"caisson" poems
Day's end, sun's caisson doth wend
Residual rays a respite to append
Twilight's shroud dreary dividend
Swirls of gray into firmament blend
Vestments of light shed sacral veil
Luna's naked, pale orb flashes its spell
Twinkling sprites across dark tides sail
Constellation's mystical portents braille
Nyx, Erebos eclipse Hemera's blithe melody with bass duet
Earth's warmed bed yields its thermal blanket
Ocean tides move in rhythmic tandem to cadence of lunar clarinet
Swarming shadows stalk each footstep paring each dark secret
Greek gods
Nyx: goddess of Night
Erebos: goddess of Darkness
Hemera: goddess of Day
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 6:35 AM UTC
Did I dream
I saw a funeral
Procession leaving
St. Giles Church?
Sans caisson,
Black horses,
Boots and backward spurs;
No black feathers,
No armbands,
No Oliver's crocodile tears;
No Orleans trumpets
To allay my eternal fears.
I caught them slide
The silver casket,
Bullet-like,
Into a chamber,
To shoot into the ground.
I never heard a sound.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 5:04 PM UTC
Through rabbit ear snow
I watched all day,
and kept a vigil.
The sad click of hooves on pavement,
almost in time with muffled drums.
Bada dum, dum, dum.
Bada dum.
Bada dum.
The flag draped caisson,
slowly passing miles and miles of tears,
as a riderless horse sauntered aimlessly,
wondering, where is my master,
did he fall in battle, have I left him behind?
Slow stepping,
stone faced soldiers in parade dress,
each in their private war,
fighting back utter sorrow for their fallen leader.
A black veiled widow,
stood bravely
with brothers and sisters
and her Fatherless children.
She was not numbed by that cold November wind,
but her heart was,
by a sniper’s aim.
This, is a woman,
strong and resolute.
With a grieving nation watching her mourn her husband,
she would never be more graceful than at that moment,
and her tear stained face could not hide her beauty.
Where has our brave knight gone,
so young and alive with promise,
and hope for his people?
His flame will shine eternal now,
his page in history written,
but not by his hand,
it was written by our hand.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 1:43 PM UTC
Ole Hunchback
Got a right Royal burial;
That smiling villain's bones
Bleached black-blonde
In underground parking.
Exhumed and parlayed
For over two years;
Confirmed to be he
Who caused a Queen
To cry vats of tears
For the Tower boys.
Poor Anne dropped her hankie.
His horse-drawn caisson
Is a subterfuge,
A distraction to veil
Civil dissatisfaction.
He finally got his horse,
And we get the droppings.
And I see Cromwell
Standing beside Churhill
And Charles ouside
Westminster.
Perhaps Manson
Will be busted
In Poet's Corner.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 9:22 AM UTC
You are always be the first to pick the flowers when they blossom
The one who sees the light in all dark corners of the world
One who sees broken souls as potential unobscured entities
But cracks can always be seen even after a broken being is stitched together
An infinite caisson of emotions
Caged emotions
Unable to roam free as the ones others possess
Old soul
Ripened far too early
I know you more than you believe
Maybe not comprehend
But know
You're beautiful
Not just appearance
You're truly beautiful
A soul as pure as yours is not capable of hurting and selfishly treading into and out a vulnerable persons life
Truthfully, I don't know how you do it
Helping and guiding as if you yourself have no demons to fight
But be careful
Spend too much time on broken people and you will begin to break too
You're admirable
Amicable
A person of wonder
A never-ending aurora
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
Half obscured by powder smoke, the long Grey line comes on.
“Double canister and hard shot, pour it on them boys!”
They dress the line and still they come, inexorably, like fate.
We are in need of some support, but will it come too late?
A high wood fence disrupts their charge, like clotting blood they mass.
As many a dying Virginian boy wishes for his cup to pass.
“For Fredericksburg!” “For Fredericksburg!” Alonzo Cushing cried.
We worked our guns and gave them hell for all our friends who’d died.
Our blood is up and still they come, over the parapet.
We are all determined this is as far as they will get.
A breath of air, a cooling drink, a lover’s soft embrace;
Strange things crowd into your mind when in a hellish place.
A company of New Yorkers, coming on the double quick,
Have piled into the Rebel mass where the fighting was most thick.
Back you go, proud Virginians, back over the low stone wall.
Not so many as started out, no longer proud and tall.
A rebel of some prominence sits, dying, near my gun.
He asks for General Hancock, strange to hear that name upon his tongue.
My friend, Alonzo Cushing, lies beside the caisson where
He bleeds profusely from his wounds. He is too far gone to care.
He will not live to see the Sun rise in the East again,
Or live to hear a nation’s thanks for what he did for them.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 8:00 AM UTC
The November 25, 1963 day of the cold sun,
the noble horses,
white horses-drawn caisson,
the dignity of their somber gait,
silver shoes resounded on the
pavement,
the skittish night-black riderless
horse-
Black Jack, led down the avenue
of the people,
his symbolic rider, no longer
bound to the earthly life, it's
sorrows.
The noble horses accompanied
him on his journey to the ages,
the mystique, the dreams,
deathless,
where the ground is hallowed-
Arlington.
Apr 29, 2020
Apr 29, 2020 at 6:30 AM UTC