"brambled" poems
Hooked and hung to the chair,
tethered by a strap-
colour akin to your hair-
you sat and stared
at another essay to be handed in
by three pm, next-week-Wednesday.
A-future-whatever is another
lustful thought, failed and
let down by little taught.
Again! Why a wife is so hard to find
in brambled streets or box hedged
squares, rectangular and receipt like?
Give up and give in,
walk drunk drinking sloe gin.
That way love is but blackthorn berries
the controversial, speechless adversaries.
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 11:04 AM UTC
They said
We were to tip toe through the tulips
Waltz, glide across the dance floor of life
I haven’t a chance
My size twelve feet and three inch toes
Clatter, batter and splatter
Through life’s brambled, grotty hedgerows
Toes are a magnet, for that rusty nail,
Or any broken pipe left on my trail
Oh what use are my toes,
Now I’m no longer hanging upside
Down from branches
They’ve been broken, twisted,
Stomped on hard
Nails that have cracked,
And bleed some more,
Before being shed.
Now I’ve looked at other’s toes,
And seen what toes could be,
All brightly coloured
Polished to a sheen,
Tended to like beautiful topiary
Maybe that’s what I should have done,
Instead of kicking a ball
Clomping cross those tulips
Spent sometime buffing, making them look clean.
But then I’d look
And miss my battle worn scarred tootsies
They may be old, crooked,
And not quite glamour ****
But then they have walked a million,
And will do for a million more.
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 5:17 PM UTC
Who passed the night with silent pining?
A face hidden from moonlit sight,
Twas I the hunter said at last and sighed,
My only prey has taken flight.
She fled into the brambled thrall,
I ne'er but glimpsed her pale white face,
And since that night I've wept within this wood,
'Tis become my solitary place.
My quiver lost its missles long ago,
This sacred bow remains unstrung,
The cold now creeps like moss on trees,
And her song is yet to be sung.
My hair is white my face is grey,
These peircing eyes now dim,
I sometime catch her gentle scent,
Perhaps its just my foolish whim.
But O' that once and once again to hunt,
Her wiles seducing all my heart,
And I pursuing yet pursued by love,
Once again to draw the soul apart.
By S. E. Johnson copyright 2012
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
_You ask of which I am most afeart, the rumbling tumblings of the troll beneath the bridge or the tinkering favours of an eccentric fairy godmother. Alas, it is the marzipan crumbs of inspiration leading me down the brambled garden path which most unsettle me; the ink that does not write; the unpainted page with not a gingerbread house...in sight._
Sep 5, 2020
Sep 5, 2020 at 3:33 AM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 12:55 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Jun 4, 2012
Jun 4, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 1:29 PM UTC
Sing your song
Mad bird
Warble in the sky
The world
Has many troubles
There’s much
To make us cry.
Fly above the treetops
With wings
That catch the air
And marvel
At the things you see
They’re lost to us
Down here.
My land legs lug
Me down
I’m anchored
To the ground
A plant with shoots
I can’t uproot
Or else
I’d fly away.
Sing your song
Mad bird
Before I
Wilt and die
My brambled brush
Could not retouch
The scenes you paint
So high.
May 1, 2012
May 1, 2012 at 10:54 PM UTC
Each note in my ears
conducts an orchestra of memory
a rush of blood
from my heart to
my head
I remember
my summer of love
making
The King of Carrot Flowers in California
his stubble- cactus needles
rubbing my lips numb like *******
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, in Michigan
her hair a brambled bush
tangled in my fingers
******* for the Holidays, in her bed
her body like going home
each time "the last, I swear"
Every Little Thing She Does, in her car
trips to the playground
where we explored like children
and
The Communist Daughter, who set me free
the feeling of forever
my hand in the small of her back
as we danced in our underwear
to Waltz #2
I remember lying
on blades of grass
as hot air balloons
fell into the sky
stirring her algae eyes
my mouth dry and expectant
I knew exactly why I had to leave.
The Southern State
called me nightly
when I heard the train
shouting my future.
So
I rode her to Chicago
with Tom Waits
on my smoke breaks.
From Chicago to Dallas
I wrote poems of
"true love"
****** obsessions"
"surprise thoughts"
***** singing
'1. 2. 3. 4.' in Chris's guest bedroom
her boyfriend calling
we whispered promises
of a future before
we kissed goodbye.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 3:10 PM UTC
even though, blood become
word. and the body
continues to have to
metabolize when slumbering,
till a future becomes
some moved on
parallel universe.
(mahogany-stained oak grip;
she’s the better
adventure, so don’t slip)
and the Long Dark sweatings,
unusual;
brambled-feet still stink.
(it would snow
in a raging roar)
wonder, can the crazy
be smelled?;
wonder, does the risen body
require metab.?;
wonder, did he catch a ghost
between his teeth?
and now [SELF-DENTISTRY 101]
hold on –
watch this guy
pull his own tooth.
(i’m too white
to keep this a-flow)
but Paul spoke the red, (amanuensis,
main-saint diggin’ the schizos)
and, but wait,
“Jesus spoke in red,” a lone
cowboy sang.
and colorblind, remember
and,
hold up,
guy is still working
that tooth –
some paper towels,
pair of pliers,
someone to hold the light.
“So I don’t get blood
all over my buddy’s bed,”
[brake]
“That was a long nerve.
You hear it pop?”
[brake]
“If I was straight white-boy,
this’d be easy,”
[brake]
but what can follow.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 4:06 AM UTC
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
The song-splayed sounds of light
And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
Brambled in bay, garland in violet
When blades could ***** and not make bleed,
And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
In that glow, once knighted we must serve
Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
And the vernal song sang lowly
Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.
At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
Brown as the yellowed beech
Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.
Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing **** heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
Damp fires hailed the rising
Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 9:59 AM UTC
*It was out of the blue.
Really why would he talk to me.
I am pleasantly plump.
size fourteen if I lie.
my hair is wild
and terminal frizzy.
he has a cut glass
English accent.
like a BBC newscaster.
I am from the Bronx.
we drank too much wine.
he took me home to my place.
I had to pay for the cab.
But it's not like paying for him
to...well...you know.
I could not walk the next morning.
he told me I was Beautiful and
the best time he had had in America.
me can you believe that.
He was a botanist from the UK
working on the nesting habits
of the speckle throated warbler
or something.
All I knew was he had ice blue eyes
a sweet accent and grey specks
in his blueness that made me
want to undress for him.
He was beautiful.
when he left in the morning
I gave him my number
on his phone.
call me I said.
but months went by.
not a word.
then when the morning
sickness came.
I realised he was still inside me.
The eclampsia came at seven months
I was hospitalised the doctors told me
I and the baby could die.
I went into a coma.
when. woke up my belly was flat
the baby I cried.
I opened my eyes and he was there.
holding my hand.
my baby I wept
they are fine Kelly
he said.
they?
you had twins a boy and a girl.
I looked up into his eyes
with the grey fleck's.
Micheal how?
I was sent back to the UK
I lost my job at the university.
I tried to call you
but no answer.
I came back on a visitors visa.
your neighbor told
me you were here.
six months later
we went for a Sunday evening
stroll in central park
it was fall the trees
were red and amber
leaves of gold
russeled under our feet.
new York was grey in fading light.
A city that hadwitnessed
many such love stories.
I looked at Micheal
his beautiful eyes
that held some kind
of optical aberration.
For they saw me as
worthy of his love.
He lifted the twins
over his head.
they laughed in delight.
I never seen anyone
as happy as him.
Unless you
count me in that is.
He said I love my family Kelly.
I whispered I love you Micheal.
Then at that moment
in the urban forrest of Cental park
on a vermillian autumn evening.
I felt him walk into
the door in my heart
that I left opened or him.
As he entered
I closed it quickly
so he could never leave.
locking it with the only key
that existed.
Then throwing it into the brambled
undergrowth of the woodlands
never to found again.*
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 9:38 PM UTC
Is it best
for your thoughts to become words
but pass from heart to mouth
instead of head to mouth
where the path runs
through brambled dark places
strung with webs
sticky from the pitch
of trepidation and uncertainty
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 9:33 PM UTC
When I was a kid in the Virginia mountains, we had a train line that ran yonder through our quiet little town, a few miles from our house.
In the warm summer months we’d have the wooden sash windows wide open, their screens strummed by the breeze and humming a hushed lullaby.
Each night, lying in bed, I heard the remote rolling roar of the train when it blew its whistle as it neared our town.
Every night, as the dusk fell, it came: the slow rush and roar of iron engine wheels that glide along on roads of steel. The engine‘s sacred heart was stoked white hot, fed by black coal dug from those rolling hills.
Then the hush of night lifted for a rolling moment: The engineer pulled the whistle cord — releasing a long plaintive chord of a melancholy choir, pitched just so, for to sound softly through the coal-hearted hills of the Blue Ridges as they echoed in quiet reply.
It was my signal: It’s time to sleep.
The nightly ritual chuffed on. Boxcars rumbling on rugged rails. A distant engine roaring by in steam and stoked fire. Waves of lightning bugs that rose and fell in the sticky summer night while foxfire faintly glowed blue in the brambled underbrush. High above the rolling green hills, between the watchful blue mountains, the stars arced past on their tracks of old.
I’ve long lived far from home. Longer still has the now lonesome line been turning to rust. Now I know why the whistle wailed: It was wistfully aware that its last stop was near.
But I still hear the ghostly wail of the whistle past, as the slow steam train of memory glides through the dusk of my soul.
Jan 15, 2025
Jan 15, 2025 at 2:54 PM UTC
While wintry air blows,
Aswirl with busy gleaming,
The quiet woodland drapes
With a white, misty teeming.
The falling, hushed deep
Gives a sleep
To the striving
Of creatures and the wild
Entangled roots,
Brambled and sprawling.
Air silvering, hearts warming,
Breaths fogging...
Elowen,
Fairy of the forest cold,
Goddess of the Winter way of old!
She-Sprite, dancing between the trees
Of our friendly woods,
Fleeting amidst the venerable Stand
Which silently
Protects our neighborhoods.
Her rarefied breath,
Her crystalline eyes,
Her graceful hands
Casts an enchantment --
A spell known well, within in our souls.
Our spirits, adrift in dreaming, know her
Song's whispering and it thrills us,
As we sleep
Beneath the whitening silence
Of her wild winter
Deep.
Dec 9, 2017
Dec 9, 2017 at 4:53 PM UTC