"fiddlers" poems
We embarked upon a titanic voyage to a new world.
It’s said that behind every great man there's a great woman; But a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
7 bells rang late that night, as our ship stuck fast; between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Fingers frantic! tapping code…—-…
Sailors quickly battened down the hatches and stowed away the Riff-raff, for they knew fine words would butter no parsnips, Better here than there in third class.
Some fiddlers on the deck played “Nearer My God to Thee", As the bubbles rose from beneath the sea, come buckle down boys for the devils to pay, come hell or high water he’ll have his pay.
Mothers row, land lubbers row, it's time to leave this god forsaken place. pulling hard for freedom.
Ten steel decks split and snap, as they join the ***** and hundreds either shriek or pray; as La dolce vita slowly ebbed away.
Mercifully the cacophony descends ever silent, as fifteen hundred souls become neither fish nor flesh, rotting from the head down.
Save our souls •••- - - •••. … — …
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 4:15 PM UTC
to exonerate the clippings
they took the back road to oswega
the tudor house rabbits
had long lost their heads
(presumably to the *****
and what remained
of the landscape
was dead
and dry
and orange
that happy home
on the brink
of cattle loop
was now gull grey
the needles
and stragglers
from shady bay
remained (in growing numbers)
on the outskirts
of the driven back park
the once fabled town
of horse drawn tours
and dignitaries
was stone washed ~
on the back of it's
government docks
sat decrepit toppers
set against the high tide
beside the lighthouse
and its measured song
flutes and fiddlers
and acoustic sitars
ride the accompaniment
nose rings
and signage
in the hands of
staged protesters
the sickly spit strewn
with tidal run
and ocean bags
hedgerows trimmed
along the sea side
rolling hills fade
adjacent the chuck
mint juleps
and flop hats
peak on the parade
clydesdales
and royals
blinded in the back
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.'
One man, one man alone
In that outlandish gear,
One solitary man
Of all that rambled there
Had turned his stately head.
That is a long way off,
And time runs on,' he said,
'And the night grows rough.'
'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.'
'The fiddlers are all thumbs,
Or the fiddle-string accursed,
The drums and the kettledrums
And the trumpets all are burst,
And the trombone,' cried he,
'The trumpet and trombone,'
And cocked a malicious eye,
'But time runs on, runs on.'
I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
"Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.'
3.9k
In a strange mood - see/write art
in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^
in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.
knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.
a ***** well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.
^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell
Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
A seventies child
Born in Wales, one of the four
Countries of The UK.
I remember brown as the colour
of the day.
Fabric embossed wallpaper
all the neighbours names, who married who,
who was carrying on, the alcoholic, the beaten wives,
Even, get this the peadophiles (or kiddy fiddlers as was known)
Dai the milk, Mair the bread, the shop of infinite items.
Rugby practice for dad, baking for mam
(Cake and babies) gossip over the garden hedge
Fish on a Friday a Sunday roast, hot sweet tea.
Bubble and squeak, post delivered before you
left for school. Mist on the mountain, dew on the grass.
Welsh valley life, sounds idyllic
but scratch the surface and a darker colour
than brown emerges. Petty squablings leading to
familial feuds, the Williamses don't get on with
the Joneses, and as for the Pritchards, less said the better.
School, local, no not for me. I was sent to a Welsh
School, taught and learnt the language denied to my
Parents by English politics. Cat amongst the pigeons there.
Did I think I was special? Ideas above her station. That's what
the neighbours say.
Well, you all had the option.
Dr Forbes FRCS
Delivered babies buried men and women
Loved by all, especially his lollipop sweets.
I wasn't a child to get ***** or rip wrapping paper
off of gifts, I liked to go under the stairs (like Harry Potter)
and read. I left the dirt for my sister born 4 years later.
Then in 1982 came my brother, tidy my mother describes it.
'74,'78,'82 poor dad to have to wait I say!
More pubs than chapels, more walking than driving
more rain than sun, more music than ever was sung.
The '80's came, and we had strikes, no electric, candles
toast made with a toasting fork over the fire.
No mines, no steel, no jobs.
Picket lines, dole queues, women in work
latchkey kids, Thatcherism, ******* times.
Falklands war, IRA bombs, Royal weddings
Tory rule
But, the fire in the dragon never went out
and Tom Jones still sings his heart out.
Cymru cysglyd gwlad y gân, deffrwch
nawr, dyma'ch tro.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 4:27 PM UTC
Is there one word that holds the power?
The breath created by humble lungs
The frequency resonating a once unheard ********* thrum
And cunningly shaped by a Loquacious tongue
To awaken the minds of the sleepers
Or is it emotion soothed by an ancient vibe
Of Universal Love
But what is Love?
Like a tender mother’s hug Found in the eye of your first friend
Before gazes averted strangers
And embraced the world by steady trust within
Separate tables pushed together
Greetings warm with heartfelt laughter
Everyone singing their own song
As a global chorus comes
On like a rushing blast of heat from the opened oven of love
Forward like the sea foam after the rip tide fades
Onward like the feathered wind, invisible
Yet its presence manifest in ethereal ways
The crescendo of 7 billion voices strong
The thumps of our brothers’ hearts beat out a mighty tune
Pounding the drum of a once deafened ear
The fiddlers from the forest meadow and the rushing of the leaves
Reminding us of our nature
As Oxygen consumers
And carbon dioxide providers
Have you heard the killing of trees?
No, but its seems to be all the Rage
Everywhere I go, seeing tree stumps line the way
Yet green grows evermore
Our living spirit chooses life
Because of darkness
The Light must shine
If I am You and You are Me and no one gets lost in-between
the cracks and the gaps of the sidewalks separated by all too distant train tracks
and the windows of the restaurant protecting the paying customer from the reality of the man
on the street corner
surviving the long night of the soul
Urban deserts, Moniless pits
Filled with human suffering
but human all the same
we are One
God
Different faces
Different Eyes
Different names
Wandering the Earth
Waiting to be saved
Or for those on top
maybe just judgment day
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 9:12 PM UTC
*Beethoven once said of the cantor of Leipzig
“Not a stream but an ocean.”*
Sebastian Bach wove sonic tapestries
and scoffed at notions of genius
“Anyone who pays the price can do it.”
Whether for Sunday’s choir or *****
or for a palace fete of state,
The fountains of his bounteous spring
embellished every age and station.
Yet he could crack a joke or two
in a cantata to coffee’s pleasures -
sipping from a sturdy cup
of nature's matchless brew.
Flutists, fiddlers, singers, organists,
children and masters alike,
have netted hearty sustenance
from the seas of his boundless vision.
But modesty forbade him boast
the importance of his station -
affixing to his noblest works,
a trio of humblest words,
“Soli Deo Gloria.”
December, 2007
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 3:40 PM UTC
raindrops wash his tears as the fiddler plays
his jet black locks caress his cheek, slowly shifting grey
he has sung his heartbreaking ode for years on end
his true love an audience ne'er again to attend
eyes that once shined a bright green hue
dulled by sorrowful tears turned the deepest blue
once a lover he'd had near the western shores of Ireland
the love of his life, a gorgeous young lass, for her he'd asked her hand
nary a day passed were they not by the other's side
alas, the young lass had a secret she could not abide
untimely demise had she met at the sleight of her very own hand
a pain so harsh no longer could she withstand
alive once he was, now just a fiddler in the hidden glen
ne'er to to step outside the trees to the light of day again
'neath the crescent moon he lies
now a slave to the fiddlers' tune, he cries
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 12:11 AM UTC
Did I mention how much I love you?
When you saved me from my daemons in a winter cold,
When the gods denied me redemption and hope...
Not just another glove to fit upon the hand
With complexity of a lie yet sure to shine
Before it all.
As a diamond in the ruff
A precious
Rain cloud for the dried up cracks
In dessert heat.
The sky always staring down at me.
Another shadow to the day sleeps...
Do I know the time of fate?
Can I foresee the future's song,
On a fiddlers thumb.
.
Let's hope not
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 3:12 PM UTC
When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players,
And only heard an immortal music sung,--
Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April,
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass:
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,--
Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .
And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And through the darkness he felt his childhood rise.
Soft, and shining, and sweet, hands filled with petals. . .
And watching her dance, he was grateful to forget
The fiddlers, leaning and drawing their bows together,
And the tired fingers on the stops of his cornet.
1.1k
When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players,
And only heard an immortal music sung,-
Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April,
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass:
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,-
Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .
And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And through the darkness he felt his childhood rise.
Soft, and shining, and sweet, hands filled with petals. . .
And watching her dance, he was grateful to forget
The fiddlers, leaning and drawing their bows together,
And the tired fingers on the stops of his cornet.
1k
Call me every name in the book
murdered, baby killer, Satan
it matters not to me
for i will preserve your freedom
slap me, kick me, and spit upon my uniform
for i will stand here as you do so
silently, and as unmovable as the mountains
only when you are done with your abuse
shall i say
your welcome
for i will stand as the vanguard
watching the night as you sleep
so nothing will harm you or your family
i will give my life
without a second thought
so you may continue to belittle me
even after i am gone
resting upon fiddlers' green
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 10:47 PM UTC
Comments to cut in,to but in and blank empty spaces where faces should be
and what does it mean?
**** all to me.
Say what you want and do what you will
but until you have walked in my shoes,
just lose yourself in the crowd,
choose the words to use and if you can't use them wisely,don't use them,
and what are they worth?
**** all.
And if you don't say it clear,say it loud,come out from the shadows and put faces to names,
then it's all games.
A run around,a turn about to disappear into the space you seem to fear,
and me,
well
I'm not here,I'm just some
writing on a wall
worth less than ****** all,
should I care to worry or to fret?
my bet is no.
It will go on until it stops, until my ears pop and my heart implodes and my eyes end up at the end of my nose,
but then I'll see
and I'll see what it all meant to me
which is not much,
a touch of ink,a link to a site,a waiting through night 'til the morning flies in,a pain in the arse,a bit of a farce
but continue I will.
And time can do handstands or stay still, I don't really care because it's not me that's there,
I'm off on my jaunts to old places,new haunts and I couldn't give a fiddlers elbow whether you come or you decide to go,
whether you read me or not.
But
this is me
this is what I've got,
which is a *** to **** in and an ear to listen,
get used to it
or not.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 8:38 AM UTC
Oh, carry me on the winds of a sleepless dream,
Where there's fields aplenty upon the fiddler's green,
Where the woman is kind and the man is fit and clean,
Borne there upon St. Albans' wing.
Drift me off upon a fiddlers tune,
To a place where the sky is such a brilliant blue,
Where hope is abounding like those dog-days in June,
Where magnolias sprout forth like passion renewed.
****** me forth upon the lover's blade,
A more precarious place no other man can claim,
Where hope and love balance upon a precarious edge,
So easy to tumble off into that dark and void-filled death.
To be in such a state,
forsaking sleep,
Carries me to this strangest of dream,
For without such abstention,
And lack of means,
My creativity floweth out into an endless stream.
Aug 7, 2023
Aug 7, 2023 at 9:01 AM UTC
Irish Immigrants found
when they stepped
Onto the Ground,
Their Pockets full of
Donnegal Potatoes.
The Dirt beneath their Nails
Was a Mark of how they'd Failed
Famine and Starving brought them
But the Slurs of the Dublin Micks
From those who Looked Down on them
Determined them to Show off their Pride
Some, teamsters worked horses and Frieght
Some nimble fingers Stitched Linen and Lace
Some Irish tenors the Rage of the Stage
Some with a Swing were the Sting of the Ring
Bringing down Boxers Seasoned Sparring
Fiddlers fiddled and coleens were maids
And through it all Heads held High
Shined the Gleem of Irish Pride
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
Green night in the middle of the day…
Fire rising to ****** the moon,
Uncle Sam’s praying in my room
And the 8-ball will not say
Why a woman holds a gun
To her husband’s sleeping head;
Does she play or just wish him dead?
An armadillo’s included for fun.
Uncle Sam’s lost his hat in the fire
Maybe that’s why he’s praying.
Not for the country he should be saving
While we are conquered by liars.
I’ve tried to make sense of this before:
Masked fiddlers strum in the conflagration,
Dead books, butterflies and chimps run the nation,
…there is luggage on the floor.
Should I run from the scene,
Or stay and try to fight?
I can’t read my books in the deepening night
And there’s a skull waiting just to scream.
The man sleeps on with a gun at his head
And I see another skull by his side.
It must be a sign saying: “run and hide”.
But why can’t I do it?
There’s no way to get through it,
But I must wake up and fight or I’m dead.
June 1, 2006
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 8:00 AM UTC
Old King Cole needs no introduction.
The lands cheer when he rises from his throne.
Old King Cole was indeed a merry old soul.
He fancied wine and women,
Merlot and money.
Feasts fit for a king can always be found in his halls.
There once was fiddlers four.
That is until Old King Cole found one using his pipe and wife.
He is very protective of that pipe.
No,
Old King Cole needs no introduction.
Step out of line and you'd face the gallows.
Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
who ruled with an iron fist.
Old King Cole believed it was better to be feared than loved.
His garments were made of the finest textiles and jewels.
His people starved and he had more bowls.
Old King Cole was a merry old soul.
Indeed.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 5:02 PM UTC
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
a temporary stage area is set up
flashing neon lights with the word strife
I can ssee them on the podium waging war
Against the upcoming warrior-poets
Sign of the times or menace to society.
The anthropology of young poet roars
Old King Cole poets
and his fiddlers three fade into history
like tainted old whiskey
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
Penguin and Platypus
Penguin and Platypus put on their hats and coats,
Took the train to Manchester to find themselves a goat,
Found themselves, in the middle, of an orchestra playing Bach.
Asked to join the fiddlers, to give them a second chance.
After the rain clouds dropped in for tea,
Decided that the goat was now nowhere to be seen,
Inside Lyons Corner House had hot chocolate and cream.
Caught the train back to Stroud,
And ran home across the green.
For Evelyn and all those who are gorgeously mad.
Love Grandma ***
Jan 30, 2018
Jan 30, 2018 at 9:08 AM UTC
A valid domino principle is already fully valid in all cases! Good luck washing, all chirping taps are a good treat, a shaping that pushes each other into the back! The minute reputation of brilliance is never rushed by the fall of the Individual! It seems like a ten-minute, self-contained pall of a job interview repeated to the point of boredom! Dancer-comedian will hang your clown lace at an angle more easily if you know even the dog is not curious about his sensation! Who they like to see as an obsessive failure, a loser even from humanity - it could easily be that he wears every moral prime!
You did not intentionally commit the retaliatory principal sin! The classic case of overinsurance only applies to him! There’s always just the smell of ammonia from the sharper scandal smelling in the infected V.I.P air! My little boy chatter would be taken down immediately by the absolute adults! The nail-biting tactics of creative women lurk deep in their counting souls; more second fiddlers have never been needed just in this misguided time!
With a slender, superstitious body, he snakes from guy to guy until he gains the privileges of a carefree luxury lifestyle! Incorporated sources of error have always been easier to blame! The rider of exotic evenings is already every jampec fool: easy, overnight adventures forever knowing everything! The germs of immortal romance are dwindling! Why do Don Quixote's chubby face have the unwilling slap first? They go through a whole life as an orphaned victim! Only a few could know the Stars from the sky to lie down.
Apr 9, 2021
Apr 9, 2021 at 3:36 AM UTC
This night I wake, to musics aloof,
so distant in the wonders of passion,
and so eager, that yet, amused,
I say,
I've found here so little, compassion!
It saddens me when I stare out into, the vastness of our despair
for I find no shelter, in the wilderness here, and I seekth for none out there!
The nights have been generous but sturdy still; ever lonesome, waking, and bare!
Tonight, will be a memoir,
and the lines will read in stone...
The moors shall sing to the whaling,
and the mermaids back to back,
to the worlds of elderly woe,
and the nights so cloaked in black!
the fiddlers shall sing, and choirs resound,
the ruthless words of wedded bounds...
Onto the veiling bow, and great divide,
we dare in this silence, still confide...
to the vow of endless dream!
A.r. Bazian
2014
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
A hot dried up bay
Tiny fiddler ***** side-scurry
A fiddle claw dance
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 9:37 AM UTC
The soft breeze shifts bringing the scent of brackish water to quavering nostrils.
Salt, oyster shells, and the wonderful smells where three waters of disparity come together. Inlet, bay, and waterway push and pull like struggling personas.
Strong fragrances of salt, fish, black sandy mud with tiny bits of shells, burnt diesel, and syrupy brown tannin from the trees. Large patches of reeds built up on mounds of mud and oyster shells, held in place by marsh grass and sea oats.
The oysters in their beds spit little streams as you pass by, beckoning, come closer. The little bearded bivalve’s mouths gaping to say we will shred your flesh if you give us a chance, wooing…step closer in the slippery slimy mud.
Small ***** sit by their holes in the black goo. The fiddlers march as though carrying a violin, their songs are clicking all the same pitch with no discernible harmony. They roll out tiny ***** as expert excavators leaving hole for escape from man and fowl.
The little birds, sandpipers scurry around- their skinny twig like legs moving faster than the eye can follow, putting one in front of the other, always moving forward never backing up making quick tight turns running from the water then chasing the bits of food as the foamy crooked line of surf pulls away.
Pausing to pick up a tiny speck of food too small to notice, her bony toes mark the mud writing in a cuneiform like language, probably a dead tongue not spoken for millennia. Beautiful shapes pointing, spelling out instruction and direction.
Lasting only seconds until the wind and water wipe the earthen canvas clean. A new page is opened tempting and luring the small writer with tidbits of food, enticing her to write line after line of an ongoing novel that will never be finished.
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 9:22 PM UTC
*The tawny autumn pastures of Whitehouse
Home of Ozias , the graves of my kin
Miller's Millstone and the Selfridge banks
of Cotton Indian , Roseberry field , Wilson
Chicks Farm , Camp creek and Berry Hill ...
Candy beside Rabbit Rock , bicycles along Decatur
Road , locks of honeysuckle , broomsage , parcels
of soybean and sorghum , sweetcorn and home gardens ..
Fiddlers *** along South rivers sandy banks and islands
Yellow Perch , smallmouth , rock bass and calico*
Feb 14, 2017
Feb 14, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC