"gliders" poems
Dead of night just as rehearsed
so many times o'er England's green fields
D Company, show no fear
A band of brothers flying high
Families waiting, home fires burning
Hoping to see their brave men once more
Gliders silent, Deadstick begins
Pegasus and the Sword await their fates
Take bridge and beach at any cost
Enemy waiting, will not go gently
They must be ours
Must be taken
Battle hard, blood is spilt
Both sides lose good friends, brothers
Success is ours but at a price
But we all know freedom is
The most precious thing we have
Pegasus Bridge, Sword Beach,
just 2 of many places
etched on our memories today
It all began here, liberation
70 years ago this very night
Brave young men
Strong and true
We give our thanks, god bless them all
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 3:42 PM UTC
A poem for my beloved grandmother, Omi
A beautiful heart brought across on the gliders,
Forced away by Red pride, the awful black spiders.
She cried cross oceans in Grandpa’s camo embrace,
Safely gone from the 30’s, and end to the chase,
*“Zese mountains vere safe, Deutschland re-pborn.
Ve vere ‘ere vhen this town bekan, Cyril.”*
Omi’s voice pauses, marred by our Western smog,
Christmas we sit at her feet and her eyes again fog.
This story we hear, we’ve heard, but it is not cheap,
Our roots are revealed and we cringe as Omi weeps,
*“I vont drive, no and I can not vote,
Pbut this landt is safe, Cyril ve are free!”*
As her amber eyes ripple, it’s now time, we know,
This country she loves, yet it’s pain the more so.
The airs tightens thickly as we wait the remark,
The blame she gives freely makes this land so dark,
*“Bobby diedt and Monica followedt.
Cyril, I bpuried my childt and ‘ushband here”*
It wasn’t the Cancer or Smoke in their lungs,
This country she blames and it’s pitch-forked tongues.
So we hug to apologize for ‘ol Uncle Sam,
Not ****** but Freedom she says poisons this land.
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 12:33 PM UTC
The first taste of Fall , with a slight nip in the air , reminds me of a five year old in his Astronaut gear ! Football helmet , pliers and hammer from Dads tool case ! Yellow raincoat and cowboy boots , outside the Eagle on Tranquility Base , Neil Armstrong exploring the creek beside the Mothership ...Home ..Crawdad matches , tadpoles , mud puppies , mantids , a few June Bugs with kite string tied to one leg ..Aggies , Immies , shooters and swirls , GI Joes , jack stones and wood gliders ....
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 3:00 PM UTC
We are apart, and yet when your voice sounds on the telephone, we are not. In those opening seconds a play of inflections and intonations remind each other of this bond between us. As our words fan out across the mostly inconsequential things of a day past or, if it is early morning, a day to come, that binding loosens and we divest ourselves: to feel comfortable. It is so often difficult, but last night, as I stood between the reed beds beneath Constable’s great skies and you sat with our son on his birthday, there was a kind graciousness between us – and I hold it to me now. After our goodbyes I stopped and thought of this birthdate, of this boy of ours, then years past. I see a photo. The candled cake lit and he is leaning over the table about to blow to secure his wish. There I am, my face wind-burnished from a fortnight of walking the cliffs, daily throwing my ideas from the heights to soar like gliders, and returning safely to be launched and soar again, and higher or for longer. Just now I am holding the past dear, and my days are threaded through with memories of the onset of autumn. I dream of an autumn time free from the beginnings of things that one day we might share together; to go out to pick blackberries and return to our small home, and as we drink tea, watch the late afternoon light flicker and flow through the trees to pattern the carpet at our feet.
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 2:14 AM UTC
SPRING IS
Rainbows and flowers,
Umbrellas and showers.
Easter eggs and bunnies
And bees making honey.
Green grass and daffodils
And hiking on new trails.
Gardens and fishing poles
And leisurely strolls.
SUMMER IS
Sunflowers and kites
And kids riding bikes.
Sunshine and shade,
Hot dogs and lemonade.
Sandcastles and waves
And long lazy days.
Home runs and sliders
And flying new gliders.
FALL IS
Long walks and sweaters,
Touchdowns and headers.
Red leafs and golden,
Soon to be stolen.
Pumpkins and costumes
And witches on brooms.
Turkey and dressing
And family blessings.
WINTER IS
Snowmen and scarfs,
Getting warm by the hearth.
Ice skates and hot chocolate
And gloves in your pocket.
Trees all alight
And cold winter nights.
Santa and sneezes
And little baby Jesus.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 6:27 PM UTC
It stretches out before me.
Crystal blue and shining like silver
The lake so clear and blue.
From the high hill I can see it
A huge and unknowable expanse,
So very like the sky it mirrors.
Clouds float through deep blue water,
Moving over the surface like the slender water gliders
Sliding across some tiny puddle.
Through which I so carelessly tread.
What glorious things,
What magics of the universe,
Have I so pointlessly destroyed?
Trampled underfoot like some unknowing goliath
Even while some small, enthralled viewer,
Did revel in it, as now I revel in clouds upon the lake?
For in the eye of a passing ant,
Is not the sight of watergilders on a puddle,
So small to our eye.
Not as grand as the vista I now see?
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 1:41 AM UTC
You can't hear them coming....
those avian creatures-
that stalk in darkness
"Owls.........they are!"
It's their "wings"
designed by natures science...
to soar in silence
waiting
watching
undetected
unexpected
From them, they got their name, those U S Air Force glider squadrons of World War II. After being released from a "tow plane", they silently descended toward a landing target behind enemy lines, with a cargo of supplies, gasoline, etc. Some, carrying a small cadre of troops, even a vehicle. The gliders couldn't be retrieved, the crews were on 'their own" to find their way back to any Allied force that could get them back to their units. Some didn't make it.
"God bless each and everyone of you!"
copyright: richard riddle 05-09-2016
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 2:18 AM UTC
When I was a kid,
I wanted to be a pilot.
I wanted to fly all kinds of planes
Fast plane, big plane, small plane,
I also wanted to fly the jets, and the HUGE cargo planes,
and then the gliders, hot air balloons, from the classic indian the pushpak vimaan to those double winged old airplanes, as seen on encyclopedias !
And ahh..
The fighter jets too
but a fighter jet would not have seats for a family picnic,
so may be I’d fly the passenger jets.
A Boeing 777 perhaps-
but all of this, my air plane fanaticism, was because I had a special place that I wanted to fly.
In one of my dad’s many stories, he once told me about a special plane.
It was called Moment 001- The first and the last of it’s kind.
Now, Moment 001 was the best kind of plane,
It was colored like the rain, it was faster than the human brain
It was lighter than a car, and it’s speed – INSANE !
So fast that not even time could catch up,
Moment 001 was a time machine.
But with wings and blinks and pretty little things.
A machine that goes so fast it can escape the grip of time.
When I was a kid, I could not wait to grow up !
And it was confusing,
The plant that I planted in grade 3 by the time I was in grade 4
was taller than me, and I would be the same.
I wanted to grow older faster,
in order to fly airplanes
and may be- just may be
get my hands on Moment 001.
And then it happened,
slowly, but it happened.
Growing up I realized time is a funny thing.
You can’t turn the clock arms around and go back to yesterday,
and then realizing that time and space are both quantities,
and then again some theoretical physicist say-
that time is not really timeless.
Basically,
We humans have not figured time out.
No time machines !
Moment 001 was an airplanes that did not exist.
But where science failed me, art found me.
Airplanes were replaced by poetry,
and I was fascinated by words.
I wanted to fly words.
All kinds of words,
Strong words, Science words,
some right words, some wrong words,
used up words, and some left over words,
rap words and pop words-
And it turns out,
They have invented time machine in poetry
A long long time ago
And no, I did not grow up to be a pilot,
but that does not stop me from flying-
my paper planes.
Sep 2, 2020
Sep 2, 2020 at 11:13 AM UTC
I stop and wonder of the old homes past
Crumbling from the bottom up
Why was it left behind?
My mind imagines the years gone by
A family full of love and life
Forever was with-in reach
***** children chasing fireflies at night
Ankles ringed with mystery dirt
Olly Olly Oxen Free
Rockers and gliders making front porches squeak
Grown folks keeping an eye
On kids running wild
Watermelon slices, so cold and sticky
Served to keep them at bay
Wash cloths always near by
Young ones knew that yellow lights in the windows
Meant that soon they would bed
Dreaming of tomorrow
But now, there was no yellow window light
No breeze blowing in to cool
The dreamers
Now there were echoes of innocent laughter
Under a missing roof
And darkness
The safe sounds of parents talking downstairs
Reduced to mere memory
What happened?
As I walked away from the old home at dusk
My heart heavy with loss
I wished them well
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 10:35 PM UTC
on a southwind eagles fly,
majestic gliders forensic eyed, poised
on shifting drafts of autumnal clear-skied air,
on breezes yearning steadily from southern seas,
from seas afar,
deep blue dark realms of wilderness and mystery
whose fathoms cold, swarm with micro and macrocosmic life;
all forms to balance and connect this natural world
by land and sea, in ocean and air, on wing and eye, all upon which
this life of ours so utterly depends, as it does
when on a southwind
eagles fly
MChallis © 2016
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 4:27 AM UTC
Sweet surrender
Unbutton my shirt
Wash my breast with your sweat
Fiddle my ******* with your spit
Use your fingertips as hang gliders
Meet me under your sun
That way I know you are coming
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 3:21 AM UTC
I remember that night you asked if I would ever marry you
without having to think about it, I blurted out yes
I remember that night we were all talking about the kissing snow outside, as we left you ran out side and kissed my cheek.
I remember watching lightning, eating thai food, playing with sugar gliders, singing our elephant love medley, laying in the middle of the street, sitting around the fire, teaching kids about theatre and looking up to see you smiling at me, blowing bubbles like we were those kids, sitting in your empty house listening to the sound of me playing your guitar, you telling me you miss my ponytail
I remember hugging you and never wanting to let go because letting go of you meant you were going to leave again.
I remember a lot of things and the thing I cant ever forget is the way you changed me.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
Slithering is the sound I hate to hear
On the ground, perhaps everywhere
At the lake, I barely walk near
Hearing the snouts, I wouldn't dare
I love the sea but too scared to be a meal
Of the razor teeth gliders, ready to ****
I've stopped picking coconuts recently
As the buzzing hard-shelled falls on me willingly
Right when I thought to pick some flowers
There came charging angry little towers
Noon is when I sit outside with my hot tea
The silent blood suckers happen to be
Out from their dark little camps
I am really fed up of these stinging vamps!
©sim
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 4:07 AM UTC