"caroused" poems
On the day I go in
A band of dancers, around
A drum of wine for guest
I have lived and caroused life, will be said
The journey to the great beyond
begins,
With the loss of air
No tears, No dark linen
A debt to pay is death
At the end, we credit our Father
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 4:48 PM UTC
As I lay beside my darling
On an early Sunday morn,
I could feel her rounded softness
Sleeping under blankets warm.
My mind caroused the memories
And loitered on it's way
And found itself deliciously,
Immersed in golden play.
I remembered something special
In the way my little boy would look
As his eyes rose up in wonderment
When I read his favorite book.
And the joy involved in feeding
A hungry little mouth
When the porridge spooned all over
From the eyebrows heading south.
A tantalizing moment
On the beach down by the sea,
In the warm December sunshine
With my happy family.
We were running in the black sand
Drawing circles with a stick
As the surging waves approached them
Laughing little boys were quick.
Laughing, happy moments
And some sad ones like the day
When dear old Meg, our Labrador,
Got sick and passed away.
Young Boaz in his sadness
Climbed the big tree to it's crown
And it took a lot of pleading
To persuade him to come down.
And young Solly played the taniwha
At the Cornwall Park school play
And a better taniwha has yet
To grace the stage today.
A natural in his element
This young comedian
So hilariously funny
As he drew the audience in.
The tender, loving moments
As we both strolled arm in arm
Through the verdant Ferntree Gully
With it's sunlit grace and charm.
And the towering eucalyptus,
Hanging wood smoke in the air
And the whiplash resonation
Of the lyrebird hidden there.
Of Buttercup's wild parties
When fancy dress was king,
When everyone would whoop it up
And laugh and dance and sing.
When mum's and dad's and little kids
All joined the happy throng
With spud mashing as a ceremony
And a night of fun and song.
Of sitting in the garden
With your feet up and a book
And a cold beer at your elbow
And a barbecue to cook.
With the easy feel of family
As they go about their day
And the joyous sound of summer
When two noisy tui's play.
Memories of yesterday
Moments in the life
Of ecstasy and agony
And wonderment and plight.
And the ordinary ness of everything
And the magic everywhere,
Like the auburn in the sunlight
As it strikes my darling's hair.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
10 October 2009
May 8, 2010
May 8, 2010 at 7:36 PM UTC
There was an old man, I once knew
Peaches was the name he used
He was the drunk, set on our trunk
his body old and abused
Sharing his beer with an old horse
who caroused in the end stall
Each day by three, they'd walk by me
and stumble but never fall
His liver was a lace doily
alcohol pickled him thin
He'd been turned down, all over town
no one ever took him in
He drank his beer with ole Nellie
she could tip a bottle too
Swig and sway, like Don Quixote
as they staggered, swirling, brew
We were headed for the races
this blustery afternoon
Each planned the trip, we had to ship
I knew we'd be leaving soon
From where we trained at the fairground
we carted them to the track
Where all would race, and take what place
each earned in front or in back
Peaches rode in back of the truck
so he could drink the whole way
My uncle said, he'd soon be dead
drinking had seen his decay
We sat apart from others there
he and I were best of pals
He'd tell me tales, of life’s travails
while I ogled all the gals
That day he shared a sordid tale
of pain he caused his own son
He had shouldered blame, bore the shame
for this thing that he had done
Back when he was just a young man
a pillar of support
He took his boy, his life’s great joy
to play their favorite sport
They went to a picnic that day
he had drank one too many
On the way, to watch his son play
of fears he hadn't any
His boy was riding in the back
not thinking they skipped the seat belt
He'd rolled his car, the door ajar
surprise was all he had felt
His boy was tossed out in a field
sweet clover of timothy
The child's light hair, seen lying there
remembered so vividly
"I was a Veterinarian"
said Peaches to my surprise
"I went insane, called out in vain
but God never heard my cries"
"So now I ride where I belong
In back of my self-made bar
Hoping he, will come to take me
by tossing me from the car"
Just then a tear fell from his cheek
the pain enveloped me too
Here cried a man, much deeper than
any of us ever knew
Tate
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
It was spring when the old things get cleared away
and I opened a drawer that was mostly closed now;
in the back was a ring of keys I hadn't touched forever
because the doors they opened were gone.
My first car, a castoff from my father we used in high school
to go to practice, or for hamburgers, or to the movies
in a time when that was the most fun we could have.
I see the boys now, smiling and singing songs you never hear anymore.
The key to my the apartment I had going to school, a little place
I shared with Jimmy Redd just off campus where we
drank, caroused and learned how to cook hamburger helper
between working and going to class.
The key to my first office and the house I bought where
some of my kids lived and I had a future
that was wasted by trusting people whose most important
love was in the mirror every morning
Then there were no keys for years when I could not unlock
the doors I lived behind in places where
the only comfort was a date yet to come as I waited
and the world turned without me, changing everything
Which turned out to be for the best
For the last unused key was to my first home after leaving high school
the place love became real and where the missing part
of me had been waiting through her own trials.
I smiled and held the keys tight then put them back into the drawer
they are not useless as I thought
because the doors they open are those I will
always be able to enter.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
Jesus was looking impatient
It was already quarter past nine
He was sure he'd sent out invitations
And he'd turned all the water to wine
He'd promised a memorable banquet
As tomorrow he'd surely be dead
But the shops had been short of a few things
So he'd just had to settle for bread
When a knock at the door made him flutter
He adjusted his dress and his hair
He opened and bid all assembled
"Wipe your feet and then sit over there"
They shuffled and took to their places
But they looked slightly I'll at their ease
They could see all the wine and the bread rolls
But what of the ham and the cheese?
Jesus said grace in his fashion
"Cheers Dad" with his thumb held up high
"But be careful, this bread is my body"
"Now who wants a nice bit of thigh?"
They tucked in with nervous expressions
He'd been guzzling since they had arrived
He explained "It's my blood in these bottles"
"And without it I'd not have survived"
The apostles were forming conclusions
Their boss had been ****** all these years
But the wine washed away their objections
And the music drowned out all their fears
So they partied and danced on the table
They played twister and tidily-winks
Then stumbled off out to a nightclub
Because Judas was buying the drinks
They caroused and they conga'd till morning
Till their stomachs and bladders had failed
And that's how young Jesus got hammered
And the very next day he got nailed
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 7:58 PM UTC
Walking in the woods, I fell
Down into a knothole that lead
To another realm, unlike our own
‘Twas a wondrous realm like a twilit dream
Where the dazzling sky at night engulfed all
And satyrs who were young like me
Beckoned me to their sordid ******
Fountains of wine poured into streams,
And wood nymphs danced and bathed in falls
Deliciously drunken and sweet, calling me
To pick their flowers.
We caroused and we aroused
As we fired our slingshots into the sky
And watched the night shimmer with the
Comets we launched up and away.
I fired mine, foolishly unaware
That my target was the moon so full
I shattered my joy to pieces
And brought this realm to darkness
The satyrs howled in fear
The wood nymphs withered away
The fountains of wine turned into blood
And I was left drowningl
Until a glorious golden hand
Went from the moon’s place to
Shield me, carry me back to reality.
I awoke in a sweat and a shiver
'Twas always night in the Satyr’s Garden
Be it drenched with stars and ecstasy,
'Twas night, and night to remain.
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 4, 2010 at 10:30 AM UTC
I was driven to the wilderness
When a flaming sword appeared;
Then tethered like a goat,
For the demon was revealed.
I've got a mark, like Cain,
To identify me;
So I stumbled through the gulches
For a place to be free.
You told me I was naked,
I never realized;
You should fit inside my head
And see me with my eyes.
I've slept with swine,
Caroused with jackals,
Spit in the face of Him;
It was then you found me out;
Cried and mourned,
For I was never good at hiding;
And thus you found me lacking.
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 5:50 PM UTC
The vast sapphire nebulae of space,
All rising o’er in zeniths of sweet dreams,
Feed all the leas and all the murm’rous streams
With folds on cloudy folds of moonbeam rays.
Whene’er I look within the lake’s clear face,
I see each high aurora, which then gleams,
Caroused with Heaven’s soft and dewy beams,
Which flicker in a thick and splendid haze.
I see the moon, upon the whole world gaze
And all the stars which skies with their souls trace,
Glide, trembling in some waters’ ebbing grace
With some unearthly music, so it seems.
Oh, as I sit before the pale light
Of stars, I sigh and dream of sacred bliss,
And tuck myself in Heaven’s chrysalis,
I feel as if such place is more than night…
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 8:51 PM UTC
Leaves mound like
wheat in silos,
I’ve trees that need pruning,
weeds in the fence line
beg to be yanked, a coyote
caroused in the chicken
coop and slats should
be nailed over
the void; seventy degrees
is predicted today
and no work will
be done.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 8:39 AM UTC
what i would tell you about the posies
that gather around
when they overhear my voice
calling out your name,
none would say the same.
for them,
caroused near the streams
that few perennials are but discerned;
springtime only passes by,
and then they are gone.
but how are they able to suss as such?
when these rosebuds
unlatch themselves
only when you are here?
Apr 15, 2020
Apr 15, 2020 at 1:33 PM UTC
"Dibs"
you used to claim, smiling, and pointing at me.
It was a joke and I used to laugh,
but it buffered my relationship with
Men from Home
by cloaking my presence
with preoccupation.
Like royalty,
I caroused with you
the City of Sand,
safe to be free with innocence.
and the Kingdom I surveyed
was glamorous.
Then, after That Spring,
I fled, and
found myself facing unbuffered men
almost naked;
Without your jacket
I was chilly,
and my body was offered the
sticky hot sweat of **** Sapien Hands
for warmth.
Smooth operations
against my naive flesh
left callouses and bruises
only I can be responsible for
accepting.
I was generous
with the pieces of skin
I wore and tore for the pleasure of others,
hoping to find you again,
or someone close.
But this new kingdom
was not Glamorous
was not innocent or funny
or warm.
Living in the squalor of my own choices
a derelict of my own self-abandonment
I became Queen of the Grunge
and it was painful,
I tell you it hurt!
Homecoming Queen
dons a shiny elastic crown
but Homegoing Queen
wears a ***** one of thorns.
For a while, I wore it
allowed it to obscure my vision
and warp my mirror's depiction.
Scars I mistook for knowledge,
and though they have made me wiser,
it is impossible to prune the
Diadem of Dirt
when its very composition is barb.
So:
atop my head I wore two crowns
and from across my shoulders
I shed one coat.
Bruises I gained as well as experience
and a new empire I consorted.
And indeed my mind's severe questions
took my body places I doubt it thought it would ever go,
But as I return to our former palace,
I realize The Answers
for which I was so desperately searching
could be found deep in the Sand,
and that the more intensely
the more earnestly
my hands shovel into the dirt,
the warmer it becomes.
Now, I smile
As the Sand starts to glow
with the diamond fire of my own soul
and I am warm in just my healing skin.
Now, I return Home
and discover the circularity of enlightenment
as I am filled with the Gusto of Me
and of finding my buried treasure
deep within the Sand,
deep within my love.
I can take it anywhere
Because I know
I feel
I am
My own.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 7:40 PM UTC
Romping with the wind caroused
Non-hearing inside this film
Metal cage rattle its shocks
As asphalt chips by rubber
Metal lights take gaseous orb
Eaten the fill of pitch
The filaments gyrate inside
Three trapped in transit gait
I hear voices, but not their sayings
Two heads cut by the shadows
And just so would they be one beast
If not for their storytelling
But I am another realm of one cell
One bunk divided to their floor
Where they dance plots of sweet nothings
And I try to shut my eyes
Vacant stare flesh out outside
Away from here in torture
Slipped through the crack of rubber tracks
Like pebbles breaking free
Black road to the black of night
A fabric soft subjective
Comfort by the passing orbs
To slowly dissipate
More non-consequential talk
Buzz like mud inside the gears
That bend and move myself around
But not the illusions created
Past marvels walk the way with me
And act their lives designed
By one whom sits inside a cage
So dark it seems inviting
Stretches patched by tidal waves
The gurgle of the brook
A peaceful key to slip away
Like amber shades in flight
What behind is not ingrained
To forward must we go
The destination set us loose
And me from what I know
Ignoring absorbed each other's ear
So speechless I forgotten
Accompanied to one and all
The things I so create
The calming beat on edge and tire
Sooth tears from pouring down
As better times repeat their flames
Orange with fleeting smiles
New shapes combine removed once
The time has blown the bars
To stone the rubber has its scars
But healing can commence
Breath by sun ensconced in glass
As vague as going path
My thoughts have metamorphosed
To setting of blurry nonsence
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 5:51 AM UTC
the numbers were in and it didn't look pretty
you people surrender your minds so easily
they dumb you down and you know it
they dumb you down and you let them
but it wasn’t exactly coercion either
basically the truth is we have many souls
most of them severe critics to be evaded
where they came from nobody knows
at the dawn of time a single drop of blood
fell on Mother Nature's pouting lips
then and there she was hooked forever
on the prodigality of infinite misuse
a million wasted ***** is no way to live
each one a potential productive manikin
random selection had done its worse
evil had survived the millennia just fine
well what any breathing human knows
is they can always do better next time
the point here is to insure a next time
it appeared that the world had been flushed
down the great stinking ***** pipe again
the old school mutates into the new school
goodbye old school
you have tried to become a national holiday
that no one feels the necessity to celebrate
needless to say the faculty weren't listening
and caroused down the lane into the woods
but it was too late for regret anyhow
the old school had initiated him
into the Clan of the Goat Poet
he sees where his next thought comes from
everything filled with clues is a clue itself
blindness is the human condition
idiocy is the subhuman condition
infantilism is the transhuman condition
anthropomorphism is the...somebody stop him
needless to say he dabbled in the grotesque
on a need to know basis so it was OK
I agree a cheap eruption of demagoguery
but you can't be free by hiding in a mirror
also I've been getting complaints
about vestigial blandness lately
my lawyers ****** & Bludgeon
had counseled caution in all things
so I lapsed into a 5 year walking coma
nothing to do but leave on the right note
with a casual wave and a simple **** it
in case you were wondering
everything is the way it is
so it would be believable
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Jul 14, 2023
Jul 14, 2023 at 6:18 PM UTC
Enticement aside,
It’s a terrible game
When the throes of a lifetime
Dwindle to flame,
When the ague of long living
Denudes as it wears,
Where the beauty of youth
Simply mottles and tears.
The effort required
To gamble instead
Realistically questions…
Better off dead?
Standing *****
On a spire of stone
With the world all around
Yet completely alone,
Cold wind caresses
The knowledge of how
Old friends abandon me
Frequently now….
In dying like flies
With unseemly haste,
With a disregard
For my feelings, chaste,
The hollowness
Of last things said,
The bitterness
Of love, lost dead.
Recalling times,
With a cup of tea,
When you and I
Laughed happily.
When sunshine bled
Rich colours sang,
Bluebirds flew
And hot dice ran.
How those days
Caroused with joy
Lost to chance then,
Girl and boy.
Hurrying,
With you on my arm,
Dressed to the nines
Bustling charm
Off to roll
The dice with flair
Chortling both,
Without a care..
So simple
Were those days of fun
Where time stood still….
Yet dice still run!
Those running dice
Across the floor
Now, don’t matter
Anymore.
Dimness
In the morning light
Preempts temptation
To take sight,
For gone the gloss
Tomorrow brings….
Outside, a joyous
Blackbird sings.
M.
13 August 2022
Mists of time, once so vivid, now 5 minutes later, just fade to an inconspicuous fog. But, somewhere, the dice roll on.
Aug 12, 2022
Aug 12, 2022 at 7:22 PM UTC
i have loved.
the crust of life
the o how divine reeling
of its casual thrill. and
the stern parting of flowers to break
against each heap of striding leg
their sinuously lurching scent.
(i have
and oh god how i have
loved the demure ***
of stopping day
;and where it has splayed most lustfully
entered
have i
)the music of my
fist
and the chanson of lilies.
God, and sweat oh
how i have loved thee the
swiftly naked among unnaked things.
(as a juniper, caroused with poppies,
and my neat hand curled upon a glass perspired(
the driving through late nights
and the sudden stopping at the end i have gone miles into twilight and how many i do not know to find girls in sleeping bodies i have gone miles into twilight to find them and press apart their sleeping bulbs they might suddenly alight)
but does not my fingers' itching
to meet with some things tight,
or day begin,
or the last futile gasp of easily purring Summer
match by cruel luck
the urge of life to sin?
i do not know.
i only know that i have loved,
(let us see if that's enough).
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Late was the hour
she caroused under
the subtle shine of
a winter moon
she was perfect
a real peach
she was effortlessly
brilliant and to call
her perfect would merely
be an insult
so I would watch
lost for words
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC