"hartley" poems
Another Version
Hartley Forde
You can’t see the wind,
But that old mango tree,
Outside my window,
tell me it’s there..
.
I never travel with a raincoat,
Even though I hate getting wet,
Then here comes the aches and pain
And I started to wonder,
was it because I got a little insane..
I thought that I could
Have run faster than it pours
I haven’t heard of
any aircraft that outrun a jet plane yet,
But, not so anymore,
I never leave my coat and cane,
When I am on a stool,
Oh dear, what has happened to me?
Am I aging? I am not young anymore,
Nor grey, nor old: for age is just a number,
But when the toil of the day
Merges with the aches and pain
With sighing sounds I start to wonder:
I still dance the night away, with my social tunes,
And waltz across the floor to all-time favorite of Strauss
See how I step back in time with the reggae beat,
Lighter than a feather on my feet,
Smiling, with my pearly teeth from ear to ear:
Life just isn’t fear: because age is just a number
That’s when the rubs and oil granny left me:
Come alive again in the neck of time,
to soothe the pain of my aching joints
I smile once again and said
“Oh dear, what do they say again,
Age is just a number and life begins at forty,
Because, I am just starting to be naughty:
Downhill !
written by:
Hartley Forde
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 6:48 PM UTC
I am not young anymore, nor grey , nor old, for age is just a number: when the aches and pains begins to set in and I start to wonder, I never travel with my raincoat although I hate getting wet, because if you think you can run for cover faster than when it pours; you aim’s seen nothing yet . But not so anymore: I never leave my coat and cane when I am on a stool .Oh dear what has happened to me?
It's like I am getting old. I still dance to my social tunes and a do a little waltz sometimes, You ought to see me stepping to some back in time reggae: after all of that: is when the rubs and oils granny left me comes alive again to soothe my pain of aching joints: Oh dear they say age is just a number and life begins at forty. Begins to go where:
Downhill!
Written by Hartley Forde
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 6:40 PM UTC
Timothy Baxter: An intellectual genius with the emotional intelligence of a five year old
so thank you for these closed lips
and thank you for the impeccable hair line
thank you for the one too many thoughts keeping me up at 4 AM
thank you for my 5'7 stature
and thanks for all the self-loathing
thanks for the rent
and thanks for making me love hating responsibility
thank you
Mary Hartley Baxter: not one who came from white picket fences and Sunday drives. A giver. A lover. A control freak
Thank you for these psyche wrecking nerves
the bowling ball taking up permanent residence in the pit of my stomach
Thank you for teaching me how to treat women
and thank you for the stubbornness which allows this arrogance
thank you for keeping my feet attached to planet earth
while my head sails among the billowing clouds
for telling me how handsome I am
thank you for teaching me what it means to be in a family
thank you for letting me be a loser sometimes
thank you
Harry J Baxter: the heroic coward with a funny joke in bad taste and the right words for the wrong times
anti hero of a story nobody else is aware of
thank you for abusing all those pesky substances, they surely deserved it
thank you for the black lungs
thank you for speeding down dead end lane at five hundred miles an hour
thank you for remembering your helmet
thank you for saving all the words we never said to those we love
thank you for hiding from the unknown to avoid the scars of failure
thank you for getting those scars anyway
just so we knew what they felt like
thank you for the writer's block.... You ************
but in all seriousness,
thank you for building up your tolerance to beatings
because they will continue until morale improves
thank you
It's a strange place - the real world - monsters lay in wait in every shadow around every corner
and yeah, you aren't the human being 2.0
but you're prepared enough to board up the windows before the hurricane
and Mum, Dad,
I can talk all the **** in the world
but all of it would be empty
because for as ****** up as I am
as ****** up as you both certainly are
we've made it this far
and god **** it
I can't see our sun setting anytime soon
so my naturally adapted cynical sarcasm behind me
Thank you for loving me no matter what
even when the well was so dry love was hard to find
Thank you.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 12:49 PM UTC
Selina grew up in an orphanage
she was a *******
her father disappeared
after the Great War
her mother
dead from poverty
She was a Catholic
of the highest devotion
she loved Jesus
and Saint Joseph
and after she was
past schooling age (14)
she went off
to serve as a maid
for a good Catholic family
she wanted to be a nurse
but circumstance dictated
that she never could be
not enough school,
then, when she was 17
the 2nd Great War came
and women were needed
to work the steel mills
and shipyards
of Stockton England
she got a job
painting bombs
she signed little things on them
like,
take that ******
but the job
caused her asthma to flare
so she was reassigned
as what was then known as
a postman
clopping around the streets
happily delivering mail
She met a man
named John Hartley
and she intended to marry him
her friends warned her
he's a bachelor,
a woman hater,
but he was also
quite the handsome soldier
they married
after the war
and had five children
three of whom
became nurses
proud tears falling
like rain drops
a life of hardships
which she batted away
with Christ as her shield
summed up
by her
giving her children
what she never had
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 1:36 AM UTC
III
Out of the corner of my eye
I watch our rosin-graced bows
Rotate to our rhythm
Our bowties are fresh and
Pressed
Our vests clean and buttoned
I smile at Fred, who
Turns to grin at Hartley
What fine folk
Our wooden bridges will greet
Tonight
***
We are a dream
Hartley directing us like a grand symphony
We are voices to keep thoughts off of
The maiming waves
The melancholy miasma of
Starlight
Glints on our strings
People screaming, bellowing,
Fighting
But we play on, men
We play on.
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 3:42 PM UTC
Wallace Hartley nodded
and the band played on.
The lifeboats and collapsibles
by then were launched and gone.
Futile flares lit up the sky
A chill borne of despair.
What was the last song that you played ?
A waltz? a Hymn? a prayer?
The violin I hold in my hand
was Wallace's all right.
What will be bid for this memento
of that remembered night?
Some survivors after claimed
you played a hymn of praise.
The wireless man McBride recalled
a mournful waltz was played.
You were the gift of Wallace's love
A girl who never wed.
The last memento of these Lovers
who rest now with the dead.
Now all Titanic's complement
are muted dead and gone.
Yet all survivors testified
that the band, indeed, played on.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 6:52 PM UTC
Ohio is for lovers
And I'm the jealous type
You'll be lucky
If you leave it alive
Wringing dead palms like wedding bells
No bouquet on an early grave
Winter came on December the 7th
Prayers from the penitentiary
I begged them to close the gates
Hoping that you would freeze
Ohio is for lovers
And I'm the jealous type
You'll be lucky
If you leave it alive
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 11:23 PM UTC
A cross. A crossroads.
The desire to erupt.
If the world were red and brown—
If. Jarr
it open.
Resist and grind.
The clouds were piped
by God. Onto the sky.
To forget the tombstones—
To remember the tomb.
Round it out and fluff.
Depress into the ground,
fellow bush.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 11:06 AM UTC
Catching flatties from the jetty
watching for the bite on the line
and for bait we used sand worms,
dug them out before daybreak
and on the turn of the tide we
casted far out
seeing the dead weight come to a life in its own right on a leaden flight to freedom,
short lived because I reeled it back in to cast it back out.
Fishing's about other things besides fishing,
contemplating the future for one.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Bob Newhart and the Treadmill of Sisyphus
“Hi, Bob!”
Exercising While Watching BOB NEWHART
Several times each day I roll myself up
The torturous treadmill of Sisyphus
I am more of a marshmallow than a rock
Which is the point of this tiresome endeavor
Several times each day I find myself back
At the foot of the devilish device
To wheeze myself wheeze step wheeze step wheeze step
To promised abs of steel at the rainbow’s end
Dr. Hartley is on line one because
Sometimes you need
A telephone call from your driving instructor
Jul 19, 2021
Jul 19, 2021 at 9:53 AM UTC