"gondola" poems
cedar planks line the dim lit hall
morning snow begins to fall
sepia print in a chipped wood frame
embers spark from the franklin flame
rustling sounds from bunks below
records play in a tight alcove
bacon grills on an iron sheet
gloves are warmed by baseboard heat
bean bags tossed on colored ****
papka placed as a punching bag
red brick wall with mounted poles
windows filled with glacier bowls
whiskey jack on the southern rail
a frozen patch of wine and ale
pine cones fall in gathering white
brothers bathed in firelight
sleighs are on the table top
canyon road is at a stop
northern winds that bite the face
lines are up the gondola base
cornice clipped by gully goats
the rubber man appears to float
alpine depths are on the rise
peaking sun through parting skies
triple ropes and nordic luge
honored guests from baton rouge
gelande jumps on rainbow drive
nostalgia’s light and warm reply
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 5:50 PM UTC
the miniscule, crystallized phenomena
floating down on their zephyr gondola
to the little children's enchantment.
the wintriness nipping at their stamina
produced petite gloved hands pulling tightly at their jacket.
to rollick the day away was their only commandment.
fast forward a few years, and they'll be learning algebra,
their minds drifting away during lectures on parabolas
to the forgotten days of freedom; they lament
the loss of their fragile frostwork taffeta.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 11:04 PM UTC
It was in the end of September,
The kashmir trip i still remember,
The thought of going to the heaven on earth made me feel so excited,
I was happy and delighted,
Our eyes filled with enthusiasm and hope,
And to kashmir we wanted to lope,
Just the twelve of us,
There wouldn't be any ruckus or fuss,
We were accompanied by ma'am Handa and Mr. Pandey,
We enjoyed everything from gondola rides to our house boat stay,
We went to places like Sonamarg and Pahalgam,
We'd get tired reach the hotel and apply Jhandu balm,
We enjoyed all our horse rides,
We were accompanied by well-versed guides,
We always managed to take out time for shopping,
From shop to shop we went hopping,
Kashmiri kawah and authentic Kashmiri food for almost every meal,
Would make the tiredness for long distance walking heal,
A Kashmiri wedding is also what we attended,
For back and forth rides on shikara we depended,
Oh! But to sum up I have to say,
In kashmir we loved it each and everyday.
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 3:10 AM UTC
Meandering like its canals
Venetian streets sing underfoot.
Who wore away the stone cobbled streets?
Who walked down to the shore?
Who gazed out at the Adriatic?
Who's dreams were lost in Venice's stream of streets?
Licentious lovers loved in Venice's streets, kissed on her bridges,
Crossed under by gondola and over by foot.
Proposed at the piazza San Marco.
Kissed, while the Grand Canal wound her way down.
Down into the sea,
where the menace that is the world, Venice shuns.
Rialto, Doge, Basilica, St. Marks, pigeons!
All evoke that lagoon city of streets.
Originally refugees, incolae lacunae ("lagoon dwellers")
Venetians, gave not only a place for the dispossessed,
but a place for the world to see, feel and taste.
Art, war, politics, commerce, spice and silk.
Venice with her ribbon of streets, alleyways and bridges
saw the Renaissance, the crusades, and the Black Death.
Glassware, paintings, sculptures, religion, refugees all
synonymous with that floating city.
A city returning to the water she arose from.
Subsiding with grief as she drowns in elegant decay.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
Jupiter Mars P Moon
VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.
Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon.
Life is absorbed in its beatitude,
A meditative mage beneath the moon
Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude,
To Campo Santo that, this night of June,
Heals for awhile the immitigable feud?
Adela!
Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola!
Through maze on maze of silent waterways,
Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,
We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways
Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas
Swoon in the ***** of Pacific bays!
We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies,
Adela!
Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!
They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres
That guard such ghostly life. They tower above
Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs
No angel from the pinnacles thereof.
All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers
That reigns is this most silent crown of love
Adela
That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.
They twist, they twine, these white and black canals,
Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx.
Even as out love - raging wild animals
Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix
To radiate seraphic coronals,
Flowers, flowers - O let our light and darkness mix,
Adela,
Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!
Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire,
Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash,
Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre,
Your eyes His stars - come, let our Venus lash
Our bodies with the whips of Her desire.
Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash,
Adela!
Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?
3.4k
This majestic mountain invites us up to play
Above the clouds and valley haze
We own it for a day
Rising in the gondola, cables taking strain
Bronzed faces still and quiet
Studying terrain
Alpine chough and ptarmigan are seen from time to time
But alpine buzz is really
What we have in mind
A pack of snowboards hurtles by doing what they dare
A whiff of marijuana
Lingers in the air
Some are here for night-life, drunk in bed by three
Not in search of apres
During's good for me
The weather's right, tons of snow
Come on, come on, we've got to go!
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 11:25 AM UTC
The moth’s kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide open I burst.
The bee’s kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you enter’d gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.
3.2k
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
countess passed on until she came through the
little park, where Niobe presented her with a
cabinet, and so departed.
Burbank crossed a little bridge
Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
They were together, and he fell.
Defunctive music under sea
Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
Had left him, that had loved him well.
The horses, under the axletree
Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
Burned on the water all the day.
But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
Chicago Semite Viennese.
A lustreless protrusive eye
Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once.
The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
Money in furs. The boatman smiles,
Princess Volupine extends
A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
She entertains Sir Ferdinand
Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.
3.2k
I’d Love to go to France
And sail upon the Sine
I’d love to go to Germany
And Sail upon the Rhine
I’d love to see the castles
Of England and of Spain
To see the royal Princess Kate
And her lovely husband William,
Oh, to have Prince Charming as a mate
And then the rain that stays mainly in the plane
Having traveled there in luxury by lavish gilded train
I’d love to see the mountains
In Switzerland and Austria
And see the vast rice fields
In Countries like Korea
And drink frothy bubbling ale
From a tavern near a windmill in the Netherlands
And climb a tiny mountainous hill
In enchanting charming Whales
I’d love to see the canals
In a Gondola in Venice
Or maybe go to China to watch some table tennis
I’d love to see the pyramids
Of Egypt and Peru
And see the Ancient Monoliths
On Easter Island too
And feel the spirits of Celtic and Norse Gods rise inside of me
At magical stunning Stonehenge
While far off in the distance Scottish Bagpipers play for free
But Alas, Alas sadness ensues
These things I’ll never see
Poverty always haunts me
And I won’t win the lottery
I’ll never see the breathtaking things
That others take for granted
Though they will always be here
Part of this amazing planet
I’ll have to take in what I can
And not hope for what cannot be
I’ll have to imagine all these things
In my own special way
and see all I can see
Watching shows like, “Rick Steve’s Europe”
Scheduled to air, everyday
On PBS TV
Sarah Hall Minks Copyright 4/28/12
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 11:12 AM UTC
a beaten man bleeds, but lives boldly
trees, leaves and ****** skin diseases : before we bleed, we scream
i’ve screamed; we bleed; i’ve done it all and we’re here together
in sickness, i have seen the wall of sound that frightens me
in health, i’ve heard the yelps of a beautiful young dog with coins for eyes and golden silk for a coat
in insanity, i’ve found myself, twisted, i know, but i am lying there; content
in life, i am everything all of the time
in death, i’ve seen the truth
in venice, my gondola has spilled over into a stream of consciousness which i have not known of
in paris, i’ve slept at the bottom of the seine
in corfu, i’ve basked in warmth and love
in moscow, i’ve seen a man’s heart and a woman’s soul be married
in the church, i have loved, bled and screamed
my hunger has not been satiated; bolder now, i’ve been louder
in a quiet field; i’ll lie with you; i’ll bleed you dry; i’ll replenish you; i’ll love you; i’ll write our life stories on the surrounding woods
i’m beginning again; i’m burning fuel to start the end of my consumptive nature
i digress, i digress, i aggresively digress
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
If you ever die
If you ever die from me
Looking at my longing eyes
In guise of a mystic veil
Dead drop at the twilight hours
White longish fangs
Of the piercing moments
Will unfurl its wings of fire
Setting sail in an invisible gondola
At long last to carry you home
To the isle of your birth
Even if you ever die at all from me
I will stand upon the deck of noontide
All alone in my aloneness, all alone
Staring vaguely at the rushing gondola
Surfing invisibly away from me
Tearing apart the veil of grazing mist
At the twilight hours casting spell on me
To diminish myself into you
And with you I too diminish away
From you, all away from you
In a shroud of love and longing
As if you never died away from me
In my longing eyes for you, only for you
And like The Prophet beloved
Prophesying on the blue mountain
From his never ending well
Of wisdom depthless and deathless
I will remember you as silently
As the sound of scorching darkness
And I will remember your heart
As saying for ever to me, only to me:
“A little while,
A moment of rest upon the wind,
And another woman will bear me." *
* (The italic quotation is from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet)
Apr 24, 2010
Apr 24, 2010 at 10:53 AM UTC
lazy afternoon
meandering through the canals
gondola and gondolier both a touch of the romantic
wanting to lose myself
in the belly of this beautiful city
get so lost i could never get out
bottle of vino, a couple of delicate wine glasses
eyes only for you, but my ears are Vivaldi’s
or just the trilling notes of that old Hindi tune
with some Italian verses thrown in for good measure
poetry flows here not water
the ghosts of Byron and Browning haunt them
*** time must stand still for me
as i explore this fantasy***
-Vijayalakshmi Harish
08.10.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 12:52 PM UTC
I was sitting at the top of the Ferris wheel
Alone in gondola, swaying at the top
The lights flickered below, and a breeze blew
And I hit an all time low,
When I reached for a hand, any hand
But there was not one there
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
I found you, cast away in the shadows,
hiding from the laughter, of those
painted clown faces
I found you, on the rooftop
sat with your arms, clasped
to you, wrapped around
Searching through the crowd
blinded, the lights of this
crazy, maddening fairground
Colours forming, moving
the Northern lights, blazing
blues, green, pinks, yellows
Kids and lovers, screaming
the Matterhorn spinning,
a frisbee gondola swinging
Midsummer Fair, a fresh green common
distracted, I turn, the Midnight Express
decorated, loosely dressed women and men
Axles rattling in and out
Ferris wheels, bumper cars, waltzes
Ray Davies playing, side stalls and games
Rubber ducks hooked, fathers shadowing
***** misplacing baskets, a high strike to the bell
in among mirrors, I now find myself reflecting
A cacophony of sounds, noise
music of Bob Bradley penetrating
these convex mirrors, movers and shakers
I pace past drag queens, circus freaks
footsteps moving in timely accord
the Helter Skelter, confused, disorderly haste
I am the whirlwind, climbing outside
the spiral tower, to the top
stars and constellations above
At its peak, I see you
you've climbed onto the rooftop
again
I always found you here
hide and seek, morphed into
children's games of sardines
I find you, you have hidden
I stay with you,
until we are found
Together.
© Sia Jane
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
i know, it's not exactly mesmerising
such bounties with such curdling
crudeness, but that's how it is,
with eyes vectoring into the above,
cobalt, the highest pinnacle of the depths,
a shade like any other,
and then seeking the horizon, the dilution
of the formidable shade into Arctic...
a near white, but not exactly white,
not exactly worth metaphor that's a kindred
of white & black as lack & lack...
just the see-through colour for the allowance
of possessing eyes, not near melted mirrors
of mercury, but by day,
the highest peak blue in hue of cobalt,
and when walking from the mountain's peak,
the eyes spot the Arctic and Adriatic mist hues
outlining a bordering of all things elemantal...
the transparency of the whole dynamo
on being grounded from all elevations,
before dipping into the seas' shrubbery...
for indeed the sky makes use of the close-up, apparent
green shades of the sea, or the Thames grey
without an earl on a royal gondola worthy a parade,
nearer then the grander colour scheme,
but up from space, indeed, all is blue and all is green,
and all is sandy suntanned bronze
and seemingly serene; lest we forgot the dollops
of skeletal, floating in cloud - those scouts of Antarctica;
but from the elemental blue of the sky
receding into the seas of mirrors via arctic into white
if not seemingly see-through, there too i spot
the antidote of white nearing the pristine state of
claiming being see-through, a crow's
bleak colour of being shrouded
in celebratory mourning: the pupil of my eye, black,
and all the world around me, the flattened earth
of my iris, for no astronaut i am to imagine it otherwise,
from a perspective of such heights reached by
fellow man, if i am to be so humbly grounded,
i'll imagine it counter-productively as thus.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC
While the wine and cheese and skinny upturned mustaches
Were all there,
Wrapped in gold tissue paper and tied with white bows
The passion, desire, and spark
(which were promised by the $24.99 guidebook)
Were nowhere to be found,
Not even floating down a gondola on the Seine
(or am I thinking of Venice now?)
I wrote home in two postcards
(not because I had so much to say)
But because I thought my family should see the Eiffel Tower in both day and night
As plastered on the pair of plastic, flimsy cards I mailed away.
Being away from Mom and Dad, I thought I’d enjoy it
But after investing in a French-English Dictionary
I learned that the love letters I’d been receiving here
(voulez vous coucher avec moi?)
Weren’t so lovely after all.
I told them that I’d tried French Onion soup,
That I’d walked down that street featured in Midnight in Paris,
and that between the guns slung over shoulders
(worn like fake Louis Vuittons advertised by desperate venders)
and the solicitors outside the Moulin Rouge
the city of love
had shattered my unprotected heart.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 7:53 PM UTC
Have you ever heard in your mind
the sounds that silence makes
the silence that spreads like music
as in splendor a dewy morning breaks
silence that clings to a Florentine fog
as lone cyclist a cobble street snakes
the silence that hangs heavy
after a heavy down pour finally ends
or await with it for the moment
when heaven its pearly reward sends
they sound so different and surreal
like life’s ethereal myriad bends
the silence that weighty dwells
in wisps, rises from vacant eyes
the silence that fills to the brim
dole, of a beggar’s ripping sighs
silence that hangs like a sword
on fears of unsaid distant byes
silence o endless tormenting silence
you play on a piano’s dusty keys
from a chair that rocks in howling wind
on a lifeless verandah, distant sees
from a score of such like mends
wherefrom one has drunk to ones lees
it speaks no man’s earthly breath
yet heard in shattering numbness
in ache and blight so steeped
in rustle of a long gone worn dress
in raucous merry gay proceeds
or the mirth of a child’s bless
in the time of a frisky bloomy day
or gnaw of a long starry night
the lullaby of distant streaking trains
or the gondola’s reflective sight
the cavort of journeys done together
Echoes the hush of a soundless blight
original
saadat tahir
22nd July, 2k13
Islamabad.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 11:59 AM UTC
Drifting down canals in Venice.
Gondola on peaceful drift.
Look to the right sun shines bright.
Over the public house on the bank.
While aged horse traipses by.
Through Suez Canal drifting the world, with no sighs in sight.
This morning I rise,
My teeth they are screaming.
My root canals are in need of filling!
(C) LIVVI 2014
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 2:19 AM UTC
Here as I sit
At this empty café
Thinking of you
I remember
All those moments
Lost in wonder
That we'll never
Find again
Though the world
Is my oyster
It's only a shell
Full of memories
And here by the Seine
Notre-Dame casts
A long lonely shadow
Now, only sorrow
No tomorrow
There's no today for us
Nothing is there
For us to share
But yesterday
These cities may change
But there always remains
My obsession
Through silken waters
My gondola glides
And the bridge, it sighs
I remember
All those moments
Lost in wonder
That we'll never
Find again
There's no more time for us
Nothing is there
For us to share
But yesterdays
*Ecce momenta
Illa mirabilia
Quae captabit
In aeternum
Memor
Modo dolores
Sunt in dies
Non est reliquum
Vero tantum
Comminicamus
Perdita*
*Tous ces moments
Perdus dans l'enchantement
Qui ne reviendront jamais
Pas d´aujourd´hui pour nous
Pour nous il n´y a rien
A partager
Sauf le passé
Tous ces moments
Perdus dans l'enchantement
Qui ne reviendront
Jamais
Apr 16, 2019
Apr 16, 2019 at 6:02 AM UTC
.Her adjectives were littlemore than colorful trinkets that splashdark light, even on Sunday mornings therewas no rest for the wicked. My earsrejected the multi-colored grotesque barrageof hateful verbiage crammed in therewith every other simple sentence that you couldprobably see long stains left behindlike a fatal battle scar. Her mother was just as evil--I'm surprised my wife even made it to puberty. I supposeshe wanted a carbon copy just in case of an emergency,because she practiced clenching old mens' esophagus' with herice cold eyes; much, much colder than any sea on the moon;Tranquility must have been banned from her cartographers budget.Her words were like old moon rocks she'd hurl at passers bywith her catapult like tongue and even swifter middle finger. Always aiming at the frontal cortex. Her harsh textured words would kickand claw their way down ravaged ear canals like three ****** off catsin an Italian gondola slowly floating down the over saturated streets.It usually irked me beyond comprehension when she would bring outthe sickly sweetened, over ripe verbal ammunition to pry and beg mefor more cigarette money. I'd give her the money with my favorite feined grin which bought me sacred time and to watch her walk away..
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 12:34 AM UTC
Do I really have to be French to pronounce this correctly?
Ya, **** you for calling me racist.
Is that what you really want?
Will you bleed it out of me?
Fine. Then give me that ******* pencil mustache and a raspberry beret,
And while you're at it I'll row a gondola down memory lane for you.
Oh wait, that's Italian.
Now that's racist.
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
I could get on a plane,
and scale the alps,
or scuba drive across The Great Barrier Reef.
I could push around a gondola,
learn to rope a steer from a cowboy,
or man a tuk tuk.
I could be painted a million different colours in India,
drink my weight in beer in Germany,
or pour out my heart into a notebook under the Eiffle tower.
I could do all of these thing, but my responsibilities would be waiting for me at home.
University, jobs, love, life. It would all be waiting, ready to turn me into an adult
So, let's keep moving , eh?
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 8:38 AM UTC
I remember in the days when I wore overalls
And had pajamas with dinosaurs on them.
When a pinky promise was unbreakable,
And whoever could run the fastest was king.
The world was huge.
A trip to the grocery store was a great journey.
A small boat ride was a quest for the Golden Fleece.
Flying on an airplane was like going to another planet.
Then I became a teenager.
The world was smaller.
The internet had compacted it.
The media shaped it.
The elders squandered it.
And I believed them.
I saw pictures.
I saw people write about their exotic trips.
How they found the culture in India to be quite lovely,
But the temperature was over-bearing.
How they found that everyone loves their beer in Ireland,
But the greater beauty was in the landscapes.
Now I am older... ish.
But I see more truth than ever before.
They found.
They thought.
But what do I think?
What do I think of these places that I have never gone to?
To tell you the truth,
I don't know.
But that world that was once small.
That world that was so infinitesimally microscopic.
Suddenly came roaring into my head.
Venice was waiting for me to visit it!
To sail on a gondola with a beautiful Italian girl.
Paris awaited me!
To indulge in delicious cuisine!
Germany had its arms wide open!
They think they can drink?
I say, "Prost!"
The world is open and ready for adventure, my friends!
So, who's coming with me?
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 3:00 AM UTC