"cobbles" poems
When the wind blows from the front,
You'll feel the nostalgia,
Hear the hustle and bustle of fishermen,
Crunching cockle shells under their boots,
Smell the sweet smelling tobacco from pipes,
The toil and hardwork heavy in the air.
Knocking you from the moment,
A faked tan man with a chihuahua,
Hear the cackle of faked laughter,
Clattering of stilletto heels upon cobbles,
Smell the alcohol laced ***** spilling from mouths,
The fruits of labour heavy in the air.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
I lay spread out on
My local shingle beach
Letting the pebbles
Sift through my fingers
I consider the myriad
Shapes and forms they take.
The varying rust
Charcoal grey and mustard shades
I set myself a mission
In the multitudes
That the sea brings to my feet
I will find amongst the
Copious cobbles
The ultimate pebble
Perfect and pleasingly
Quirky or smooth.
I become so absorbed by
This sifting sorting
Comforting process
A simple quest
I forget myself
And my proximity to the waves
Until i am splashed
And soaked and
Have to vow to take up
This valiant quest
Another day.
Until then I have taken
Home a few shortlisted
Candidates
And made a promise to stand up when
The winner is found
And make a little trumpet
Fanfare sound
And hold the stone aloft!
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 6:54 PM UTC
Remember that afternoon on the ferry
Ride to Nantucket
The labrador who fell asleep on my foot
And the kid who vomited
As we stood at the rail,
Mist in our faces
Foam that curled
From the keel in swirls
A whole world in that turbulence
That no one would ever know of -
Focused on the Grey Lady's
Promise that a warm comforter
Would melt us together again.
And it did, amid the strangers
We brushed past
On the cobbles at the wharf.
Back at the dock,
You greeted old demons
And so did I
But kept them secrets
From each other
On the long ride
Through pine forests
As you slept, I drove
Back home.
Apr 17, 2010
Apr 17, 2010 at 8:34 PM UTC
My "place of clear water,"
the first hill in the world
where springs washed into
the shiny grass
and darkened cobbles
in the bed of the lane.
Anahorish, soft gradient
of consonant, vowel-meadow,
after-image of lamps
swung through the yards
on winter evenings.
With pails and barrows
those mound-dwellers
go waist-deep in mist
to break the light ice
at wells and dunghills.
3.9k
I became Holmes, past knowing true:
In every sense, I'd seek for you.
Now, taking the cobbles consciously,
Sick, mad, of the essence of this construct,
Dismantling the ancien régime to see
That I am all your stains in concert -
I am made up of every last touch -
Originality's a lie, save in
The combination that you see - as such
It is unique, but I still cave in
At the dawn that nothing is my own,
And much like as if you were a coffee
I'd downed: I could not, for my life, disown
The five million senses cutting me
For the time, for every conscious cup
I'd take and take again: Why should I dull
And cut myself this way, a life made-up
Of such a tannin-full ideal?
My way as a writer is to fall
In love, in my eyes, in yours, in raptures,
In despair, in tough crowds, on God, to call
On my muse and survive the ruptures
Of worlds and heavens, both real and made,
And feel the rain upon my face, but Lord,
How often do I feel, and feel the raid,
Engaged by scent, blush, needle, salt, word?
All too much makes nothing, and I can't flee
To seek another cup: I must seek me.
Mar 28, 2023
Mar 28, 2023 at 12:58 PM UTC
nothing flights these skies tonite
nothing burns above our heads
or crackles in the air
or glows in the houses about us
as we pace the cool and empty
the alleys and the meatless streets
and the clean scaleless cobbles
carry our patternless birch-bare feet
a sail less nite
but a kite to the imagination
a bringer of new
lighter beings
osmosis
through our faultless immigration
Previously published [Show Thieves 2010 : An Anthology Of Contemporary Montreal Poetry - 8TH HOUSE PUBLISHING]
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
I lack inspiration, when sound does not riddle the causeways of my mind
when echos bounce less around my cranium and more from my lips i find..
solace,
solace in the fact that no longer am i directed from indirect communications but more from the sound i make,
i learnt to grasp the steering wheel in both hands and turn sharp in the corners,
i learnt that without sound echoing through my ears my eyes work with pinpoint accuracy..
i never noticed the way the grass grows over old cobbles..
i never noticed the way my heart beats
the way it skips, and bleats,
i learnt not to be a sheep, but a profit,
a guider to the blind,
don't tell them I'm blind as-well
because it doesn't matter if i can see or i cant
it does not matter if what i say is truth or lies
but if the fiction of my antiquity compels you to lift your heart up
brings joy from the desolation of your mind but to the fore front of the battle field that is your life i have achieved something incredible, I've achieved peace
peace through happiness, joy through inspiration so read on!
read on young soldier,
your broken mind and battle ready battle wounds are bound too tightly by your compassion to conform
take of your bandages and read on! read forwards and on wards and strive to learn, why
why young soldier i know you've never been trained
and i know your mind is ill with discontent and i know your shoes are whittled to your socks and i know
i know how hard it is to stand with two broken legs and only the solace of that barren bare cranium to lean on
but in my antiquity young soldier
i have learnt that we are all warriors
fighters along a broken line standing our ground against greater odds then you could ever conceive of battling...
i know young solider that many will fall and die
and many will perish to broken minds and hearts and souls,
but the ones who make it through this perishable existence, the ones who fight beyond any compassion beyond any reason,
god I've met boys who will tear out each others throats with their teeth I've learnt that men are shells of creatures that have never been fully understood,
my existence has been about
nothing but fighting
and now i have reached an age where i can lay down the rifle of my words, i can leave my blunted knives to rust in a back closet i realized young soldier
the agony of your existence may seem like the end, but its just the start.
and when your reach a point in your life where you can rest,
savor it,
do not let someone tell you how to exist without your consent , do not fight a battle you do not want to fight,
stand your ground young soldier
re-reinforcements are on the way
L.G
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC
In Rome on the Campo di Fiori
Baskets of olives and lemons,
Cobbles spattered with wine
And the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
With rose-pink fish;
Armfuls of dark grapes
Heaped on peach-down.
On this same square
They burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
Close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
The taverns were full again,
Baskets of olives and lemons
Again on the vendors' shoulders.
I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
In Warsaw by the sky-carousel
One clear spring evening
To the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
The salvos from the ghetto wall,
And couples were flying
High in the cloudless sky.
At times wind from the burning
Would driff dark kites along
And riders on the carousel
Caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
Blew open the skirts of the girls
And the crowds were laughing
On that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.
Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died.
But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.
Already they were back at their wine
Or peddled their white starfish,
Baskets of olives and lemons
They had shouldered to the fair,
And he already distanced
As if centuries had passed
While they paused just a moment
For his flying in the fire.
Those dying here, the lonely
Forgotten by the world,
Our tongue becomes for them
The language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
And many years have passed,
On a great Campo dci Fiori
Rage will kindle at a poet's word.
3.6k
it,s loose cotton electric ***
copper children
husky sighing t
he
trickle of daughters into the little wet cracks
on Railroad ave. a beggars hand gesticulating empty spans
a river of grins course toward amber
oblivion and jarring rhythms. she's a white idea. a lemon dress *****
her hips are a delicious war of curving apparitions
a dearth of pleasure loaded folds. or else a caustic laceration;
some hernia of capillaries blotting ivory thighs
a
n
d all the children giggle, teeth cleaning pearly cheeks
splay the efforts of their throats all over the cobbles. it,s a night
FRIDAY
yes
Aug 5, 2010
Aug 5, 2010 at 7:36 PM UTC
To you i would give the passion of the sun
and the shine provoked from simmered grass
and if the moonlight was not safe from your eye,
it's buttermilk glow i would surely pluck down.
To you i would give the midnight chimney smoke
that sillouette on the sky putting cobbles underfoot.
Take my taste of salt as sea white mer-men come
a breeze in the laughter of workmen's homecoming.
I give the feeling when swallowed by field flax
pinpricks of cotton, i'd lay you down bare-skinned.
You empty the film on my flesh camera,
I keep the removal cuts.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
I walk, I am a lone,
Limp feet lift upon dead ground
Left,
Right,
Onwards
I jest this failing body
Onwards towards what is the end
"I carry my weight"
"I carry my bones"
I wish to walk upon those before
This road of the dead,
Life,
Passing,
Rest
Is the only sombre thought,
But I walk on, I walk over,
I walk past upon those who
"Came before"
Billboards overhead, rest here
,Silence,
Peace,
Death
Is what waits upon those who
Stop,
I carry on never faulting.
Then that moment before, as all have stood,
"The end of the road"
"There is just barren land"
"This road of fallen"
"It is a road upon the bodies of the fallen"*
White tiles,
White dreams,
White bones
That my knees rest upon.
Tears of anger penetrate, for nothing,
As I succumb to this Road of death,
For I am but another few cobbles
For the next one too fall upon. To further this road,
This road of white covered in dust.
This road of hope within its white gleam.
"The road of death"
Has paved another slab on its
Passage to nowhere, but death.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 6:57 PM UTC
Speculation proved
contagious,
misinterpretation
crept silently on patchwork soles
(odds n' sods messily stitched,
tittle tattle did no favours)
like a flu it spread,
hushed curiosities rested
outside ol' Hutch baker's door,
where even a freshly oven'd
batch might strain an ear
or five to net nearby tongue trading,
seeds straining on their brows.
Even those Mother hens
had a cluck or two left in them,
rumours about the
'Dust mite Martyr'
as she was dubbed,
“Does she have no shame,
sitting pretty in Matrimony's dress?”
one heaving checkered breast commented
titling her beak
to gain a better look -
At that shriveller slumped,
an examiner of the cobbles
with such a religious stare
her lids traced stones
within the darkness,
a traveller -
wanderer not to be trusted,
especially not
with bloodied lilies tangled
within her gleaming mop.
Oct 25, 2011
Oct 25, 2011 at 1:58 PM UTC
The sun has long disappeared behind the stage
I'm inspired and sweaty and feeling my age
The amplifiers still ringing in my ears
The smell of the Tagus draws in and I take my tired frame up winding streets
The cafés are open. Piano music. Shoes on cobbles providing the beat
Sat silently listening to the late urban shuffle, people appear from narrow openings between tired, tiled buildings
Are the up late, are they up early?
It's been a long day. A day of fleeting smiles.
I think of you, and there's one more.
This one lasts.
Jul 16, 2019
Jul 16, 2019 at 8:06 PM UTC
And he saw it now and then
the lamp lit row of houses that
stretched beyond the eye
houses where men who dug black
slept and drank when they could
ageless cobbles pried on
men who fought in the street
over want, women and work
while little men sons played
foolish games of childhood
daughter women with prams
mothered their plastic dolls
and the wives gossiped about
young Sally who had a belly
by John Stout the butcher boy
the reverend Ellis knew
all the stories and chapters
of life in this coal dust street
he birthed them baptised them
married and buried them
and the street was quiet
no vehement voices tonight
as the deed of death
slipped over the cobbles
and gripped a sleeping soul.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
The road was a ghostly ribbon:
a strange violet hue.
The sycamore trees ******** thrashing
as a frenzied wind blew.
A dark cloaked horseman
appeared on the horizon’s edge.
He whipped his horse forward;
this horse almost flew.
The pounding hooves echoed
down the cobbled road.
The madman charged forward
with his deadly load.
They never caught the horseman
who murdered her father that night.
He shot his pistol once then the old man died.
No're was he ever seen again
after the red cobbles dried.
They never found his stallion
with nostrils flaming fire'
who flew like a dragon
until the prey expired.
The girl wept and moaned
at her window. Always watching for him.
Watching the winding road ;she could redeem his sin.
A kiss my darling sweetheart, kiss and let me fly.
His shadow was imprinted on clean cobbles.
His scarf around her neck but nothing made things right.
The devil surely wanted him
and death breathed down his trek.
They searched swearing they'd catch the wretch yet found
no trace of him. The girl she smiled sadly.
For now he rode the wind.
Jul 3, 2010
Jul 3, 2010 at 8:28 PM UTC
Heathens -
in heaven's lobby
flock
to barter
for Magic 'Shrooms
with pop rocks... and pancakes
and leaf-green brownies.
new to the scene;
the Son of Man
holds a motley court,
then wanders off
to fetch Picasso - Lassoed
from his cups, his Love that must Love
his genius... doubtless,
cloud-scrawling
huge pendulous *******
in Elysium; for no one at all.
better Pablo
should tend bars that set mobs free
than one god's toddler, with long odds
against Bacchus - should ever
small-talk-speak
to the godless
or worse...
preach.
" Better Sins to love.. " The Spaniard once taught...
A Lover's Urge is born in forms of weakness.... adorned in all Might -
bathed in blessed contradiction,
a Lingam for a Yoni's dream of stiff drinks
and pliable men, with strong arms.
a blue fiction on Calvary -
nailed to the softest
cross.
Between thieves,
an honor, double
parked
with bucket seats brimming with moonlight,
and her knickers
tossed.
Picasso asks for absinthe
to be sent
post haste
and polished off -
by all
his better angels he had guillotined
with dull snails,
and fallen
harps
ones - he stole, to de-tune
a flat fifth of Cuttysark
for a deaf
**** [but no mute ]
a portrait, ****
and is soon
bought...
lust
sleeps then -
with both Eyes;
Locked on
One of
God's.
like a deer
in a Head-light's
Gospel...
now, a Minotaur on the
Autobahn -
stalking
it.
II
Heathens
in heaven's lobby
recite ' Howl '
as Ginsberg, walks over hot coals
and spicy psalms; glowing wanton
in white grass; with a very
cherry ****
And a wise throng, cobbles...
****** -
they rob
Peter of his toga,
leaving nothing wrong.
but no less ' On '
they laugh hard; and wake the dead
asking them for new songs
to set their false alarms
in lofty Tic' Tocks
of Eternity's
clock.
Bible on a snooze bar
for at least that long
or someone
knocks.
As if "Hello."
Spoke the Whole World into Being -
And " Goodbye."
misspoke, and
trailed
off...
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 1:58 PM UTC
Pulling off my scarf
letting it drape like a resignation
across the back of a chair
The sun is setting
the room is dim
and almost orange – and is
sometimes lonely
in its loss of day
I think of you now –
and then
We were walking with our arms around each other
Always...
through the Boston Common
The air drizzled
with late-winter
melts
the cobbles
wet
The sounds of our steps
go on –
Forever....
I turn to hang my coat
Night replaces you again
__________
1-29-18
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 2:13 PM UTC
Not every man is gentle in his life
but you remained a gentleman
Through all your pain and strife
My childhood years
when you stood strong and tall
Sparkling eyes with love
entwined the ivy on the wall
within your garden, hedged around
a paradise of fruitful ground
and I in childhood flushed
transfixed I stand
awed at the gardeners magic hand
Here for you
there was no wretched bottled smell
An alcohol free paradise
An alcohol free hell
How you loved to hear the wild birds
sweetly sing
And see your world re-live again
in Spring
"How calm" you said to hear the rippling stream
A beauty unaware to me
You thought me how to dream
In all your yarns
attention held me mute
but if my heart allowed
I wouldn't dare dispute
With flitting years
your speech you tried to goad
But you my aged friend
could still my thoughts behold
Your every limb that moved
so gracefully before
by life's uneven cobbles
were battered , warped and sore
You fought a loosing battle
with your bottle eager hand
and I watched your spirit slip away
like a fist of dried out sand
The tears rolled down my face
as I kissed my cherished friend
I thanked your god for your friendship
and your dignity to the end.
Oct 31, 2010
Oct 31, 2010 at 4:56 PM UTC
The great gaudy flage is screamin' blood in the streets
loose yawn of a gob on him
all bombast n' swagger
he makes a barrage of nuisance
channels through the public
and scatters a juggler's performance spot
lobs away his change hat
then, roughly over the cobbles
he hoicks a resuscitation doll
and stamps down a posing boot
on the 'defeated form'
an unprepared scoop of tourists
a pause for silence and begins a rant
a great performance
of well harassed combustion :
"i smear to god all the phalluses
[he roars, all saliva]
i smug to god
a full jug of uglies
tug on [makes the hand gesture for male ************
i **** off the forger
would slug it in the mug
if it ever did form a tissue oath
took a plug at some drunk straggler
called the baffled *** 'god-father'
and spate spume on his fallen anatomy
[with one hand he indicates the mannequin at his heel]
amen ************ !"
he bows
a long quiet
some people clap awkwardly
two police officers appear and hook him by the elbows
(it has been this show before)
Mar 11, 2022
Mar 11, 2022 at 11:38 AM UTC
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
halfmade foundations and unfinished
drainage trenches and the spaced-out
circles of glaring light
marking streets that were to be
walking with you but so far from you,
and now alone in October's
first decision towards winter, so close to you--
my arms full of playful rebellious linen, a freighter
going down-river two blocks away, outward bound,
the green wolf-eyes of the Harborside Terminal
glittering on the Jersey shore,
and a train somewhere under ground bringing you towards me
to our new living-place from which we can see
a river and its traffic (the Hudson and the
hidden river, who can say which it is we see, we see
something of both. Or who can say
the crippled broom-vendor yesterday, who passed
just as we needed a new broom, was not
one of the Hidden Ones?)
Crates of fruit are unloading
across the street on the cobbles,
and a brazier flaring
to warm the men and burn trash. He wished us
luck when we bought the broom. But not luck
brought us here. By design
clean air and cold wind polish
the river lights, by design
we are to live now in a new place.
2.1k
Stone fingers clasp the clay
The mind is weak,
The heart is cold.
Ice to the unknown neighbour
Broken and reborn
As a phoenix
With cute desire
As stone fingers clasp the clay
That creates new worlds
New identities
New beings
New desires
New babes.
Clasping their Jocasta heartbeats
Holding it tight
As another pale dawn covers
The empty cobbles
Of this home
And you face the new day.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 10:55 PM UTC
Will we meet in shady groves;
Upon a hill? Perhaps in morning.
In hidden vines of deepest green… Does day break?
We spool in canopies as the world beyond awakes;
Cocoons of fragrant freshness. So here I sit and of you I wish.
Will we meet in times of woe;
Under streets beveiled? Perhaps in mourning.
The well-worn cobbles ache terribly, my dear, let us go inside
A yellow cigarette crushed against the glass; I burn for tenderness and see
It in your eye. So there you sway and beneath you I lay.
Will your face be one I know;
Past veils of spidersilk? Perhaps, my darling.
This well-worn world aches terribly, let us make our own
From shady grove to comforts home; an empire on the hill.
Lifetime passes in an eyeblink. So with you I hide
Til our tender world’s first sunrise.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 5:27 PM UTC
They're digging up the cobbles in our street,
moving them to a classier area.
We'll be given tarmac, black and soft in the sun.
Yes, even here it shines - on men's vests.
They're red faced, drinking from lager cans,
while their women finger scarved curlers.
At least, that's what others think they see.
But neighbours do talk with us.
There's a code of decency,
though Mum says, 'some have hearts
as black as the tarmac'.
There's a hierarchy,
in minds and heads,
if not in pockets.
Some day the toffs will turf us out,
gentrify our street. We'll be moved,
filed vertically, pigeon lofts in the sky.
Then they'll bring our cobbles back.
Oct 31, 2016
Oct 31, 2016 at 3:19 PM UTC
This poem comes from a dream.
Sun—as February ordains it
roseate—early
twisted inordinate—in gray blanket
Snow has sifted to the pockets, wrinkles
the cuff of his woolen cap
An old hand rubs stubbled cheek
Snow flickers and falls again
in a dazzle
As he groans and stirs—
sparrows sing
As he struggles to sit—
sparrows sing
As he exhales into the chill
he considers the lilies of the field
Their luminous curling petals rise
steam or hope?
or just white smoke
wandering from the tiny fire
He sits a while to listen
to sparrows bickering in the bushes
then bursting into song
They have their audience
Across in a court of broken glass
and toppled stones
a room— still partially intact
Kindling gathered
Marta melts snow for tea
peeling potatoes in her lap
Stops to blow on hands
Marta’s heart—decent, visceral
like her hair—bun, kerchief
like her words—few in the failing
like the wounds of her smile
And Mikhail—harnessed
to the sounds of service
Orderly rhythm in ruin
hush hush hush
of a broom stroking cobbles
Mikhail—his hands wrapped in rags
old warrior
now, restorer of places to live
Stops, removes his cap
squinting sunlight into the channels of his face
Then turns toward unsteady shuffling behind him
“You shouldn’t.”
Tears interrupt
reaching for the broom
“You shouldn’t do this for me.”
“No, no, Holy Father. It is little thing—
a little thing I do.”
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 11:09 PM UTC
Decorations are up
hung from fishing wire,
fishing for good luck.
There’s Christmas on her neck
and as she stretches out in front of me
a wake of cinnamon decks the halls.
It remains and lingers,
falls away past nostrils and
turns to festive well-wishes.
The market is in full swing
wrapped up tight in large scarves,
like a low cut sling cradling the cold.
Winter has the streets in its hold,
the wind is sour, bitter to taste,
and punters, commuters, Asian lost-tourists walk in haste.
Shop floors are warmed by radiators
hung above their wide open doors:
let the heat out, let the customers in.
And when the mid-November light dims
and the council gets past the
everlasting electrical admin,
streetlamp sticks will light and spark,
sending effulgent embers down onto
the Cambridge cobbles.
Children will peer wide eyed into windows
remembering names for their lists,
hoping to unwrap them as gifts later on down the line.
Adults, some probable parents and others newly-wed together,
enjoy the festivities, the weather, the bespoke crafts
bought from Argos sold as Handmade Swedish Chairs
And do they care? No.
It’s Christmas in Cambridge and
winter is settling in.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 7:38 AM UTC