"contrail" poems
i love that sound
a wind walks by and stirs the trees
that rushing breathing sound
the leaves make as the branches are swayed in the wind
i love the many voices of daylight
a lawnmower and childrens laughter
birds chattering
a small plane boiling overhead
pulling a sign for some event
i love the sound of summer
i love its taste
ice cold soda when your sitting on hot pavement
the texture of a overcooked hotdog at a ballpark
i love the taste of
your lips while you are sunbathing
sweat and sunscreen are an ****** mix
i love how summer tastes to my mind
it feels young
it tastes free
i reach up with incredible grace
****** the contrail from that jetliner far overhead
and tie it into a ribbon for your hair
there you go my lovely
you are a young french princess of the world
i love your taste most of all
you taste like love to me
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 8:31 AM UTC
As the air thins you are called to memory
I am as yet
Unsure of what relationship exists
Between the flitting nimbus and velocity
And me
Perhaps the times I fell away from the earth
Skirting through layers of atmosphere
Between the curvature of horizons
And a past sunset far behind me
I left traces of longing In contrails
I left vapour trails of emotion in the sky
Understandably you are filtered from my gravity restricted musings
With feet on Terra Firma; no contrail exists
Only here with vermillion slashing the clouds
Carving a wake through air so fast sounds can’t catch me
Do I remember how I howled
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 1:10 PM UTC
Venus sits below a contrail necklace
whilst the moon above sighs,
a ring around its lips guiding
shoreline ships back home again
to be met by merry wives.
Walking with the swell in their socks
the sailors tread on land,
trembling souls and uneasy hearts
make for nervous hands.
Their faces have greyed under
a stubble mist, grown out of a
no-mirror-broken-razor rage;
to kiss is to make red,
to be back home is to sleep in a bed.
Tight canyon cheeks are stretched-
flat canvas peaks, tanned bronze
by a sun that runs among
northern hemisphere, north-east sheets.
Chipped lips miss the taste of salt
so drink up the malt and take a rest,
not long from now he'll want
his mistress back, the woman
of the swell, this ocean's mademoiselle.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC
Your idealism burned your path
and led you there.
Your desire a burning scythe,
Scorching and hacking
anything you deemed pre-determined.
Only a few tried to stop you.
Only a few told you it was a foolish endeavour,
But you wouldn't hear of it.
Your ears filtered out contrary voices.
Your mind bias to your thoughts of absolute free-will
and its oxymoronic pursuit of a destiny.
And so you left.
Took off under your own power
Leaving a contrail in your wake
Stretching from an eternal West
to an eternal East.
A monochrome rainbow
Befittingly lacking in palette
as your tunnel vision
allowed for only one colour,
Not a mixture of hues and shades
That colour a normal youthful existence.
Although short and unfulfilled,
Your brief sojourn on this world
will be remembered.
Your life's contrail will hang in the sky:
A solitary mark on your life's canvas,
A testimony, not to your Quixotic mission,
But to the good that would have surely followed
the eventual demise of your romantic notions
of solving the world's problems.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 6:23 PM UTC
Looking out of the window;
a ribbon of duck-egg-blue sky,
fringed by the sun's late light,
is sandwiched by grey cumulus.
It frames Sycamore tree tops,
red tiled pyramids with their expectant aerials
pointing West, littering clean lines.
It is a mute view;
serried bins wait for the mornings collection,
cars sit dumb, curbed,
their daily commute completed.
Two starlings flit, silent,
and in the far distance a high contrail is picked out
in gold as a thread in blue silk.
For five years this view remains changeably the same;
unspoilt by the entropy of new perspectives.
This is the summer of un-broadcast malcontents,
pacified in Brazilian spectacle. Days simmer here and there.
Soap operas filter through,
made to massage the message
of consume and discard, of holidays and pistons.
And in the mornings, that never come,
we abandon the cars that cannot diverge
from work-honed routes,
taking to the air from Sycamores as Starlings.
June 2014
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 5:05 AM UTC
Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Haloed sundogs clinging to white mares’ tails
Storied concentric glories way up high
I’ll leave a soft rainbow colored contrail
Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Flying towards the sun’s healing golden crown
Come and sing when you see me sailing by
Let go the darkness and let light resound
Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Shards of memories and rose colored ice
My love my love my love let go the sigh
Please remember me to the by and by
r ~ 3Mar14
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 2:49 PM UTC
Starlit seeking waves against a summer's blow
meet a shallow shore on a midnight of May.
A day dreamer grazes white lights of a night sky
with twinkled gazes-she wished for a touch,
bare feet tickles wet sand,
heartbeats skips a harmony,
a longing desire locks and loads
firing wanderlust into star-soot boots
on and upwards she goes
becoming breathing breaths
of a dream, that wished to live,
and live it did
10 Mays later-
amidst violent radiance
a contrail climbs- through earth's window
and into a void of shadowed dawn
she goes.
The End.
Dec 31, 2016
Dec 31, 2016 at 12:34 AM UTC
Laced in bluebird's song,
cicada's needle shrill, the
morning rushes toward noon.
I amble through the neighborhood,
pausing, moving on. It is midway
through the month of August,
Bermuda grass already sprawls
and goes to seed. Dew beads glassy,
cupped on blue-green blades
wide as fingers. And in the
eastern sky, silent silver wings
slide beneath a mare's-tail cloud,
it's knife-edged contrail loosens
soon into a bland and terrifying scrawl.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 12:02 AM UTC
*
I've scoured off my skin needing to scrub it out
I've exfoliated to the bone wanting to rub it out
I've been used and abused hoping to love it out
I've put on twenty pounds trying to grub it out
__BUT__
(Who doesn't love a big but?)
There's no infomercial-Oxy-booster to clean this stain
(Your absence a dark blotch in my sight)
There's no late-night ShamWow-savior to absorb this pain
(This displaced grief and fright)
There's no thought deep enough to wash you from my brain
(Nor the contrail of confusion behind your flight)
There's no shower cold enough, it weathers even this caustic rain
(Love's inexhaustible light)
*
May 10, 2021
May 10, 2021 at 6:16 PM UTC
Something’s happening, let’s call it sunrise, for now,
and summer vacation in Geneva, in umm.. 10 hours.
My heart-beat is spiking, like a flag or kite flying.
I’m leaving an empty room - making one last pass with a broom.
I’m stuffing my bag, with the last few things, for escape on aluminum wings.
My dreams, woven in bright, butterfly tapestries, are rolled and folded -
packed between urgent fantasies and harsh, time-sensitive practicalities.
I know you’re there, a quarter-world away, good news, pegasus awaits,
to streak gulf-stream high, over choppy oceans wide with mechanical fire,
its ice-cycle crystal contrail will point, like cherub cupid's arrow, toward you.
Forget pixels, tech instruments, remote lifeline connections,
and prayer-like whispers over thin, criss-crossed wires.
I’m making my move, coming compass-needle true,
to press up close, reintroduce, extemporize and ******
.
.
music for this:
Someday by Sugar Ray
sunburn by almost monday
This Charming Man by The Smiths
Heaven by Los Lonely Boys
May 7, 2024
May 7, 2024 at 1:16 PM UTC
A jet plane headed Southwest , flying to New Orleans this evening , leaving a contrail high in the sky , almost out of sight , headed to Bourbon Street , Jackson Square , the Mississippi River , to get a cold beer , plate of oysters ,watch a blues band , then to Cafe Du Monde for a beignet , hot cup of coffee ! Watch the barges floating by on the river walk , headed to the Gulf of Mexico tonight ! A jazz quartet is playing up ahead ! Crescent City , mother of the blues , alive with rock , cajun , classical , country . Beautiful women , dancing , laughter and some of the best food you could ever imagine ! Another warm steamy night in The Big Easy ! ..
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
Through the eye of the needle,
Not to the left or the right
Dodging both on the comets tail
I streak into the light
My last wish out in front
As words melt in a fiery contrail
And with only one question
To weaken my heart
With only one thing to know
The seasons entwine
All beanstalks are felled
With the exit signs all aglow
I crash through the doubt
Releasing new hope
My affirmation now to reign
And look ever further
Beyond my scope
As my senses become untrained
I feel the loose pieces
Start to come off
A new lightness now abounds
The last burden has lifted
Burning bright in my wake
Crossing over—turned around
(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM UTC
Amoeba swimming upstream on a petri dish , uncomfortable in artificial medium , frightened , stunned animal lying motionless in tall grass , by a busy intersection....Kudzu taking over a highway , running rampant in every direction , young art prodigy painting with watercolors on construction paper in kindergarten ... First cool wind of Winter filtering through pine forest , water trapped on city streets seeking path of least resistance .. Sand collecting at the bottom of a hill for fifty two plus years , contrail of a jet liner fading fast from right to left , condensation on a window pane waiting for the Sun to appear ....................
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 9:55 AM UTC
The thunder of freight cars traveling through Palmetto , heading North to Atlanta at the five o'clock hour . A silver contrail underscores Venus , jet airplanes in every direction . Golden Pines as far as the eye can see , stately Oaks , steely Pecans and ravishing Maples .. A frozen Buck at the wood line surveys his next move , the last remaining geese reveal their presence , then bid adieu .. They travel South tonight by the light of a mischievous Moon at tree top level , off to points South beneath the Western horizon ...
Whippoorwills begin their familiar call , a Barn owl takes the stage with its haunting song ..
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC
contrail slash
glows above the clouds
one moment kite string thin
next blurred by the wind
Tom Spencer © 2018
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 6:56 AM UTC
White **** touches my contrail
all the way to the toes
up and down my head
over above
a cotton underside
when I fly too high
my heart flutters the g-force wind
expectation blows
round a corner but all I see is a rock facade
on my back a weight to hold me down
social decay or what might have been
memory,
why?
do we fall farther the
higher we fly?
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Through the eye of the needle
Not to the left or the right
Dodging both on the comets tail
I streak into the light
My last wish out in front
As words melt in a fiery contrail
And with only one question
To weaken my heart
With only one thing to know
The seasons entwine
All beanstalks are felled
With the exit signs all aglow
I crash through the doubt
Releasing new hope
My affirmation now to reign
And look ever further
Beyond my scope
As my senses become untrained
I feel the loose pieces
Start to come off
A new lightness now abounds
The last burden has lifted
Burning bright in my wake
Crossing over—turned around
(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016 )
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 9:50 AM UTC
Try as I might,
to hide from the words
Distant and fleeting,
they still can be heard
The nouns are a kite,
lone verb as the tail
Flying within me,
my heart their contrail
(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
A contrail scratches a long pink scar across the dawning sky,
Alarming the wispy clouds that stretch themselves into nothingness,
Oozing rose madder from their bottom edges.
The faint sulphur yellow glow behind the ragged horizon
Lurks with the Son’s intent to loom at almost any moment.
The air is clear, and distant fires have not smudged it gray.
It is too early for the birds to be abroad,
But there are little bunnies on the roadway,
Welcoming an autumn morning, unbothered by my passing.
They look warm in their fur coats and little padded feet.
There is no wind, surprising in this desert place of river breezes
But my hands are tucked up in the sleeves of my sweat suit
Against the chill that paints pink roses on my cheeks
As I take my morning walk in Laughlin,
Enjoying my ownership of the quiet air.
My walk is timed to get me home before the sun
Can crash it’s way into the sky
To scare away the bunnies while it wakes up the birds
And forces me to shield my eyes
Against the glare of another busy morning.
ljm
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 4:19 PM UTC