"clarion" poems
Compliments to the baker
and so too my Barista
Smoothest crema on the tongue
juxtapose to lemon vapour.
Intense acute sensations
insist I close my eyes
Submit in rare humility
in awe of nature's true franchise.
Clarion note of citron zest
resounds on mellow creamy seas
Mediterranean sun distilled
now is witnessed here in me.
Tempered, rounded bitter hues
from Amazonian dark recess
waited aeons to infuse
and bring about this wanton bliss.
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 9:59 AM UTC
In 1963
Mahalia prodded
the good reverend...
“tell them
about the dream
Martin”
transfixed on
a yonder time
he recounted
prophecies of
a near future
from a mountaintop
he foretold a
history of a people
returned again to
gardens of paradise
thriving in friendly
democratic soils
overflowing with a
colorful biodiversity
governed and
nurtured with a
vibrant sunshine
of divine justice
welcoming all
weary sojourners...
from the
pinnacle of
a Birmingham
jail cell
Martin burst
the bars with
the clarion peel
of a golden trumpet
proclaiming the gospel
of liberation to
the wardens of
unholy gulags
“free yourselves”
the horn emblazoned
in streaking lightning
across the sky
cowed by
prophetic truths
of righteousness,
shamed by
lies the pride
of arrogance
bespeaks to
placate the
intransigence
of dominion,
we prayed the
the walls of racism,
bigotry, prejudice
would tumble down as
Martin lit the Battle
of Jericho
today our country’s
profit driven gulags
overflow with people
of color as justice
lingers on death row
begging for a plea bargain
of a life sentence in
solitary confinement...
from the
****** Sunday Bridge
in Selma, Martin
offered a prayer for
peace, rebuking
the dogs of war
admonishing
the tenders of
blood thirsty
machines to
beat the gears
of war into
pruning hooks
and plowshares
advocates of peace
hope to steer
the plow across
the battlefields of
acrimony to sow
rich seeds of
reconciliation, planting
new gardens where
the rich yields of peace
will be consumed
by all God's children
yet these gardens
remain unplanted,
untended and defiled
by the machinery
of war that churns
churns, churns...
Martin last
dream occurred
on a balcony
in Memphis
witnessing
to the divinity
of those considered
untouchable after
a hard days work
collecting a city’s
refuse
he insisted all labor
was worthy of dignity
and the economic
justice of a fair wage
Martin looked squarely
into the eye of the gun sights
of those who thought differently
he never blinked, he dreamed
Martin formed his last
testament to an angry nation
yearning for the reconciliation
of stability and peace,
unmoved that it’s violence,
exploitation and bigotry only
stoke bonfires of acrimony
and division, condemning
the reprobate principality
to the bleakness of a
smoldering discontent and
continued generations
of recurring nightmares…
Martin's dream continues
in awakened hearts
sojourning on
Music Selection:
Mahalia Jackson
Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
MLK Day
2014
Oakland
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
Progress is wasted here
the high street draped in uniform glass fronts
why shouldn't we play our bugle
to rebuke this shard ?
yet in a corner there's still a market street
refusing the final nail,
there's a shoe, bakery, cycle and jewellery shop,
in our hearts we will
wear pride to headline the clarion call
and shed anger at being accused of,
carrying congress with the past
at our coffee stall.
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 6:00 PM UTC
before the break of dawn
the **** did crow
his clarion call
went out
to a hen
who twas a ***
the **** crowed
and crowed
and crowed
for within
the *** hen
he wanted
to blow
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 9:47 PM UTC
I have a confession to make, I said. I drink to forget all
That my failings and foibles beget. Sobriety
Sends me to most fitful sleep. No rest for he who in his unwaking hours
Mulls over the wine of his life, which he sours
With his own cork of guilt and self-conscience. All mine self-confidence
Derives from Contradictions repressing. Catatonic sleep of great notoriety
Is my limbo, my heaven, perchance my sick death. The
Removal of a blot on the face of this land should solicit, I fear, cornet
Mouthed angels to sound clarion of victory. If I was religious
I should become a flagellant invigilate most excellent
Flayed as the poacher would the pheasant.
And the landowner would the poacher.
Silence from both. I take a drought from my drink, she a small sip.
She looks at me and I look a way.
Do you want me to pay for this? She asks. Just the tip
Quoth I. Another drought and a sip.
Another.
I break down. I have nothing to believe in,
To believe in foul dogma to wash my soul of sin
I find repugnant. Belief in Progress and people and
The wonder of Nature is akin to praying to the inconstant sand
Castle made by the hand of a passing child.
Belief in my girlfriend! More my love’s greatest failure
To grant her the care and affection she deserves
Due to my sand castle of pride in which I do serve.
And thus do I say, to purge all my lust
There’s only one way, in Self-disgust I trust.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 4:42 PM UTC
*Undulating meadows
Glimpse of the horizon
Blue and green is a contrast
Deepening colors
Sun kissed grasses
And dewdrops sparkling
Trees sway in merriment
Romancing the wind
Birds give a clarion call
Into the heart of nature
It’s a realization of different kind
Hope springs in heart
This wanderer is not lost*
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 8:22 AM UTC
Dad didn't want a coffin.
"Cremate my last remains,"
And so we did.
Cool and dry,
His ashes, urned,
Lie beneath the sod
And prairie sky
Waiting some clarion call,
Some trill of hope,
Bright, re-constitutional,
Faith-affirming.
Mother's wishes rise before us:
No crematory,
No embalmer.
Just her blanket,
Just a hole
Dug beside our Dad.
The law would let her wish be true,
But her children won't.
We're searching coffin plans.
Reverently grim,
Lovingly deferential,
Dutifully rebellious,
Solemn this journey be.
Pine boards to honor her thrift
But smooth and tight,
Rope handles, fitted lid,
Perhaps a little trim,
Perhaps a sheaf of wheat carved
For the old farmer she was.
We'll bury her,
Wrapped in her blanket,
Tucked securely in pine
Beside my father's ashes.
Like a grain of wheat she'll lie
Silent in her final say
Inside our final say
Waiting Resurrection Day.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC
Attention pivoted on the farthest
Blurry are the things at hand
The horizon seems reachable
Near ones distances themselves further
Clarion call from beyond the realm
Here, the soul is writhing in anonymity
A void, that threatens to engulf the known
Uncertainties of the realization is real
Heart is anchored here with situation
Yet, the world beckons this soul
The traveler yearns to break loose
The farthest seems logical and reachable
Distance will be traversed through unrevealed
Journey holds key to reach the destination
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 8:32 AM UTC
A wind came up out of the sea,
And said, “O mists, make room for me.”
It hailed the ships and cried, “Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone.”
And hurried landward far away,
Crying “Awake! it is the day.”
It said unto the forest, “Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!”
It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,
And said, “O bird, awake and sing.”
And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near.”
It whispered to the fields of corn,
“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.”
It shouted through the belfry-tower,
“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.”
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, “Not yet! In quiet lie.”
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Lightning flashes through the heavenly body
The storm rages through everything like a flash fire consuming all in it's path
It seems all the world must be caught up in the tempest that drowns out thought and sounds
Light playing across the darkness as the world tightens to a single point
Like a tornado it swirls and whirls among this storm of sensation and power
Almost like a cacophony it pushes every other thought aside
But such a force is the ultimate harmony
The darkness clears
A clarion call banishes the storm except for the tornado's tip
Eyes wide she looks up at him and hears the voice
The command that releases the storm's energy
*** for me
Jun 19, 2018
Jun 19, 2018 at 6:39 PM UTC
Passchendaele.
Off dead mens lips
fell the clarion call.
"Away up lads
Away us all--
Forward
Forward
till we fall !!"
Off dead mens lips--
fell the clarion call.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 2:35 PM UTC
The name was Antappan.
On his wedding invitation
He printed the famous words
Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi -
(Today it's me, tomorrow it will be you.)
Whoever asked
“Are you nuts, Antappaaa?”
Got a voiceless laugh in reply.
In native tongue
The laughter said
No quotes are quoted
Except through one’s own life.
Though not a charming name
It ‘s true that from that day
Antappan came to be called
Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan.
Everyone who attended
Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan’s wedding
Wolfed down the pork and the beef.
Everyone who attended
Hodie Mihi CrasTibi Antappan’s wedding
Gifted pretty sums of money in envelopes.
Everyone who attended
Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan’s wedding
Said nasty comments about the bride.
Everyone who attended
Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan’s wedding
Asked the sound system guy to play
You are lucky I am lucky loudly.
But before that a small incident at the church. As soon as he set his eyes on Antappan who was a grave digger the Chaplain forgot the wedding and without asking who died began to set the church bell tolling in that rhythm reserved for deaths. The senior Priest who heard it came running and opening the small prayer book for the dead began to sing the song the seeds sprout in the fields when it rains. Hearing that the girls in the choir sang the rest of the song when they hear the clarion call life sprouts in the dead and went on to the prose portion I call you lord from the abysses. Seeing that the boy who helps with the communion lighted the candle and incense stick for the dead. (Meanwhile the bride’s naughty song you who is not dead yet will you not **** me tonight also rang in Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan’s ears.) Hodie Mihi Cras Tibi Antappan who realized that the same flowers meant to be wreaths at some house of death were now adorning his ***** as a garland laughed his famous voiceless laugh.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 1:25 AM UTC
Shade giving Sentinels
Custodians of the environment
Infusing oxygenated life
Extending canopies of bliss!
A fine interplay of synthesising solar photons
Food factories to the plant
Self sustainable gifts from the Almighty God!
Bemoan Human apathy
Fragile relations with humankind
Exponential signs of human induced Ecocide!
Oh Humankind!
Oh Humankind!
Wake up to a Nature’s clarion call
Embrace Mother Earths Sentinels
Tree Huggers of the World
Unite in Unison and Eco harmony
Save Trees!
Save Trees!
Cherish God’s Nature
Permeate Environmental Euphony
Demolish reckless Infrastructural Cacophony !!!
Biospherically Yours Forever 🙏🏻
@Nitin Raikar
Sep 6, 2020
Sep 6, 2020 at 2:31 PM UTC
Over there a young boy falls
And over here a woman weeps
When bugle and clarion call
Not mothers, but army keeps
Children of the country then
In unsullied discipline when
Bugle and clarion cry for war
So father, son and brother fall
The awaiting woman's despair
Smell death and cordite in air
Fall flailing to the sister's woe
Fall weak with strong sorrow
To the old wife's fresh sadness
Fight, hero and fall with madness
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
What is the point in
Poignancy?
*Fragment,
you tell me.
Another one in paragraph three.*
What do words matter?
I have spelled love with Lilacs instead of an “L”
I have drawn the curve of my “O” with the chill of a
Sweeping breeze.
A “V” can only appear as the violet of a
sparkling sky, or I will be unable to read it,
and every “E” will amount to nothing more than
emptiness if the voice it has been given
does not epitomize song.
*Comma-splice,
Replace it with a semicolon.*
I am trying live freely.
I want to breathe in color,
to inhale an orange Savannah sky
And exhale green which
shows through the translucent dew
of grass.
*Unnecessary use of description.
Limit it, Lidiah. Limit it.*
My fingers itch with the ferocity of
A vengeful army.
They are waiting to trample pages with
The lead of my pencil, the bayonet
of a Revolutionary-War-era rifle.
The word limit sounds like tragedy.
A single word that can somehow act as
a precursor,
To the death of passion.
Your words have put you in a box.
People always say
“Actions speak louder than words.”
In a way that is true.
But I also know it to be
a tremendous piece of fiction.
*Lidiah,
Please watch your run-ons.*
Why can our words and our actions
not be the same thing?
Isn’t the act of speaking,
the act of raising your voice,
the act of being heard,
isn’t that an action?
*Lidiah,
how many times do I have to remind you?
Clarification throughout.*
Why have we decided that our words
Mean nothing more than
stepping stones on the road to action?
When did we decide that our voices
which rise like clarion calls,
forever instilling our promises,
are to be left on silent?
Precious jewels set into rings.
Poison in a water tank.
*Lidiah,
what you say is irrelevant
if your MLA bibliography isn’t in
alphabetical order.*
Our words are our actions.
They mean the same.
Words are the distinctions of our beliefs
Illustrations of our personas
They are not mosquitos to be slapped away
and forgotten.
*Lidiah,
paragraph five is too long.
Stop rambling.
Be concise.*
Please tell me,
what is the point of being concise?
*Lidiah,
stop rambling.*
Why do we let justification
equate to useless rambling?
*Lidiah,
you have to detach yourself from the narrative.*
Feelings mean more
than a couple of sentences.
More than a good or a bad.
A mad or a sad.
Comma-splice
What about ferocity?
Never end with a preposition.
What about passion?
Replace this with a conjunctive adverb.
What about the discernable strife
that follows even indifference?
What about that?
*Lidiah,
what is the point of
Poignancy?*
What are we without it?
What does the human soul matter
if we have forsaken the parts of ourselves that
remind us of what a soul is for?
*Lidiah,
you will never be heard
if you do not learn to follow the rules*.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 1:04 AM UTC
“reminding me to remember what has yet to occur”
~for Jean Fisher~
*this poem title lay fallow now near four months;
the poem title, a riddle in and of itself,
my inability/reluctance to bring it to a
spoiled fruition is simply and sumptuously explained,
no idea what it meant and
cause I got an F in future-telling in 8th grade,
when we still believed anything,
even hap-hap-happy was a possibility
all day long fits and spurts;
a sad poem rattles around in every part of my overcast Saturn day,
this last eked out September pretend summer weekend,
bereftness so powerful,
that the weather is slapping me down, hard, for begging,
gray grey sadness in the windless stillness
asking,
why,
do you deserve it?
the death of summer is a tree ring completed, a marker of
nearer-my-death that I dare only utter to my pillow,
hoping it won’t betray my statelessness to whomever makes the bed and plumps up them pillows up into squealing my hidden
truths and trust
birthing the past is easy and not what the title,
words I wrote somewhere, is asking for;
no so more straying and to the
scribbling and pecking
do I attend
that title commenced ironically at the end of May
when the summer man feathered his mental nest once more
and now my blindness clarified.
now when summer commences, was I not secretly reminding myself of what was sure to occur -
that troubles will come in cold and snow,
and no longer will the little house by the sun bathed bay be an available antidote to the real toxins that grow stronger*
this then
was the clarion self-hint to prepare,
reminder to self
for the summery summation-end inevitable,
for the perfect ending of this poem
now that I have accurately
predicted my future
the title has borne its
bittersweet fruits
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
Bring me your
orphan memories
and I will stitch them
into a chapter of time
Stepping fearlessly into
empty air
walking the tightrope
of certain death
Drawing memory
into the web of this moment
Bleeding it out into meaning
While sleeping
While dreaming
These poor words
strain to tell a tale
a shout out to eternity
and it is a clarion call
from the dawning
to the setting of the sun
announcing a state of grace
that surely will ripple
through time.
The night calls sweetly to us
Bids us sleep well
and find courage in the day.
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 9:49 PM UTC
Two armies face,
Under wild and impartial skies.
Tension, drawn and nocked,
Waiting for the order to loose.
The drummers beat cadence,
Tempo building
Matching my racing pulse.
Clarion call,
Drowning out all thought.
Ground quaking,
With the pounding
Of hundreds of feet.
Battlecries and wordless screams
Split the air.
Alike to the one
Rising in my own throat.
Aug 11, 2010
Aug 11, 2010 at 8:55 PM UTC
Spring at her height on a morn at prime,
Sails that laugh from a flying squall,
Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme--
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,
An empty flagon, a folded page,
A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball--
These are a type of the world of Age.
Bells that clash in a gaudy chime,
Swords that clatter in onsets tall,
The words that ring and the fames that climb--
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
Hymnals old in a dusty stall,
A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage,
The scene of a faded festival--
These are a type of the world of Age.
Hours that strut as the heirs of time,
Deeds whose rumour's a clarion-call,
Songs where the singers their souls sublime--
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
A staff that rests in a nook of wall,
A reeling battle, a rusted gage,
The chant of a nearing funeral--
These are a type of the world of Age.
Envoy
Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl--
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
A smouldering hearth and a silent stage--
These are a type of the world of Age.
2.1k
Although she didn’t use these exact words,
What it got down to was:
“My **** hurts!”
Your age-appropriate **** buddy
Experiencing a profound lubrication deficit.
Vaginal dryness:
A legitimate topic these days for
Baby-Boom conversation.
“65: the New 30,” the slogan rings.
A Mel Brooks clarion call,
Harvey Corman doing Count Da Money:
"Don't get saucy with me, Bearnaise!"
For all our good friends at
KY, Vaseline & Astroglide--
As recommended by female OB/GYNs,
(Should there be any other kind?)
Sales projections are rosy for
Ottmar’s Coconut Cooch Oil,
Despite the economic downturn,
So, naturally, you commence your
Search for a young, wet—sopping wet—co-ed,
Running the risk of bumping into
Some UC Berkeley ****
Who digs older gentlemen, and
Knows your daughter, Gwendolyn.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 1:38 PM UTC
From sandy shore you stare,
watching the ebb n flow.
Your blue eyes like a stormy sea,
beckoning Calypso forth to thee.
To be one with the tide evermore.
She does not rise from her depth,
in fear she turns her eyes from you.
For if you were a maiden of the sea,
a queen, she would no longer be.
The salty breeze ruffles your hair,
causing a wave to crash in your mind.
a seagull's cry ringing in your ear.
The clarion call from your heart,
The clarion call from your home,
The clarion call from the ocean.
It calls you to return from the land,
Cast off your legs, return to your scales,
Become our queen and cast down the poser.
Come home to me, my true Calypso.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
Wind,the agent of change,
you at first was far off and distant,
A constant drone of bees, not much!
they paid no heed to those rumblings,
Your power was counted
insignificant,they kept the curtain drawn,
Down, intact, trying to
keep you out of the house of darkness.they kept.
But the suppressed put
their ears close to the ground, listened,
Aware of your intent, they
patiently waited, watching your unhurried advance.
Giving talkative leaves ample chance
to speak their heart, first, tickling trees, caressing clouds,
You changed the speed,
rustling sound soon became persistent.
Shouting slogans, hand raised,
all the plants and trees expressed their anguish,
Insisted, a change, justice for mother nature,
stoppage of torture of , animals, birds and bees.
Wind, you act as an unswerving friend,
creating awareness , is your intent.
and fight the rot , naked profit motive, relentlessly,
by now every one knows the injustice,
festering fiercely in the core.
You drive the clouds and spin them about,
rain by and by gains strength
It pours now in torrents, all untruth
comes out in the open, face the ire,
the true power of the protests, eye of the storm.
Wind, you boom, give a clarion call to clean,
revenge all the injustices, perpetrated til now.
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 8:04 AM UTC
Gunga peas calypso
Madly
in my cooking ***
gradually I pour canned coconut milk
into the swirling flavors
of cilantro, garlic and onions
Staring into the rich brown
stew
I can see my Mother grating
coconut meat and hand squeezing
the milk like teats from a cow
(Too much work for me)
creating a traditional coconut rice and peas
dish
She was raised on a farm in St. Elizabeth,
Jamaica
early hours, rugged, hard labor were natural
for the family which included nine siblings
Pauline was a kind big hearted Soul
with ample soft *****
perfect for children
to lay their heads upon
and skin that always seemed
to smell of curry
Burnt sienna Indian complexion
wavy black river hair
and colorful patois accent
painted a portrait
cavorting over the dandy, rolling
goat hooved hills of
Jamaican village peasantry
The Moravian church of England formed
beliefs woven inextricably through
the fabric of her simplistic
innocent existence
our Mom instilled a love of
God in us that was pure and hearty
"Sonya stop your daydreaming"
my Mother's clarion voice interrupts
my avid reverie
"Bumba!" I cry aloud
"I haven't had bammy in eons"
Quickly my fingers Google
Another tasty native recipe
chock full of memories
and cassava root
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC
Imperfections
The kindest evidence the savior passed was the marks he bestowed in the most gentile articulation in this
His wise choices matched imperfection to our needs. One of the most telling attributes of women can be
Her hands but what if they are slightly marred the grace only flows to a deeper level quickness is
Replaced by deliberate action slower more thoughtful and profound a touch placed with this kind of
Feeling goes to a measure instantly felt it is not just the ordinary but a thing of force that unravels
Trouble mysteriously it finds the hidden knots looses them allows love to flow wide and full. Perhaps a
Man no longer strides with a power that has an assurance maybe he is depended on a stick for support
Where power is diffused it only changes channels it makes the heart stronger the eyes feel it too
Humanity in others is recessed the blunder the self efficiency drains from boisterous streams into calm
Assessment a flow that harnesses possibility not vain bravado that can at times wound those who are
Weaker and that are struggling. If times try men’s souls then imperfection can be a clarion call the
Placement of virtue at the lead where sometimes pride is the driving force this writing came from seeing
A woman walking in a sunny scene and she had a blotchy spot on her arm others could observe this and
Be to one degree or another repulsed but to the man who loves her it is a special calling card it
Touches makes the forces revel in a display that sets her apart from all others an instrument of sound
That separates from the den isolates carries a marker that generates tenderness, esteem, and honor
Thou art the tune and sound of a masterful violin play nothing else in my presence nothing else will do
Your imperfections makes another whole don’t ever fret over your special make up it is the breath and
The visitation of the divine in the human form boldly brushed in the shadow perfected by sun light.
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 2:16 PM UTC
My gut tells me secrets and
Guides me to answers.
It screams nausea like a
Air raid siren during war time.
My gut speaks to me and
Implores me to listen.
It never chides me when
I ignore its clarion call.
My gut is never wrong and
Sets me timely reminders.
It stores experience like a
Well thumbed user manual.
My gut is instinctive and
It helps me understand others.
Their motives and intentions;
Their weaknesses and strengths.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 7:00 PM UTC