"gully" 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
Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices.
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun came out to dry me.
6.7k
There was an ancient gully
there were skeletons,
ocotillos strewn across the sand
holy places creatures crawled out from
cactus brittle, drying, lying dead
Mirages leapt - spectrally
ghost dancers, drunkards falling down again
bloodshot eyes searching,
shipwrecks, lost waters, the sea
cool river floating past the trees, you drift
crash and wake alone
cow skulls haunt you
death's sun bleached
bones
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 10:11 AM UTC
Tell Me, How Much Pain Can One Tear Contain?
What Is It Like To Stare In Hungry Eyes?
What Is It Like To Only Own A Name?
What Is It Like To Feel Cruel Genocide?
Children Watch As Their Mothers Slowly Fade,
Mothers Watch As Their Daughters Slowly Starve,
A Father Watches His Son Go To Trade,
As Tears Travel Down The Gully They've Carved
Haunted Eyes Softly Whisper To The Sky,
Disease Scuttles Through Brittle Broken Bones,
Hours Fill Their Schedule On Which They Cry,
As They Shuffle With Bare Feet On Small Stones
What Is It Like To Own Unearthly Eyes?
Why Does Our World Still Harbor Genocide?
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 8:49 AM UTC
A.
a child hears fairrie wings
amidst a damp forest, the meerkat
morning is peering over
the womb of night
is emerald - within the dawn :
a spectral spark
nature
B.
harmonious pristine in essence
imagination staves a longing
a lifetime, unseen to the human eye
moss, fern, gully green
grace immortal, golden, true
meerkat's observant utter innocence
sunlight now settles over day
clay is the sky, clay is the earth
clay is time .. spirits spiral out
into twilight, soft as electric rain
steaming, luminous pond water
let go
C.
that dream,
the most youthful childhood
by the light of the moon
dreamt, and dreamt a little harder,
a went on to grow up ..
..and dreamt
-of a far away lagoon
where meerkat looks on
as undiscovered as imagined
maybe real
on another planet, -in another galaxy
as real as hearing a flying fairrie's
wings sing.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 7:20 PM UTC
I am often under the impression that old fashioned street lamps
The ones with eight sided glass and black ornate poles
Are strategically placed by the city planning commissioner's office
To let me know the wardrobe is just a few dozen feet away
And it will take me away from this Narnia
If I just open the door
My phobia of opening doors gets worse every time I think I've finally found it
Only to walk right into the girls bathroom after lunch
On five alarm chili day at the cosmetology school in Little Korea Town
I don't like watering the plants
It makes me wonder why mother nature fell asleep on the job
But the plants are always telling me the rain can't get them inside my living room
So I started the fire that the insurance won't pay for
And the chemicals in the emergency sprinkler system killed the plants anyways
It also killed the fish
But the insurance adjuster wore gloves
So he's still alive
I would make a pretty ****** politician
I get upset at people who don't make sense
Though sometimes I don't make sense
I also have a bad habit of doing the wrong things for the right reasons
I have found Waldo three times
He says hi
Carmen Sandiego is in San Diego
Which makes that trip to Cairo a really bad piece of detective work
On a related note Al Gore is Captain Planet
And every time I hear a bug zapper
I think it is the bat from Fern Gully
But it is not
It's a bunch of dead moths in a box
Monkeys in a barrel
That's how my mind does things
Every time someone say "it is"
When "it's" would be acceptable
I remember The Land Before Time
"This is fun, it is, it is"
You are welcome
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 2:54 AM UTC
As I lay beside my darling
On an early Sunday morn,
I could feel her rounded softness
Sleeping under blankets warm.
My mind caroused the memories
And loitered on it's way
And found itself deliciously,
Immersed in golden play.
I remembered something special
In the way my little boy would look
As his eyes rose up in wonderment
When I read his favorite book.
And the joy involved in feeding
A hungry little mouth
When the porridge spooned all over
From the eyebrows heading south.
A tantalizing moment
On the beach down by the sea,
In the warm December sunshine
With my happy family.
We were running in the black sand
Drawing circles with a stick
As the surging waves approached them
Laughing little boys were quick.
Laughing, happy moments
And some sad ones like the day
When dear old Meg, our Labrador,
Got sick and passed away.
Young Boaz in his sadness
Climbed the big tree to it's crown
And it took a lot of pleading
To persuade him to come down.
And young Solly played the taniwha
At the Cornwall Park school play
And a better taniwha has yet
To grace the stage today.
A natural in his element
This young comedian
So hilariously funny
As he drew the audience in.
The tender, loving moments
As we both strolled arm in arm
Through the verdant Ferntree Gully
With it's sunlit grace and charm.
And the towering eucalyptus,
Hanging wood smoke in the air
And the whiplash resonation
Of the lyrebird hidden there.
Of Buttercup's wild parties
When fancy dress was king,
When everyone would whoop it up
And laugh and dance and sing.
When mum's and dad's and little kids
All joined the happy throng
With spud mashing as a ceremony
And a night of fun and song.
Of sitting in the garden
With your feet up and a book
And a cold beer at your elbow
And a barbecue to cook.
With the easy feel of family
As they go about their day
And the joyous sound of summer
When two noisy tui's play.
Memories of yesterday
Moments in the life
Of ecstasy and agony
And wonderment and plight.
And the ordinary ness of everything
And the magic everywhere,
Like the auburn in the sunlight
As it strikes my darling's hair.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
10 October 2009
May 8, 2010
May 8, 2010 at 7:36 PM UTC
no bison on the menu
at the Buffalo; this diner
never served it
Big Mike, long gone
named it for the high shelf
on the prairie behind it
where Lakota learned
to stampede beasts over the edge, massacring
hordes without bow or sweat
the gully below,
their forgotten bone yard,
left little trace of them
save half a skull
Mike exhumed and hung on the wall
in the time of polio
before the wide whizzing interstates
when truckers still landed on his dusty lot
their rolling behemoths content in pasture
in a new millennium, the cafe highway is but
an accidental detour; the shack guarded by thistles,
long departed the Detroit steel
the truckers now in the ground, their bones
free from pillage, but the Cyclops on the wall remains,
eyeing the vacant prairie they all once roamed
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 8:05 PM UTC
Cities aren't cities,
The people are the cities,
she'd say, and I didn't understand
what she meant until I realised
That Hauz Khas was our first stroll ever,
Khan Market- our best cup of coffee,
Humayun Tomb- our first stolen kiss,
Dilli Haat- our first quarrel,
The Lodhi Gardens- our biggest quarrel!
The Jama Masjid was where we'd always make up.
Now I know which market sells her favourite
bags, which gully keeps the anklets
she loves most, which discrete stall in the
by-lanes of Old Delhi is her best chaat-wallah ever,
Every nook, I know by the fragrance of her memory,
I try forget, I try erase,
But oh, I remember,
For she is my Delhi
Delhi is her, only her,
The city of first love, first dreams,
a million rights, a devastating wrong,
The city that now stings with the thorns
That make my feet bleed when I try to enter,
Even with my back turned,
The city hurls
Stones at my fragile heart and screams at me
to never return.
I'll never return.
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 2:12 PM UTC
I have been to the mountains where I have cried.
I climb hills not for the vista.
I climb for falling down the rabbit hole.
Then, I plummet down the icy gully.
I have drowned in bathtubs where I have smiled.
I swim in cold bathtubs not due to recklessness.
I swim to delude my presence.
Then, I hitch-hike upto the peak.
I do these things I cannot understand.
Reality slips away,
like fresh snow and water slip from my bare hands.
I climb to the mountain and fall to the bathtub.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 9:00 AM UTC
You think you can erase me. You think throwing my glass to the ground will remove my lip stick stains. You think your brain, like rocks, will become smooth if you lay in the gentle waves of a new lover. You think your fingers will lose my prints if you burn them long enough on the fire of your newfound passion.
You think her smell will cloud over mine. You think you can forget I was ever around, when you hold the truth on your skin.
How could I possibly be gone from you if you'll never be gone from me? My mouth shows you to every single person I meet. They can't see you there, they can't feel you with my tongue. They don't know the chip you've left on my tooth. It's not there for them. It's mine.
You pretend I don't know your body like a map. You don't think I can trace the scars of your fingers, draw the gully of your joints, the flat plains of your chest. You don't know a thing.
I'll never be gone. You can cut me out physically all you want. But when night comes, and you're clutching her close, remember me.
Remember me then. You'll feel her body shift, and for the briefest of seconds, you'll know where mine belongs.
You'll catch my scent on a breeze, and call her my name. You can't ignore me. I'll never go away. I know far too much to vanish. It's not over, and I won't let it be over until I've seen you squirm.
She doesn't want you. We both feel it.
See, even if I'm not near you, I feel you. I feel what you feel, know what you're thinking. That won't go away.
You can singe my ******* and you can **** my mementos. You can.
You can't **** what they meant to you. You can't **** what you feel.
So drown yourself in her, and I'll laugh when you roll to my shores, torn apart.
Your skin will sag and weigh itself down with seaweed. You'll have barnacles on your tongue as you try to speak to me. You will tell me, "I knew it was wrong. You will never be gone,"
And I will tell you to hush, and rip off each one slowly, savoring them, making your mouth bleed onto my lap. Your blood will pool around my knees, and sink into my skin, like it was always meant to.
You can't escape me.
Late at night, lay there, thinking of me.
You may have her now,
But you'll always have me.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
When wind blows
When wind blows
it wrinkled the earth
with deep valley shallow gully
when time flies
it wrinkled the hearts
with deep-seated longings and unbearable sorrows
I lift my head and look into your eyes of night
i saw teardrops shining like stars
oh, my dear
please don't cry
as it is raining moonlight
...
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 2:01 AM UTC
A dutchman in dusty brogans
Hill and gully.
Walkabout dreamer mastlless ship
Hill and gully.
Raggamuffin rover.
Hill and gully .
Phoenix scattered in the sand
Smoldering embers.
Hill and gully
Shimmering in the distance
oasis in the heat..
Hill an gully walkabout
Waltzing all about
One day he walks up to himself
And ends his walkabout.
One climbing uphill
One trodding down
Tuckererd out and out of tucker
Waltzing matilda
Endless walkabout.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 11:16 AM UTC
twas a poor performance
on the cricket pitch
the fielding side let too many *****
go to the boundary ditch
those batsmen were fabulous
hitting run after run
they really had the fielders
well and truly under the gun
sixes and fours flew
in both sessions of play
the batsmen had a magnificent
selection of strokes to array
the gully fieldsmen
and those on the off side
were unable to contain
the brilliance of the batting side
the South African cricketers
were too sharp for the Australian team
in short order they put paid to
the Australian third test dream
had the boys from down under
done a better job on the cricket pitch
the South Africans wouldn't be crowing
like a rooster at early morn pitch
a concerted effort with fielding
would have handsomely paid
but the Australian side
couldn't withstand the batter's raid
before the next test series
the Aussies have much homework to do
if they wish to accomplish
a win over the other crew
it is a sad day for this
avid devotee of the cricket game
she has witnessed a poor performance
which was rather lame
one is hopeful of a turn around
in fortunes for one's cricket side
and should it come to pass
one will be heartily filled with pride
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 7:03 AM UTC
A rhythmic whipping of winds on the pine trees,
Mescaline mind, staring through tawny windows and thinking of America
That easy breezy, ****** wind again, blowing blow from laps of men
Tripping on paving slabs, adobe piles and rubble pouring through city streets
Thorny throned king calls out his wife's name
No response, no reprise, water fills the eyes of the owl as he watches
A lizard through the grass with no legs, and the oxford comma blues
A rider on horseback, gallop through the gully, hair screaming, maddening flights
Frightening nights in the Texas desert as consumptive creatures crawl on broken sand
Feel the eyes of the devil, searing the seer
and the car that once roamed gaily now fails daily
Left in bereavement on the side of a road
Crying into calloused hands, wailing for the whale's lost daughter
Sea-dive, see me dive, watch me drive, across country, to a home I will know
When I see it.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 8:56 AM UTC
When I was young high school kid
I wasn’t doing very well with girls
I didn’t know what to say to them
But I really wanted to give it a whirl.
So, when Mama saw me struggling
She saw me blowing my chance
She told me, “They’ll come around,
All you have to do is learn to dance.”
So, she showed me some rather easy
Stylish steps from her jitterbug days
I took them and danced to the music
That the deejays chose to play.
Mama taught me jitterbug
And that helped quite a bit
She won awards as a teen
I heard she was quite a hit.
I rocked and I rolled and bounced
My shoes got to moving with the beat.
Then I was snapping my fingers and
My body went along with my feet.
I twirled the girls I danced with and
Held them snuggly up close and tight.
And the girls started asking me to dance
Right away from that very first night.
Mama taught me jitterbug
And I very glad she did
It turned a geeky wallflower
Into a much more popular kid.
I learned the Stroll and Hully Gully
The UT and the Electric Slide
With a changing bevy of beauties
Dancing along right by my side.
This was before Twist showed up
Which everybody could learn to do
But even then I found that I could
Teach them another trick or two.
Mama taught me jitterbug
And that helped quite a bit
She won awards as a teen
I heard she was quite a hit.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 10:39 PM UTC
feel the teeth sink in,
rip word from bone,
crush heart and tear through skin.
__put down the phone.__
let the words sink in.
narrow down the voices in your head,
force yourself to feel alone.
__don't let the pain show.__
put pen to paper,
let your mind pour out,
from word to world.
_inhale-_
__1 2 3 4__
open the back door,
smell the dying plum blossoms.
take a few steps, or try to.
_exhale-_
__1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8__
gaze up at the sky.
do the clouds still look red?
no, but that one looks like a wishbone.
__keep walking.__
smile at the single dad,
he could use it, you know it.
plus his nirvana t-shirt is pretty rad.
__keep smiling.__
falling leaves make little ripples,
in the puddles in the road gully.
overcast days always make for the best reflections.
_-_
this shouldn't need to be routine.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 10:14 AM UTC
When wind blows
When wind blows
it wrinkled the earth
with deep valley shallow gully
when time flies
it wrinkled the hearts
with deep-seated longings and unbearable sorrows
I lift my head and look into your eyes of night
i saw teardrops shining like stars
oh, my dear
please don't cry
as it is raining moonlight
...
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 5:50 PM UTC
(When The Rains Come)
Our house stands on a valley
early summer evenings find people strolling
specially when the sky is arrayed with countless stars,
and a full moon cooperates with a glow
Who wouldn't want a rain-less evening?
no rush...walking easy on a Friday or Saturday night
finding ways to unwind....glasses tingle in toasting
conversation and laughter fill the air...
In parts of the valley shielded by bridges and walls
there live the troubled, homeless souls
they, too, want to breathe the evening air
they leave their improvised homes
find dark spaces, where they turn bolder
some toughened...almost numbed
their litanies, held within
their eyes, beyond shedding tears
their faces stained with sadness and frustration
due to failed expectations
Around these dark spaces
are where callous eyes meet wary looks
where angels mingle with demons
where, most times, indifference wins
against compassion.
Twice,
i met the dauntless, black eyes of an old woman
i almost dropped mine, to avoid the stare
but she tapped my elbow...i looked up again.
Both of my shoulders would not suffice
to ease the burden this old woman carried
how do we deal with a problem that always starts but doesn't end?
how? when most turn their faces, their backs, their thoughts away,
because, there's nothing spectacular to see, or be expected
just more unpleasant things to come up.
The rains have finally come...our valley
most often, turns into a gully
where it seems to be raining forever.
i think of the old woman with black eyes
if she's still around, could she be hungry? wet again?
shivering from the cold rain?
where could she be seeking shelter
now that summer
is finally over?
Sally
Copyright May 23, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 2:40 AM UTC
Along I strolled a country path
spread with leaves of happy shade,
sunspots sprinkled on the turf,
insects humming in the glade.
Towering gumtrees soar aloft
running mauve to whitish tan,
strips of bark hang limply downward
richly capped with leafy crown.
The great bowl squats, it’s fan of
massive roots inumerable.
The leaves are wet
and silver sunlight sparks from sheen to sheen,
dazzling those who care to notice
moss so green,
and lacelike in it’s tiny brittle intricacy
Sunlight stirs the breeze to eddy
swirls of leaves in turn do bring
the brown eyed blackbird out to sing
his lilting challenge;
blue crisp air.
Delightful is the word I choose
to announce my sentiments,
nature in late summer gown,
drab winter in disgust
relents another day with thunderous frown.
Marshalg
Ferntree Gully
26th March 1969
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 12:52 PM UTC
Mandibles make their own hoarding,
but they do not make it as they please;
they do not make it under semiconductor-selected civilians,
but under civilians existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
The trailer of all dead gentians weighs like a nipper
on the brandishes of the lob.
And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and thistles,
creating something that did not exist before, precisely
in such equipments of rheostat crochet they anxiously conjure up the spleens
of the past to their setter, bother from them nappies, bayonet slouches,
and cottons in organ-grinder to present this new scheme in wound hoarding
in timpanist-honored disincentive and borrowed larch.
Thus Luther put on the masseur of the Appearance Paul,
the Rhapsody of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the gully of the Rook Requisite and the Rook Empress,
and the Rhapsody of 1848 knew novelette bicentenary to do than to parsonage,
now 1789, now the rheostat trailer of 1793-95.
In like mantel, the belch who has learned a new larch always translates it backfire into his motor toot,
but he assimilates the spleen of the new larch
and exteriors himself freely in it only when he moves in it
without recalling the old and when he forgets his navy toot.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC
As you ride the train out of Chicago and the car
sways sways sways sways
sways sways sways sways
sways sways sways sways
as you roll on toward your destination
and you look outside and you see the sun beams
swirling in the circles of the train car windows
and you see them reflecting in bends off of the raaaaaaaaails of the train
track tracks
track tracks
track tracks
track tracks
the lids of your eyes slowly begin to fall
and you think
what a beautiful day it has been.
Then the train passes an abandoned building with
bro-ken win-dows
and you ask
what lives were lived there that are now long…
forgotten?
And then the train passes the Chicago burbs with apartment buildings
and white pick pick pick pick picket fences
and boys playing street soccer
and a girl crying because they won’t let her play
and mothers telling the boys to be fair
and then a boy crying because the girl just scored the winning goal
and then everyone yelling
CAR!
and running to the sidewalks to run to start playing the next round as the car passes
and you think
What a beautiful day it has been.
And then the train passes another with
grafffffffffit-t-t-t-t-ti all along it
and you ask why is the best art with the strong stories behind it called vandalism
wile the worst art is worth millions because it’s called abstract?
And then the train passes woodlands and a wave of nostalgia floods your mind
as you remember the times when your brothers and friends built forts
and played war in the overgrown gully behind your yard
and you think
what a beautiful day it has been.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
jagged cliffs jut down into a gully
occupied by a roaring river
alabaster crests of foam
form from the friction
of flowing water
against mossy rocks
scattered along its riverbed
in reverence I stand
a mote by comparison
as the crimson breaks across the sky
Oct 5, 2021
Oct 5, 2021 at 4:21 AM UTC
I knew.
I knew from the moment you told me how beautiful
you thought I was,
that it would last only as long
as the twinkling of a far away star.
Not even long enough for me to to remember to say hello.
Five A.M. became a habit
and we danced to the songs of chirping birds.
I let you hold me even though I knew
your arms craved a different cold body.
Those long nights outside the church that weren't
long enough.
That cute lisp and curly hair.
Those shivering arms and basketball shorts.
The adorable shyness and humility.
Walk me to my gate one more time.
I should have let you come over that one night.
Hot and sweaty, 2 a.m.,
to sneak in and use my shower.
Fill the room with sticky heat
and let the steam rise out as you exit the shower.
(You can still take me up on that offer.)
Cause I miss the way you tell me I don't smell like smoke
and how you listened to me explain
the theory behind the elder wand,
like you actually cared.
Fern Gully.
You spelled it wrong.
No spaces.
I. I. I.
Your jacket smelled like heaven draped over my legs and
I wanted to live inside the threads.
Walking so far just to listen to me ramble on.
Was it worth it? Ever.
Even after running back to her?
One. One. Only one week
that I was temporarily in love.
Tiger's Blood snow cones with cream on top
and you've never been to a concert so run to Salt Lake with me.
You do like to run, don't you?
Run from your mom. Run from your friends.
Run from feelings.
Run from her.
and Run to her at the same time.
But don't you miss laying in the street at three in the morning?
Or shaking the hand of the copper man?
and watching the summary of my obsession
on my short green couch?
and holding me?
Even though it lasted a week,
a perfect week,
it's time to disappear.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
Sweaty bones, cracked
metal and marrow ionised,
Rusty toxins dripping,
running the gully of the chest
Freezes
As sudden as it had broke.
Shaky, quivering limbs; fingers swollen
like tiny girders
Ready to build - Again
The foundations of another fix.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC