Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
~ ~ ~
Adieu!
My Crew, My Crew!


this, our first trip,
our longest voyage,
nears completion

eighteenth of May,
a terminal date,
date of destination,
upon it commenced,
upon it,
our commencement

a terminus nearing,
a degree of latitude given,
a degree of longitude observed,
by you
mes méridiens,
witnesses to my zenith,
a degree of gratitude granted
and lovingly recv'd

adieu, adieu!
this sole~full rhyme
beats upon my lips
repeats and repeats,
endlessly looped,
Adieu, my crew!

sailor, voyageur,
scribe and travel guide
for four seasons,
a composition of one long
anno sabbatico,
muy simpatico

in the spring of '13
I sprung up here,
a Mayflower,,
a May flower,
a floral ship,
annual for a single year,
annual for a single circumnavigation

hearing now once again,
refreshing sounds,
hinting noises,
here comes his paul simonizing summery spring again,
rhyming timing reminding dylan style,
it's all over now, my babies blue

t'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

we get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they,
upon my tarnished earthly being,
unreservedly and never judgingly,
give inspiration unstintingly,
we share,
never measuring a captain's humanity
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

for
grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
all
only know one measure,
immeasurable

respect the
never-ending new combinations
of an old nature,
even the impoverished words he speaks,
words as they exit the
brain's grand birth canal,
whimsically announcing their poetic arrival with a:

"been here, done that,
but happy to do it,
one more time,
just ever so differently"


the only counting
that satisfies them and me,
the clicking sound be,
the sound of a
a pointer-finger tablet-clicking,
heartbeats a metering,
individual letters being stork-delivered,
and

yellow lightening
when it comes,
signifying family completion,
a poem,
a family,
comes
crackling real!

here comes spring again!
happily to shackle me,
shuckling me back to and fro,
to whence I came,
and from
whence I once
and always belonged

memorial weekend,
memorializing me,
orchestrating a prodigal son's
two edged tune,
a contrapuntal contrapposto,
a "fare-thee-well, man"
and a
"hello son, welcome home!"

that empty Adirondack chair,
by my name,
with your names
in tears inscribed upon it,
awaits

the breezes take note,
singing a duopoly:

this ole chair
needs refilling,
Rest & Recreation for your Rhythm & Blues,
your busted body boy
healing with our natural scents,
calming with common sense

with it,
will and refill,
the cracked breaches,
by phonetic letters frenetic,
drinking, then purge-spilling,
a speckled spackling paste of comfort food words
given of and given by,
given back to,
the bay's tide
and beaches
and

you, crew,

let this soul captain briefly lead,
spilling too oft his new seed,
he,
selected but unelected by a
raucous silent voice-vote...
of an unknown,
impressed-into-service crew

some of you
impressed upon
the skin of this captain man's sou!,
a cherishment so complete,
yet has he to fully comprehend,
its miracality,
the golden epaulettes upon his shoulder,
worn ever proudly

the nearest ending,
one of many.
a course of waterfall and rapids survived,
yet invisible shoals fast approaching,
a single bell tolling, warning,
here was, here comes,
yet another,
close calling

sirens shriek
forewarning,
can't abide a moment longer thus,
desperate longing
for a refuge of language loved,
not lost in lands and a sea of
ranted bittersweet journaled cant
and hashtags of sad despair

can't lengthen this sway,
grant a governor's stay,
cannot

heaven schedules our lives,
completed a time out
in a day,
twenty four hours of fabulous, fabled
and of late,
a shopworn, forlorn existence,
three hundred and sixty five times,
circularized on these pages

now
no forevermore, no forestalling,
only the truth,
a grizzled, unprimped,
mirror'd recognition

flutes,
sad low whistle,
trumpets,
wild maimed moan,
violins,
jenny jilted wailing tears, groan,
and harps and guitars,
each pluck single notes plaintive,
long and slow their disappearing reverberation,
but end it must

none can deny or fail to ascertain,
port of our joint destination,
pinpointed on maps as
"the last curtain call,"
just over the nearby horizon line,
demarcating the finality
of the days of glorious,
and the quietude of
a storied ending

my crew, my crew,
forever besided,
forever insided,
bussed, bedded, and bathed,
with me,

wherever I write most,
wherever I write eyes moist,
my crew
of all captains,
whose fealty I adore
and to whom,
my loyalty unquestioned sworn,
upon righteous English oak
an oath unstained,
an American bible, an American chest,
blood sworn here forever to
my
brothers, sisters and children
many who by title me addressed
this man as,
grandfather,
yet friends
from foreign-no-more-lands

this is only a poem,
this is only the best I have

This to me given,
and now to you returned,
encrusted with trust

for
we together,
were
a new combination
all our own

my crew, my crew,
for you:
my seasonal Yule log-life burns
every day,
all years of my life shiny shiny
copper-burnished teapot whistling
you, your names
a tune of the past,
and the yet to come

I care,
burdened more
than than you ere known,
dare I bear
to bare-confess

for and by you was I,
my restlessness lessened
my unrest less,
so comforted by an out-louded,
deep-welcome-throated reception
let it end thus,
no whimpers or cries,
no misunderstanding

in a Wilderness of Words,
sought you out,
your name and lands,
yours, purposely hidden,
disguised and unknown,

while I placed before you,
my name
my birthplace,
the poetry of my truths,
the jagged laughing,
the cryptic crying,
at myself,
foibles, pimples and the
the insights inside,
mine own book of revelations
all clear in the
drippings of my clarifying
cloudy tears

stranger to friends to chance,
all by chance,
sharing nodules, capsules,
even tumors and ill humors

your affection and simple heroism,
left me both gasping,
and leaves me now,
grasping

your hearts sustain
and are sustainable,
in ways the word,
organic,
not even remotely
adequate, sufficient

in ways
that can be secreted here,
in sharing,
private messages,
snippet exchanges,
that are valored above the rubies of
public hearts that
claim attention
but are gold bonded hand cuffs,
nonetheless!

my left, what is left,
to your strong right,
by rings married we are,
you and I,
a secretion on our kissing lips,
a perfumed essence called
No.365
"secrets of us..."

Wit I were a man
who could advance
his essay further,
but this voyage,
closed and done,
but a steamer approaches
where they need a third mate,
no questions asked,
no names exchanged,
no counting the change in his heart and the,
holes in his heart pocket

asking not,
are you friend long term true,
or just a fly by night,
short-winded trend

so onto
ports that are nameless,
needy for discovery,
perhaps,
they will have a fruitfulness
unripened,
awaiting verbal germination
so yet again,
when he wipes away
with back of a hand,
his fresh fears,
moistening those dried,
those crack'd lips

underneath will be yet found
a perhaps,
a
fully formed, yet to be shared,
new poem,
that gives value
standing on its own,
and perhaps, rewarming, reawakening,
his gone cold and pale,
yet quivering moving,
his almost stilled silenced spring,
but not quite,
lips...


--------------------------------

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.


                    
Walt Whitman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

bob dylan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet (I know we'll meet) beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing...

Jack Lawerence
looking for me in other names, other places
an explanation someday writ, not yet complete....but my poetry no longer gives
no satisfaction...
Hibernating in the summer, not merely resting my voice, but more than that, much more...will repost older stuff only...
take care of the newbies
~~~~~
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine†;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
Tryst Jul 2014
Prologue

Once upon a time; when ocean
Travel was a novel notion,
Many feared the rocking motion
Of the ocean going ships;

But the worst sailing endeavor,
Even worse than stormy weather,
Was the unmistaken terror --
Pirate Peter and his whips ...


Introduction

Tales are wove from authors spinning
Yarns, their fingers deftly trimming
Words, until a new beginning
Sprawls across the open page;

So begins our humble telling,
On the street, an orphan's dwelling,
Where a young lad's feet are swelling,
Barely fifteen years of age.


A Humble Beginning

Peter shook and Peter shivered,
Weary limbs felt cold and withered,
Chilling winter winds delivered
Snow, fresh-fallen on the ground;

Huddled up, his clothes were sodden,
Tattered shoes were too well trodden,
Lost, alone, a misbegotten
Miscreant; half-froze, half-drowned.

As he lay there, slowly dying,
Given up all hope of trying,
Who should chance to walk on by him,
But a captain of the sea;

“What's this now!” the old tar spluttered,
“Up you get lad, you'll be shuttered
Some place dry tonight!”
he muttered,
“Take my hand and come with me!”

Peter felt himself man-handled,
Lifted up, and there he dangled,
Glancing upward, at his tangled
Grey and matted saviors beard;

“Thank you kindly, Sir!” he mumbled,
Took one step and quickly stumbled
Forward, landing in a jumbled
heap; “Lad its worse than I feared!”

Heaved upon the captain's shoulder,
Peter felt a might less colder;
As the sea dog walked, he rolled a
Cigarette with one free hand;

“Get some sleep son, soon the dawning
Of a bright and brand new morning,
Will come calling, and adorning
Over all this blessed land!”



A Merry Meeting

Peter woke from days of sleeping,
All around, he heard a creaking
Sound, as if the room was speaking,
Telling of its timber tales;

Up he stood and rubbed his bleary
Eyes, he still felt weak and weary,
Cabin walls looked drab and dreary,
Roughly hewn with rusty nails.

Suddenly, he felt a hunger,
Starting small, but growing stronger;
Feeling he could wait no longer,
Peter burst out through the door;

Racing headlong through the belly
Of the ship, his legs were jelly;
Once or twice poor Peter fell, he
Felt alone, lost and unsure.

Then he chanced upon the captain,
Dining with a merry chaplain,
Feasting on a pig with cracklin',
Sitting on an up-turned drum;

“Here's a fine lad in a hurry!
Settle down and save your worry,
There's no need to flurry scurry!
Come and have a taste of ***!”



The Daily Grind

Peter mopped and Peter scrubbed,
He got down on his knees and rubbed
The decks, and every day he loved
To feel and taste the ocean spray;

Rescued from a world of blindness
To his plight, he paid the kindness,
Working hard; where most would find this
Horrid, he embraced each day.

Such was life until one evening,
Waking from his fitful dreaming,
Peter heard an awful screaming,
And he watched as sailors ran;

From the deck, he saw the flying
Skull and Crossbones flag, implying
Pirates with no fear of dying;
Every one, a wanted man.


Battle At Sea

Cannons roared and cannons thundered,
Blunderbusses bussed and blundered,
Roiling masts were shot and sundered,
Splinters flew across the deck;

Rigging crashed and rigging crumbled,
Smashing down as cannons rumbled,
Falling masts and sails all tumbled,
Landing in a twisted wreck.

Swiftly came the pirate vessel,
Drawing close, to crash and nestle,
Broad-side on to form a trestle,
Over which the pirates ran;

Fearful of impending slaughter,
Sailors dived into the water,
Knowing they were never aught to
See their loved ones e'er again.

Peter rushed and Peter scurried,
Dodging blades that flashed and flurried,
Down beneath the decks he hurried,
Seeking for a place to hide;

In the hull, the darkness beckoned,
Peter locked the hatch, and reckoned
That might hold them for a second;
Finding crates, he hid inside.


His Master's Voice

Down below, young Peter waited,
Silently, his breath abated,
Hearing pirates jubilated,
As they plundered through the ship;

Soon he heard the latch locks broken,
Creaking as the hatch raised open,
Then a cold voice, harshly spoken,
And the lashing of a whip.

"Filthy ****-dogs, stop yer looting!
Stow the cheering and the whooping,
Look to all the sails a-drooping,
Fix the masts and man the oars!

On the morrow, we'll be sailing,
And I'm right anticipating,
That we'll get a strong wind trailing,
Speeding us to yonder shores!"



An Unexpected Find

Peter woke and Peter pondered,
How much time had passed, he wondered?
Cautiously, he rose and wandered
Silently from stern to prow;

In the quarters of the captain,
Peter found a pirate wrapped in
Silken sheets; a perfumed napkin
Draped across his furrowed brow.

Peter glanced around the room
And spied a hat with feathered plume
That lay beside a gold doubloon;
Time to make the pirates pay!

Peter stretched and Peter strained,
His fingers gripped the hat and claimed
Their prize, and next the coin was gained;
Gleefully he turned away.

Then a glinted gold reflection
Gleamed, attracting his attention;
Peter crawled for close inspection,
Wondering what he had found;

Two fine whips of equal measure,
Golden handled trinket treasure;
Peter felt a glowing pleasure
As he stole them from the ground.

Stealthily, he reached the deck, and
Found a crate on which to stand
And saw a sight that looked so grand,
How could fate have been so kind!

They were anchored by the moorings
Of the dock, where several mornings
Past, young Peter had been snoring,
Freezing off his poor behind!


Trouble In Town

Pirates robbed and pirates looted,
Pillaging, they laughed and hooted;
Plants were trampled, trees uprooted,
As they raced through city streets;

In the church, the bells were ringing,
Clangers clanging, peels were singing,
Warning of the pirates, bringing
Fear to folk, now white as sheets!

Peter tracked his pirate quarry,
Mind made up to make them sorry,
Chasing them beneath a starry
Ebon sky, he felt quite brave;

Suddenly, he heard a yelling
From behind, three pirates smelling
Like a brewers fare, no telling
How this trio might behave.

Drunkard Pirate:
"What’s this now, who’s that their lurking
In the shadows, be thee shirking
Looting tasks, why aren’t you working?"

Then he stopped and then he cried;

"Bless my soul, our captain joining
In the raiding, how exciting!
Begging pardon, Sir but finding
You at work is joy!"
he lied.

Peter grasped the situation,
Putting on an imitation,
With a rough edged inclination,
Like the one he’d heard before;

"Lazy dogs, now stop yer bleating
Otherwise you’ll get a beating,
Now you’d best get on retreating
Back to ship, we’re leaving shore!"


In his hat, he felt quite dashing,
Brandishing his whips, and lashing
At the three, and then just laughing
As he watched them run away;

Emboldened by his hero action,
Peter felt a strange attraction
To the power of the captain
That he had become this day.

Then his luck turned swiftly sour,
For upon that very hour,
Soldiers left a nearby tower,
Seeing him, they gave a squeal;

"Pirate ****, you will surrender,
Otherwise my blade will end yer
Evil life, now will you bend a
Knee and yield, or ******* steel?"
  

Peter tried to start explaining,
But the soldiers blows were raining
On his head, the blood was staining
On his clothes, the wounds did sting;

"Look at him, he must be wealthy,
What a hat! And look at this see?
Gold doubloon and golden whips! We
Bagged ourselves the pirate king!"



Trial In Absentia

Clerk of the Court:
Silence now! This court's in session,
Pirates must be taught a lesson,
But we may show some concession
For those with the sense to speak!

Let us hear the turncoats raving,
Of their captain misbehaving,
Then decide whose necks we're saving;
Otherwise, they're up the creek!


Pirate 1:
If it please your lords and ladies,
Captain Peter ate three babies!
Bit my dog and gave him rabies,
Hang him up and hang him high!


Pirate 2:
Here I swear before you gentry,
This whole case is elementary,
Don't give him no penitentiary,
Hang that captain out to dry!


The Honorable Judge:
It seems the evidence is clear,
Their testaments are most sincere,
No need to bring the captain here --
Evil men must pay their toll;

I find him guilty, captain Peter,
Scourge of seas and baby eater,
Hang the lying scoundrel cheater,
God have mercy on his soul.



At The Gallows

Clerk of the Court:
Peter, thou has been found guilty;
By the powers given to me,
I pronounce the sentence on thee,
Thou shalt hang this very day;

We allow you this concession,
Time to tell us your confession,
And denounce your ill profession;
Do you have last words to say?


Peter:
Upon my life, that thou contrives to take
Through ignorance, I swear before you all
That bearing no bad will to your mistake,
I'll hold you unaccounted when I fall;
If thou cares not to see the humble boy
Who slept upon the streets, who ate of rats,
Who froze in frigid snow as thee strode by,
And died inside, each time thee walked on passed;
Then who am I to think the less of thee?
For in thy eyes, I count not as a man,
So now I wonder what thee came to see?
Why should the end of me be worth a ****?
        A worthless life, yet still I did no wrong;
        Perchance in death, my tale is worth a song.


Dumb-struck faces squinting, staring,
Muttered murmurs, whispers sharing,
Shaking heads and nostrils flaring,
Then the townsfolk knew and gasped;

A drummer struck a solemn beat,
As Peter felt a ray of heat
From winter's sun upon his feet;
Peter smiled, and Peter passed.



Epilogue**

Late at night, when wind comes creeping
Through the streets, with children sleeping
In the gutters; Death comes reaping,
Searching for their blue-tinged lips;

In a flash of fearful thunder,
Lashing splits the night asunder;
Driving Death from easy plunder,
Ghostly Peter cracks his whips!

THE END
Robert C Howard Mar 2014
homage to Wallace Stevens

I - My Focus pistoned up the rise
      and all at once, the Rockies -
            silhouettes against the western skies.

II - On the road to Boulder
      a pleated ridge crawls north
            like a blue whale bound for the open sea.

III -  Appalachia's intoxicating verdure
      never fails to induce in us
            a certain mellowing of the spirit.

IV - You 'conquered' my North Face, did you?
      Why, I should skewer your arrogant ***
            like a holiday lamb culled for the sacrifice.

V - Lewis and Clark looked west
      surveying the Bitterroots' frigid expanse.
            Farewell Northwest Passage!  

VI - Pueblos stranded on Enchanted Mesa -
      their rock stairs crumbled to the valley floor.
            Should they dive to their death or starve?

VII –Touristas at Big Bend Park
      wonder at its pastel window -
            its romantic haze a toxic gift
      from stacks across the Rio Grande.

VIII – The once mighty Ozarks humbled by age,          
      dwarfed by the youthful Rockies.
            Listen up, youngsters, your time will come!

IX – We de-bussed to seize the dolomites
      with our hyper-kinetic shutters.
            Pausing for a draught of Italian air,
      I felt the whack of an Alpine snowball.

X - Before Oregon's crater had its lake,
      the mountain scorched the village below.
            Today its azure waters preach only serenity.

XI – Looking down from Shissler peak
      to the golden meadow below
            where the elk herd calmly grazes.

XII – Do mists veil the Blue Ridge Mountains
      or are there really no mountains at all -
            only clouds decked out in mountain attire?

XIII – They say that peaks more steep than Everest
      soar up from the ocean floor.
            Who will scale their sunken heights?

May 28,  2010 – Boulder Colorado
Included in Unity Tree - Collected poems
pub. CreateSpace - Amazon.com
Harry Bratton Dec 2018
Staring into the distance called to a halt lowly by a ceiling
With beams of clouds I have my essay planned, do the
Right thing when the morning comes, start early and lap lap
Lap it up… I missed a day will I be able to write it okay?
It’s only a draft, final assessment in the genesis of a new
Year as apocalyptic as it gets draped in gray by God’s
Gesturing arm lamp shading… why should I do it? To
Quickly bang it out before the deadline just to get it out
The way… daydream precocious bipedal insect monsters
Before the real thing moons God and his gang of whiskey
Parlour batchelors leaning on leather elbow pads admiring
The craftsmanship of the upholstery… the real thing is more
Absorbing always cutting off as I’m getting somewhere, start
In daytime and realize there’s nowhere to get, that’s the thing
Yelling stop think again, or fill every nook cranny and interstice
With feet free to walk in peace… they are antonyms I could
Never fit in, gaps that long ago gave up

Deserted wide areas of something, opportunity, you must
Agree are not expenses anymore by any imaginative feat
Dancing to deep scar/jungle depravity light reflections…
I can’t remember and don’t want to check over in case I
Get cut off -

Forget that’s true… (Something I literally cannot do)… I was
Enthralling, reading, writing, the {authorised} daydreaming -
Breakfast for dinner - dinner for breakfast - closer to the sun -
My legs have gone weak - I want to numb the static pain Spit-
Ting strangling cosmic debris from the satellite to the T.V…
It’s not that I’m not moving, I am careering just fine to turquoise
Blue sky, the bottom of a valley draped in a green screen sheet
Searching on my homepage for something more than my
Forest floor in the circular sky print of psychedelic white smud-

Ging print in the canopy tickling my mind’s eye giggles awake…
It’s that I’m not being methodical revolutions around a state I aim
To occupy, to occupy less derivatively… It’s not that… what is
This space? Living harmoniously, smiling on the front page of the
Daily Reality, not a youtube metamemetextraction everyone has
Different power to construe as well as they consume.. which, well…

Headlines to all cheer in support immaculately agreeing rather than
Memetic smearing in a forest snearing, no singing, no branches,
Hollow UVescence flood… hot sun burns ignorant eyes that power-
Point-slide nothing retinal light soggy cardboard calippo awkwardly
Bending, quivering like an Einsteinian physician’s space-time ******
You can’t see, squinting hard open town open mouth open source
Open eyes it is morning time morning square morning everyone everywhere
Square skulky shoulders and a brittle skunk twig head, not always there after
Shipping in a rectangular organisation of beds for fallen fruit everyone
Walks by, what is healthy? in society, what is homely what is dull housing
Ex-ice lolly sweet sticky strawb-red syrup marooning, baking to brown
Down backstage curtains poised in windy drapery drapery drapery…
Window hardware still there not to see any of the people, have you
Gone forever? The sun drapes savannah grapes out of place fire-soaked
Memories, temporary tent, arms and legs and back and Earth and one-
They’ve been the same thing begging to be vacuumed to a better outlook
Well away from towns bookmarking forests of knowledge seeming never
Ending turn to plywood, you can’t be in a vacuum better anywhere,
And hope strives away shooting through the replacement plastic funnel
Into a dropping everything…

Cornered - shopped - bussed - stopped - ticketed - one-wayed - one-way-
Systemed - ticketed - inspected - mauled - in the shops - for food -
For clothes - carred and parked in a roundabout way - merged in a
Motorway, by a dense grey matter, a concrete intelligence, one certified
Body of the indefiniteness of everyone's words, their words… our words…
That which is said… what people say… what we think… make a pretend wolf
Beg for a ready salted crisp at the the bar in the pub I leave the sound of
Those who hear everything better, I couldn’t hear a thing over the hoover…

A wild din falls on developing streets, silent and wide, stocky and broken,
Choking on ******* butterflies in my throat and stomach screaming… hold
Tears back while the sad song plays, that burst out of the interlude’s segue
To the beat picking up exactly what you wanted it to… wake up the pride!
I am trapped in a cage! Wake up the tribe! Is it on your webpage?

Where has it gone?
London welcomes visitors.

Vagrancy.
You can't see me but I see you
uncaring
staring at the faces
hiding in the hiding places
the alley ways and short stay cubby holes poor souls in poor condition
welcome to the new perdition.
Down at Millbank
the embankment
a euphoria
we live in Victoria under the droppings of the day where we lay
and you can't see us
but we see the bus
we were bussed in
put our trust in
and now we are here in the heart of the City
with no job or no home
and if you feel alone
think of how we feel.
Can't integrate  or get help from the state
and we're stateless and helpless
and guess what,
some of us drink
some of us think it's the answer we seek
until today becomes next week and next year
and on the streets paved with gold we've got old.
We should have stayed at home.
I'll put the NVQ's on a barbecue
that's what I'll do
because it's cold
the only options I'm told are to sink or to swim
I think I'll give in
pack up my stuff
enough is enough
and I'm fed up.
Adrian Asher Aug 2014
I
A scream scares the day away and makes the night a dark eternity.
Mating calls lurching behind barstools talking about nothing and jumping deeper into conversation over the bovine carcass at Applebee's.
Desolate honkytonks fueled by Percocet and chlamydia, fat musicians and anthems of Beer drunkenness hanging over the toilet to ***** their soul away for a buzz.
Coal diggers and gold diggers painted in black and red and the pinks drips down their leg to a puddle of shame. Crying in the corner for a fix with their broken knees and backs and their black lungs and their pharmacies of solutions that end up being their prison. Poisoning the air with the smoke of death and masculinity with broken hands punching the walls until the blood pours.
The **** of the body and land in unison in mind, flutters from our corner of the world to the coast
then to the heavens where it again rapes. Where it forces itself upon the consciousness of a nation
That buys it up and sells it again for naut. Souls of the lost gather for your final baptism in pain, together,
Ready and willing for more.
Trailers like tombstones in the distance at the end of hollers buried beside their dignity in the mines. Eternal monuments to good enough sprouting from every seed wasted in the divine Goddess who is reduced to the ***** of Hazard and surrounding counties.
Repeat the cycle of suffering.
Churches of skeletons praying for that divine **** of death,
reap what ye sew,
Harvest of the men in plenty,
eat for your fill!

                                                            II
I­t has been a cold winter, and I have traveled to the land of my heroes, who live now only on the page and in spirit alike.   I have bussed cross nation, gone to Boulder and Denver and dear Allen Ginsberg I found out the time. I search for the street where I can find you, curl up in your beard, hear your stories, and hitchhike with you to Nirvana. I have snowshoed high and happy with friends and have no regrets only that I didn't stay longer.  Played music on the top of mountains and felt them dance under me. I have been reborn with life and friends and it is good enough. Dislocated souls connecting in the ephemeral plane somewhere between Kentucky and Colorado in dreams and though and music and poetry and body and soul.
TALLAHASSEE CONTAINS ALLAH to whom I'm truly true blue
as He is the Just, the King, the Watchful, the Father of me & of you
Like 9 dogs eatin' tuna fish I cried for your thigh to comfort me like
the jack breadfruit that comforted Bounty Lieutenant William Bligh
whilst he abstained from Tahitian maidens who were cunningly shy
My big, beautiful mouth that frets & sasses makes me intellectually
superior to everyone except the most idiotic of ******* dumb *****
whose apple cider vinegar becomes unsulfured blackstrap molasses
Remember again old cross firemen, Jesus burned for your arson sin
2,000 years before I wrapped your fat *** around your chinless chin
through hellish dew of frosty equanimity with Gail Fisher as Peggy,
Mannix shaved his dangling loose hairy stems above gay legs leggy
so that he might wiggle folklorical jigs like Haitians do with reggae
Gay-***-whackin' Hillary Clinton humps *** to a disco-***-humpin'
beat from her *** crooked-pants-suited *** to her lezzy-***-toed feet
stuck in turds as Bill sodomizes a mule, **** Hillary can be bought
stuck in pig **** as Billy rapes another, shaky Hillary can be bought
with Kleenex 'cause her honker has 5 pounds of unsought nose snot
that added nothin' to the virulent ****** that I ain't not never caught
On clean teen carpet she munched, slurped & lapped sink drain-like
forcing me to slap her shitless so that she could be a real, sane ****
whose despicable antics I am not morally outraged by, nor annoyed
as this repugnant behavior is directed medically by faux cushingoid
which accounts for her likeness to the puffy-faced star Alison Lloyd
who had something criminally criminal to do when she wasn't doin'
something grimy to fill her cravenously-craven-criminalistical void
that toys with emotions that are not immune to being toyed with on
the weekends that were made for Michelob on my blue hemorrhoid
that toys with emotions that aren't afraid of being toyed with on gay
weekends that were made for Michelob dumped on my hemorrhoid
only 'cause it is something to do when you are not doing something
that could have ended early the cowboyin'-guy-life of William Boyd
whose hoppin,' in the hoppin'-along biz, derived from a secosteroid
Vegetable-hating vegans love pagans & meat-eaters secrete beavers
& Yukio & Yoko Mishima beat to death with a bat old Tom Seavers
after he frittered away his ball-batting career as a raunchy, gay dude
to the tune of 4 original Beatles crooning the god-awful "Hey Jude"
while fat priests ****** nuns & nudists in nudist colonies pray ****
for chapel cameras of the ******* Channel's dude ranch, Play Dude
where the rudest nudists & naturalists, nudely & naturally stay rude
without caring to distinguish betwixt fake night & serious day food
that could throw a self-effacing exhibitionist into a filthy, gay mood
with prelude payload which equates to slaves getting their pay sued
by orthognathical charlatans who worship devil-lovin' Ben Franklin
in his guise as Frenchy Chucky de Gaulle who could send tank men
for forensical strikes targetin' ****** on rivers whereat men bank sin
with a plugged-up ******* called Peter Hamilton, feet or Nam again
in quokka flesh minus 22% over a pig sty or a bacon-oiled ham pen
Even though He maintained amazing Bible-understanding abilities,
Pittsburgh's wall-to-wall ******* gave Jesus the Hill District jiggers
Despite His God given Holy Christian Bible-understandin' abilities,
Pittsburgh's loo-to-loo ******* gave Jesus shaky, Hill District jitters
that ache way too late & shake for a sexily-religious girl who titters
over dead Zhanna Friske's Russian lickspittles & ******* pig-sitters
gettin' one passed normal lesbians with tattoos of sickly zoo critters
that clearly show pederasts of The New York Times ******* shitless
after chalking Marxistical New York Times sources ******* shitless
in Bethlehem stables stabling new stud muffin horses shoed witless
where hippy people with greasy long hair were quite apt to be livin'
clawing about what's issue based vs. character drivel, I mean driven
Ol' Walker McDonald was my very special friend until he ***** me
under a nice fig tree beyond the bitchiest beach of the Sargasso Sea
where he wouldn't quit ****** me despite my sexiest desperate plea
I hollered a lot in a ******-nutty masculine voice but he did not care
about rotten figs that matted my Ellen-degenerated, lezzy-short hair
I told everyone in North Vietnam & Laos that he couldn't he trusted
'cause the 21,798 times he ***** me made me thoroughly disgusted
like there were gigantical nests of bugs up my *** heavily encrusted
in cracks where ****-crop-dusting planes can't dive swoop in dusted
before flying into my inner-sanctum room like old Corrie ten Boom
whose bee-busy life, after her crapping-out death, has yet to resume
in order to beat senseless neo-brutalistical V.A. nursing home abuse
that kills the blood-coagulatin' screams of a cursing gnome papoose
draped across the *** of a ***-rail engineer takin' it up the caboose
to make his gay meaning known to stragglers too lucid to be obtuse
Don't ****** me I'm your amigo, oh yeah I forgot in your final spin
that a plucky slice'd paralyze you forever good on any hot spinal fin
****** ****** at ****** mall: Who's the baddest ****** of them all?
Is it Ringo, or dead George/John, or false/fake ******, Beatle Faul?
I cannot wear no slutty dress because I got a sass-*** dose of P.M.S.
I can't ***** in my slutty dress while I got a bad-*** dose of P.M.S.
My boyfriend's a ***** queer who has been ripped up his ***'s rear
In city pig files they record my criminal-*****-bone record in miles
Here amongst the thoroughly hypnotized, I spank your lard **** red
while you flee with free fleas that fly with flies that are too-well fed
while you flee with 3 free fleas that fly with flies that are overly fed
The traveling mermaid porked & beaned me in the moldy sea green
as P.B.S.'s Fred Rogers fits into a death list of ***, dead codgers we
ruefully mourn the murders of Jack the Ripper's ******-red lodgers
who overtly related homosexually to lesbian heterosex bed-dodgers
on mountain picnics in Pennsylvania where they are fed odd chores
There ain't nothing grim in threading tawny-titted Hawaiian women
before drug-induced comas or with food cramps got from swimmin' Demon Hillary, I Would ****** Everybody Just to Make You Smile
Is this wrong? No, murdering everybody is Scratch's most beautiful
way to say: "I loathe you Bill" in his hottest court of Luciferian trial
A raunchy **** bussed my *** with cerebral palsy quicker than Ajax
scrubbed the crapped-out Admiral William Halsey. I'd mount 1 trull
plain or crunchy too but not when she humps like a Harlem *******
We told everybody deaf 'bout "us" but everybody but "us" was deaf
to our mutant deafness save Harland Sanders & Burger Chef & Jeff
Swallow this sea-warped poker chip to see what can happen while I
moodily tap out Florida flame red maple trees to drain all the sap in
Anita O'Day never curled the nether tufts of Melvin Howard Tormé
because she was a limpless gimp who saw sike-a-***** as girly gay
in the throes of scissor lovin' between Blobert Rake & Huddy Bolly
whose fine, rug-burned legs queered their sapphical, sexoholic folly
that in 1966 farted greasy Earth's real cheeses to slickly **** breezes
as 99 rescue inhalers asphyxiated fatalistically-asthmatical wheezes
I love the ocean. Do you feel the aloof sea spray on your face? That
ain't sea spray. That's a gay *** peeing down on you from the roof.
I like my ******* on caffeine-free diets as they're better controlled I
think, than apes on caffeine-big diets who **** ******* cherry pink
for sea-lovers in iron linkage to twist apart a chewed-on master link
soaked in a tub 93% bigger than a beef washer's blood-washed sink
Let us forgive my unkind words but the dog turds I tracked in aren't
my dog's turds 'cause your ***'s really pretty like that of an angel's
dead cousin, so you must not cream on creamy donuts by the dozen
I will not talk of you in the old past as long as you are able to ****
really fast. The way to hell is lousy with sinners as each part of you
could provide several dinners. Our cherries are nicer than the sweet
cherries in pies. I wish that our 4 eye sockets had 4 cherry-red eyes.
You're so tiny that you stand 'neath my knee at a distance so nice to
bruise my better kidney. Shut up a lot, I told you before. I ain't got a
mistress who did not chronically snore. I could slather your body in
peanut butter from scalp to *** belly like would that jack-*** Kojak
Savalas brother called Telly. How many times have I warned you to
shut up? 3,345 trillion 9 hundred thousand 128? Enough is enough!
I scratched your back while you were reverently praying, just like a
Catholical priest, which is the chief role I'm now piously portraying
Part of me wants to **** you the other doesn't when I was me & you
were so wasn't, when your ****** were floral with dandelions, ever
more gay than those that were Paul Ryan's. After January we'll ****
bleached whales on the beach while I castigate old adulteresses in a
sermon I preach beneath the flickering grand dragon wizard's torch.
God has blessed us with elbows & knees & sharp teeth, only to bite
whoever's sporting deliciously-moist quims that we strive to please
Kicking the **** out of constipation is my preferred realization with prunes, olive oil & herbs from rich soil, for once I'm well you'll see
healthful regularity overtaking me. I'll make your cheery cherry pop
by threading your pretty Barbie bobbin so fast that I can hardly stop
from attaching psychedelical fixations to conundrums psycholytical
No one asleep had ever downed a pickle 'cause the racer who hit 45
wet spots was the women-pleasing racer large Richard **** Trickle
No one awake had ever drowned a pickle because the racer who hit
damp spots was the ****-racing racer, big-stick Richard **** Trickle
No one awake had ever got ******-cell sickle with the racer who hit
87 damp spots, the ***-****-racing racer, ***** Richard **** Trickle
who found that **** babes with keen intellects were tricky to tickle
as ****'ll be doin' Marianne Faithfull with big-ribbed-****** ******
in his British Marxian way with obligatory sledge hammer & sickle
to spread her ******* for shire horse hung Beatle Jimmy Nicol
as Albert Hofmann's 102-year-old L.S.D. schlort is a thrill pickle in
a Swiss lab bobbing dead in *****, unable to pork, **** & ***** all
while Bert Hofmann's 102-year-ol' L.S.D. ******* is a dill pickle in
a Swiss lab bobbin' in *****, unable to poke, sock, cram & stick all
because of contact with a toxical/allergical rose bushy thorn prickle
Some of me's puerile, the other section's a rash, over my nasty belly
is mama, below is a wacky, pinkish ******, while I pile onward real
love from 11 p.m. till the pole star's there, 8 degrees from starboard
several acres from where the **** wipes for my liquor bar are stored
You're brave & you're wise, with my camera I'll capture your thighs
I long for blonde hair of which you've plenty. I want to kiss all of it
before you turn 20. Our Russian passion will pass a fever pitch like
convicts on a chain gang diggin' a ditch. You whistle alluringly like
Lauren Bacall. I wonder, can you do it pulling from Bogart's straw?
Let's eat cookies while we sleep in my million-dollar Blue Bird bus
because I have expensive chocolate chip cookies just for the 2 of us
Tell me the truth, I am dyin' to know. Will you be able to stop when
we go go go? It's very important that you're careful so you don't get
knocked up by a drunken sailor or a window washer or a blind man
with a tin cup. Your pocked *** is really low slung like a green pine
ladder's 1st broken rung. I bang you in the murky morning too early
for lunch 'cause you ain't ½ as **** as Alice from The Brady Bunch
whose meat-hacking with butcher Sam included a knock-out punch
Turn up the gas, I want no damp cell, no moist damsel in **** hell
whose ill virginity is wiped clean by my hellishly-wild *** machine
I love you tall, I love you short in a barrel, beneath a port. You are a
broad. I know it's true. Live up to the crooked contract or I will sue.
Richard F. Burton, extinguish *** Taylor's fiery *** that lit abruptly
in the Golfo de México from B.P.'s unmothered-crack-head-****-gas
I took harmful advice to seize a 1-upped leg man ****-deep in knees
James Floss Jan 2019
I yam not only orangey
I’m awesomely tightltey whitley
And mostly so correctly

There’s no dirt in my smirk
I believe I’m totally rightly
And you? Are you native bornly?

I was bussed here
And you are from where?
What? Wall? We’re here wrongly?
Paul Sands Dec 2016
I  am  no philosopher
I  am  Paul  from  The Meadows
pulled skinny  poor from the  shadows to put  a  deal of fat  on his bones

so  how  did   I  end  up   here?
what penalty did   I  accrue?

taking the  ten  point deduction for  conduct unbecoming
I  place my  attention  deficit on re-order that I  don’t  yet  forget

smothered  in the  scrim of this  Hogarthian hood every  chip toothed  blue   scriptured face
proffers  passage to a  poisonous but tantalising hook

to write the  junk  must I  taste the junk?

peddled or paddled for  a  sweeter  flight this  avenue never  taken,
hedonic ingress  unwalked,  unwanted yet  still wondered
could such  deep surrender  be   so  sweet to  allow the  most  intimate  of plunder?

am I  Dante?
corralled   around  the  streets
of a  society that  shows no compromise amongst  the  dying embers  of fallen  enterprise

eternal  damnable gyres around a  ****** **** pyre
of concrete,  glass  and  broken  humanity

with    each    uttered    breath    a    cold      cocktail    of profanity

the  bouncing soles of the  air  I  wear  may ease  me over  the  gummed archipelagos
flag  spij-speckle  guaran islands slab secure and  fast
against  the  counselled wash an  eternal  fossilised chaw
that  resists  the  fiercest chemical blast

lost in this  sea    I  cannot  be   but shaken  by the  waxy  man  with his  head  of startled  hemp and  coterie  of cracked  carbon
as  he breaches the  domestic brink

turning a key, his shoulders  hunched  in protective  shawl against

the  spittled spate
he stares  back through me
for  sightless  miles insides out,  front  to rear, then  scuffles, rattling,  townwardly

cannot resist  the  insecticidal compulsion of the  green  and  white purgatory
where  the  neatly  stacked  wash  of fluorescence makes  oven ready  your  heaven
amid the  threnodial thrum  of
a  hundred syncopated Siemens

following  that   shuffling   cortege  of  the   bussed  in dead and  dying
I  am dutiful, altar  bound, avowed and  accursed the  host with the  ghosts in this  haunted  mall lost  and  lonely  within  England’s  mountain  green
it  is no longer the  god   bothering needles and  blunts that    draw the crowds
as  flat  screened pharmacological rapture,
that  trinity  of distilled, medicated caffeination

lead   a   once   pious   nation   through   a   precocious dream

maybe Allah yet  sees  here  his
Jerusalem  and  leads his children
upon  England’s  land  of  crescent  green
Opening poem from my second collect, "scratch" (2013), trying to express the frustration and disgust with life in a provincial town ringed by sink estates and worshipping at the altar of consumerism
Chris Slade Sep 2021
Night raids on Salt End
were legendary… It were a
giant chemical works with ship docks,
silos, storage tanks, fuel dumps,
an ideal 'drop off point' for Gerry…

But Salt End plant’s night raids
on Hedon Road
weren’t gonna daunt our lot,
they lived a mile or so down the lane to Preston
and seemed unafraid of gerri’n shot.

But they built a shelter across’t main road
in a field… On the outside It were a haystack
within the walls, six foot thick… proper beds
on hay bails to the front and back... cosy.

Down the middle was a ‘lounge’ with chairs,
lights, a radio - electric run from’t big ‘ouse
It’s better than being at’ome our Charlie used to say
For the eldest (and the architect) he’d not much nowse.

Me mam (then 19) told me she bussed it into Hull
“****** the Doodlebugs” She needed Jitterbugs…
and they still danced at City Hall.
******* to Gerry and his mates.
Margie & her pal René,
dauntless, they had a right ball!

Last Bus to ‘Withernsea’ from town
dropped her off at the junction
by the Speedway on Hedon Road.
Just as her way was lit by fire bombs - all about
when Gerry dropped his final unaimed load
Maybe ack-ack’d sort him out.

She was 2 miles from home… every few seconds another blast.
Scuttling …dodging whistling incendiaries,
running fast, whippet like…
any second could’ve been her last
anything too close she’d have to jump in't ****.

She couldn’t mek it t’t shelter or house so picked
the coal shed - instead… threw herself down
on coals…noise lifted - silence dawned… all clear
heavy breathing - not hers -  she wan’t alone
What if it’s one of them - a downed ***** airman.

Nervous, terrified more like she let out a little shudder
a gentle cough… to test her nerve
“Is that you Margie?… You daft ******!”
It were brother Tom… He’d been t’t Nags Head
and he’d run the opposite way from the village instead.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2017
Until this morning my daughter was safe
For so the city said
But the waters rose, slithering up her stairs
And still the city said she was safe

She was evacuated, first by canoe
Then by an air-boat
Then by a dump truck

She and another evacuee laughed in the rain:
“Now we are the people they take pictures of”

Then by a bus

To a center at Saint Martha’s Church and School
Where someone said she would be bussed again
This time to downtown Houston, for reasons
Best known to some stupid * of a *

Her friend’s husband with his big ol’ pickup
Worked around barriers and through high water
And they escaped up the road to Willis, Texas
Tomorrow I will be honored to shake his hand

Long ago, when she left home, I promised
That an old man and two little dachshunds
Would wait for her.  I’m even older now
With grand-dachshunds  – but we said we would wait

And we have

Best I can do at the moment
Tears of gratitude
*Deo gratias
Lame - but my daughter's safe.
Ha! That catch phrase
     (kid ding lee writ)
     hoop fully goat yar attention
truth be told, (no...no...
     no...not by me
     boat some tee else of course)
     mine min (yute) yen
for light banter i.e. badinage,

     (this ***** toad juiced ribbing...
     frog *** about it), yea,
     I know that punning
     while keying (NOT SAFE),
     sometimes dill lutes
     ma serious pickling attempt ren
doors an unsuspecting reader
     (bajillion times out of zero) pen

ultimately probably discourages,
     an increased virtual fanbase,
     rectified by the following asinine
     non-sequitur (a come men
dib bull double
     entendre) totally tubularly
     barbed with Freudian
     slip age, that ken

figuratively grab immediate
     interest of hen
pecked recipients (with pock marks
     to prove such assertion)
     might strongly concur even
without being aware how
     psychoanalysis ***** ******
significance of phallus

     in everyday affairs,
     particularly how peppy
     (even after applying
     WD-40) can rust
and/or atrophy as if cell bait,
     hence thee **** cree,    
     that ******* a must
(as told by this husband
    
     in a sexless marriage
     as a result, I might
     join a convent) as a lust
result, either that or
     go set me a
     watch woman as mistress
     tubby integrated within
     my private life

     even if one
     needs tubby bussed
from the outer limits of the
     sterling twilight
     zona pellucida ideally,
     where love of c**t tree and
     priapism maketh sea men go bust!
Ryan O'Leary Aug 2019
Protest as much as they
wish, but Boris has out
witted the Irish and EU
governments, also, Red
Bussed the 52% & now
the 48% remainer,s are
doing exactly as he has
planned, this man is a
pure genius, bless him.
SiouxF Nov 2020
Bucket list item,
A dream come true,
In my 50th year
An extra in a film,
Not just any film,
But big feature film with famous stars!
5:30am early start,
Breakfast in individual covid pods,
Undergarments on,
Hair and makeup,
Outer clothes on,
Boots brushed,
Creases steamed,
Lipstick touched up,
Hair curled and sprayed within an inch of its life,
Top to tail inspection,
Bussed to holding area,
Hours of waiting,
Deep and meaningful conversations,
Histories divulged,
Books devoured,
Ping pong with sellotaped paper ***** and paper plates!,
Sleeping,
3 meals a day
Preened and touched up some more,
Line up
Yet another inspection,
Walk to set.
Back to holding area.
Walk to set,
This time we’re on.
Sometimes told where to start,
Other times make it up yourself,
With very little direction.
1930’s German,
Unshapely winter coat and thick woollen tights
Looking 20 years older ******!
Walking along German street
Trams and old cars,
And mashed paper snow!,
Glancing in shop windows
As the main protagonists walk on by,
Sometimes repeat after repeat after repeat after repeat
Of 10 seconds of filming from every angle,
And others wrapped after 1-2 takes.
Freezing cold, rain, sun, never puts us off,
******* screens to block out the sun
Blue screens at the end of the street and the top of buildings,
Sheltering from the rain in shop doors in between takes,
Bonnets on, masks on,
Get in position, bonnets off, masks off.
“Rolling” they shout,
Klaxon sounds,
“Action vehicles”,
“Action background”,
“Action”
Here we go again.
"If I died... Would that ensure your happiness, my love?
'Cause I' d die for you..."


Why are you here?
To make me stay and wander again what righ or wrong?
What should I do?
And why?
To make me feel much worse for I still have to obey
The ugly rules of a yesterday I wanted forgotten...
A past nobody wanted.

Why are you here?
What do you want?
What is your purpose in life?
You ruined it.

What's wrong?
Am I still annoying? Still here, existing, doing,
Saying something, struggling
Easily!
Pis-Pis-******* you
Like a **** in boots,
Like a star, like a rock taken down from the Mountain,
Like a river of black
Pain
Like a peacock lost for the vain
To keep taking, keep nurturing,
Keep saying something... worth being told.
Rain
Like a piece of cotton-candy thrown to the blue halo
Space embraced saying that I am ******* you
Like a ****-Bussed-Rouse,
That home-made cookie you poisoned
Then threw to the garbage.
Now Make it good.


"If I died... Would that ensure your happiness, my love?
'Cause I' d die for you..."
A stupid note: I thought I loved you but now I know that saying wasn't a good choice and leaving would have meant a desaster...
Expect me to give thanks for this!

— The End —