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Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

It was silent. His body sunk into the earth.
His soul long gone from there. He had died
A gun upon his arms.

When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid

He had died with a home that his dream would
live on.

Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Later they had told us he had died with courage
and valor.

Ains a year say a prayer faur me
Close yir een an remember me

The shots continue he fell by the
tenth.

Nair mair shall a see the sun
For a fell tae a Germans gun

A ******* grasped in his stone
cold hand

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

He saw a line of faces, brown, black
and white. Some were smiling others,
crying

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

His body sunk into the cold, wet ground
As God opened his arms, for a boy
drenched in blood.

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun*

A group waited in the wings. Soldiers
from many places. Who fought to keep
their shores safe.
Thank You
Draped like a long forgotten shawl
my dreams lie in my mind, covered with a caul.
No second sight was afforded my disillusionment,
my deluded, discarded dreams.
Brittle decaying hope.
Tattered remnants of youthful vigour cling vine like
to my mind. Was I ever that happy?
Or is that an illusion also.
Born of the caul, as a charm to be deemed unable to drown,
so, that's why I failed.
I watch my past on fast forward, skipping to the present.
Strange word present, meaning: the here and now, or a gift.
My dreams are nightmares, my present is no gift.
My nightmares are the gifts of my present
© JLB
18/06/2014
Ellen Joyce Jul 2013
There is a place inside my mind
where flower petals twist and wind
a quilt to softly bind
five children borne of hope and love;
my precious ones growing free of
the lows and limits of this life -
from shameful shadows roaming rife.
Mothers dream clings to fragments of normality
to ease the longing smacks cracks in her sanity.

She taught each child to hear the ocean through shells;
and yet none were ever more than wasted cells.
She sang them lullabies from a rocking chair;
and yet the womb was stripped bare, no children there.
Her love for them so strongly she expressed
and told them of the beauty they possessed;
yet despite that full heart, she was not blessed.
She gave the kind of kisses to chase their fears away;
yet her fearful heart pangs from the longing everyday.
She could do a job where the work is never done;
yet she'll never here the call she longs to hear -
Mum.

The pain and the sorrow that I write of,
is not borne of pity, but borne out of love.
Donall Dempsey Aug 2016
YADA TASHY ( "Originator Stone" )

Outside the first snow falls.

Her wounds are photographed.

Spoken of.

Described in detail.

Technical.

The overhead microphone
takes it all in.

Being dead she is
more naked

than she ever was.

Stripped of her
humanity.

She had ceased to be
who she used to be.

She is now
merely a cadaver.

The autopsy can not tell
her name.

She is Kuzuku.

Her mother called her
KuKu.

She had been born
with a caul.

KuKu was pregnant.

She was going to call
the child if it was a girl

. . .Yuki.

She couldn't conceive what
she would call it if a boy?

It was always going to be
a girl.

She liked candyfloss
and her hair up.

Now her hair is down.
It touches her shoulders.

As if her hair were
still alive.

The autopsy
wound by wound

tells of the hell
of her dying.

The voice is
deadpan.

Mechanical.

The coroner
breaks for coffee.

Bitter.  Black.

"Ya da!"
as the Turks say.

"...with nothing..."

*

Kuzuku was named after the flowering plant/rampant ****. Her mother always drank a tea made from it. Only her mother called her her pet name; "Kuku!" Her blacker than black hair always seemed like a living entity in itself as it danced upon her shoulders or splashed over her clavicles. She always wore off the shoulder dresses or tops even in winter cold. I once told her she had the cutest clavicles( "rekishi no naka de kawaī sakotsu" )in history which....always made her laugh. I told her she had well tempered clavicles and she laughed even more when the pun was explained to her. She had been born with a caul...a red caul. She it was who told me the Turkish tale or the Yada Daşı and of the Yadachy.

She had just met the man who would eventually stab her to death and she was greatly in love with him and his culture.

All these little scraps of humanity could not be disclosed by the autopsy which could never tell of how beautiful she was and what a joy she was to be around.

Her death was a horror tale told by a friend of a friend of a friend and hard to comprehend or believe.
Yada Tashy (Turkish: Yada Taşı; Bashkort: Йәй Ташы, Azerbaijanese: Yada Daşı, means "Originator Stone" or "Rain Stone") is a legendary folkloric substance said to be capable of summoning rain. For many centuries, it was the single most sought-after item in Turkic folk legends. Yada Tashy was a central symbol to the mystical terminology in Turkic mythology, symbolising interference to and control over natural phenomena.

Yadachy (Turkish: Yadacı/Yadaçı) in Turkic tradition, were men believed to have an inborn supernatural ability to protect their estate, village, or region against destructive weather conditions, such as storms, hail, or torrential rains. It was believed that the souls of these men could leave their bodies in sleep, to intercept and fight with demonic beings imagined as bringers of bad weather. Having defeated the demons and taken away the stormy clouds they brought, the protectors would return into their bodies and wake up tired.

Yadachy of an area usually fought together against the attacking Yadachy of another area who were bringing a storm and hail clouds above their fields. The victorious Yadachy would loot the yield of all agricultural produce from the territory of their defeated foes, and take it to their own region. Although Yadachy could be women and children, most were adult men. Their supernatural power was thought to be inborn. In many regions it was regarded that the Yadachy were born with a caul—white or red, depending on the regional belief. The mother would dry the caul and sew into a piece of garment always worn by the child, such as a pouch attached under the child's armpit. Adverse weather such as a storm or hail could devastate crop fields and orchards, and thus jeopardise the livelihood of farmers in the affected area. A role of Yadachy, according to folk tradition, was to lead storms and hail clouds away from their family estates, villages, or regions, to save their crops. A Yadachy could take the storms and hail clouds over the territory of another Yadachy to destroy its crops. The other Yadachy would fly up to confront the bringer of bad weather, and there would be a fight between the Yadachy.
Ellen Joyce Jun 2013
My memory beats in rhythm with my heart.
Spilling out snapshot flashes of life like a flick book's muffled cries.
Controversial plastic shell, elastic strap, stick insect mattel covetted for months
until Santa dropped it down the chimney,
almost as fast as she sprogged and regained her figure
- the original scrummy yummy mummy set to spread low self esteem.

My daddy said anyone can crank out a kid like she did,
as my mother ground her teeth to protest on behalf of her traumatised frame.
Strange, I almost became one of the lost - before I grew cells and self,
another fragile foetus swinging on a noose
from gallows where once a ****** failed to stayed closed.
Little life curled tight self soothing sings al na tivke iredem bim'nucha

My memory beats in rhythm with my heart
as I lie beneath my shroud of sadness filled with down shrinking from the light of day
I want to tell you that I love you,
that my heart brays, beats, bleets, breaks, aches for you.
My soul, spirit, self thrice chorus al na tivke iredem bim'nucha
as waters flow from deep to deep
where danger dances and solace is sought
from beyond the fruitless orchards and willows weeping
branches reaching out for you.

My memory beats in rhythm with my heart
surrounded by madonna, ***** and all betwixt
spheres of life protruding, pronounced, announcing themselves;
in streets where bundles, terrors, cherubs, banting, brat and bairn alike
shriek, scream, squeal, shout, squalk, squabble, sing
in a cacophony that makes my heart weep and ache in longing
to sing to self in solitude al na tivke iredem bim'nucha.

My memory beats in rhythm with my heart
pulsating thoughts, dreams, hopes of you through the whole of me.
Brought to my knees I seek wisdom, guidence, strength to let you go.
The river is waiting for you, you who I hold tight in my caul
trying to trust, seeking strength to hakshev le'ivshat haga'lim
holding the thought of you,
the love of you,
the hope of you
tight in my arms crooning my lullaby of lament
al na tivke iredem bim'nucha
Translations
When I wrote this poem to express the letting go of the babies much loved but never to be I thought of a song actually from the Prince of Egypt, a film I first watched in Hebrew, so I looked it up.
al na tivke iredem bim'nucha
hush now be still love my baby dont cry
hakshev le'ivshat haga'lim
sleep while you're rocked by the stream
Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
Genesis
****** and his cities,
Peleg the earthquake,

cities of crafts and exchange

waste disposal, chaos control
ordinal first to last sequence
father, physical strong, less curious
mother, fragile smaller, more observant.

Plural spiritual entities, Elohim, watchers,
applications of reason, reporting events.

Balance demonstrated with spinning
and flipping throwing things,
fitting thing piece to piece cunning spun
framing weaving
loose and taut, twanging
whistle, whine howl yells bells song

Eventual progress, time out of mind, slow
and steady,
patient, put down, put up, leaning, pushing
pulling, windwise rushing in, to fill the empty

Mind, imageless, no holds, no solidity,
all is spirit, no atoms even, perhaps, not even,
quarkish pairs of ups or downs that spin
on points in ever after solid state called
Heaven, the firmamental place where none was.

Higg's Field.
Unknown known matter and energy, we know.
We know something power enough to seem matter,
exists,
beyond our individuated mind's grasp.
Okeh.

Spread so as we may imagine, when itself began
with the initial edges, or edge, it would be, inside
any bubble-edge is inside,
they say outside is unimaginable

flat out planed point of anything
pounded thin as any bubble wall,
-blood-brain boundary, shocking discovery

yes, as with point spreads stretched to firm
mental plotted points of possible otherness,

ways one may be seen divided
duty-wise. Needful news.

Drink water from your own cistern,
save rain water for washing hair,
keep the spider in the spout,
to catch most matter washed
from the roof over our minds vidroning view

Googlized minds, in Disneyified Meta Cognosis,

we arrived at our destination,
and they have clouds of cotton candy.

- must be all vain, all is vanity, that's fair.
- Ecclesiastes, my old ****-rod-*****-point
pain on my backside,
such as Moses saw of Him whose name is as the Dao,
the name that may be said is not Ha Shem,
the side that may be seen is not His, you see, the hole,
not the whole,
and once that is filtered through, a certainly tangled web,
where in it seems,
Jews, in cultural roles granted, now, bat und bar mitzvah,
no veiled ****** similarities to the Handmaid's Tale.

No weeping over spilt milk,
never cry wolf.
Never speak of the devil, for … what speak we in,
when worshipping and praising and praying is supplicant
pose, supposed to induce holy awareness of mathematical me.

What might be the odds, set
taking all bets,
in spirit and in truth, as held in the wedom we acknowledge,
you and me, we agree, we become maker of this bubbling state,

we boil the cauldron, wear the caul of the first born-
we take the fat from the caul of the liver, and offer the smell,
to the unspeakably named reality we make believers build
in times of plenty, we make beautiful things together,

we call dreams retellings, but the tellings flow from deeper wells.

We are more ant-ish than sheepish,
we are more horse-ish than wolfish, in the wild.
We are more dog-ish than cat-ish, in civilized spaces.

Nurture native natal ground boundary of any wedom,
go beyond,
in quest of all we failed to grasp, the wind we fit to words,
and hold the gathered sheaves , in fists,
this is it,
why one how come to become. We be. Alwise, always willing

to envision further than we think men by right may see,
the tree the fruit was forbidden from,
bade the birds imbibe, and the elephants and monkey's too,

certainly, imagine, the plan got out of hand, it was
mandatory
in the garden walled off speck of life,
pre concepts weyeken called cells.

E= okay, rebalance all you respond with

who says what C equals, at my scale, in a mind,
in or out of the body, I can not say, significantly
different from saying, I can't say,

see, set, mindtimespace, spacetimemind, point. A.
Daily bread, liquidity.
Ellen Joyce Jun 2013
I placed you in a boat of pinks and blues with a smooth white satin sail and let you lie beneath the sky so pregnant with infinite possibility that the night might tear at anytime and unleash a loveliness so heavenly it would turn us to a pillar of sugar and whip us up into candy floss beehives for the angels to play dress up with.  We are the multicoloured whispers, each one a syllable in the cacophonous swishhhhhshhhhhshing melody of the dewdrop chiming, petals kissing rhyming, intertwining of all that is beautiful uniting in the crescendo of the wind.  The soft sensations of angels breathing warmth on skin, shimmering shadowing of the ripples in the satin of a sail brought to life as if to hail the glory of the universe.  Water and wind and the will of the world gathers momentum and movement to wrench down to the depths of our heart and I feel the unfathomable maul to our caul and begin to tear us there in the place that has held us for so long.  There is no flood of blood pooling at my feet on the just forming glistening path being marked with frost and crocuses and the knowing that you are not here but that we are still we.  You are drifting into the inbetweens, where reality is a ***** word and your story, our story still unfolds in the pitter patter merry dance of keys and tongue beating our being into a rocking chair and a lullaby.  I have dreamed you almost to life, and though not alive, we are five.
This is a scrap, snippet, fragment of something that's been sparking for sometime and is in need of a quiet space and time!
From love's first fever to her plague, from the soft second
And to the hollow minute of the womb,
From the unfolding to the scissored caul,
The time for breast and the green apron age
When no mouth stirred about the hanging famine,
All world was one, one windy nothing,
My world was christened in a stream of milk.
And earth and sky were as one airy hill.
The sun and mood shed one white light.

From the first print of the unshodden foot, the lifting
Hand, the breaking of the hair,
From the first scent of the heart, the warning ghost,
And to the first dumb wonder at the flesh,
The sun was red, the moon was grey,
The earth and sky were as two mountains meeting.

The body prospered, teeth in the marrowed gums,
The growing bones, the rumour of the manseed
Within the hallowed gland, blood blessed the heart,
And the four winds, that had long blown as one,
Shone in my ears the light of sound,
Called in my eyes the sound of light.
And yellow was the multiplying sand,
Each golden grain spat life into its fellow,
Green was the singing house.

The plum my mother picked matured slowly,
The boy she dropped from darkness at her side
Into the sided lap of light grew strong,
Was muscled, matted, wise to the crying thigh,
And to the voice that, like a voice of hunger,
Itched in the noise of wind and sun.

And from the first declension of the flesh
I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts
Into the stony idiom of the brain,
To shade and knit anew the patch of words
Left by the dead who, in their moonless acre,
Need no word's warmth.
The root of tongues ends in a spentout cancer,
That but a name, where maggots have their X.

I learnt the verbs of will, and had my secret;
The code of night tapped on my tongue;
What had been one was many sounding minded.

One wound, one mind, spewed out the matter,
One breast gave **** the fever's issue;
From the divorcing sky I learnt the double,
The two-framed globe that spun into a score;
A million minds gave **** to such a bud
As forks my eye;
Youth did condense; the tears of spring
Dissolved in summer and the hundred seasons;
One sun, one manna, warmed and fed.
To-day, this insect, and the world I breathe,
Now that my symbols have outelbowed space,
Time at the city spectacles, and half
The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence,
In trust and tale I have divided sense,
Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double
Of head and tail made witnesses to this
****** of Eden and green genesis.

The insect certain is the plague of fables.

This story's monster has a serpent caul,
Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline,
Measures his own length on the garden wall
And breaks his shell in the last shocked beginning;
A crocodile before the chrysalis,
Before the fall from love the flying heartbone,
Winged like a sabbath *** this children's piece
Uncredited blows Jericho on Eden.

The insect fable is the certain promise.

Death: death of Hamlet and the nightmare madmen,
An air-drawn windmill on a wooden horse,
John's beast, Job's patience, and the fibs of vision,
Greek in the Irish sea the ageless voice:
'Adam I love, my madmen's love is endless,
No tell-tale lover has an end more certain,
All legends' sweethearts on a tree of stories,
My cross of tales behind the fabulous curtain.'
I

All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
City of spring, the governed flower,
Turns in the earth that turns the ashen
Towns around on a wheel of fire.

How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all and all, the corpse's lover,
Skinny as sin, the foaming marrow,
All of the flesh, the dry worlds lever.

            II

Fear not the waking world, my mortal,
Fear not the flat, synthetic blood,
Nor the heart in the ribbing metal.
Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,
The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade,
Nor the flint in the lover's mauling.

Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven,
Know now the flesh's lock and vice,
And the cage for the scythe-eyed raver.
Know, O my bone, the jointed lever,
Fear not the screws that turn the voice,
And the face to the driven lover.

            III

All all and all the dry worlds couple,
Ghost with her ghost, contagious man
With the womb of his shapeless people.
All that shapes from the caul and suckle,
Stroke of mechanical flesh on mine,
Square in these worlds the mortal circle.

Flower, flower the people's fusion,
O light in zenith, the coupled bud,
And the flame in the flesh's vision.
Out of the sea, the drive of oil,
Socket and grave, the brassy blood,
Flower, flower, all all and all.
Evan Stephens Oct 2023
Someone I could kiss
Has left his, her
             tracks
             A memory
            Heavy as winter breathing
            in the snow

-Elise Cowen


A white cloud caul brooms back
from the blue jeans baby above,

& a lemon blotch veil settles
over a moss-pocked branch facet.

Slow and chilly the afternoon
peels into memory fingers -

pleasant and strange, like sugar
stuck under the tongue.

I audit odd thoughts:
ephemeral *** reflections

are gauzy in the middle distance,
trapped in a basin of lost things;

grief is colossal, a leviathan
washed in from yesterday

to blight the snubbed beach slant.
In between are a thousand thousand

blacknesses between starry points...
Speckled with desire, I am witness:

the blanching cloud caul is broken
& a day-head blooms from a glass.
Ma Cherie Jun 2016
Ozzy or my uncle Ozzie
some say his name was misspelled and wrote down as Osiah I don't think it was an accident at all

Osiah means the expression of number 7
He was the Seventh Son
Of a 7th generation
Born with a veil of skin over his face
this is a caul, a veil...his glistening hood

He was born almost all Native American
He was able to play seven instruments without ever being taught
Violin, Fiddle, harmonica, *****, guitar, banjo & the mandolin.

There are a lot of mystical qualities associated with 7
The seven deadly sins
Seven days in a week
Seven colors of a rainbow
Seven notes in the diatonic scale
7 circles to form the symbol of the seed of life
The opposite sides of a dice always equal 7
The Seven Dwarfs
In Japan there are seven lucky gods
There are seven continents
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
We are able to identify seven objects immediately without needing to count them
Hindu wedding celebrate 7 walk around the fire 7 times
While the priest says his Mantra and then they take seven steps and say vows
together 7 times
The Big Dipper has seven stars
Seven dials in London is an intersection
Of 7 streets with a sundial in its Center
7 is the smallest number that gives you 1
there are Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

I am sorry that you were so misunderstood Osiah
I don't believe that you were lazy
you just saw everything in a different way and it all was a little too much for you
your heart was weak and you left so young
You were a kind and uncomplicated soul
I so wish I had known you better I was just a girl
You looked so much like my Father
so Native American ...our history

He spent much of his time alone with his instruments
Many might have seen his life is sad but I don't think it was he won a lot of fiddle and violin contests
though none of those instruments exist anymore or his trophies
gone with his caul
and the clippings of his first hair

A lot of things I don't understand about numbers I see certain ones all the time
7 is not my number but I remember to keep looking they're here for a reason
I guess I will just keep looking
watching
learning
hoping
praying
I have a call too.

Cherie Nolan © 2016
I see numbers all the time certain ones don't know if anybody shares this experience or not and I've been thinking a lot about my uncle... I hope all this is accurate I think so from what I can remember anyway.
When juiced a spore sized embryo, early in utero; fetus
   evinces atavistic miniaturization,
   where nascent differentiation wrought
physical resemblance to - seek reachers,
   sans Tarzan and Jane forebears,
   or exemplification of religious embodiments writ upon taut
lee helical real to reel strung nano deoxyribonucleic acid,
   where dome min ant
   ander recessive traits pop sic cull, and/or mom genes sought
took comb hing gull, where foxy fiery hander chrome hat tick
   microscopic threads ineluctably
   hired bot to weave warp and woof for naught
heard interpretive soundcloud issue onomatopoetic beat,
   whether as:
   the Marseillaise, muezzin, or reveille blown in the wind
   by alimentary mechanic, *** killed in all manner of ought  
   tow mobile craftsmanship, which possibly inflated and made pregnant,
   when one seem n
thrashes within timed zona pellucida drawbridge,
   hooping an ova to snag,
   though odds stacked against the most basic cell fish competition fought
in the **** z of evolutionary biology informing **** sapiens
   one errant or defiant game gamete perhaps hinting a gamine
tubby wonderfully woven with wisps viz The Idler Wheel Is Wiser
   than the Driver of the ***** and Whipping Cords Will Serve You
   More than Ropes Will Ever Do a ha at last that renegade oocyte
   nabbed, analogously the Michael Phelps re: among the flagellated
   madding crowdsource qua squirming *****-faction caught
thence the commencement when trappings for a newborn bought
   years later reviewing prenatal sonograms with grown son or daughter
   pointing out how he/she editorialized, epitomized, and exemplified
   in miniature (no bigger than any letter of the alphabet),
   and closely resembled many creatures extant throughout the briny deep
   such as an amphibian, reptile or Argonaut.
Ellen Joyce Aug 2014
the expression was solitude
sadness so profound
it bit the dew of her lip
salt cascading waterfall
mauling dreams
until ashen confetti fell
Vesuvius erupted
purging passion
to a myriad of maggots
lavishing larvae like
a heart enveloping caul
cage chrysalis consuming
boring at the core
till blood ran black
and hope withered
beneath the longing -
barren in the dirt.
The shadows cast lots to cast a shadow on me and in the shade of a banyan they wait
to see
who wins.
Seán Mac Falls Jul 2012
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
Seán Mac Falls Mar 2013
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
neth jones Feb 2022
contaminated...                            

the boy is explained in the dark
                  made smaller and tighter than his thirteen years
        invented a-tread each direful night ;
            in place of restfulness
                   he is tussled :

itchy within                                    
moans of a growth owning pain
domestic air is newly surrogate
the boy flees upstairs
the condition of the home is sickly
             excreted beads from the fibres
a pale mix is gland
                        a perspiration out of sorts
pursed
spritzed
lively          
            then a wing-ed light smog

keeping to his room                            
he sits on his bed to 'wait it out'
the sun downs                        
as fruited ideas                
                   treacle up the pine wood walls
as otherworld tones        
                             flute the flumes that plumb the walls
as his mother clears the dishes
        with the radio on
as the fathers increasing tardiness
        makes the wound hour leaden further

outside
wind starts churning up the monster
hustling the coniferous trees
stoking the forrest for its brazen voice
jeeving hard upon the house
dry *******
inducing a perverse osmosis
within                                              
          pressurized audibility is clayed
hairs on the carpet tick static
              ....  this negative duress

outside
the moon hides its legend            
an autumn owl takes the bough
     just above the boys window
    it hunches into its ruffle
       retches up a pellet of prey
fur and crushed bone
            clatters dryly into the gutter

the boy works his jaw
       relieving his popping ears
the rooms climate becomes sparky
important items radiate auras :
             the scorpion in formaldehyde
stolen from school
                          grandmas mourning ring on a string
                suspended above his desk
        an old key discovered in  the woods

investigation                          
a brief hole in sound
a slim bik of light traverses
  over the boy
    the bed
       and out into the hallway
it winks gone
     and sips of smoke
like lithe neat scraps of silk
start livening the corners of vision

he stands                                                      
open­s his closest and dresses for sleep
      yield to routine

Mother enters                              
    always a human breath                  
                                         of pre decay warmth
      here to make him into his bed
bound by her neat practiced tucks
                         the boy receives her loving words
                                  but she's in a separated world from his
distortion gums up the audibility          
he attends to lips
the blessings don't function right
mistress smudges are left in the air            
they trail from the corners of her mouth
                             with the expressive turns of her head

fending lightly from the room
she blows a kiss at the doorway
it punches a little galaxy swirl
                              and suspends
a heated blue weave of the hand
                    and she is gone

door concluded and the light left on
the wall flower patterns crick and shale loose
    they cash into the flooring
and in turn the floorboards palpitate finely
feathering into a unreliable state

less than a minute later ...                   
fathers presence                              
   makes an apologetic attempt
                                                     at a ghost-walk
sounds clumbered in an aquarium                
    he slides his back down the drunken partition
and talks
   he sells a story of personal wretchedness
some lesson is vague
flammability
the boy takes the readings                  
                  of the distant vocal squall
pauses in the erratic speech weather expect replies  
     but the boy fears this colonized version of the father

though anger
                        father does not enter
rumbles his fists, feet              
                 and frustration at the wall
stands                                            
      and­ punches his footfalls
                  to the master bedroom

the parents
together now closeted
amniotic             
their world fidgets fiercely and swells          
swaddled in their own dramatics
firing blindly                        
their voices
travel the pipes in the walls
back to the boys room
                drowned of discourse
but not the aggressive 'passion' flaring out
they plunder the boys ears

Sudden ! ;                
                  brakked smell of flint
a bird slams the window dead        
crack in the pressure
unbearable penetrating release
screaming the boy host violent
minds that bind are loosened
subpoenaed                                              ­
          the boy recoils and fends this raid
kicks off the bedding
strips free of his pyjamas
a thick layer of his own goes with it
fleecing his actual skin                        
raw stinging exposure
he tugs at the flay of his own rubbery peel
enough layers of dermis in one
grip and pull
to make real hurt
raw of pain
(it feels)
tug-tug
grip
and pull
sleeves off of limbs
and a sappy caul from his bonce
he doffs the leather onto the floor
fresh wash of song
fierce waves of signals hot and cool
he ***** up his matty sheered hide
"**** it !"
pulls up the window enough
vent
an outward 'gush' as the pressure balances
the boy                        
dispose    
      push the viscid pelt out
the boy expels
disgorged into the night

                                              - consummated
Seán Mac Falls Feb 2014
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
Mary McCray Apr 2016
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 9, 2016)

I’m writing this at the airport terminal halfway through a nightmare.
My head is full of three classes (two online), one Infinite Jest reading group, one novel and 30 poems.

First there was the business trip I shuffled all my days for.
Three weeks of being hijacked in paperwork and last minute delays.

The day before my trip had me begging a conference admin to let us register for the middle day which had sold out during said bureaucratic delays.

I scrambled to make it work: the packing, the physical therapy, mailing my mother’s 80th birthday gift.

I forgot to check in for my flight and over the last three days temporarily lost various items including my travel paperwork.  I have spilled multiple liquids on important pieces of paper.

I paid for a tea and there was no tea. I went uncaffeinated. My late-night flight was cancelled.  In the week ahead I will lose steam, lose faith, lose my way and throw up twice.

Such maneuverings drag on the world’s caul.

I woke up at 4 am this morning and feel like I should have a good crying jag. Bernie is not a democrat. Hillary is not a socialist. The arguing will not stop. You know forever it will not stop. I am and we are all way behind in everything and it piles up a cacophony of noise.  I am way to tired
and far too heart superstitious to write a single line
in any way tainted with risk at this moment.
Been totally derailed with this. Left Friday for two conferences in Los Angeles. Started taking notes for poems every day but came down with the stomach flu on Saturday and could only manage to do the conferences each day and then crash into bed!
Alysha L Scott Aug 2012
Hands are full
around the belly an
ash caul, of infant veil

sighs the tempest
breed of barren muse,

stricken wide and naked
I wear the hands of the enemy,
birthed and swollen by oblivion:

the jester is out, 364 weary,
ballistic and dead by denial

as the sun breaks knees
from flourish to incognito,

his eyes grow wild in sand
and weep with a mother's smile.
A dream revealed your eyes to me,
And love once caged is now set free.

I must love you, if love I must;
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

A whisper in my ear was all,
My heartbeat slowed down to a crawl.

With love, my soul is now more me,
And love once caged is soon set free.

I must love you, if love I must;
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

My eyes uncovered of their caul,
My heartbeat slowed unto a crawl

I prayed together we will be,
And love once caged will be set free.

I must love only you; I must,
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

The birds from tree to tree do call:
My heartbeat has grown wide and tall.
Mote Mar 2016
Since Thursday bugs have been crawling out of the cards.

I buried my heart with the oleander,
where mother left the caul.
I forgot where that was. Somewhere near
the trunk line.

Today I walked to work with my wholesome *******
under a sheer shirt. I have been thinking of gentleness
and the vase of my ******, I have been thinking such

impossible things.

Only one drink of wine, only one card left unturned.

In the corner of my ******* I have built
a beach. It was for our first date, but I forgot
where we were supposed to meet
and my boyfriend deleted your number.
Seán Mac Falls Apr 2013
In the mercy caul of night,
Where time is frail as memory,
In the technicolor film of ocean salt,
With eyes of yearn and mute wonders,
There, I saw you once more.
We walked through the rushes green
Of warmth, broke into dreams dawning
Meadows of casting light, where winged
Creatures, colourful as we, lilting in midair
Spiraled, drifting through the gleaming
Thoroughfares of endless Mays, of tingle
And flame, where once before, we found
Ourselves at the misty plateaus reflection
Of star shine and flight, nary silhouetted,
Yet, framed in the snow melted tarns
Of golden, glorious, Olympus.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2013
In the mercy caul of night,
Where time is frail as memory,
In the technicolor film of ocean salt,
With eyes of yearn and mute wonders,
There, I saw you once more.
We walked through the rushes green
Of warmth, broke into dreams dawning
Meadows of casting light, where winged
Creatures, colourful as we, lilting in midair
Spiraled, drifting through the gleaming
Thoroughfares of endless Mays, of tingle
And flame, where once before, we found
Ourselves at the misty plateaus reflection
Of star shine and flight, nary silhouetted,
Yet, framed in the snow melted tarns
Of golden, glorious, Olympus.
Aliya Smith Mar 2014
My night, under opaque wraps, collects my candid questions —
unkept before the walls crept back up on me and
crammed my thorough thoughts
into sufficient suffocation and disallowed my dislocation
from total cerebral closure —
and covers cognative wonders with a dense fence-like stone cure.

The clean-cut cold sheets, tucked beneath the bed springs
spring my curiosity through layer after layer
of teeming tides of blockades and prohibition
but someone sits at the edge of the road, just before crack
drops to cliff and he catches my despair, tangled in the rye, and
before my in-experience allows me to cry,
he hurls my candid questions back my way and continues
my disallowance of detaching myself from purity.

But despite his baseball mitts, he can’t catch my verbal fits
so I scream, “My wants can’t be blocked forever and Holden,
I’m holding onto my life for the sake of avoiding strife with you but
celibacy of the mind can only lead to our true demise.”

He looks me in the eyes, scared he’d been outdone,
so he tries to run but the cliff leaves him hanging and
I reach for his undemanding hand that swats my offer
with a backwards hat.
But his fear subsides in his recollection of his misinterpretation of
a silly old poem that led him to believe he could catch our innocence.
So wear your hat straight, Holden, ‘cause in the rye,
you’re not the groundskeeper, but keep your ground and
catch yourself before you fall off the cliff and lose yourself
in your selfless tantrums and your disregard for your need for wondering.

Let me break through my caul, ‘cause it’s burning of decay and
I’ve overstayed my welcome in this amniotic gate, devoid of vitality,
and I like my life in my own hands, so I’ll tell you now:
I’m holdin’ on, Holden. Get a grip and hold on, yourself.
Elaenor Aisling Sep 2021
Born to the veil
peeled out like a peach with the old iron knife
rose quartz, slow flesh, thin newness in January air.
His grandmother kept the caul for luck
pressed between the pages of her bible
and the old ways.

His silvern eyes mirrored the tarnished coin his mother slipped in to his fist
at christening.
Droplets of hope, heavy on small lids
and when he lifted them
he saw his first ghost
over the priest’s shoulder,
her gauzy lips grazing his cheek.

His luck was the vaporous three-legged dog that followed him everywhere.
Its dusky warmth on his feet,
the comfort he could not sleep without
for there were too many nights
his dreams had the flavor of ash and mire
and he would wake, panting,
the heat of his fear snatched by the cold nights.

In the village
the girls asked him who they would marry
until he told the raven-haired her sailor floated somewhere in the Atlantic,
the ring he bought her in Portugal
resting on a finger of coral.

The white heather his mother tucked in to his cap
stayed green, even past the dream of her prostrate in the market square—
He warned her against buying apples In autumn,
but in September, he felt the tell-tale jolt of loss,
keen as raven’s wing through cloud
dropped the plough, sprinting through the fields of winter wheat.
His gasps matching hers
the viscous pump of blood through ventricles
one stream running dry.

At the apple stall
the copper eyes of the butcher’s wife
burned holes in his heart
as he watched his mother’s soul
drift from her breast into the ether.
It slipped by his hands, goose down through fingers,
formless, aimless love that would spin itself into grief
the cloak woven from its threads
one he would wear
for the rest of his days.
In Western folklore, children born with cauls (amniotic sac still on) are considered lucky, and sometimes the ability to see ghosts and predict the future.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2013
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
Seán Mac Falls Oct 2012
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
Seán Mac Falls Oct 2016
.
In the mercy caul of night,
Where time is frail as memory,
In the technicolor film of ocean salt,
With eyes of yearn and mute wonders,
There, I saw you once more.
We walked through the rushes green
Of warmth, broke into dreams dawning
Meadows of casting light, where winged
Creatures, colourful as we, lilting in midair
Spiraled, drifting through the gleaming
Thoroughfares of endless Mays, of tingle
And flame, where once before, we found
Ourselves at the misty plateaus reflection
Of star shine and flight, nary silhouetted,
Yet, framed in the snow melted tarns
Of golden, glorious, Olympus.
Seán Mac Falls Feb 2017
.
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
Rob Sandman Jan 2018
The Harbour quakes as we break your Boom,
The Nemesis Sails-Harbinger of doom,
A New Chapter - the Sly Celt Raptor,
Bain **** proceed us-Scream in rapture
As The Bodhran shakes your eardrums shatter,
Lightning rakes- your defences Scatter,

It's raiding season!-Take your Oars!,
Boats filled to the brim with Ores and ******
our targets-fat Merchants waddle,
Crimson seas as the Forces Battle

The Morrigan Swaddles our mind with the caul (call)
no Mercy asked(None Given!) SLAY ALL
Widows scream as they're dragged to the Ship
Towns burn to ash in our wake as we rip,  
A Blood red Swathe Through the Dawn in the east,
As the Nemesis Sails,The Harbinger Feasts...
This is the second of "The Nemesis Tales" (Number one is just called The Nemesis and is up here)
a Serial tale based around a Demon Ship called somewhat obviously The Nemesis,
there will be blood!
Gidgette Apr 2017
She stood, barefoot,
at his burial
It was August and hot
Her onyx, knee length hair, hung loose,
blowing in the storm she was conjuring
Hailing from the eastern skies
Her burnt oil eyes, dry
She had no need for tears,
Heaven would cry for her
Born the first of 13
in a long line of darkened blood
300 years bread from Ireland,
to the Cumberland mountains and rolling hills
Every first before her, Born with a caul
"Knowing"
Each generation striving for 3 daughter's and seven sons
Seventh sons born water witches
Each first daughter a
"Seer", amongst other dark blessings
Cauls kept, and buried at midnight 'neath willow branches for blessings
These first daughters,
bore one of three hairs,
raven black, silver, or gold
from birth
Never greying
I watched her
stayed with my grandmother
beside her husband's grave
Till night fell
Her hair, never went grey
..
Third Eye Candy Apr 2015
i am lost and that is no wonder in the world.
we have our monsters
and the picture of our beautiful, is the sting . not the beast,
i need to sleep awhile... because the night is the night
and God weary.
i have no hands to grasp this completely
but i have you
to make terrible, my every concoction
of how it truly Is.

but here it comes.

i do not linger where you want.
i ***** and trump in the loam
of our distinguished withering
and amass a lump of false joy
for our trouble.

could you love me in my narrow caul ?

would you allow for the winters of our rubies
and still be sweet ?

can we sever
the ties that blind
and regard the sun
a friend ?
when so much
is the devil's orphan
and so little
the day's
moon ?

can we wait ?

Or are you such as I -
and can no longer be
Yes
when the short answer
is a Novel ?

that hasn't slept....

— The End —