"gorse" poems
He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear
He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.
Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.
'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend,
To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end",
For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse
He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.
Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:
'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,
And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,
Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way."
8.4k
The withered gorse
gives a glint of her golden hue
amongst Winters cumular invitation,
whose ember leaves mire
neath the creaking boughs.
The forge in the village
with its hard working blacksmith
presides by mornings emerald gown
of aconites blithely swaying in the churchyard.
The dormant headlands'
silent yearnings jostles,
with the arcane wind ;
plying against the piebald sky,
whose tales refuse to ring hollow.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:02 PM UTC
Coastline, rocky, rugged, proud,
Crumbling cliffs in ozone shroud,
Sun-kissed drifts of desert sand,
Golden frame of a sea cradled land.
Fishing village, atmospheric hub,
Brass band playing, outside quaint old pub,
Boats, all sizes, rest near harbour wall,
Wading birds sift through tide-filled pool.
Foliage explosion of a Cornish hedge,
Country lanes snake, and young birds fledge,
Ruminants, punctuating, quilted hill,
Buzzards soar and wise hares are still.
Tin mine engine house, towering stack,
Roof caved in, gorse and bracken’s back,
White clay peak, geometrical and sleek,
Earth’s riches gouged, canyon deep.
Moor-land, open, untamed, granite strewn,
Wild ponies dance to a skylark’s tune,
Tor and beacon, barrow and mound,
You’re in God’s own country, when you walk this ground.
Jun 10, 2017
Jun 10, 2017 at 5:05 AM UTC
330
The Juggler’s Hat her Country is—
The Mountain Gorse—the Bee’s!
3.1k
Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs sprayed all over the everywhereworld.
"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.
And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.
These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.
While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
Coarse granite slabs split the earth
glinting at the fractured sunlight.
Sly winds whip and lash the grass and gorse;
disconsolate skies weep upon the land.
Rain rushes in to bloat the meagre streams,
and gulleys slash the sinewed clay.
Pulse and sluice. Erosion fashions
new forms of contoured legends.
Ragged crows snag the horizon
blasted and cursed. Little else
between the walls of weathered stones:
hand-laboured one on one.
The moor muscles its independence,
frowning at the low land,
bragging to the skies
its ancient splendour.
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010 at 6:56 AM UTC
The shadows of us fall away,
Opening portals within ourselves,
The joy of us, the song,
Fills us together.
We fall as one, our shadows unite,
Our sunrise opens across the sky
The landscape of us stretches out
As this dawn dampens our tears
To the silver sky.
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 1:15 AM UTC
Often we approached the bay over high ground
Taking the track from Totland between the heather
Where the small blue butterflies dusted the grass
With a fluttering sparkle and the gorse spoke yellow.
The climb to the top was arduous with many stops
Sitting on prickles, the scent of sheep buzzing
Around our ears and nostrils and filling sandels.
A rest refreshed with that thermos coffee hot on lips.
Then in an instant we came out of shadow to meet
The white glare off the sea and a downward decent
Across grassland filled with thistles
To drop
Through style and gate and down onto the road.
Love Mary
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 7:18 PM UTC
Where were you, you little *******
Where were you hiding
As I turned out the lights last night?
Were you in the closet as I came into the bedroom?
Did you seep like a flood
Across the floor in the darkness
Rising up the leg of the bed
And into my ears like liquid toxic waste?
Were you under the pillow
And as my fingers slid under there
Between the crisp, smooth layers of white cotton?
Did you coil about my fingers
And up my arm
To spread over my scalp
All fuming-acid corrosive?
Were you in under the folds
Of the welcoming, white-striped comforter
As we turned in after a perfectly pleasant day?
Waiting, still, in the dark
As I pulled the blankets up taught?
And just below my chin
As the cold sheets around me warmed
To stop the just-into-bed shivers?
Did you crawl up then as I dozed
And twist around my throat
To tighten slowly until I awoke in your grip?
Where ever you were hiding,
You got the drop on me.
You turned the tiny dim lights
That peek into the room at night
Into piercing lasers.
You amplified the tiniest odours
Into dizzying, eye-watering stenches.
You traded the rising-sun's rays
As they finally pierced the curtains
After my hours of sleepless discomfort
For a blasts of neutron-bomb radiation.
Worst of all
You stole the cool, soothing side of the pillow
Every time I managed to find it
Giving me instead a sickly, warm bundle of gorse.
Where were you, you little *******
Where were you hiding?
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
“it will become a habit you get into
or i’ll just cut it off
it will become a habit”
the habit of the knuckle dragged in gorse
the salt of the crisp packet burned, a curse
upon my fingers, numbed by cold
bled daily, blistered on the pan
and branded with the bone structure
of man, of man, of man
the habit of the knuckle crushed on concrete
of the flick knife opened leisurely and drawn across the thigh
but gently, dragging in the skin
halted by fear of jelly flesh
and metal sticking in the bone
the sickness that made ritual of coughing
poisoned christmas dinner, and the presents
and new year
the muscles taut upon the ribs from coughing
pulled to string like blu-tack, snapped
lopsiding me for days, and days
the new bad habit
of the scratch of metal keys
the catch in purple folds of flesh
with one foot on the skirting board
the shirt held in the mouth
the boxers down around the knees
the metal digging in again, again, again
the rise of rosy bump, and ****** blush
camden canal, past midnight, new year’s day:
“i deserve to die
i deserve to die”
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
Coastline, rocky, rugged, proud,
Crumbling cliffs in ozone shroud,
Sun-kissed drifts of desert sand,
Golden frame of a sea cradled land.
Fishing village, atmospheric hub,
Brass band playing, outside quaint old pub,
Boats, all sizes, rest near harbour wall,
Wading birds sift through tide-filled pool.
Foliage explosion of a Cornish hedge,
Country lanes snake, and young birds fledge,
Ruminants, punctuating, quilted hill,
Buzzards soar and wise hares are still.
Tin mine engine house, towering stack,
Roof caved in, gorse and bracken’s back,
White clay peak, geometrical and sleek,
Earth’s riches gouged, canyon deep.
Moor-land, open, untamed, granite strewn,
Wild ponies dance to a skylark’s tune,
Tor and beacon, barrow and mound,
You’re in God’s own country, when you walk this ground.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 4:21 PM UTC
High on the cliff path:
my fingers in wind
freshly passed across
the pewter sea
holding this pen, cold,
cold, colder now
with the sight of rain
fleeing the hills
of County Wicklow
I turn expecting to see
your profile
framed against Lyn's
sock rolled up to the calf
of Snowdon, then
nestling here against the toes
at the foot of Uchmynedd
I seek your hand and there is
only dry gorse, reluctant heather
Below these cliffs
swept by gulls and ravens
the sea touches the rocky base
in an endless, restless, breathless
turn and reflect, back, swept again,
swept back, restless, no end
only, only
a cold, cold kissing of the land
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 12:57 AM UTC
It's never ending,
The drains overflow,
Cars bathe pedestrians
Who are already drenched.
There's a cool breeze
Blowing in this city of wind.
It would be perfect,
If I didn't live in the city.
Take me to the moors
Where the grouse nest
And the choughs graze.
To the sea of heather.
The smell of wet earth,
Pummeled by car exhausts
Poisons the streets and
Like me, the trees try to escape.
I could wander the moors
Till I reach the cliffs
Where the salt of the Atlantic
Makes love to the gorse.
The shelter given
By a rotting house
Cannot be compared.
I would rather roam the moors.
May 7, 2011
May 7, 2011 at 12:38 AM UTC
you said my hair,
so awful red, set fire
to the gorse petals,
you said my eyes,
darker, more green,
than any kelpie seas,
were sunken treasures,
skins on the stars, murky,
pearls to milky velvet face
of freckled, violet heavens,
you gave me wee flowers,
wilder than heather bloom,
you kissed me so deep
i fell over the moon,
you breathed bare
my holey soul,
you, my lad,
were rare,
my only,
poet.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 3:01 AM UTC
Nightfall's halting progress
Nightingale alights on lush gorse
Faint glint of lamplight on beak
From shed door left ajar
Within, the gentle thrum of lathing
The soft mirth of shared labour
Hushed air atingle
Twilight stutters
& fades
A hedgehog snuffles
May 1, 2021
May 1, 2021 at 8:05 PM UTC
Clinging hard metallic walls
with veins ******* sweetness from little
leftovers trickling down
the gorse stayed dancing between
open spaces of hell and heaven.
Death like tussle with elements
yellow blooms suckled pollen
from air vents travelling in the streams
passing within reach
shedding its seeds into the waiting
arms of rare tourist birds
sojourning in the skyways
of distribution and danger. The gorse
started small, spread quickly
and took over the countryside
with no one watching.
The caliphate was born
under the black hood of death
and the guns aimed at all
with scimitars of control
too late to stem
or seep the spreading venom.
Whole armies now sacrificed
on the altar of ideals.
The crusades will begin again.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
I live in the north with the hoodies and the loons,
Where the wild gorse grows and prickles the brooms,
Where fields and pastures roll into mounds,
Which fold into mountains which tickle the clouds.
I live in the north, more water than rock,
Grey, green and blue like glas on the loch,
Reflecting the perfect mirror of the moon,
Are the world's oldest rocks, from which it was hewn.
I live in the north where cold winds blow,
Bringing hailstones and hurricanes, sunshine and snow,
To pristine white sand beaches where white waves come foaming,
To the straths and the glens serene in the gloaming.
I live in the north, the land of the Scots,
Named after the Irish, the natives forgot,
A land of Vikings and Picts, through war and through fire,
They bested the worst of the Roman empire.
I live in the north where the music runs deep,
It can make you laugh till you cry or a grown man weep,
A reel to make you believe any fable,
A blast of the pipes'll have you dance on the table.
I live in the north, still ruled by a king,
Monarch of the glen, lord of the ling,
Whose forests lack trees and whose lands are bare,
Save for the lonely, hunted hare.
I live in the north where magic is real,
And you can never be sure if it's selkie or seal,
Where the goddess Aurora paints the night sky green,
And dances with more stars than you've ever seen.
Jan 6, 2018
Jan 6, 2018 at 4:06 PM UTC
As you drive across the Moors
Surrounded by Heather, Moss and Gorse
Enjoy the scene before you; rolling hills of many colours
Take the time, pull in, step out of your motor
Breathe deeply, take time to just be
Admire the grazing sheep and ponies
Not a care in the world; roaming free
priceless
As you drive across the Moors
Surrounded by Heather, Moss and Gorse
Let your mind roam free
Give yourself time for a break; breathe in the clean air
Regenerate your mind become for just a moment become free without care
priceless
As you drive across the Moors
Surrounded by Heather, Moss and Gorse
Take note of the palette of colours; Red, orange, yellow, green
Painting a most glorious rural landscape scene
Breathtaking in its simplicity
A million miles difference from the painting of a City
priceless
As you drive across the Moors
Surrounded by Heather, Moss and Gorse
Most of all be thankful, of course
That some of our parks are protected from development and modern progress
Preserved for us all to see
To visit from time to time and just be free
priceless
Nov 19, 2019
Nov 19, 2019 at 5:59 PM UTC
Bobbing to a swaying gait,
Torch light bounces at the edge of the world.
Laughter and larks hushed like the shushing waves,
As we crumple daisies and kick the tops off mole hills.
Home is only a field away,
But in the adjusting night, sleeping undercover never seemed so
surplus to requirement.
Clear skies, rum-bellies,
A watery film between the heavens and earth make freckle impressions on the sky,
Blemishes on perfect tone but it's all the more beautiful for it.
Deep indigo, emerald green, pillar box red then bed.
Zips bid the outside world goodnight.
Goodnight to hedgerows and gorse and guide ropes.
Goodnight rabbit warrens and linnet nests and bog asphodel.
Goodnight puffins and the minky whales and the surf.
Goodnight salty hair, goodnight cold noses, goodnight.
Oct 23, 2019
Oct 23, 2019 at 10:51 AM UTC
Zephyr’s whisper came and fled
Heaven’s tears from overhead…
When upon my cheek it rests,
Fie the early dusk that nests!
Haled beyond the distant shore,
I’ll not find there I found before.
By rosy lips and glowing cheeks
Heart rises over mountain peaks.
For children never leave too well
Without a gift like chime of bell.
What lovers hardly e’er impart
Without a package of the heart?
Of lips and swoons and kindly spells
A woman not too often tells…
But I with you a heart will share—
Life’s due burdens will rightly bear.
From me to you, and you to me…
For time and all eternity,
Though roads may climb and dizzy wind
Gorse for kisses we will find.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 10:28 AM UTC