Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
b e mccomb Jul 2016
i'm cold
and damply
drowning in
all these
blackish
tones and tunes.

it's hard
to find
a song to
err on the
side of
brighter hues.

especially
when i'm so
frostily
submerged
in these
tonal blues.
Copyright 12/8/15 by B. E. McComb
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2009
For Basil@Egmont

Old school hotelier, conservationist, mountain man.


Festooning drapes of weeping moss
Hang damply from the trees
Cascading lengths of dripping fern
Bring wetness to your knees
The clutching boughs of gnarled branch
The olive greens and damp
The winding path meanders up
This mountain's rocky ramp

Grey boulders in the river bed
The rush of torrents fast,
The song of falling waters
Plummeting into the past.
The flash of brilliant plumage
A  blue kingfisher in a dive
And the tragic death of this field mouse
Means other creatures stay alive.

The mammoth mountain hangs above
The snow is clean and white
The cornice shadow aqua blue
Ridge ice is sunlight bright
The summit wind is blowing hard
The snow is curling round
To recreate a billowed crown
Atop that seaward mound.

A dancing *** is eyeing me,
Impossibly it clings
Inverted from a totara trunk
With rapid flitting wings.
Exploding from it's hiding place
A ponderous pigeon *****
And weaves it's way between the boughs
With noisy wing tip slaps

The magic of this secret place
Is the drama in the air,
The solitude of teeming life
In green-ness everywhere.
The hardness of the freezing night
The harshness of the wind,
The grandeur of it's wilderness
Paints splendor as it's sin.

Taranaki's goblin forest
Is resplendent in it's garb
Of emerald green and turquois-ness
And rugged rocks and shard,
Cascading rivers, waterfalls
In sweeping walls of trees
Where pools of still transparency
Bring you breathless to your knees.

Where Egmont's goblin forest
Will make your spirits sing
And the urge to climb another mile
Will reward you with something
You had not bargained for in visiting
This remote and splendid place,
......It will reward you with a warm,
And knowing smile upon your face.

Marshalg
Dawson Falls Romantic Hotel
Mt. Taranaki
15th September 2008
Janette Oct 2012
It comes suddenly
a storm that rages to fury
bleeding me between your hands,
your mouth,
to where each syllable lost
between midnight’s satin
crests into a crazed madness


where the soft slide hardens
to gripping intentions as my arousal
tastes in jasmine-licked surrenders
like manna
for your hungered heaven




there, where no scream
goes unanswered but only echoed,
you are with me
primal




seared,
the flesh of you wetly hot
to my thundering pulse,
I am surrender laced
with impetuous desires
woven to linger upon your reddened lips


pressed *******
scrape across your flesh
as you moan in greedy adoration
to my whispered frenzy,
“taste me here,
let me feed you
there”


the suckle of your hot mouth
plastered to my ******* fills me
and I am burgeoning
upon graven yearns






here,
I ache in throbbing flames
as your tongue lathes
love’s lick playing tag
to my purr of silken gasps
and breathy mewling cries
in your ears
stating my submission of this
plunging dominance….
I burn…burn
…to inferno




Smiles wreathe pearl
as you revel in my passionate blossom,
your lick peels me wanton
where we are
pooled
shameless and painted,


my torrents are spilled for you
stained and swallowed
greedily




and I,
quivering in the tsunami
that you bequeath to my racking body,
I arch,
reaching that shattering golden gateway
singing joyous to the columns of fate’s
raging wave




Unleashed,
I am
the tide




Where you are damply hollow
and drowning...
Edna Sweetlove Aug 2015
Yes! It's another Barry Hodges "Memories" poem!"*

I shall never forget our first date together,
How we wandered through the streets of Soho,
Gazing into the **** shop windows,
Laughing at the giant vibrators on display...

And later, a romantic meal in a French bistro,
Where the rules of hygiene were not
As strictly observed as might have been hoped for,
Promising a regurgitatory treat in store...

You ignored the startled eyes of our fellow diners
And brutally shoved your tongue in my mouth;
O how fiercely I slurped on it enthusiastically
Caressing it with my own mouth sausage...

I ****** and ****** and ****** and ******
And (oh joy!) I could taste the garlicky bits
'Twixt your gorgeous unwashed choppers;
How my underwear damply stretched out of shape...

I withdrew my probing tongue and kissed your cheek
Affectionately, yet trembling with rampant desire;
And I boldly licked a firm yellow-topped spot
With its previously observed black centre...

My huge uncontrollable lust conquered
The demands of demodé bourgeois good manners
And I sunk my incisors into that zitty beauty
Relishing the ******* waiting just for me therein...

The waiting staff were deeply impressed as I chewed
In rapturous sensual joyous contemplation
And you spluttered bloodily in loving agony
Your own mighty ****** fast approaching...

Oh what a foretaste of what was to come
When we repaired to my convenient bedsit
For an immensely gratifying triple bonk
Prior to a staggering mutual diarrhoea session...

And now I lie back in sweet recollection
Of the many nights we spent in copulation
But how sad I am as, looking at the deserted bed,
I can still make out the stains of your dying turds.
Adult Humour Memories
a man cloaked in dust bitten rays skip down the rude lit hall
as a voice calls to him run your fitful bow across my cracked
teacup mouth and draw forth a loosed leaf smile at first
i dismiss it as contrived twaddle one might hear in settings
where silk roses bloom on synthetic counter islands or
a cloth lily wrecks on its maiden voyage mid-way through
a copper sink’s bounded blue but cigarette tip joy burns
peep holes into my cottony resistance it’s a compact thrill
as dense as the peach pit my tooth struck to chip that once
such piquant frissons dissipate into damply aromatic trickles
when the man replies with a tartly rolled lavender bud ready
to burst its pink i’ve the heart of a wobbly kneed boy about
to pull back the tulle cloud on an auburn morn’s feathery
bathers petaled girdle strewn on the slippery rock path
leads up to her dewy lap where luminescent splayed fingers
lay printed hymns when ash trimmed logs fall from his fatty
lips i take the house sparrow’s hasty cue to flap a skyward
exit out from the bony white glow of his unfulfilling promises
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
The chair gripped like a bear
mauled into place
tongue tied, throat silenced
roaring....

ferociously .....
the door raged between us
locked loudly
cries , crawled their grimy patch

hung momentarily, felt the stale air
quietly gathering, pooling damply
cheek soddened in pain
giant force propelled, the floor

hard and unrelenting shocked my bones
breath forced itself outward....
black and rigid
the open window of before.... forced shut

palms spread across the floor
interrupted, reinforced toes stamped
crushingly, the sound resonating
without movement now
Edna Sweetlove Nov 2014
A "Memories" Poem from the great Barry Hodges' pen*

I shall never forget our first date together,
How we wandered through the streets of Soho,
Gazing into the **** shop windows,
Laughing at the giant vibrators on display...

And later, a romantic meal in a French bistro,
Where the rules of hygiene were not
As strictly observed as might have been hoped for,
Promising a regurgitatory treat in store...

You ignored the startled eyes of our fellow diners
And brutally shoved your tongue in my mouth;
O how fiercely I slurped on it enthusiastically
Caressing it with my own mouth sausage...

I ****** and ****** and ****** and ******
And (oh joy!) I could taste the garlicky bits
'Twixt your gorgeous unwashed choppers;
How my underwear damply stretched out of shape...

I withdrew my probing tongue and kissed your cheek
Affectionately, yet trembling with rampant desire;
And I boldly licked a firm yellow-topped spot
With its previously observed black centre...

My huge uncontrollable lust conquered
The demands of demodé bourgeois good manners
And I sunk my incisors into that zitty beauty
Relishing the ******* waiting just for me therein...

The waiting staff were deeply impressed as I chewed
In rapturous sensual joyous contemplation
And you spluttered bloodily in loving agony
Your own mighty ****** fast approaching...

Oh what a foretaste of what was to come
When we repaired to my convenient bedsit
For an immensely gratifying triple bonk
Prior to a staggering mutual diarrhoea session.
PK Wakefield Jun 2010
in the part of the cool hill's soft thighs
trembles the callous shaft of dawn
penetrating the ephemeral violence
of the stabbing rods of arbor scent
damply the night mare goes galloping
whinny little sins of star caresses

but none are so shy and sly as the
eye clasped hollow in the stench
of (and also the slender flowers
smirk at the blossoms young
flesh broken by the light song)
Morpheus' guileless laughter

as shattered the disheveled clubs
swing ransoms of heart lips between
the twain of the enchanted leaves
there rests a silver bit of girl so
blisteringly beautiful blushes all
the world for holding this trembling
aperture of onyx plait holding femininity

so electric is the artifice of her glimmering
chastity, swore the sun it would never
shine on any other thing so savagely its
shivering skin of golden pleasure as this her
(but just so the moon loved her too
as passionate as any other lover ever imagined
or material. spitting delicate strands of shimmer
upon the golden-brown skein of her shoulders)

she woke startled by the amorous dome
crinkling on the perfection of her lithe
sensual frame. stupidly the ideal birds
sang, trying to match the elegance of
her narrow waist; but failed hideously
drowning the silence in virulent soundless
noise. then brimmed every god to the lip
of everything to peer upon this unbearable
visage and dither in the perfection of its curves.

suddenly the Rose blistered from the soil
and came wetly a residue of crimson from
its supple petals mounting the vision of her
absolute eyes. splaying the gentle hips of
sight to receive the splendor of its thorned
stem into her hand and ***** the silk
of her hands slowly releasing a jewel of life

all this witnessed by the cloistered huddles
of gossamer children. hideously perfect men
wantonly begging for the grace of her sensual
pond. beckon they, to them, her but she refuseth
and make for the realm of Hades. quietly, in
death, waiting for some heat to unfreeze the
skin of her blue heart frozen still darkness.
SweetCindy Jul 2012
The night was damp & dark & cold and silence overcame the dwelling.
When all could be heard was the repetitious heartbeat & the thickness of fear ever swelling.

The young girl sat up straight in her bed - sweat & tears coursing streams down her face.
She couldn't call for her mother or father to help her the horrid images erase.

As she sat there the dream played reruns in her mind - the screams from a room that could not be found.
She'd opened each door to salvage her loved one, only to find herself captured and bound.

The mysterious man wore a mask on his face to hide heinous scars that lie underneath.
As he stepped from the dark he removed the veiling mask and used it as a gag so she could not breathe.

She writhed and pulled to set herself free, but to no avail the bonds only grew stronger.
She screamed at the top of her lungs for help until she could scream no longer.

He walked around her in ominous circles planning his next evil motion:
"Perhaps vicious torture, or better yet! I'll concoct a death-dealing potion."

Then he whispered damply in her ear as she cringed from the touch of his fingers
and the stench of his breath in the room overwhelmed - even now awake, in her mind the scent odiously lingers.

And after the potion was finally complete he takes creeping paces toward her.
And with each step his monotonous laugh grows louder & louder & LOUDER!

And then, as the vile touches her lips and the bitterness shocks her taste buds,
she breaks free from the villain and puts him to death and runs, but there's nowhere to run.

And she comes to the end of a long, dark hallway and begins to fall through a ravenous abyss
and then came the bottom, which is when she awoke in a cold sweat with clenched teeth & clenched fists.

© 1999
PK Wakefield Jul 2010
XVI
& what are you?
                         you; are

           the
                      naked saturday
sweaty hills neatly on your
skin. thou art:

        the rain

damply kissing a thousand times
my neck. you are the supple stocks

         the roots               ;                  the petals

you are a fountain of stunning music lashing
crimson fists on my and you are a flock
of                            muscles            rightly.

          or

you are the splinter of *** in a nocturne moon plated
demurely akimbo. you are thee. you are the
contraction of my fibers in the ecstasy of
                 wet
                        summer
                                     lips) the crescent of heaven
and you are
                        eht
. fragility of life in a manifesto of pleasure.
                        are you are the lucid abstraction of
beauty. aphrodite Fleshed in the sinew of reality. cambered in the
pasture    my hands.
      you                             are

                                                       YoU
arE.             m

                             I

              n

                                            E
Donall Dempsey Nov 2017
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.


The day had gone
from dry to drizzle to

wet.


It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lusture.
The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!


"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.


"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
Paige Serbin Jul 2011
I was afraid to walk outside in case the rain would catch me standing as I am and was; alone, unrequited, an apple-pitted girl against whatever comes to mind.  Say it, anything, dance damply under the unmoving ceiling fan and move like falling wind in summer.  The only time I feel like me, summer.  The only time to stop and not feel immobile; the only time to move and not feel pushed.  The only happy time.  Have an apple, feel it to the core.  Wear a dress, and let the rain fall through it and the wind soak it so the clinging mocks your need to hold on, but still let go, and watch it tumble down your legs and mouth; cling to something far away, through dreams.  Like flimsy cloth, you and I, like warmth and wind and rain, we can be.  You and me.  Or just me alone.  Unrequited, clinging to the edge of the line where the rain starts, racing hearts, which will cross the line first? Who will win?  It's the decision of my life, whether to walk into the rain or not.  But it's the time that catches me against my watch, and so embarrassed, I let my hand catch the rain until it stops suddenly.
I've been experimenting, quite successfully in my opinion, with stream of consciousness.  I find it so much easier to write this way, and I think my messages end up more similar to the way they're constructed in my brain when I just don't think about them.  Tell me what you think!
HRTsOnFyR Apr 2015
Nicotine soaked bedsheets
Damply caressed by sweat, by tears
Sooty black fingerprints,
Like carbon coated breadcrumbs
They leave a trail of sorrow...
Resin coated bobby pins
Cut straws and crystal dusted mirrors
Nails gnawed down to the quick
Bloodshot eyes, cracked lips
Tired thoughts,
    Hopes tossed,
        Dreams shattered,
              The
                    pieces
                           Lost.
Serenity Elliot Sep 2014
Girl in white,
Soon you will dream,
I’ll try not to scream,
As you go, into the light.
You’ll smile and say,
Now is the day,
We’ll go far away,
With our hands clasped so tight.

I hope the sun decides to shine
Through the drifting blinds,
And the warmth will flow
from your eyes to mine.
The butterflies will mirror
How your soul takes flight,
As you ride that tall ship into the light.

The perfume,
It won’t fade
As your last song,
Is made,
Your flowers will be laid
On the earth, damply fresh.
The stars will shine,
and we’ll drink red wine,
Your favourite lines, forever
Etched, into our minds.

The moths will be tied
To your dress just outside,
It’s a message to the world,
The most sublime of signs.
The ocean will whisper
Secrets, throughout the night
I’ll keep your candle burning, always bright.

The books that we read, lying out on your bed
Not a tear I’ll shed
As the words, spin around,
Buried deep in my heart.
In them I’ll try to see
Why death is free,
You didn’t seem scared to me
When the wind echoed
‘depart’.

Your hair was intertwined
As the petals aligned,
A golden sweet glow,
From your toes to your spine.
I’ll sit here in the silence
I know I am in your sight
And when time takes me to you, I’ll alight.
KG Feb 2016
I found no comfort in the soft cotton of his tattered grey-tshirt.
They say after someone dies you find solace in their belongs:
The socks he used to leave on bedroom floor,
His worn leather jacket,
The moth eaten t-shirts you had once begged him to throw out.
Somehow these items become … sacred?
Yet no one tells you what to do
When the ragged t-shirts no longer smell of his spiced cologne,
But sag damply with the smell of your sweat,
And the holes are no longer made by flittering moths,
But burned with tears.
M Bigicekeys Jun 2017
A reading of this poem is here: https://youtu.be/pAIgogKxcNA?list=PLBxuQsDqWVXmIytZbwojqP6VwFcC5xeZ

__­____________

He died that night.  His chin a mesh of wet, broken asphalt, blood and glistening white flesh.

What did you want?
A quirky dialogue, a dose of fiction and science,

a ******* poem

Jesus!  I said it glistened, didn’t I?

Damply reflecting his solitary and meaningless life that he had built up to be something more
something wonderfully significant

This must be a pathetic assault on the indignity of the world
It’s lack of acceptance for
My total loneliness

among the pattering drops and the dosed lights
hazing and incomprehensible
forted, feigning, but there

A physical barrier that pretends to be.
That’s kind of like the guy.  How convenient!  Are you following?

The lights were the last thing he probably saw.

but there in the peaceful death did he gasp one last word?

A cliche.  Is that better?  
An improvement upon self-referring, concept refraining, phrase

like a sustaining note struck by a hammer
struck by a white key
struck by bone and flesh
a resonation resigning to a precious exit, honoring the one thing he valued?
Are we getting somewhere now?  Did the alliterative foiled words help to unwrap the meaning of this poor ***** last breath?

No.
But I recall a gurgle followed by a splurch of blood and his eyes so fiercely clenched
cowardly denying the wet
moment as
he died that night

And I meant to leave the ****** apostrophe out
This is art

@Macbigicekeys
neth jones Sep 2019
I have a fever dream

Blank skin
Blank skin, only a single layer thin
damply wrinkles and pocked puckers ;
I’m a delicate blister waterbed mattress
No rest when I set my head

The pain is a receiver in this dream

I feel I’ve a full body wound
The surface skim is a single reading of pain
Any contact pulls the pain to that site
A sudden breeze alone
would do the trick

The dream expresses vulnerability

One nick
One puncture on the opaque membrane
And my innards would flood out
I slip perilously on the tile floor
My printless feet wipe from under me and /

Woken up
burning fever
but go back to sleep
In urgency I must..

Form porousness
Found layers
Cultivate hairs
Bead natural oils
Reclaim my fingerprints
And get a grip
All this before I fully awake
I don’t want to suffer this state in the real world
Donall Dempsey Nov 2019
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

( for John Smith )

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
***

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lusture.
The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
Many Flowers Mar 2016
It's not there yet ...the shivering spout of ironclad misconceptions .... damply dipping ... dripping... n'whispering givens ... what might be said more then this ... and the echos left behind the rancid hallow chatter ?
Codes of compromise and blameless banter ?  Some wonder long against the hour .....against sand filled eyes...so it is, with water salty measures... but not I... up to my knees, in the river ... I walk, moving further ....not there yet ..... shivering ...dripping.....sweet misgivings,  contrived from the stories told, about how I got there ... colder now.... night falls ... hours  shortened..... beyond the day ..... maybe even the scent of the dim lit haze... moving across the water, in waves....waves against the waist n' rock... something slips beneath the feet....a thought ... no tears for free.
dry he wore the white dress
though
his hair curled damply

we drew him
we painted him

he is taller now & remains
much the same
he had pockets of stones

so heavy his trousers

fell



first i met him small & wet from the river



dry he wore the white dress

his hair curled damply down his back



we filmed him

we photographed him



he is taller now & remains

much the same
Donall Dempsey Nov 2022
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
Kawsu Sanneh Mar 2020
Behind the scenes! I saw life at flicking fractured
Where ultimate livelihood was freeze and captured
Where dispirited Soul are Helpless
Where her routine of hopes are surmise

I saw feeble frivolous panther apart
Daunting anti corruptions depart
No watchful wary to assist
From their flaws they desist

Oh! What a bleakly bone of us
Why we ain't nothing but a thang?
There, they thought we are not anything
Shall i shake hands with the Democrats

At millions thee heartbeats
I breathe the stinking sensation of sadness,
As efferent emotions flows
Thru highly elevated arteries to capillaries.

There setting on the edge of one's seat.
When shall we wake her Sleeping Mine?
When shall her roar be featly dine
When shall she dive matters without threat.

When shall her daily headaches be heal
What can we concealed without laughter at peril
Our thoughts, our mental illness at oceans
We have fight but our foughten freedom at the oceans

Behind the scenes
I'm seeing wariness of Darkness alarming
I'm still touching the roughest depth of fierce
As we trace the hardest parts of the jungle.

At bounded bypass of gastric were splints
Everything was cleanly clear from the truth TV
Nothing can ever be hiding from the plaint
Even the sparking bullet of The Champion TV

Were shall our barking voice last
Shall we woefully wrath at exile
Fear no more, at last, the past
Worrisome inevitably wine the tactile  

The valor of shame shall be color
There they shine to sin
There shall we mourns at min
As those dreamed were damply ****! At vapor I
Donall Dempsey Nov 2020
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON


It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.
***


The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
Neobotanist Jan 2021
ectoplasmic, echoing

fibers vibrate delicately, glossily,
held with tension and
******* with pearls.

powders exploding casually from
plucked strings

she inspects, with milk fingers,
that night’s catch.

in sea-spun, spider silks,
there linger tiny ***** made of
star sand, composing tiny symphonies,
bellies dragging ‘cross cornfields,
scratching still silhouettes,
notes in Solfeggio:
ink-black eighth notes
sprawling softly on
measured bars.

the chorus of silent whispers
crescendos and crashes down,
splashing salty poolwater
on silk screen paper.

damply, she lets spools spill
from her cream fingers,
inspecting knots in which
cracked fragments of silver passages
flutter.

one is plucked abrasively,
and it melts into her *******,
threatening spillage from
finger creases like hot mercury.

one gleams and she tentatively,
reflexively presses it with her pointer,
prodding it before she is
breathed in in in in and
suctioned through.

what does this passage speak?

charming crickets
flaky knees rubbed

the reverberation of hums
explodes in little hearts,
windowpanes
smashing and shattering,
billions of glistening pieces
embedded in tiny lungs,
orbiting galactically
like bellicose comets.

a hair stands up
and she breathes in,
one huge breath.

honey coats her lungs,
quick as lavender,
and
the bluntness of her teeth
deny endlessly the soft,
glowing warmth spreading
through her veins like liquid gold.

cocoa in her breath and
dusty icicles in her lashes

it was a tremendously satisfying catch,
that night’s catch.
dry he wore the white dress

his hair curled damply

we drew him

we painted him

he is taller now & remains

much the same
Donall Dempsey Nov 2023
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
dry he wore the white dress
though
his hair curled damply

we drew him
we painted him

he is taller now & remains
much the same
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
      RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.

A Monday.

It was the 278th day
of the year...only

87 days remaining
until the end of the year.

I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.

Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.

Huge clouds
menaced the horizon

impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.

Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.

The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.

In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.

In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car

like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.

I kept a close eye on
the secret service

all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones

of one another
talking into their sleeves.

My gaze searches and settles
upon him

like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.

Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe

after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots

bolstering the Irish-American vote.

And now here he was
the man himself

in person
the 37th President.

Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage

in the square
of Kildare.

He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin

a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.

Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.

My mind flashes back to
1729

when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.

Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here

in the middle of
The Vietnam War

and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."

Yeah yeah...sure sure!

Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity

the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.

Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.

"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.

And one man protesting
the price of a pint

up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.

What's the world
coming to?

School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )

American flags
on little plastic sticks.

I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice

shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:

'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"

Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.

Character assassination.

Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"

curses me
in Irish.

After all he is
my Irish teacher.

D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."

I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.

McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.

Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer

there.

The hurled words
disappear into the air.

Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.

The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.

Mr. McCann
hoovers near.

I cover both
my ears.

But he only tousles
my hair.

"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")

"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")

He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.

I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.

My political life
had only just begun.

*

The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.

The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.

"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."

President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.

Don't know what happened to him then!

"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.

"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."

Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.

— The End —