"headwind" poems
He still lives with demons
that once held him tenderly
when no one would
be able to find the words
to say that fill the glass
as it is tipped back
and slowly emptied
of the liquor that stirs
memories from the headwind
that blew the lovers' hair back
on the drive through autumn
windy, windy mountain paths
as another Queen song plays
on the radio and the raindrops
on the windshield tap along
with fingertips against the steering wheel
to Freddy Mercury and shared heartbeats.
The truth is he is lying
there like an open wound
as he begins to measure self-worth
with texting tempo and memories
of last summer being too hot
to cuddle with one another
though it was more than enough
to hold feet under the thin sheets
that remember the glass
once again filling with words
as another drink is emptied
and his head burst through clouds
leaving him to hydroplane
through windy, windy mountain paths
as the raindrops on the windshield
applaud with the demons
that beckon tenderly for his return.
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 8:13 PM UTC
Sometimes poetry doesn’t happen
Until you’ve fashioned what you want to say
And felt its worth in prose.
You go somewhere a little known
But time newly fashions its affect.
Late autumn then, today summer’s end.
Since early morning the sun has shone.
Heading north, the clouds magisterial.
Spread themselves, ermine-cloaked.
I watch you as you drive:
The pleasing proportions of your seated self,
a warm glow on your left cheek.
*We have become so careful you and I
With what we say and the way we say it.
Hard to keep the conversation aloft.*
After ninety miles it’s good to get out
In a by-passed village, a quiet place.
Bicycles now take us towards the ancient coast.
There it is: the sea. The spirit lifts.
Wind at our backs and grateful to turn
to the pleasure of a minor road.
Now there’s time to take in a distant manor,
the swallows’ dart and spin, a stone tower
from which the landscape’s perspective flows.
A long straight road runs to a coastal village.
Lunch is eaten against a churchyard wall.
As a cloudy afternoon beckons, crows gather.
Turning east will the headwind strain
The morning’s calm confidence? Perhaps.
Have we come too far and expect too much?
At the causeway now, where the tide has left
The horizon-reaching expanse of mud and sand,
It seems a long road to the village at the island’s end.
Briefly, we sit to contemplate a yet further isle
Where, facing the sun’s fall into the folds
of distant hills, a northern saint found solitude.
So tired at the hotel I insist on immediate food
And soon the tension of the day falls from your face
And briefly I catch a smile from your eyes.
*Memory returns me to another room where, newly married,
I caressed your long nakedness in a strange half-light,
My hands and body visiting every part of you.*
As dusk falls we walk briefly to view the sand and sea.
Then bed and hardly a page turns before seeking sleep.
Restless, I reassemble the day, moment by moment.
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 1:20 PM UTC
A deluge of earthly sins,
A waterspout on green leaves,
A hurricane among lull seas,
An equanimity of autumnal eves.
A dilated tale of mundane me.
A million abstruse blocks of C of Co²
A walker among you and me.
A wanderer lost in blue.
Attired by crimson lust of artistry.
A masquerade brew of red wine and dark coffee,
A stark blithe of sanguine comatose,
All drunk and clinging to the thin threads of this unstaged life,
All murdered by the sinical overdose.
The seascape choirs of ocean waves,
Embracing the narcoleptic yellow shorelines,
And evanescent castles
And sail headwind with a mystical concubine.
The iced conundrums of this lost forsaken echoes of winter breeze,
The insanity measured in ones & zeroes,
We're the kings of this deadbeat time,
And praised victories of unsung heroes.
The wanderlust sailors drank the skies,
In mixed cocktails,
And thy heavens sang to this night,
As a melodic madness of wild gales.
Her pale white body declares some love due,
As our lips bled rapture,
And rose a melodramatic cue,
Like words of a closing chapter.
Charged with the flow of adrenal enzymes,
A surrogate from affinity to serendipity,
For in flashback of these forlorn events,
I write this epiphany.
And though these letters are on fire,
And bestowed the bullets over armored heart,
For life exists in the heartache symphonies,
Like a stratagem cliché of painted art.
Call your unfurled knots of wrecked sanity.
A wildfire has gone wild within,
The eloquence thirst of your red lips,
Inked the words of love on this skin.
An audacious lover of seafaring,
Beside the starry onset of a beautiful dawn,
A tide of marvelous mystery,
Whose side are you on?
Its all fiction served with tea,
And through warm sips of this worthy minute,
Change is tempted to render seeds,
That swam through wind, till it escapes and wanders the infinite.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
soaring…
flying high, gaining momentum.
how beautiful…
but lasts not nature’s beauty as darkness moves in.
a chill settles as if the nest were ice…
the flight is threatened by a headwind,
rolling thunder from afar booms…
boisterous, billowing, clouds moving faster,
unnerving, unravelling courage, unrelenting fear…
but nothing can keep him down.
an attitude as wings…
a slight shift can fix it all.
the gusts blast beneath him…
shifting his wings,
angling up… .
the eagle soars higher.
take that which comes against you …
and use it to lift you up higher.
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 11:21 AM UTC
Privilege: A Poetic Illustration
The open sky
available to birds
free of cages that have
entrapped the
rest of us.
To soar in any direction
knowing no headwind,
net, bars or
wings clipped.
The free bird sings
not so much of power,
for he is
most often blind
to his blessing ,
but of
Choice.
The caged bird,
knowing no
such sky,
watches as
flying
tires faster,
as song
sounds of
battles past.
The sky alone,
rich in pitfalls unseen,
knows
which sky-corner
will be available
to thee.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 8:19 AM UTC
I was sailing back to you,
I would have sailed all the way across those
vicious seas, through the rocks,
on your breeze.
I would have caught your tailwind,
and sailed, like Magellan, around the globe,
but you were turning the Earth against me.
I would have sailed back to you,
tattered sheets on splintered masts,
makeshift oars to guide me, broken.
I would have sailed back to you,
to your harbor, crumbling,
and helped repair it, fixed.
I would have sailed back to you,
but
your tailwind became a headwind,
you burned my sails,
shattered my masts,
stole away my oars, and
destroyed your harbor.
And now I float,
desperate
starving
thirsting...
But I am now finding,
in the absence of your blinding star light,
that there are other harbors
that could save me from
the storm that you've become.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 2:06 PM UTC
You were my rock
Already laden with gulls and mermaids
And I was a wandering ship
My headwind weaving into your nooks and smoothing grooves along your chipped and chiselled face
We were a force that couldn't be reckoned with
The quiet breeze of a butterfly's wings
Catching and cooling
As the tide lapped and rose
Falling sharply away when it tasted the shoreline
The storm that gathered held distant
But its rhythm persisted in your lands
Small truths you'd held in place with busy times
Began to fracture
Splintering and splitting
There was no place that was not moved by thunder
The rope that bound us began to fray
Drawn taut and heavy, untended and laden with salt water
Tearing at the snags and sharpened juts
It eventually snapped
And I sailed onwards
While my anchor lay rusting
In the crannies of your lonely bed
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 7:01 AM UTC
‘We’re floating up with the Angels,’
Said the girl in the pale green dress,
She’d voiced the phrase in German
For the girl had hailed from Hesse,
‘I never have dreamt of a night like this,
We soar like the gods of old,’
Then they came and shut all the windows,
For the night was growing cold.
There wasn’t a shake or a shudder
From the platform in the sky,
The waters of the Atlantic streamed
Below, but they were dry,
A headwind slowed their progress
And a storm was coming on,
The flickers of distant lightning lit
The path that they flew along.
The following day, the coast appeared
But the rain set in the more,
Rather than land, the captain took them
Over the Jersey shore,
The weather was bad at Lakehurst, so
They whiled away the hours,
Floating up there above the clouds
And the steady springtime showers.
They finally dropped the mooring lines
As the crew stood by below,
When a sudden flash was seen up aft
And a roar began to grow,
The ship was lit like a candlestick
As the gas and the fabric scorched,
While a flame enveloped the girl in green
And lit her up like a torch.
The frame crashed down on the gondola
And all you could hear were cries,
It was almost as if the gods had screamed:
‘How dare you enter our skies?’
They say that St. Elmo’s Fire was seen
By the watchers, down on the ground,
But there wasn’t a trace of the girl in green
When the Hindenberg went down.
David Lewis Paget
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 8:22 PM UTC
Landfall...
a progress
nipped by headwind,
though his bullish heart
has flickered clear of drowning,
so he's dusting down
Saharan surplus, hawking
off the sea-sick yachts,
ensconced in royal chiffon,
appealing for that magnet-tug
along the pollen flyways
pulling homeward..
and
I wonder
if he sees me,
-mid shipped twitter
post Johannesburg-
a gurning
plate of swan-necked
adulation, craning skyward
that I should pin
my yearnings to his
cloud-encrusted orbits
caws of folly..
more fanciful
than summer being
borne upon his wings...
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 4:47 AM UTC
Or how can we?
Seems to be
the same headwind
against which we must
surge
or accept being
broken by,
continue crawling against,
until, in hope,
it shifts
and we go
with it,
together,
towards.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 6:58 PM UTC
I first saw her twisted braids
flying in the air behind her,
she was spectacular,
a steady determination
flared from her eyes.
The blue water churned
from her steady strokes
as she pushed straight away
into the strong headwind,
a formidable force
to be reckoned with.
The power in her arms
were traced onto her muscular form
and she was gone in a flash,
like tropical-lightning.
I stared in awe,
had witnessed
a pretty lady and her shell
become one with the water,
as she disappeared
into the mist
so very alive.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
there's nothing like the wind at my back,
pushing me forward,
augmenting my strength,
decreasing my time
and building my power higher,
it's easy.
but it is the headwind
against which i become stronger,
faster and more able,
it is the resistance against which
i push, strive, hone my senses -
it is against struggle where i define myself.
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
obamagainstheadwind
Dec 6, 2017
Dec 6, 2017 at 8:18 PM UTC
_In the legend of the lovers Tristan and Iseult, there is a small, magical, immortal dog named Petitcrieu who "ate half the sadness of everyone he met." He didn't gift any type of forgetfulness, but instead bestowed the ability to bear the sorrow easily._
Bells are ringing wet and pink
on a muscled shoreline of skin,
lining me with their tolling.
Their knell is so heavy in the ear,
it sinks into the sand chokes
trapped on my frozen tongue.
Someone great has vanished again.
The clang and clatter escapes
out of this red chest oven,
bangs around the wild world.
Grief is announced, by way
of cacophony. Where are the dogs?
The ones who eat our sadness
with their bellish barking?
Who look into our brief eyes
& remove the worst of the sting?
Who serve the moon, defy the sun?
They have gone missing.
Sorrow rushes through the waters
a blued frigate with a headwind,
overtaking the heart, the head,
the curried spine...
In this age, sadness is the magazine
that all of us are reading.
Aug 10, 2023
Aug 10, 2023 at 10:42 PM UTC
Not rats in wheels,
but birds on the wind;
a spirit feels,
for a life on the wing
the gale holds her still,
A headwind too strong
but she soothes as she sings
For flight is her song
May 23, 2021
May 23, 2021 at 5:30 AM UTC
Headwind slows me down
more than I accelerate --
with that wind behind.
May 4, 2024
May 4, 2024 at 3:40 AM UTC