune's endless shoals
And whether glimpse of youths should tell
Me of their souls.
Can ever we catch sight of inner form
Reliant on the jelly of our eyes?
I turn to face my sandy steps,
Triumphant Phoebus clouds did rout,
I feel there's folly in my aided sight
So leave without.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 2:37 PM UTC
Back in the age of faith
when most lived in homes of sod
There lived a humble man
They called the juggler of God.
He was just a simple juggler
He could not read or write.
He performed his simple tricks
for children’s laughter and delight.
In return for food and shelter-
for he had little use for gold-
He travelled from town to town
until he at last grew old.
When arthritis swelled his joints
He grew stooped, his fingers cold
When at last his gifts had failed him
He turned attention to his soul.
In the order of Saint Benedict
The kind Abbot gave him place
Though he barely knew the prayers
His simple mind was full of grace.
In the chapel of Our Lady
The Juggler prayed there in the Aisle
Bemoaning his inability
to entertain the holy child.
He felt warmth in his fingers
A quick release from pain
He reached into his leather sack
for the objects of his trade.
There before the altar
The brother juggled for the Lord
It was to be his last performance
with a heavenly reward.
Back in the age of faith
when most lived in homes of sod
There lived a humble man
They called the juggler of God.
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 7:35 AM UTC
One hundred years of solitude
and Marquez still couldn't shut you up,
your words tear down the walls of Macondo,
heckling the Buendías, poking fun at Aureliano
and his golden fishes. The circular history
spins to a halt, and I fold down
the corner of a page, as if closing the book
could save the city built on paper,
on the Formica tabletop
of an old café with a broken clock
A few chapters back,
you were chastising time,
saying one day you'd
crack your watch open,
rearrange the gears, twirl the dials
and steal back from the ticking hands
that steal so much from you. On page 178,
you committed abominations,
spooning sugar into espresso,
and declared your love for Dali because
the man melted time,
didn't care for anything
not molded to the back of a horse.
Cranberry scone finished,
you ruffle the newspaper,
bemoaning the stockbrokers
who grow fat and complacent
on the crumbs of seconds,
chewing chronological cud, you called it,
but you said nothing could ever pin you down,
much less some cheap Timex
on a nylon strap. Cast out of the fourth dimension,
Marquez scribbles graves for the Buendías,
in death, they've forgotten the original sin
and the Colonel forges fish
from the gold fastenings on his casket
ad infinitum.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
fate befalls coarse dissonance
heartfelt plight, undoing thralls
stalwart cries beckon home
staunch hope redoubtably prevails
pithy, barren, crass, vile
Morose echoes, tinged denial
bemoaning daunting harrow
withered bridges surmise winter's defeat
water flowing effortlessly beneath
ineptitude solemnly secedes
decaying frost bereaves Sun's kiss
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM UTC
Born and reared in the city of Bridgeport,
where the trash arose from Long Island Sound.
The seagulls appeared, then vanished from sight,
wafting and diving through radiant sky.
Some inlets and harbours, lapping the shore,
while sounds of young voices screamed with delight.
Marvelous moments to form our delight.
Skipping through the busy streets of Bridgeport.
Heading south down Park, to visit the shore.
Where all you could hear was the visual sound,
of airplanes and balloons, gracing the sky,
alive in my mind but quite out of sight.
The crystalline sparkle came into sight,
to everyone’s pure and simple delight.
We watched as the clouds emerged from blue sky,
over the stunted skyline of Bridgeport.
Suddenly the clamour, the noise, the sound
came crashingly close to the rocky shore.
With silence removed from that muffled sound,
bemoaning the graphite and speckled sky.
Searching and groping for inner delight.
pasteurized thoughts over the sandy shore.
Memorized pictures brought into our sight,
a lost time; in the bowels of Bridgeport.
Sail boats and tankers came upon the shore,
out of the distance, and into my sight.
All I could hear was breath of the sound,
with glee, laughter, and a certain delight.
The slums became the city of Bridgeport,
reaching endlessly toward the dancing sky.
Adrift; at peace, and awashed by the sound,
flippantly airy as ground touched the sky.
I strolled and smiled with love lost delight,
scampered along on our copious shore.
Aware that my flight was love at first sight,
on the coast, in the city of Bridgeport.
Amped delight amid the light of our sound
misconstrued Bridgeport scraped close to the sky,
up to the shore and again out of sight.
Apr 10, 2011
Apr 10, 2011 at 5:15 PM UTC
Lying, cheating, thievery
Were his devils trident
Piercing through an Angel's wings
Leaving her spirit spent
"I know that she could not leave me"
Blinded by self content
Refused to see his hands in things
Never would he repent
Yet Angels heal and then see
Past pretty ornaments
To a future that would always sting
At the point of his trident
Now alone, trident and he
Without love heaven sent
Bemoaning how fate pulled the strings
Blinded by his own contempt
Jun 14, 2010
Jun 14, 2010 at 1:17 PM UTC
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
Crying for wrongs that can never be right
or for those who have left you alone,
Counting your trespasses, weeping, contrite,
when the news of the day makes you groan.
Sorrow for evil, lamenting injustice,
bemoaning the state of mankind,
Earnestly troubled, concerned and nonplussed
at the mess we are leaving behind.
You are the fortunate, all you who mourn;
oh, yes, you are the blesséd who grieve.
Though you are stricken, distressed and forlorn,
Yet your Comforter’s here to relieve.
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 7:10 PM UTC
For Steve Yocum
~~~
an old marine called me the other night
a poet from the left coast,
a correspondent and a first responder
to my messy essays
we both, vintners of men,
compared notes on our progeny's
full bodied temperament,
and our own full body's aches and miscreants
bemoaning our losses,
of earnest poets,
of friends, even foes,
and favored football teams,
and ne'er forgetting to tally up
our occasional victories
he authors books,
he authors life,
with grainy portraits,
that try to be peepholes
to clarity
me, a periodic poetist,
more confessional blogger shootist,
than artful-words-to-please dodger,
in a vainglorious futile insanely repeating attempts
to better separate
life's wheat from the chafe of its chaff
perhaps,
we shall someday meet,
a twosome of codgers,
walk the saddened-today, blood-reddened Oregon soil,
armed with each other's comforting wisdom,
tasting grapes,
acknowledging
but for the grace of god,
we go
*together, to gather,
each other closer,
walk the vineyards and the cellars
to clarify
the wine from the sediment,
getting uproariously drunk
on friendship*
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:34 PM UTC
Sometimes
I feel old and faded
derelict and degraded
overly saturated corrugated cardboard left all alone...out in
the rain too long
or dry and brittle curling up ..creating
a bowl-like middle
adding to the strain like it really matters that that then gathers more dust...more lint
And those
now earth-bound vagabonds
whose time came
and then went
drifters
passing through
as they always do when they ... the fallin
the no longer needed the no longer wanted disavowed
no longer allowed
to hang around
And so apropos
The way leaves go
wherever the wind may choose to blow them to
always a few ...who find shelter
out of ....the vagaries
of the wind and in
that shallow bowl
I formed
Then like it or not
they may stay ...
Hidden away
catching more
of those infinitesimal
all but invisible particulates
as they pass our way
so you might say
we form a bond
a compilation
a strange mutation
Imbibing
longer and longer
those times
of total saturation
the very manifestation
what one may describe as a little tribe...that by the weight of fate
and our bonded state we hunker down
here to stay
upon
this piece of ground
And together we start each doing their part
to speed us on
Upon our way
to our future of decay and yes ..its true
I once felt so..
overly saturated
cursing
the corrugated
the very way
that I was created
bemoaning how
I had faded
But in the end
I did not die alone
I did not die
we ...
did not totally decay nor did we fade away we found life
and meaning when
this little tribe found that we were bound
This little mound
To be
Exactly what
all these lost derelicts
These young seeds.......needs
to create life
And to give
Color to reason
And a new season
To live ....life.
And in a way ...to
Find salvation in decay.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 1:43 AM UTC
Reflections on the Loss of Vision
by Michael R. Burch
The sparrow that cries from the shelter of an ancient oak tree and the squirrels
that dash in delight through the treetops as the first snow glistens and swirls,
remind me so much of my childhood and how the world seemed to me then,
that it seems if I tried
and just closed my eyes,
I could once again be nine or ten.
The rabbits that hide in the bushes where the snowflakes collect as they fall,
hunch there, I know, in the concealing snow, yet now I can't see them at all.
For time slowly weakened my vision; while the patterns seem almost as clear,
some things that I saw
when I was a boy,
are lost to me now in my advancing years.
The chipmunk who seeks out his burrow and the geese now preparing to leave
are there as they were, and yet they are not; and though it seems childish to grieve,
who would condemn a blind man for bemoaning the vision he lost?
Well, in a small way,
through the passage of days,
I have learned some of his loss.
For, as a young boy I endeavored to see things most adults could not—
the camouflaged nests of the hoot owls, the woodpecker’s favorite spots.
But now I no longer can find them, nor understand how I once could,
and it seems such a waste
of those far-sighted days,
to end up near blind in this wood.
Keywords/Tags: reflections, loss, vision, childhood, eyesight, perceptiveness, acuity, age, aging, cataracts, blindness, days, years, decades, near-sighted, far-sighted
What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch
What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.
Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, and Bewildering Stories
Apr 12, 2020
Apr 12, 2020 at 12:59 AM UTC