"gravelled" poems
In Manolo Blahniks,
While her chair wears her jacket
And her fingernails play Orpheus
On a cigarette
packet,
A cold goddess in stone
And a flounce of french lace,
Gravelled footsteps
don't lift
Her resting-bitch-face.
So I announce
my arrival
With an unconfident cough,
Her eyes still
on the sunset,
She tells me to...
****
off.
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 3:41 AM UTC
A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry slope -
She casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
And stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
The stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.
Well, Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
Where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
Where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
Whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood are spattered on the spire;
Though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”
Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: “her age? a sweet 16,
With child, ***** her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.”
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
In limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
And all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
Which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.
Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
Neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.
Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
But Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire -
Beyond the nave, a gravelled grave, the final Rectifier”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 8:07 AM UTC
She is a spindle on my bed
Reminding me of my mumma
Sweating on my sheets,
naked, lewd, romanticizing me
Not knowing I hide her
from my friends and family
Not knowing I drink, pop
uppers, downers, as I prop
Up against the headboard
and as I watch her cradle
Her head between my
Half Caucasian, Half ******
Thighs, riddled with scars
Seven years old, one year older
Than the baby I gave up.
I wonder how I taste, how
I look, Do I taste like shame,
Do I taste like love forgotten
Do I look like the ******
The city girls gossip that I am
Can you see the removal,
The crib I threw my child from
The trauma that caused me to
Abandon him, to abandon me,
What will cause me
To abandon you
Sarah, my love, where have I gone
Why have I left you, bloodless,
Soulless in the pitch black dreary
Gravelled upon the smoothness
Of my deceitful, coarse projection
Sarah, I am sorry that my shame
Coerced me to run from your
Eternal rays downward on my
Dimpled, crooked smile, on my
Dimpled brown *** attached to
My snakey spine, what holds
My ribs, what protects my lungs
Which do nothing but breathe
You.
Jul 22, 2016
Jul 22, 2016 at 4:12 PM UTC
We reach a time in our lives
Shuffling along our own dusty highways
In the warmth of a whisky stained dusk
Watching the honeyed heat of our future seep along the horizon
Into bruised sky of overburdened past
We each meet the same crossroad of decision
The two sides of our soul extending welcoming arms
As we stand, a prize in the feud between mind and heart
Practicality and passion
Security and sensuality
Who am I to choose which gravelled path to follow
Whether to take the wrinkled hand of prudence
And crunch the stones of wisdom and logic with each familiar step
Does my future lay ahead
At that point where the sun kneels to kiss the ground
And throws its glowing arms across the earth in a blanket of safety
Not in passion, but affection
In the comfort of routine
The reliability and purity of what is, and what has always been
Or does it sit within the flicker of a fiery heart
In the sigh of breath that creeps along with the breeze
That trickles down my spine
And dares me to turn my head, to look down roads of impenetrable darkness
To embrace the possibility of the unknown
And the leaping tongues of flame that might lie where those paths end
To be engulfed, and to know myself within that destruction.
Is it the voice that whispers inside my veins
"should there be more than this?"
I stay static
Leaderless
A spectator to the conflict of the soul
Stuck fast in a deadlock of inertia and indecision
Awaiting that moment
When the last glimmer of sun has bled through the cracked earth
And I open my blurred eyes to icy silence, shapeless and pure in its clarity
To see, without obstruction
That the decision is clear.
My future transparent.
That there was only ever one road I could take.
Sep 3, 2016
Sep 3, 2016 at 3:46 PM UTC
We are halted on the path
where a small amphibious mite
has sprung headlong into an unknown world,
its river home now out of sight.
Fingernail-size it shrinks on the path,
absorbing the colours of the gravelled ground
and somehow surviving
the rigours of walkers and riders around.
Its freedom now moves it from riverbank hollows
to find the instinctive role that it follows.
Cradled in cupped hands it is carried to water
but I explain its life lies elsewhere.
These precious moments shared with my daughter
are but part of the time which may see it grow
and spawn in the seasons yet to come,
while we witness a cycle that’s just begun.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 9:54 PM UTC
These lanes are very narrow
you said
walking with Jane
from the parsonage
where she lived
to where the farm road began
Are they?
she replied
I’ve never thought about it
just that the hedges are high
and the birds chock full
in them and their songs
Yes
you said
They are
and in London
there are no hedges
or narrow lanes
and the only birds
are sparrows
and pigeons
and you wanted
to take hold
of her hand
and squeeze gently
the flesh
and sense her pulse
but you didn’t
you put your hands
in your jean pockets
and gazed sideways on
at her and her dark hair
and her profile
and the scent of her
like lavender
as if she’d dived
into a wide field of it
and embraced
the flowers and stalks
What bird song is that?
she asked
No idea
you replied
moving closer to her
the scent getting stronger
the desire to be closer
taking hold but still at bay
It’s a blackbird
she said
You’ll learn them all
the birdsongs
and where and how
they nest and in what months
and you nodded
and saw how
the summery dress
moved and swayed
as she walked
the flowered pattern
like a field moved
by a soft breeze
and her sandaled feet
touching the gravelled lane
and you thinking
how it would be
for them to be held
and kissed by you
if she were beside you
lying in a field
or in one
of those tall woods
and you pursed your lips
and she looked up at the sky
her eyes gathering
the blueness
and whiteness of clouds
and she said
Monet would have captured that so well
and You
you muttered
He would capture you well
each aspect
of your face
and hair and eyes
and she smiled
and looked at you and said
I’d want to be captured by Renoir
have his arthritic fingers
clutching brush
and capture me
and maybe secretly
lust after me
and she blushed
and turned away
and you thought
Oh yes yes yes
but said nothing
just gazed
and breathed in
her being
her beauty
all there
for you to view
the eyes
the hair
the profile
the way her lips smiled
and sway of walk
and the tall hedges
seemed to explode
with the wild bird’s talk.
Apr 17, 2012
Apr 17, 2012 at 2:03 AM UTC
I once upset a group of RSM's when I told them that foot drill was a waste of time. At the time they were bemoaning the introduction of a new rifle, not because of its small caliber, but because of its cumbersome appearance: 'It is not good to drill with' they said. Thus:
An Opinion Expressed
I was once a soldier smart,
Learned to stamp my feet, the art
Of calling out 'The Time', the thrill
Of perfect, synchronising drill.
We did it in the Sunshine glare
On what was called parade ground square.
It's something that I'll always miss.
Those halcyon days, what perfect bliss
To march along in line abreast,
Our arms swung well up to our chest.
Rhythmic, gravelled, crunching feet,
With Pipes and Drums, and pagan beat.
When marking time we'd raise our knees,
Oh what a jape, oh what a wheeze.
We'd point the toe, dig in the heel
Stay with the marker on the wheel.
Saluting dais comes in sight
So make your dressing, by the right.
Neck to collar and chest out
This is what it's all about.
Look at us performing fleas
Shoulder, order, stand at ease.
Perfect creases, looking good
Just like all good soldiers should.
Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019 at 4:07 AM UTC
Haumoana by Mike Tolhurst
Black billed gulls wheeled across the ocean
tortilla flat beneath the August sky where underneath
the gravelled beach stretched on forever
and sunk out of sight below the disappearing sun.
Trapped pools of water lay captured above the waterline
reminding us of our dilemma
while the sea-breeze blew messages
from your home in Switzerland which held our future in its grip.
We sat hand in hand and watched
the children play in the retreating warmth hiding
the secret of our destiny from each other
but knowing all the same that it was there and real.
At least right then our love was unperturbed
as the stones skipped lightly across the cooling sea
allowing us the luxury of forgetting for an hour or two
that a Judge’s ruling might come and change our lives forever.
That day at Haumoana we discovered the depth of pain
but still the sea spirits spoke clearly to our hearts and
for a time at least all was lost
as you and I and the children were together and free.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 3:38 AM UTC
Eric wasn't dead quite yet,
Curling up, down on the ground,
The dirt and ***** of mornings wet,
The traffic was his dreamworlds sound.
Waking up, alone at 4,
His muscles ache from gravelled ground.
He tried to walk-off what was sore,
His bleeding back was swollen round.
Winter came without a sign,
The frost upon his beard, he feared,
Would cause the frost to bite whats fine;
Inside, he cried as young men leered.
Oct 27, 2010
Oct 27, 2010 at 9:44 AM UTC
I bring you my gravelled hands and knees
and you kiss away my hurt;
always gentle always concerned for my good;
you brush aside all my falls;
and set me on my feet again
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 7:59 AM UTC
... And there she stood
Trying to figure what's bad or good
As her palms crashed the gravelled ground
She asks herself, 'How did I fall this far?'
Pacing herself back and forth
In an attempt to sweat the addiction from her pores
And her hands shaking and trembling.
She pulls out a one hundred dollar bill
In exchange for a white powder
And as she snorts the powder
Falling onto her hands and knees
Realising she wrote her own fate.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:15 PM UTC
**** off the tower of Pisa
Peed in the Norte dam,
Graffitied walls of the Vatican
I'm doing the best I can
whitewashed the wall in China
Painted the Kremlin blue
Melted down the Eiffel Tower
What was this ****** to do
Stole Big Ben from the tower
Kidnapped the good old queen
Run naked alround Westminster
Then painted Churchill yellow(sorry green).
Dyed the Thames so brightly red
Dyed the siene so yellow
bombed the statue of the Russian ******
he was one peculiar fellow
We planted onions seeds on hallowed turf
Because English football is tripe
Then mixed up a bit of tribal tension
Oh it felt so right
Stole a plane from Heathrow
Reshaped it into a penis
flew it through Donald trumps mouth
It's on you tube have you seen us.
We gravelled the Stonehenge stones
Now no more Wiltshire road
Move Buckingham palace straight to Berlin
And Make Scotland a home for a toad
Constable did some countryside art
I painted the South Downs pink
I got arrested by local constables
Funny hat bloke with a stink
They gave me a job as a Lord
Where I met a queen ,
called quintetn crisp
He was the head of parliament
And spoke with a salt and vinegar lisp
We searched for human activity
On Both sides of the moon
found absolutely ****** all
Accept a live dog dating a raccoon
My last plan on my bucket list
Is to find this heaven or hell
I've had a disruptive life
troubled I know you can tell.
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 6:21 AM UTC
In a dream
I strolled on gravelled paths.
Two immortals passed
laughing
one held the moon
the other held the sun.
One ying one yang.
Why were they laughing
why was one wet
why was the other dry?
Behind them
flowed a river
Venus lit
with floating free
an empty boat.
I thought of
Li po and Li fu
friends
from an ancient past
had I just met them?
If that were so
where was the wine
and where the porch
on which to sleep?
The sages strolled.
I turned to see
where they had gone
surprise!
they were not there.
Instead, a painting
a fantastic mount on canvas
rose to bar me
from returning.
It looked so real!
Peaks, needle sharp
massed to the sky
steep canyons
twisted, turned.
Cliffs, with strange trees
were fringed, with
high falls of water
hidden by
mists and dense clouds.
Into this stupendous scene
the pair had stepped.
Scared, I turned to look
where I would go.
I saw no river
no path
no road
no anything.
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 11:46 AM UTC
Bleak and windswept, my errant ramblings
led me to some time-forgotten vale
wherein a desolate mansion stood; its mullioned windows pale
against the ebbing day, yet from within illumin’d,
as by dancing fiends at play.
Fram’d by gloomy trees, stone pinnacles leaned awry,
and, through o’ergrown gardens,
that flanked a weed-strewn pathway to its rotting door,
a sleet-cold wind keened for lost souls in torment
‘cross the desolate and cloud-wracked moor.
With dying Phoebus now a blood-red smear upon the western hills
I so resolved to shelter here out of the coming chill.
Foreboding dragged my every step and
cawing rooks mocked overhead as if to say:
"Go, stranger, for you'll find no welcome here!"
Along the gravelled path I trod and beat the door with blackthorn rod;
it opened slowly; in I walked with beating heart and ne'er a thought
for all the world I'd left behind, as rain and sleet and howling wind
blew shut the door with crack of doom,
and left me peering through the gloom!
Around a table there they sat 'midst putrid food and cobwebbed vats
of mouldering wine; their bony mouths gaped vacant
as they grinned and laughed through time.
I swayed and swooned as in a trance, my own existence thrown by chance
into that hellish company, who revelled, foul decay’d gentry!
And then a fearful thunderclap's reverberations
brought me back to sanity, I screamed and fled
to where the hillsides cried and bled;
with staring eye and hair turn’d white,
I ran into the raving night.
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 5:11 AM UTC
O traveller, O dear wonderer
You have walked this gravelled road barefoot
Pierced by these jaggered stones
Leaving behind your coloured marks like a carefully decorated poem
Your legs wish to give up, your eyes wish to shut
But the voice in your head says don't give up
You need to keep walking - keep walking you say?
How much longer till I can end this journey?
How much longer till I find my way?
This voice pushes on rentlessly without a care to spare
Yet all I want is to break free from this shackles that bound me
How is this even fair?
Feb 21, 2019
Feb 21, 2019 at 2:28 AM UTC
When art starts to hurt,
the love affair begins.
Red autumn is poisoned with green envy through sapien generated raindrops.
Water, the conduit for energy to pursue its destination.
It rushes impatiently and soon electrical currents buzz recklessly through the neurological maze of a self-conscious enigma.
Stimulated grey matter in the womb of the skull.
Mind's eye lazily reminisces, of one's loving patience
as hands lay cold
on the empty bed
faded in hues of pale blue from over use.
Irregular posture, cramped up foetus beckons sore neck to turn.
Move. The human visage facing dew covered windows.
Natural tragedies...
Petals begin to fall,
And leaves start to wither
I plant you, the seed, into this irrigated soil
You demand perfection
But perfection is pain, a labour of love
As I wipe the dirt from my face, still wishing you to be free
Compassionate intentions to give away these white wings to soar freely, effortlessly through the sparse sky
I watch you spread your wings, flying and your speed so sharp that you clip mine in the process.
So I fall, I fall from the cloudy sky, trying to build the ladder that reaches for your presence
The ladder covered with splinters, I still continue the journey with my gravelled hands attempting to reaching you.
You stay, I leave
I want to be there with you, can you take me under your wings?
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 1:02 PM UTC
Above the multi-mullioned windows
chimneys ****** their brick and stone
beside the stately sycamores
which wave and sing to simple chords
conducted by the wandering breeze
Reaching down from branch and limb
and silvered by the moons first touch
where softened contrasts merge as one
their night time shadows shift and sway
on wood side tracks and gravelled paths
Into this scene a girl appears
a gentle lass of summers few
unpractised in the arts of life
and waiting for the warming sun
to melt the ice of youths reserve
Light of foot she strokes the ground
with shoes which dance to simple chords.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 2:22 AM UTC
It’s been weeks
Weeks, I say!
The sun stirs me from my dark nights
Leaving me with an unfamiliar...warmth?
I don’t despise it
It’s been a welcome change from
The sunken eyes and
Miasma of unpleasantries
Now the sun
bathes me in its glow
Never afraid to
Burn me with its tremendous affection and adulation
I can feel it's joyful intentions
However,
Even birds must land
And when they land on gravelled road
Their wings sore from their journey
So too, they whimper towards the night sky
Hoping for anything to listen to their woes
It’s been weeks
Weeks, I say!
The sun may be my friend
But the night is family
It hears my yearning
Like a cat of the alleys
That shrieks and hisses
Fending off the night’s terrors
It listens in its silence
And utters nothing but thought
And sometimes
That's more than enough.
Mar 21, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 at 6:35 PM UTC