"birdsongs" poems
I want to climb the hillsides
And to see each wondrous view,
And find the peace I long for there
It's all I wish to do,
I want to walk down winding lanes
And to see the lands of green,
And to smell the pretty flowers there
And breathe the air so clean.
I just want to change my world
I need a brand new start,
And leave the strife of city life
A country boy at heart.
I want to cross the meadows
And to see the woodlands grow,
I want to find serenity
Wherever I do go,
I long to see the rivers
And the gently flowing streams,
Which sparkle in the sunlight there
Within a place of dreams.
I just want to change my world
I need a brand new start,
And leave the strife of city life
A country boy at heart.
I want to see the wheat that blows
Within the fields of gold,
I want to find the freedom
And the treasures there untold,
I want to hear the birdsongs
In early morning skies,
And to witness every sunset
And to watch each dawning rise.
I just want to change my world
I need a brand new start,
And leave the strife of city life
A country boy at heart.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 1:22 PM UTC
Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne,
whither I call back
After hours, when all
the lights turn out
but mine
I hear birdsongs
as the sun turns on
the sky
Nocturne
whence she calls me
Nocturne
whither I call back
Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne
Best never to look back
After lights out, and all
the streetlight seeps
through sidewalks
I see her there
she turns the sun
back on
Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne
I reply
Nocturne
I turn guiltily
Sometimes dreams remind
Sometimes dreams remind
Some dreams rewind time
Sometimes dreams rewind
Some dreams rewind time
Nocturne,
as she calls me
slowly I reply
Nocturne,
shill she calls me
Guiltfully I close my eyes
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:18 AM UTC
It rained outside,
Me sheltered beneath a bridge.
I took a look around
And saw a tree up on a ridge.
It stood solely, solemn there,
The tree itself already downed;
Cut and brought away,
At this thought I frowned.
I let my eyes go on
And raised them to the sky.
Gray and dark and cold
Looked at those clouds high.
With tranquilizing drips
Fell the heavy rain
As if it would weep
For that poor tree‘s pain.
There were many of us
Who sheltered ourselves there.
The trunk all exposed outside,
I thought it wasn‘t fair.
It was a freezing day
But I was, as always, not cold.
I stood there, listening,
To a bird that sung so deeply woed.
It was narrow there,
But if I had been alone,
I would have stayed for an eternity
Thinking of my beloved ones.
This tree yonder, I thought,
It must have hosted once birds that used to sing.
Now it‘s gone, and the birds will be, one day, too.
And that, I thought, is a sad thing.
Apr 12, 2022
Apr 12, 2022 at 1:17 PM UTC
the streetlamps dim
to push sleep past the sidewalk
up through windows
into bedrooms,
like an ether
with a deep breath that never exhales
collapsing with the smog and the traffic
until asphalt footsteps are as loud
as the ringing in your ears
and four o'clock comes
from endless birdsongs
courting darkness
as if it were
light.
Jan 30, 2010
Jan 30, 2010 at 12:54 PM UTC
I killed some baby
Birds
In 1974, eleven, ten years after I was
One and Innocent and my chubby
Fingers probably looked like fat
Sausages to the birds
Tormenting me
Mama bird, frantic, chirping and
Flying in my blonde hair-space
Something worm-like crawled into my
Existence Heart Soul Stomach Nothing
Better than a poke in the eye
Unless you’ve wings that haven’t
Been fully tested
Chirp squawk squawk Chirp
Some kids too far away,
Yelling Hey what the heck’re you doing
You shut up and mind your own
Bees had no wax that day for me
Stick in the safe confines of the picnic
Non-shelter gutter enclosure straw nest
Aborting a beautiful winged thing months
Weeks
Frail little ungraceful bodies
Fell from a height unseen
Landing in ****** puddles
Mom-bird aiming her beak at my own
Eyes swollen and wet, seeing the
Damage I’d manage to inflict
With absolutely no reason as to
Why? On that horrible-
Day and confused, Why?
WHY Did I DO that?
Oh God I’m so sorry
I killed something only Your
Hands could have Present-ed
To our world
Behind me, birdsongs flew, invisible
Wings echoing
Down endless dark corridors
Of my mind
I ran the gait of cowards,
Crying, awkward, stumbling, falling,
Skinning the guilty knees of the man
Inside my conscious who’d taken
Temporary refuge in his wanderings
I cut between yards I promised I’d never cut
Again
Son what’s wrong why’re you crying
I sobbed the evil man out of me, his
Residue falling in salty tears
I did a bad thing, Mom
Tell me what happened. Get it out of you.
Some birds, baby birds, were chirping
Yes. Go on.
I took a stick.
I feel my Mom flinch as if struck with a
Sharp pointed wooden object
Oh no…
And I killed their song.
And their ability to fly.
Oh, my son…
And Mom simply held me, drawing out
The rest of the wild
Spontaneous impulses
That possessed me on that awful
Day I killed the baby birds
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 4:25 PM UTC
You are my coral sky
and all that lies beneath it
Roughness, softness,
pain and ease
I hear the bitter winds
and the birdsongs both
Rain on me
or bathe me in sun
You are my coral sky
bright or diffuse
you light me
I don't want
to rescue you
I just want to be
the cleft, the cut
in the rocky slope
ready for your hand
or a foothold
simply there
at the moment
when you need
to centre
You are my earth
how could I be less
Rest on me while
you catch your breath
when you look up
and out
to that coral sky
I just want to be
there with you
to share the view
copyright © 2016 Ken Rush
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 9:26 AM UTC
She painted peace over the wounded mouths twisted with lies, truths unspoken, love never claimed,
She brushed them with the pink of a newborn baby's lips
She painted peace over the hands that held weapons, fingers that had pulled triggers to **** or maul,
She scraped them green as the new shoots from blades of grass reborn in the Spring
She painted peace in the hearts of those women and men who held broken pieces filled with sadness, scarred with inner rage
She colored them red of the rose in full scent and full bloom
She painted peace on the eyes and bodies of children stripped away from their life force, their source of mother
She traced them the purest blue found in the color of water at dawn's first light
She painted peace in families torn and broken
She swept them with all the colors of the rainbow appearing just after the rain, when the light shines through with hope
She painted peace in the indigenous souls torn from their culture and land
She circled them the color of the green flash-
the flicker of pure green born after the sunsets, existing only for a second
She painted peace in the unborn and the born whose differences bring challenges to them and their families
She skimmed them with lavender fields blooming in the swirling winds, with the sounds of the bees buzzing in joy and abundance
She painted peace over the wounds, the carcasses of animals fallen in a frenzy of human greed and misunderstanding
She whisked them golden as the sun rising in its glory to begin a new day
She painted peace over the ghosts of the forests and their inhabitants
She rolled them the brightest yellow of the night sky--the first star rising-guiding us though the whispers of time steering us in the darkness
She painted peace in the waters, the rivers and oceans who were littered with the makings of man
She glided them silver to reflect the light that is always around
She painted peace on the earth and women--places torn open and stripped, laying barren, vulnerable.
She covered them the rich colors of terra cotta- freshly made pottery from hands who love creation
She painted the air, the unfiltered air, clogged, imbalanced
She flowed it clear, the color of innocence - when we look into the eyes of the newborn, and those just about to pass.
She painted it all,
And when the summer sun melted the colors and subjects, she molded the forms, colors, scent, textures and sounds into the shape of love as eternity.
She sang the sweetest birdsongs into the new day bringing in renewal
She painted peace into all of life.
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019 at 2:57 PM UTC
In the shade of green
Past orchids and blossoms
are roses in bloom
Duties getting hard
But I know I will succeed
My mind remains calm
Studies nearly done
I have learned and overcome
No longer a bud
A bright horizon
Though feeling stressed, I'm smiling
My Kingdom will grow
In the shade of green
Hushing winds bring me birdsongs
As I pick the rose
My diadem glitters
New knowledge now grows in mind
A bud no longer
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 7:29 AM UTC
Part I
**You are so pretty,
I love your fields of flowers,
Nature is the best!!!!
Woodlands green and soft,
Pretty birdsong in the air,
Flowers here and there.
Mountains white and cool,
The mountain stream of water,
Flowers soft and sweet.
The pretty forest,
Of pine trees and hunter furs,
Honeysuckles sweet.
Birdsongs like sweet harps,
Playing in the pretty breeze,
Pretty Spring is here!!!
Lovely butterflies,
Dancing in the cooling breeze,
Falling sweet green leaves.
The mossy pebbles,
Near the sweet bubbling brook,
Makes a lovely song!**
~Marian~
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 7:41 AM UTC
The college kids still pump out poems;
my heroes haven't published a book in years.
The academics are moving to visual arts
kerning letters on the page, adding artist statements.
Fuego en juventud. Sabiduría en viejo.
Passion fades with age, I suppose. A symptom of
the cult of happiness.
And I love to read poems
from twenty-somethings who just want to get ******
I picture my red pen exciting them as I destroy
their fine-tuned metaphors, all muddled with conflicting allusion,
as if juxtaposition alone adds meaning.
In school, it was all Cezanne and hydrogen jukebox birdsongs,
and equally interesting but useless adjective strings.
The academics are doing the same, but with form.
It bores us, don't they know?
Fuego en juventud. Sabiduría en viejo.
**** these kids for having such easy means to publication.
I read their journals, their magazines, their "editions"
online, vivid, vomiting color and opinion.
I long for publishing classified ads and
scribbled chalk portraits of the women I loved
and the twenty-somethings who just wanted to get ******
and reflections of how I never mastered either craft.
I long to rub the ink off newsprint in my fingers,
smudge the words on the page and ***** my hands,
watch the chalk run into the red brick
during ten-minute monsoons, smell the library's adobe,
light a cigarette and remember that the stacks are filled
with ages of greater work than these ******* kids...
and these ******* academics.
Greater than me.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 5:04 AM UTC
The sun that shines through morning sky,
Need not compare to your shining light.
The birdsongs blended with flapping wings,
Need not compare to the words you sing.
The glow of dawn, and awe of life revived like Spring,
Need not compare, to the beauty you
bring.
A Summer's breeze, nature's ivory dove,
Need not compare to the grandeur of your love.
A flower's petals, as pretty as lace,
Need not compare to your elegant grace.
Grey skies or blue, any version of daytime,
Need not compare to a love so sublime.
The safety of home, an escape from night,
Need not compare to your company's respite.
The warmth and safety of a roaring fireplace,
Need not compare to your loving embrace.
A climb into bed, nay, any day, any time,
Need not compare to a reminder
you're mine.
Every day my love grows stronger, and that will never end,
Only to you do I wish to tend.
I've found my one, and if you are keen,
For life, I'll be your king, and you'll be
my queen.
Feb 14, 2021
Feb 14, 2021 at 4:44 PM UTC
Within the aches of the times between dreams
Hobbling on
With a dour countenance
Hanging in the prevailing north wind
Someone old yet hardly wise
Whistles an eerie hymn
In reply to native birdsongs
Cardinals and sparrows
An occasional red-tailed hawk scream
The lively menagerie joins
Into a taunting laughter
Within the cold threat of a life uncertain
Bounding on
With the sun running in
And sliding down the bedroom wall
A young man in his young armor
Walks out shining toward the day
To find clouds approaching
And beneath a thin mist
He walks his trenchant walk
Metal splashes through viscous puddled earth
And rust grows in the creases
Within the rain hurdling down
Scampering on
With a dream thundering from gray skies
Into a drab living room
A child loses himself in himself
To find a more colorful world
Where the booms are but drums
And drops of rain are chipper visitors
When the lights go out and darkness comes
He marvels at the waltzing candlelight
And nothing can touch him
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 4:46 AM UTC
While sketching a lamp, it was seen that the current came on.
The memoirs about darkness too got stuck then. Thus started to pray
God is a father who gives ten if we ask for a hundred.
Otherwise, would he trick me, by giving me sleep daily, instead of the death I pray for?
The only consolation is the sky. Its reddened eyes, swollen eyelids, disturb.
The previous day, I saw it fallen into and lying in the river.
No, it wouldn’t have died. I can hear the birdsongs.
Is the kingfisher a bird enchanted by the water-spirit?
Or else, leave it, let it be a fish with wings.
When I couldn’t bear the boredom anymore, I thought I would write a letter to death.
As soon as I finished addressing, ‘O last supper of a loner,’ telephone rang.
When I attended, it didn’t say anything.
Earlier, it had given me a kiss.
I don’t remember reading in any book on marriage that from the second kiss onwards, you start feeling bad breath.
Forget all that.
Suppose I bewail ‘die me, die me’, to the current?
After all, it doesn’t know proper grammar or syntax.
Is the news that the copywriter who wrote the advertisement
for the glue which merges two lives
Didn’t get his pay, in today’s papers? No, let the day get lighter
It is a pity that there is no calling bell in the cemetery
Father sleeps , having secured the mud door .
O no, I am not making any noise
O you who makes fun of me saying that I make a sign of the cross when I see a phone booth,
Please do not sin. You will never find a purer confessional!
I had wanted to make a good lay out for the suicide note, take lots of photocopies and entrust it to a friend to have it posted too.
Otherwise, leave it, it is better to live than to die thus..
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 3:03 AM UTC
Dottie wishes Willie would
return home. All night she
had twisted and turned in
his bed. She looks out of
the window of their cottage
for the postie to come with
a letter from her brother,
but there is no sight or sign.
She sighs. Later she will prepare
one of his favourite pies. He’ll
bring Sammy and they’ll go
for walks and talk and smell
flowers and hear the birdsongs
and sit beneath trees and study
the sky. She moves to the kettle
and switches it on and prepares
a cup of tea. One teabag, two
sugars, a small spill of milk.
She sips and thinks. If Willie
were here now he’d lay his head
on her shoulder and read her
one of his poems. She likes it when
he reads her one of his poems.
She knows them because she
scribbles them down as he recites
them as they walk along. I can’t
write sitting down, he often told her.
I need to walk and breathe the
air and hear the songs of birds.
She sits and imagines him there
beside her, his head on her
shoulder as if a pillow, his
vibrating voice moving inside her.
She senses a headache coming,
feels the tremors along her nerves
like a coming storm. It is a time
of bleeds. The moon’s pull drags
her down. If Willie were here he’d
say, Go lay down and I will come
bring you pills and water and kiss
it better. But her brother is away
bringing Sammy. The clouds are
gathering, dark grey and heavy,
the sky becoming black, oh, she
says, if only my Willie was back.
May 17, 2012
May 17, 2012 at 2:05 AM UTC
I wait
for spring;
the petals
on a fleeting breeze;
the scent of grass
made soft by the warm sun;
the hymn of life
started by the first birdsongs of the morning;
the faint hum
of beating wings
as a bee lands gently
on the pistil of a flower;
the lukewarm night
where the moon peers curiously
at the yellow-orange tinge of sunrise.
Feb 11, 2022
Feb 11, 2022 at 2:25 PM UTC
Before my morning eyes have opened
a chorus of birdsongs tells me
that after days of wet
the sun has pushed away the night
and finally replaced the wind and rain
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 8:32 AM UTC
Words
are composed of letters
and pronounced with mouths
and tongues of purpose
but in practice
words
cut deep like the sharpest blades
and convey concern like the softest hands
in sequential breaths
from the same sighing lungs.
some words sound like gunshots
and others like birdsongs.
some words feel like sunshine
and others like summer breezes.
these
criss
crossing
communicative
constructs
drive our wars
and soothe our hearts.
abstract, yet almost tangible
Words.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
These lanes are very narrow
you said
walking with Jane
from the parsonage
where she lived
to where the farm road began
Are they?
she replied
I’ve never thought about it
just that the hedges are high
and the birds chock full
in them and their songs
Yes
you said
They are
and in London
there are no hedges
or narrow lanes
and the only birds
are sparrows
and pigeons
and you wanted
to take hold
of her hand
and squeeze gently
the flesh
and sense her pulse
but you didn’t
you put your hands
in your jean pockets
and gazed sideways on
at her and her dark hair
and her profile
and the scent of her
like lavender
as if she’d dived
into a wide field of it
and embraced
the flowers and stalks
What bird song is that?
she asked
No idea
you replied
moving closer to her
the scent getting stronger
the desire to be closer
taking hold but still at bay
It’s a blackbird
she said
You’ll learn them all
the birdsongs
and where and how
they nest and in what months
and you nodded
and saw how
the summery dress
moved and swayed
as she walked
the flowered pattern
like a field moved
by a soft breeze
and her sandaled feet
touching the gravelled lane
and you thinking
how it would be
for them to be held
and kissed by you
if she were beside you
lying in a field
or in one
of those tall woods
and you pursed your lips
and she looked up at the sky
her eyes gathering
the blueness
and whiteness of clouds
and she said
Monet would have captured that so well
and You
you muttered
He would capture you well
each aspect
of your face
and hair and eyes
and she smiled
and looked at you and said
I’d want to be captured by Renoir
have his arthritic fingers
clutching brush
and capture me
and maybe secretly
lust after me
and she blushed
and turned away
and you thought
Oh yes yes yes
but said nothing
just gazed
and breathed in
her being
her beauty
all there
for you to view
the eyes
the hair
the profile
the way her lips smiled
and sway of walk
and the tall hedges
seemed to explode
with the wild bird’s talk.
Apr 17, 2012
Apr 17, 2012 at 2:03 AM UTC
. . . There's a darkness in the room next to me . . .
. . . I'm not sure what it could be and I can't yet see . . .
. . . My heart isn't changing, it's been long since it last did . . .
. . . I know where the basement is, the attic too . . .
. . . I know the bones hang in the closet by the door . . .
. . . But I've never seen the looks of you before . . .
. . . Hair like choking coal and eyes of putrid ebony . . .
. . . Some thin breezy nights I wish you'd swallow me . . .
. . . But I haven't yet left so here I'll be, burying my soul . . .
. . . Where a devil and an angel wait patiently . . .
. . . I'd go with you now if you'd come with me . . .
. . . Please don't hurry, I left you behind to find yesterday . . .
. . . I'm not quite done yet with staining ancient history . . .
. . . Birdsongs play in cemeteries so why can't we . . .
. . . Never said I was sorry, now I guess I'll go . . .
. . . But I'll take my skeletons with me . . .
. . . Please don't forget to blink before I fly . . .
. . . Into the darkness of the room next to me . . .
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 3:07 AM UTC
The moon rises upon your face
And shine falls when you smile
Your silences like conversations
Often you unfold the emotions,
You're happy with your dreams
Though they're many miles away.
The ocean slows down for you
And waves play with your mind
The spring gives you green days
Cause maybe you are loveable,
The moon rises up to your face
Your shine falls when you smile.
The flowers smell pretty in your courtyards
To help you sleep at night
The birdsongs wake you up happily
Every day in the morning,
The moon rises up to your face
Your shine falls when you smile.
The morning takes away your sleepiness
To make you ready for the day
The evening shadow makes you blue
To give you a good sleep night,
The moon rises up to your face
And you shine when you smile.
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 2:39 AM UTC
I cower in fetal position
As angry words are thrown
Not at me,
But hurting all the same
I close my eyes
But I can still see
My safe haven
My stable foundation
Is crumbling
Because of things
That may or not have
Even happened
Just suspicions
The slightest little hints
Taken as proof
Of infidelity
I slip on my shoes
Tiptoe around them
I leave, they don't even see
I walk thro the yard and
Grasp the branches of my favorite tree
And climb up until
All I can see is the beautiful landscape
And all I hear is birdsongs
And then the tears come
Ever so quietly
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 3:43 AM UTC
in regards to where we would find
our hands and elbows entwined,
you never did guarantee that
you could answer with certainty.
"Anything could happen
in five years, Vin-
we could be the last two people
on Earth," you told me,
"how's that for an answer?"
well, it's a shame that we weren't.
it's a shame our love had to share
so much in common
with the stars that we swore
were living with us
when we'd ******** in the car,
forgetting how much light years
play tricks on our eyes.
it's a shame that our love
had to be the canary that
never made it out of the coal mine;
though we reassured ourselves
it would come about before night,
the last echoes of those birdsongs
only came from the walls of our minds.
and it's a shame that
when we speak,
it's seldom that we talk,
so I may never know
just what you really wanted to do
with all of this-
whatever it was,
I just hope this wasn't it.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:17 AM UTC