"grayling" poems
'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out,
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge,
It has more ivy; there the river; and there
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
'But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird;
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. [grig = cricket - m.]
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
5.2k
*she just shakes her head
she meets me on the street-corner, me from work, she from dance,
in the grayling dusk of a thank god it’s a freedom Friday night,
I greet her with words semi-adventurous -
“come with me, few errands to run, keep me in good company”
to the candy store we go for to purchase my weekend eve
lottery tickets and blow-pop lollipops, just in case some
kids appear, a surprise omen as they come
trick-or-treating just before Thanksgiving
the Bangladeshi candyman calls out a long prayer
in his native Bangla
she asks “what’s that he’s saying?”
“Oh, just wishing us a pleasant Sabbath and
may his gods smile upon our good lottery fortune”
she just shakes her head, from side to side
emerging from the store, walking home in the
now doubly ***** darkly dusk,
a set of white teeth from a passing shadow-man says to me
“you’re home late and have a great weekend,”
she asks, “who is that?”
“why,” I reply, “that is our very own personal postal carrier’
she says:
“he delivers mail to ten thousand people all in buildings tall,
yet knows your name, your face,
where you buy your lottery tickets,
your coming and going hours,
how came that to be”
but waits not for an answer
she just shakes her head, from side to side
I show her my secret entrance to our apartment house,
the fast route to collect our mail, dry cleaning in one fell swoop
a secret door, secret elevator taking us directly to our apartment
a secret elevator which is under the direction of
Bimal from Nepal,
who I greet in Nepalese, (my tutor)
I, asking after Brian and Bryce, his 100% American boys
now she says nothing, but before our door, as I go key digging,
she just shakes her head, from side to side
later she says:
“let’s order in, apprise me of your expertise,
some exotic fare from Manhattans First Avenue,
known for its aphrodisiacal powers
afterwards,
you must tell me each dishes name,
in its tongue’s nativity,
but much, much later,”
and as she speaks, grinning,
she sticks out her tongue,
while she just shakes her head,
but this time,
up
and
down
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 10:07 AM UTC
I come from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally;
I sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
At last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways
In sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bay;
I babble on the pebbles.
I chatter, chatter as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a ***** trout,
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To joing the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
~Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892~
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 9:24 AM UTC
The Smell of Honey, Coffee and Apples and Messes of Words, but
No Love Poetry
<^>
*my poetry suffers from a literately literacy,
the adjectivally of imagery wears away with
time and age eroding the imagination, when one’s
days are numbered, being serious is an natural
unpleasant hazardous haze, never in doubt
The morning meal of cooked oatmeal, steel cut,
laced with wildflower honey, slices of honey crisp
apples and Hawaiian coffee brewed,
singes the
Tropical Storm Ophelia thrumming humidity
that overhangs the ugly grays of NYC sky-paths,
one tickles me awake with contradictory impulses:
sweet and sour,
a robust stimulative, competing with the smothering of
grayling clouded weather weariness of
48 hours of rainy continuity,
a spirit suffocate
you see!
give you myself, my environment, in précis,
unimaginative exactly as it occurs to me, sensually, yes,
but cannot shake my disappointment that no,
can’t combine visionary notions that spin your swivel
chair around, powered by your exclamations of
ooh, ahh, and little stabs of weeee punctuating
our shared atmosphere
and bring forth
only love poetry
but no mas,
the love poetry doesn’t comes to the fore,
the forehead stuffed with words best listed as
basic, observable, factual,
Miley Cyrus, accuses me of being jaded,
but not with accuracy, more straight jacketed,
way past that half-way point of no return,
turning back is not a listed menu option
love poetry
demands, requires and requests
envisioning, precursor to dreaming,
but I am choking on matters-of-fact,
questions of survivability,
that do not
shed love poetry words,
I
love exclaiming
to any and all within hailing distance,
my loving firmament, but the damp atmosphere
swallows my hopes and sounds, even though
still can smell the lingering nearness odor of honey and apple,
yet, other hints of memory beg to differ,
and I sadly and easy confess,*
this is not a lovely poem…
- * -
Sep 23, 2023
Sep 23, 2023 at 12:44 PM UTC
If she didn't color her hair,
what color would it be,
I ask,
making early morning holiday
bed talk
Gray, she replies
disputation, I say,
for I see yet much
brune underneath,
nary a single hairy grayling
smiling with affection,
she salutates:
*appearances of a changeling,
perhaps,
I am or always be,*
***like one of your new poems,
using old words for new colors,
my rainbow always ends,***
decorating our bed
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 10:20 AM UTC
they fell from a tolleycroft trawler
(about a mile off the gary dock)
tossed in a bottlenose gulf stream
partially pasted on ruk and crustacean
belly ******* ragged
fender bent rolling
drifting on krill chop
past o' malleys
down juan de fuca
rubbing grain
into the gun barrel sea
twisted benjamins
nipped by the hungry swell
blunt on a wayward log
deep in the gutty storm
slack jaw, skinned
medling
over phosphorescence
and grayling
and cold erratic flow
(oh those seedy finman!)
driftwood gorge
at celebration light
sun carts rise
to the homecoming
**** that nuisance moon!)*
crimson tide
and contraband
strung on the greyhound
intervention essentials
with menacing roots
these crackers lack
all disposition
and tact
an enemy mask
lies deep within
blinded rodmen
on a shoreline retreat
where the franklin bills
are spinning
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 12:41 AM UTC
Look at her, midsection lines blazing
Heaving prow swollen with glittering ion beams
Her aft sections tight and proud
Bravely bolstering her posture as she surges into the fray
Battle joined, she calls the hunt with thunder
Heralding fell sensors' unerring gaze
For none in the skies who've caught her eyes
Have survived her deadly rays
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 7:23 PM UTC
Dear Dave Hodges,
My husband is an Army Reservist in Michigan. He is home this weekend after training at Camp Grayling. He know that I am writing to you but please don’t use our names. His unit is training in the processing of Americans into detention camps.He was told by his CO that they would be processing American actors posing as American citizens. Part of their training was the removal and disposal of dead bodies. My husband said he will not participate when the time comes to do so. Please keep getting the word out Dave you are making a difference.
Hello Dave!
…There has been quite a bit over the past couple months as would be expected with Jade Helm. I’ve seen many convoys of various types on I-40 and I-17 as well. Camp Navajo at Belmont between Flagstaff and Williams has had a lot of extra activity also. I don’t know if anyone else north of you has mentioned any of this but it is getting quite frequent around here. Thank The Lord Jesus I’m washed in His blood!
God Bless!
Mr. Hodges,
I was traveling on Interstate 81 in Virginia this past weekend and spotted this military convoy at a rest stop right before exit 264 on 81. After getting back on the highway, I also encountered another convoy on the road… Use these pictures as you see fit.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
I've contained my
Soul-in-a-cardboard
Jar--
Watching its eternal weep
Until irises blind-themselves
Because barely shoulder length
Hours have passed.
We wield grayling hair
Though wingspan arms
Now pad this jar with
Silence and broken voices
Each-day--
Sleeping magic
Find no notes
With nobody-
As of being as beings and beings
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 8:03 PM UTC
There I lay,
A motionless meat sack,
Curled into a ball
Like a terrified grayling.
Visible only by
The flickering flame
Of a small camp fire
As it licks the crisp
Autumn air.
Like a cat,
I am not fully asleep.
I allow myself only
To rest my mind and eyes,
While my ears
Are prepared for attack.
The night is silent,
Except for the eerie whistling
Of the wind as it
Navigates the leafless trees.
I let the spiders
Investigate my body,
For there are much more
Terrifying monsters
Lurking in these woods.
Crrrrrr
uuuunnnn
ccchh
My eyes open wide,
And my hand shoots quickly
Into my pack to retrieve
A small rusted hunting knife,
Given to me by a man
At a gas station
(Who did not need it anymore).
It wasn't much.
But when facing the unknown
You must rely on more
Than intuition.
C
R
A
C
K
!
Somewhere nearby,
A branch splits from its trunk,
And hits the forest floor
With a deafening
T H U D
I jump to my feet,
Stomp out the fire,
And press my back against
A narrow birch tree.
Silence.
I wait.
Breathing heavily,
As if I just ran a mile,
I tense and strain my ears
To detect the direction
Of the approaching beast
Kkkeeeerrrunnchhh!!!
I swallow what feels
Like a tennis ball.
Something is close.
Only a few feet away.
It undoubtedly knows
Exactly where I am.
The air smells of burning wood,
And my flesh must smell like supper.
I take a deep breath
(Probably my last),
And lurch out of the darkness
To attack the beast,
And W H A M!!
I smack right into,
My wife.
"What the hell are you dreaming about?
Come back to bed before you hurt yourself! "
Feb 5, 2018
Feb 5, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
Take it from me, the things you can see
The wonders your eyes will behold
Mother Nature did good in this neighbourhood
It’s a landscape of riches untold
The lochs and the glens, the Munros and Bens
They are stunning you can’t disagree
Rivers Clyde and the Tay and the Forth and the Spey
The Findhorn, the Don and the Dee
All kinds of rocks, have been turned into brochs
Into castles and bothies and cairns
If I had a say I would choose Skara Brea
As a great place to show your wee bairns
From clear waters great ***** great meat from the coos
That both share the rich fertile fields
So too the deer, with venison premiere
And the sheep produce great woollen yields
The fishing’s fantastic, there’s salmon (Atlantic)
Grayling and pike and big charr
I’ve so little doubt there’s superior trout
That I’ll not tell you quite where they are
We think thistles divine and we like the scots pine
The heather is gorgeous in flower
There’s gorse on the ground. Scottish bluebells around
It’s what young haggis prefer to devour
We have eagles and kites and owls through the night
Ptarmigan. The grouse are widespread
If you don’t fancy that, there’s a breed of wild cat
And lots of our squirrels are red
Both at midnight and noon it’s like Brigadoon
The landscape is magic caressed
Every plant, every hill is possessed of good will
And the nice beasty that lives in Loch Ness
I could tell you more, but I’d just make you snore
But believe me that’s far from it all
If you’re still full of doubt come quick, don’t lose out
‘Cause we might rebuild Hadrian’s Wall
Apr 16, 2021
Apr 16, 2021 at 12:14 PM UTC
She meets them at the reading corner,
they from work,she from sky.
In the grayling dusk of a thank god,
It’s a freedom land, Thursday evening, prior to weekend.
They greet her with words semi-adventurous -
Can we have no more volatility spill over analytics?
Can we stop discussing AI validate code?
But at times leisure, pleasant surprise meets, cheers at beer bar break.
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 11:25 AM UTC