"calypso" poems
Through an open window, I hear
the Big Thompson's steady music
drifting up from the valley below.
May breezes and gentle rains
coax the snow-capped peaks
to surrender their alabaster cloaks
downslope into gathering streams.
Silhouetted by light from the waxing moon,
a cinnamon bear lopes along water’s edge,
pauses for a draught and meanders on.
A bull elk newly coifed with velvet antlers
folds his legs beneath its belly
and kneels into grasses beside a tranquil pond.
while the Big Thompson rushes on.
Spring beauties, calypso orchids and geraniums
shake off their winter's sleep and
dot every vagabond trail and verdant hill
while fresh new leaves adorn the aspen boughs.
The Big Thompson inexorably presses on
bound for rendezvous with time and space
and tumbles into the always patient sea.
© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 8:57 AM UTC
In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai-shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way
First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting ***** to send to The Man
Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA
The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how
Chief of border customs paid
By Central Intelligence's U.S. A.I.D.
The whole operation, Newspapers say
Supported by the CIA
He got so sloppy & peddled so loose
He busted himself & cooked his own goose
Took the reward for an ***** load
Seizing his own haul which same he resold
Big time pusher for a decade turned grey
Working for the CIA
Touby Lyfong he worked for the French
A big fat man liked to dine & *****
Prince of the Meos he grew black mud
Till ***** flowed through the land like a flood
Communists came and chased the French away
So Touby took a job with the CIA
The whole operation fell in to chaos
Till U.S. Intelligence came into Laos
I'll tell you no lie I'm a true American
Our big pusher there was Phoumi Nosovan
All them Princes in a power play
But Phoumi was the man for the CIA
And his best friend General Vang Pao
Ran the Meo army like a sacred cow
Helicopter smugglers filled Long Cheng's bars
In Xieng Quang province on the Plain of Jars
It started in secret they were fighting yesterday
Clandestine secret army of the CIA
All through the Sixties the Dope flew free
Thru Tan Son Nhut Saigon to Marshal Ky
Air America followed through
Transporting confiture for President Thieu
All these Dealers were decades and yesterday
The Indochinese mob of the U.S. CIA
Operation Haylift Offisir Wm. Colby
Saw Marshal Ky fly ***** Mr. Mustard told me
Indochina desk he was Chief of ***** Tricks
"Hitchhiking" with dope pushers was how he got his fix
Subsidizing traffickers to drive the Reds away
Till Colby was the head of the CIA
January 1972
10.1k
Dearest, you who have moved with me
as the waves to the pull of the moon,
You are leaving me now.
I know I am not the only moon to your sea.
There is another who sways you to her tune.
Her name is scrawled in the furrows of your brow.
But the tears in your eyes and your heartache
Should they not be mine?
I who live on this island, immortal and alone?
You are leaving me a prisoner in your wake,
You with your talk of crooked highlands and fragrant pine
And rugged crags. Dangerous talk, I should have known.
Now I close my eyes and dream
Not of the sweetness of the cypress
Nor of familiar violet-eyed meadows,
But of birds that spin and gleam
high above the land's caress.
You have turned me into another Echo
Stupidly repeating the names of places and people I will never know.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
let's you and I mingle with the tantalizing Sirens
their Song, so seductive, will distract you while I
lead Odysseus to our spacious secret cave
which-- I have newly prepared with Calypso's blessing
[I dare say she seems to have a crush on my Odysseus!]
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
The name Theodore has its Greek anthropologies, Jewish anthropologies and also Germany anthropologies. The Greek anthropological perspective of The name Theodore indeed has something to do with the gods.However, the Greek way of looking at life was a frustrated thinking.To them everything was a god. They had a plethora of gods; utopia,cacotopia, Thespis, muse, clio, calypso, and Theodore was a half a god like Gabriel who impregnanted Mary on behalf of God as Joseph the cuckold carpenter patiently looked musing the ballad of a cuckold peasant . So Theodore and Gabriel were godsend.I have not delved to know what it means among the Jews, But am aware of the the cultural and anthropological surroundings of the name Theodore in Germany . It is a name of a male person signifying extra-masculine behavior. I also write poetry in Deutsch, so i know substantial cultural values of the people of Germany. Like in this case the modern social naming systems . I am aware of the anthropology of this Deutsch nomenclatural position.Why would link this name to Greeks but not Germany may due to some silent social and emotional disposition in Europe that the English speaking Europeans have a soft spot for the Greek culture.While at the same time they become victims of high adrenaline level when exposed to anything Germany. they always get repulsed when the word Germany is mentioned.So one's thesis on nomenclatural values of the name Theodore depends on which side of European consciousness one is found; is it Germany friendly consciousness or Germany threatened consciousness? The dystopic component of the name Theodore is purely cacotopic with zero element of utopia , as extra-masculinity is a swine of engendered civilization all the times.
Yours
Alexander k Opicho
NB/ i kindly invite Theodore to come to Kenya so that we do a joint research on the Swahili perspectives of the name Theodore, in Kiswahili the name Theodore is subverted to bwana tadayo
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 10:57 AM UTC
Bohemian baby, yeah thats what I am
Using rhapsody words, to write my jam
Vocals and lyrics, make a different sense to all
Changes I embrace, sometimes cause my fall
Bahama mama, I write for thee
Sand in my hair, and I'm livin free!
Beautiful coral, could cut me like a knife
Sailing the seas of words, now thats my life
Rays from the sun, make my unnatural color
My Calypso, she is my mother
From all of this, Caribbean joy
Raised on the island, a bahama bohemian boy
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 11:15 PM UTC
Once at the guillotine
Now an out-of-focus angel
"Crime is shame, not the scaffold!"
She's got a '45 strapped
To each of her thighs
Speaks French with a Martian accent
Wishes she was a siren
When bathed in happy thoughts
Wishes she was the ladybird
When her wings
Confuse amuse transfuse
Into dreams of blood
Lukewarm prisoner
Detained for seven years
Now lies beside her
Asking for a helping hand
She loosens her corset
But tightens her grip
Jan 3, 2022
Jan 3, 2022 at 9:10 AM UTC
Far too many tides have you held him, Calypso, now let him go:
thus commands Athene daughter of Zeus, She who cannot stand his wails
any more. The fleet-footed Hermes delivers the writ of the heavens.
Does the wail of a mere mortal trouble the mighty Athene more than
the heart of her kin? Will you Hermes not accept a bribe and tell Her you
never found me? That Calypso's home is too hard to find on sea?
The will of Zeus cannot be altered, bow or the bolt will make you kneel.
Twenty years has he suffered, let him go this prisoner of his deeds. Eternity
awaits you: while his soul, death. Let him not regret his life in afterlife.
Thus did I leave on high-tide who steal to my own palace like a thief.
Twenty years play in my mind, but the strongest still is Telemachus's smile.
I leave her who cared so much to win my heart yet only the Zephyr -
Brought me cheer, that carried the smell of home and Penelope fair.
Here I leave the immortal who will die for me: for her who I know not if she
loves me yet. Who Athene brings don't fail me in life, even if they falter.
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 2:38 PM UTC
I am trapped on an island in my mind.
I cannot escape this false paradise.
A higher power has placed me here against my will.
If I am Odysseus, where is my Calypso?
I am floating along, unsure of my way,
Surrounded by unknown dangers.
I don’t know my goal, or how to get there.
If I am Odysseus, where is my Ithaka?
Times are changing, people are moving, going ever forward,
And I'm standing still, unsure of my next move.
The paths ahead of me vary. Some light, some dark, all frightening.
If I am Odysseus, where is my Athena?
May 23, 2011
May 23, 2011 at 10:53 PM UTC
The Weary, they wander
Tempest-tossed
Onto my
Lonely shores,
Sailors with
Shipwrecked vessels,
Travelers grim with
Soles scraped sore
They seek to quell
Their solitude
Ill fated and alone,
And finding me
Beside the sea
Lamenting,
They postpone
I welcome them
With flames alight
Inside the hearth
Of my heart
Although I know
They never stay,
That soon they will
Depart
Every time that
One arrives
The feeling sprouts
Anew
He'll leave me
And I know it,
But there's nothing
I can do
I am Calypso, cursed
To long for love
That is unchanging
No solace rolls in
With the tide
The tempest, still,
Is raging.
Dec 31, 2015
Dec 31, 2015 at 1:40 PM UTC
She waits.
Through tidal waves
through hurricanes, through luck
She waits for him, her long lost sailor boy
her sweet soft sentimental poor excuse called love.
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 1:28 AM UTC
What a burning, broken universe—
incalculable, devastating,
things we can't imagine.
We attach names familiar to us
Titan, Europa, Calypso
but they are still mighty and immeasurable, terrifying—
but don't think of all that.
It's too big.
It's too sad.
Think of this:
It's sublime and impossible that we even exist
with our
soft flesh and our wet eyes,
our music, our sins,
our jealous lovers,
our moments of bliss,
and love— god, love…
more immeasurable
more incalculable
than the universe,
than whatever it is
that the universe wonders about.
Our smallness shouldn't humble us.
We are tiny demigods
watching the universe expand
from our lawn chairs
while we eat ripe peaches
with sticky hands and smiling mouths.
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 6:20 AM UTC
Half drowned in those wine dark eyes
drunk off those fermented words
that trickle off those lush rose lips
Calypso or Scylla, I know not
it doesn't even matter
as long as I am with you
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 11:20 PM UTC
I used to know a girl named Calypso,
she had beautiful shorthand
and we used to fall asleep
in her mom's house
until that was gone,
until the storm came
and she was an island
I had drawn with ink.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 6:42 PM UTC
The awake hummingbird flits,
At speeds beyond imagination over dark daisies and roses,
Little Pearls unerringly grow in deep ocean sands,
Concealed behind deceiving waters from the times of Moses.
A wobbling chair shifts on the glistening porch,
By the sands that move with the soul of the azure sea,
Where Calypso sits nestling the locket of the man she will lose tonight,
All of creation moves with her sobs in perfect harmony.
In the vistas of far reaching coconut trees,
The wind rushes to and fro,
Concocting a strange chilling melody,
A song that the seagulls forgot; that now only the ancient spirits know.
These notes that precede and proclaim the farewell that is to come,
Once again trapped within the confines of her paradise,
Calypso will cry once more when the man she had loved would have to go,
Deep within her aching heart without any comfort, her tears would have to suffice.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 6:17 AM UTC
I
I wish I’d seen it sooner, you are parallax,
Your lipstick fooled me for so long, you catalyst,
You trapped me in my own heart, you are Calypso,
I kept my fears hidden behind a mental citadel,
You tore it down, your touch was selcouth,
But only to me, you were too beautiful, you are kalopsia
II
Even your fingernails lied, you are kalopsia,
I shouldn’t come down from cloud nine, this parallax
Should’ve been more apparent, not selcouth,
Not how I thought it, you are TNT, a catalyst,
You demolish with your winks, even my citadel
Fell before you, but you still kept me in, you are Calypso.
III
Tell everyone you’re real, you are Calypso,
You are not a myth, you are simply kalopsia,
A breathtaking lie, you didn’t need a citadel,
Nobody could break you anyway, you are parallax,
But you’re evil at all angles, you are the catalyst
Of all things lonely, this no longer feels selcouth.
IV
You are kalopsia, the gorgeous catalyst.
You are parallax, wrecking citadels.
You are not selcouth; you are Calypso.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
Ma Jalouse, Mon Unique, Mon Ultime
Sais-tu ce que Lord Invader, Sam Manning
Cyril Monrose, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong
Jack Sneed et Ernest Rangling
Sans oublier Blue Glaze Mento Band et Phil Madison ?
Et je m'arrête là pour l'instant,
Sais-tu ce qu'ils ont en commun ?
Eh bien vois-tu, ce sont tous mes ombres.
Tu ne pourras jamais me comprendre
Si tu ne les comprends pas
Et si tu ne sais pas ce que représentent pour moi
La mangouste et le raccoon.
De même que pour te comprendre il faut avoir lu tout Dostoievski
Pour me comprendre il faut avoir écouté tout Sly Mongoose
Car peut être n'as-tu vu en moi qu'aria et boléro, symphonie et concerto
Alors je t'explique : pour comprendre, n'essaie pas de philosopher
Lève-toi et bouge tout simplement et tu toucheras l 'essence
C'est du folklore, c'est du reggae, c 'est du mento, c'est du calypso, c'est du jazz,
C'est instrumental ou c'est vocal
C'est moi, mes ascendances et descendances.
Sly Mongoose c'est mes Frères Karamasov
Smerdiakov, Aliocha, Ivan et Dmitri
C'est mon Idiot, mon prince Lev Mychkine
C'est mon Joueur, mon Alexei Ivanovitch
Mon Rêve d'un Homme Ridicule
Et Raskolnikov errant dans la nuit dans Crime et Châtiment.
Sly Mongoose c'est l'histoire d'une mangouste maline
Qui a baptisé la fille du pasteur
De son eau sainte
Et qui fuit la Jamaïque
Et part à l'étranger
Après son forfait.
C'est l'histoire d'une mangouste qui vole les poules les plus grasses de la cuisine
Et qui les met dans la poche de son veston
C'est l'histoire d'une mangouste qui entre dans la cuisine d'un prédicateur
Et qui repart avec une des poules les plus grasses
Et tous les chiens savent son nom.
il s'appelle Sly Mangoose
Il est malin, il est vicieux, le compère
C'est mon ombre, que veux-tu
Et parfois pour échapper aux prédateurs
Il prend l'apparence de l'ombre d'un raccoon.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 6:05 AM UTC
Will you become the wall and stay silent listening to my wails today?
I count every drop that wets your edifice brick by brick in this rain:
This day of prayer, the festival that comes only once in many years.
Today I stand kneeling before the skies that fumed in thunders
I have weathered life to walk up to this shore where you stand,
Your watery eyes the lighthouse that guided me lost in the sea-storm.
Polyphemus could not stop me, nor the Sirens, not even Calypso.
Here I come, your pilgrim in my hood, I who accepted war over love
The war in which I lost everything: friends, comrades and mates.
O Athene, have my sacrifices been in vain, will you not bring her to
speak? She who has gone silent like a wall, wet in this wailing rain.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 3:53 AM UTC
PROMETHEUS!
Prometheus. You,
Were favored among man.
PROMETHEUS!
Prometheus. You
Stole fire from the gods.
I was fire and
lightening
at the creation of Earth.
Feet dance like,
Shiva.
Hips sway,
Calypso
Hair flung wild like
Yangtze and Ganges
I was energy and passion
until you loved me
to Olympus rock.
Greedy bird, you are never full.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM UTC
The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death’s scroll must be—
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men **** and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy!
The world is weary of the past—
O might it die or rest at last!
2.6k
,,,"---"",,"",,---,,,"""
palpable piquant
pastel scream
surrounded by
portentous
dream
seafoam and symmetry
loquacious land
shuddering snow
and
sibilant sand
caustic, cocaphonous
calypso clouds
awed by the
eloquent
elongated
shrouds
burnt to mere
nothingness
negated, naught
turbulent
truculent
trickling
thought
dense and dowdy
docile and dubious
rousing and rowdy
quiet and studious
grating, gallumphing
gruesome
ground
supine and succulent
*asymmetrical
sound*
soulsurvivor
(C) 6/22/2015
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 5:54 AM UTC
Crimson shades that hang on late
on cloudy mornings, cormorants
that carry tidings from afar
reeds that roll over slow in their measured nuances:
wind roars, noon bells, distant shorelights at night.
I sought glory with love in my heart
Midas-like, glory became my gold.
Every wave carries a new meaning
for one who sees life
from the window of death;
How many deaths for honour, how many
for glory, how many more for perfidy?
Ah blessed love, that
- when the glitter of glories descends
into quicksands of darkness -
from whom nothing can ever be snatched away,
the one love that shone before my birth
as Athene, who I loved as Penelope and
who loves me as Calypso, receptacle of worlds!
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 4:12 PM UTC
Chasten Calypso declared to be clear;
humming a mumble inside of mine ear.
Always heard, but ne’er understood,
a whisper so willing, decidedly good.
The rapture of doomsday is said to be near,
but an ounce of the evidence has yet to appear.
There are several factors that could end it all;
the pride of mankind is destined to fall.
Hastened Calypso declared to be clear,
rumbling a rumble, fueled by a fear.
Often forgotten, yet forever engraved;
those who are faithful have already been saved.
Dwindled and swindled, the man may soon ask,
“Your person is puzzling; take leave of your mask.”
Now the raven is calling, to bring out your soul,
but all you have left is a void with a hole.
With chastened Calypso declared to be clear
she is tumbling a bumble who’s drunken with beer,
and thought the cliff it is climbing is sharp, and quite sheer,
if the bumble dose stumble it won’t shed a tear.
Where we are looking and what we will find
is based in illusion we have made in our mind;
Always is heard, and is ne’er understood.
It’s a whisper so willing, decidedly good.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 1:41 PM UTC
there, the air is thicker
it hangs full, like the ladies
all the sadness lived in the
capsules of trapped air in
woollen jumpers left behind
men with their toothless
smiles and shining skin
coax laughter from a steel drum
the market boasts a rainbow
of sarongs, papayas, star fruits
offered in jangling song
it was a medicine.
the coral blooms in the reef
are teeth in a dog's mouth,
guarding.
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 10:20 AM UTC
Inside my throat expands under water mountain ranges for miles
Sea salt love affairs dance across shell pink lips
Telling all of Poseidon's secrets through drift wood bonfires
I love you
Parts are missing so I gather bits and pieces close
Always in need of more cosmic adheisive to keep you here
Stalwart and worthy your effigy stands carved of whale bone steel
Starry night sky corsets cinching our tied tongues together
We once had a name, a place
Desires and wishes flooded the air between us
Now it's just me constantly rowing against the current
While you glide smoothly ahead riding the trough
I have storm clouds hidden in my sunshine smiles
****** pearled laughter stifled and worn
Too tired to see the nautilus of my thoughts dragging me under
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC