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Tom Gunn Jun 2012
Man and mouse holding hands, beholding

what they have done together.
A magic Marcelline, MO:

a portal to lands that beckon, but never compel.
Trees, silent water, castle walls dividing

off magic gardens and sacred
spaces.Tiki torches leading in

to a real rainforest with fake animals,
fedora'd adventurers and no dust

or hunger or poison. A whilring, infernal
rocket sprung from the mind

of Jules Verne, raisng your hopes that
one day you'll own that jetpack,

flying car, ticket to the moon.
A fairytale castle, draw-bridge down—

a glittering carousel inviting from behind forbidding walls.
A fort with wide open doors that fear only animatronic

Indians and where every frontiersman is a hero to be
emulated by your children.

You need not choose right away.
No need to be hasty. If you wish, you may

choose to stay here, to linger, the aroma of the popcorn
cart competing with the fragrance

of the popcorn blossoms on the sheltering trees
and the flowerbeds decorating, protecting

Walt's silent, inanimate memorial,
until the stars come out and

the crickets chirp in the voice of a
conscience content, and popcorn

lights form haunting outlines, constellations
telling whispered stories and seductively

suggesting that tomorrow you stand
in line for a new ride: falling in

love, signing the papers, applying
for that loan, giving it just

one more chance. Here, you cannot
sleep, but you will dream.

And rest in the heart, in the womb.
This poem is part of a cycle of poems in progress inspired by Disneyland. Substantive feedback is more than welcome.
Terry Collett Jul 2012
After tea
you went out

into the summer evening
without cowboy hat

or rifle
but your six shooter

tucked in the belt
of your jeans

to meet Helen
under the railway bridge

next to the Duke of Wellington
public house

I thought you weren’t coming
Helen said

standing in her summer dress
and holding her favourite doll

Battered Betty
my horse refused to come

so I had to walk
you said

Helen smiled
my mum knows I’m with you

but I mustn’t be out late
Helen said

where shall we go?
you asked

let’s go and see
what’s on at the cinema

Helen said
so you both walked

along the back streets
until you came

onto the main road
and studied the cinema billboards

I saw Davy Crockett here
you said

who’s he?
Helen asked

he was a frontiersman
who fought Indians

and wore a bearskin hat
you said

was he here?
Helen asked

it was a film
you replied

oh
she said

she swung Battered Betty
behind her back

from hand to hand
I haven’t been

to the pictures recently
mum said we can’t afford it

what about Saturday matinee?
you asked

you could come to that
it’s for kids only

and it’s fun
Helen brought Battered Betty

into her arms
I’m not sure

she said
I could asked your mum

you said
I’d take care of you

I’ve got my six shooter
Helen put her hand

in your hand
and said

ok she’d listen to you
Helen said

you felt her hand in yours
and hoped no boys

who knew you
saw this or

the following
small lips kiss.
BrittneyBrannum Feb 2014
Through the times I travel
Through the skies I fly
I hear judges slam gavels
I watch men as they spy
I see wars as they take place
I travel through Space
I’m the one who carries mace
As the mystery take place

As the ****** unfolds
I’m the one who hunts for gold
I’m the legend untold
I am the slave that was sold

I’m the baker on the corner
The hairstylist down the street
I am my loved one’s mourner
I’m that stranger that you meet

I’m a Solder
      An Explorer
      A Frontiersman
      A Spy
I’m a Witness
      A Doctor
      A Fairy
      A Nymph
I’m a Queen
      A ballerina
      A child
      A swan

I am a reader
Anyone I want to be
When I open up the pages of a book
Come with me, I’ll show you
Come take a look

Can’t you see the mountains
And the stream over there
I’m in the forest
A knife
My bow
One arrow
All that I’m armed with


A branch snaps
My arrow flies
The shot is true
And the deer is dead
My family will celebrate tonight
For we shall feed for many moons
      
Perhaps a different scene is more to your taste

Helmet on
Boots strapped tight
A gun is in my hand

The earth is shaking
Night is whistling
Bombs dropping all around
The world seems at its end

A blinding light
Then all goes silent
I hear my comrade calling
“Medic” “Medic”

Rushing to him
Kneeling at his side
I gather him in my arms
And run for shelter

Patched up now
He’s doing well
Or well as anyone can be expected to do here in this hell
It’s said you truly live
Only if you’ve faced death
This isn’t life
Life is
Being at home
Surrounded by the ones you love

Out here
The only thing that waits for us
Is death
The cold that creeps at night
Go to sleep
Not knowing if you’ll wake up
Or die during the night



Dreams of mothers
Of wives
And of kids
Dreams of brothers
And sisters
All of our kin

It’s how we survive
Through our dreams
Our imagination
It keeps us alive

It’s said the war
Will be over soon
I don’t see it
But I hope
I pray it’s true

Now the story is over
The journey is at it’s end

But I’ll travel again
Later tonight
I’ll open a book
A new adventure will begin
Question is,
Are you brave enough
To join me?
Written in 2010 for a poetry slam
The train roars from the station
I don't have a clue where I'm going
The Amtrak whistle is blazing
The hardest part is not knowing

The cars sway back and forth
As the blooming trees blur by
I know she was always worth
Every moment I was by her side

I am just a Passenger
On the train called life
I am just a lonely rider
Leaving the dark behind

For each long mile I travel ahead
Just a frontiersman of the modern day
For every ounce of tears I shed
I seemed to get lost on the way

I can tolerate the engine smoke
But I can't erase the smell her perfume
The train has no feelings to evoke
It just snakes its way from gloom

I am just a Passenger
On the train called life
I am just a lonely rider
Heading toward the light

© 2019 Michael Messinger(All rights reserved)
Eric L Warner Aug 2016
A roar broke the silent dissidence of head shaking in a coversation
   about America that I was in.
This voice railed against the country whose pride ran deep in her blood.
And with this voice, I agree.

But it did cause concern when she lumped the red, the white, the black
    and the blue in with the rusty freighters and rolling hills that I've come
        to love.
And the concern brought forth lessons from my own teaching.
Stories of 15th century frontiersman tramping around the great
    wilderness, with nought even a flag to their name, for they had
        rejected even that.
And memories of bloodline relatives that fought for the type of
     independence that the declaration wasn't offering.
An independence from having unknown men, armed with bibles,
    translated to the 19th power, telling them what's "right" and "just".

Now here we are today, lying in a grave that is no longer fresh whose
    tombstone reads: Democracy.
All because we have not yet understood that a flag is not a country,
    but rather a symbol of control.

And a country!
Now there lies something to love.

And it's easiest to love in the labored breathing of a mountain top view,
   or in a toast from the top of a water tower overlooking the Mississippi.
It can be seen in the wave of a conductor as he pulls out of the yard.
Or heard in the hissing of his wheels when you have the moment of
    realization that, "Yes! Those trains are actually going somewhere!"

It can be grasped in the handshake of a homeless man, who is not
   unlike your forefathers.
A cast away, tramping about the wilderness with not even a flag or
    a prayer, but two hands that are ready to work for change.
wordvango Sep 2017
it amazes me how
the frontiersman had to
survive without cellphones
and internet
I can't stand a minute when I
go down in some
hole driving
and my phone
drops the call
then I get home
chatting up my babe
sending wild emojis
and smiley faces
and get message not delivered messages
I couldn't ever be
Buffalo Bill
Ken Pepiton Mar 2020
there shall be moments when happiness
is not your state,

however in ever that happens,

it is, virtually, bound to happen,

but
in a literal existence of mere words, happiness

occurs ever after. You may be a

babbler wisher-for-happenstance to pirrouette on a pen
and whisper deep insights locked in hap

pens powered by magi-tech i-magined manufactured in mortal minds,

as it hapt.

---
the grip slips, words cease clinging to meanings and mean

- as in evil, mean people, mean words, mean spirited
things

arize to ****** the tiny hap...

which happens not to wish
to vanish
like a thought from a dream, but but

but re
mains, takes priority, exalts itself above the heard news,

you/me/we are irrelevant to, non-integrail to maintaining the flow of

peace that happiness always leaves in it's wake,

ah, always, we re
call the dry place, where we made no wake, no waves
to propagate

ripples, in time, near the nearest shore,

then, in time, near the farthest shore; nay,

in those dry places,

no such woken waves foam, dust rises as one step,

is taken by faith, no reason, save war is wrong so find some peace,

take a step, you might have to live like a refugee,

that's the story of confusion being unsnarled to reuse the meaning
in messengers going up and down,

and to and fro -- all balanced in the mix, a step taken to see from far away,

what if, another,

then one more, re becomes the rythm mmm re mmm re

call the idea, hap. Many haps must be that plenty state, happy,

plenely, right, plenty clear see happy is sufficiency of hap.

That is so simple, a child could be saved, if

it be possible, to live at peace, among all men. If ye say?

If? What, when ever what ever crisis of existance takes peace from the

dust,
breathe,  we left pure whist in the wind as we passed Kansas, in the spring

back when there was no morning dew,
any more...

and the farm blew into the Bermuda Triangle, by all accounts extant.

Considerated galactic storms were aitia-tic tic tict off, like war in

the heavens,

{ sloow read, while breathing aware, software in the air, just there}

the whole, integral system of life on an orbit around Sirius,

undeniable by flat earth witnesses all over the globe,
they admit. Sol is ellipticating pro

cessionally toward Sirius, the freakin' dog star. So,

we could make up a reason for war, with this much knowledge.

... but we can't tell the worker ants, those used to believe the six o'clock news.
For their own good,

suffice it to say, war makes money. Loving money, what makes that?

Lack of haps.

So simple, a five year old child can comprehend,
nothing beats money in the bank,

for giving a whole family that feeling of safety and security,
so much so
amen
that now the usage fee to the usery class, the tax-collectors and money-lenders, lets them lend to themselves at no interest.

No, child, not tree climbing tax collector
Zachias,
but he was a fanatic,
so don't take him for a role model... there were Mithraic bankers under the sign
of the Red Shield, in the Ghetto, about which Elvis sang,

Amazing-ly, from Graceland, in 1968, as an old idle word winks in passing,

I'm okeh, howeryew?

who converted then reverted, then, with riches in faith past Midas, one man, changed
ever after that,
says the story, Walt Disney

erected an image of a national pride,

The happiest place on earth, there where oranges grew, in Anaheim.

Golden apples, is what oranges were called, where oranges never grew, long ago,
in the realm of Asgard, where ever held cold hope, for mortals and gods,

Did you know?

Selah. I read the news today,  oh boy...

now, the peace I made is splashing as my cup runs over with love, as sung

by the guy who played the Tonto role to the official American hero history
Dan'l Boone or Davy Crockett,
Fess Parker - the official Disney-ify version,

American frontiersman model for boys, {a message from the sponsor}

with telescopic sight... see threads of star stuff swooshed before fore words in books

we read, we learn, we live and all we leave behind is the meaning intended unattended,

-so say the happy Sisyphus culties,

once a word loses meaning, each time you utter nonsense saying it, just take note,
give account.

What does that happen to do? How do you do? What's up?

Well, as it hapt,
I was odd. When asked, I answered true to how did I do, well,

i said, my side is winning. How are you? How do you exist at all, if

you choose to oppose me in this, your side lost when the referee

declared at all the crossings where choices are made  for patterns
in happenstances,
bliebe doch-- said Faustus now
now, ever never allows meaningless beyond

{slow- breathe}

good and evil, belief and dignity, dasein design,

oh-- a gleam, see, in the smile, tooth paste ads say that's *** appeal.

That's how boomer kids got *** ed... freeze, mind of a child, or you can't see

heaven is Disneyland. -- hush grandpa, don't spoil the fun...

Closed? There's no closing in Happiest Places on Earth, said Forrest Gump...

no
frozen statues query sphinxy riddles - with only old boomer stories left to hold

an eye for the needle all camels pass through,

if you get the tip of this thread,
wet,
and aim, steady, straight, miss, try again, we got all the monosylables in time

to find and redeem worthy of rereading for the possible metaphor left sealed.

And then you get a Corona, on the beach, it's a lifestyle.
A light heart, a light spirit, dark rumors of a toilet paper hoarder being burned on twitter.
Peace as a practical accident, happens as often as you notice, I've noticed. Life is a poem. My kids got me the Disney Channel. What a trip.

— The End —