"hillocks" poems
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb’d) sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that ’s foe to men,
For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.
5.1k
On the East Coast of England there’s a small resort
Called Cleethorpes, where I happen to reside.
And out towards the Pleasure Park
A short way from the shore
There is The Boating Lake.
I love to go there on a still, sundowning evening
When the parking is free.
To walk those walkways around the lake,
Dreaming I’m on Starfleet Academy Campus.
Walkways flanked by lawned hillocks and shrubs.
The lake is fringed by red-flowered reeds
And punctuated by ducks and geese.
Families and couples roam about
As I sit in meditation
Watching and listening
To the central fountain play.
Such a tranquil scene,
Far from the madding crowd.
Go over the bridge and cross the mini-railway line:
Before you reach the saltmarsh and the sea
You’ll find a stretch of shrubbery and trees
A haven for the birds
And for me,
As I walk my favourite path.
The lake is thus a prelude
To some splendid growth
As nature does its thing.
Serene and tranquil everything
A spiritual feeling
As I meditate
Beneath multi-layered clouds
Under endless sky.
Paul Butters
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 6:21 AM UTC
Fly, O Bird! I allow adventure
Of mighty lands and snowy hillocks.
Beautiful heavens amazingly add
To the treasure.
Soon thou'lt to nation your own, fly,
Breaking all my desires,
Rendering ***** void.
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 7:08 AM UTC
A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
Half sea, half country side;
A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide
Over a chalky, weedy mat.
A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
Round Crosses raised for hope,
With many-tinted sunsets where the slope
Faces the lingering western sheen.
A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
While Time sets solemnly,
While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.
4.3k
Ye who have passed Death’s haggard hills; and ye
Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know
And still stand silent:—is it all a show,
A wisp that laughs upon the wall?—decree
Of some inexorable supremacy
Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise
From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes,
Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury?
Nay, rather question the Earth’s self. Invoke
The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day
Whose roots are hillocks where the children play;
Or ask the silver sapling ’neath what yoke
Those stars, his spray-crown’s clustering gems, shall wage
Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age.
3.5k
If you wanted privacy,
you might have closed your blinds from time to time.
The devil doesn't knock upon entry.
He knows where he's wanted.
I've heard your conversations--
The bigotry,
the loathing.
I've ****** up filth through your floorboards.
I've tasted your tears,
mingled with sweat
from sins of the flesh,
cascading down your drains.
I've stepped through the hillocks of cigarette butts
you discard as carelessly as your dreams,
a little measure to meld your
environment and outlook:
the world as an ashcan.
I know you better than I'd ever know myself
because my assessment of you is
not gilded with pride or egotism,
not tainted by self-pity.
I know that you wanted this,
in spite of pained cries to the contrary.
I know you really wept for the innocence
you lost long before I let myself in your *****
You let the world in--
you offered yourself up with impunity for far too long.
You valued your life so little
as to put it on display for anyone's appraisal.
You were waiting on catastrophe
to prove you were worth saving;
I was merely the instrument.
I took nothing that wasn't proffered by your unlocked door.
Your home and your body share sentiments--
I simply took the welcome mat at its word.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 12:18 AM UTC
A is for anthill which I have in my drive
B is for buzzing from a hidden bee hive
C is for cockroach that run all round the house
D is for droppings, that have been left by a mouse
E is for egg sack that hangs in my trees
F is for flying which the bugs do with ease
G is is for gophers which inhabit my yard
H is for hillocks with which my yard is marred
I is for insects which are all I can see
J is for june bugs, they're as big as my knee
K is for killing which I try to do
L is for lugworms that are shaped like a *****
M is for Mickey and his mousey like friends
N is for never...this infestation won't end
O is for Oscar, my scared orange cat
P is for well...pee...and he's good at that
Q is for quinine which I leave out to treat
R is for rodents, which I want Oscar to eat
S is for slugs which are killing my grass
T is for totalled, just give me a match and some gas
U is for underwriter who has insured my place
V is for vermin, that now own all my space
W is for water with which I started a flood
X is for poison, which will thin out their blood
Y is for Yertle, a turtle by suess
Z is me sleeping...to bugs and vermin on the loose
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 7:43 PM UTC
I was surprised it felt heavier
Uneasiness too pinched me
Haven’t carried a weightier ever
What could fill a family!
Did I see a red heart there
Did I see a silver line
Did I carry the weight of care
Sealed with the hands of valentine!
It was heavier but I felt so light
And free as my dreams set free
Scaled the hillocks reached mountain height
When remembered what she heard from me!
*There’s no time I must haste
A load of work at office knocks
Would come home late it would be best
If you forget for today the lunchbox!*
Now I’m smiling as I eat the meal
More than daily quota manifold
The lunchbox lends me the much needed fill
Sealed with a heart of gold!
Feb 14, 2014
Feb 14, 2014 at 5:45 AM UTC
the cardiologist, in passing, remarks, or perhaps,
“re-marks” my ECG test, casually revealing
that every fifteen or twenty or so of my regularly scheduled
hearts beats, an extra one sneaks it, which appears
unlike all the rest of those normative little hillocks
pointing skyward, ^ ^ ^ V ^ ^ ^ ^
yep that one,
sneaky ****** slips in, pointing downwards
like a class clown always disrupting classroom’s good order…
Doc reassures it don’t mean a thing
if you got that extra swing,
and our friendly informing internet reassures:
“The idea of your heartbeat going rogue may sound alarming.
But in most cases, an ectopic beat is a harmless condition.
It's also a common one”
but yet I am intrinsically intrigued,
oh yeah, that’s an intentional funny double entendre,
but methinks that explains
so much of my irregular, irreverent poetry scribbling,
particularly because this bratty beat be best addressed directly as:
“You Little Rogue!”
a highly scientific term,
taught in medical schools by non-poets,
but needy for definitions that the layman
can love and keep in their
heart shaped hands…
Nov 4, 2023
Nov 4, 2023 at 8:17 AM UTC
22
All these my banners be.
I sow my pageantry
In May—
It rises train by train—
Then sleeps in state again—
My chancel—all the plain
Today.
To lose—if one can find again—
To miss—if one shall meet—
The Burglar cannot rob—then—
The Broker cannot cheat.
So build the hillocks gaily
Thou little ***** of mine
Leaving nooks for Daisy
And for Columbine—
You and I the secret
Of the Crocus know—
Let us chant it softly—
“There is no more snow!”
To him who keeps an Orchis’ heart—
The swamps are pink with June.
2.2k
I thought about Norfolk and Norfolk folk,
And Norfolk bricks and the Norfolk coast,
I thought of winds in a hollow dune and waveless seas
Where the heat washed a breeze -
Into a summer fret!
Where hawking gulls who balance by
point towards straight roads at sunrise
Where the hillocks fall down to
The summer's edge
In the wash of the Gibraltar flats
Reflected fractions of a perfect sky
Form blue pools in the heated sand
The stuff of dreams
That Norfolk
Land
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 2:59 PM UTC
She's lost and alone.
As she bays at the moon,
it's soul, so full.
The full moon smiles in a mischievous way,
Inviting her sorely to come out and play.
Tangled hair rolls down her back,
enveloping her fearsome face.
For tonight's cull,
Her manicure's gone
her nails have grown,
They're so sharp, so vicious, so fierce,
her tears,
although,
tumbling,
remaining unwiped,
She can bear no scars,
from her previous hunt.
Who said that t'was only the seventh son of the seventh son?
She wanders lonely hillocks,
On the hunt for human kind,
Her mind is cursed,
with ****** souls blood,
As she wanders alone through the wind blasted wood,
she's looking for food.
Her mind's set on feeding the curse she was given,
Stuck in a situation she did not want to live in,
Death did not become her,
it never could,
while,
she wandered lonely
through the wild wood.
Although,
desperately,
she tried hard to expire,
as an immortal wolf woman,
her wish was denied,
and she cried.
On the evenings,
when the moon was wane,
she sobbed to herself.
Feeling such pain,
knowing incarnate,
that soon the full moon,
would with it bring with her next date,
a date with death,
for somebody else.
(C)Livvi
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 9:28 AM UTC
i walk down roadsides n smile at clouds in towering wonder and sit upon hillocks of gravel watching citylights and knowing the same kinds of light shine upon you, too, sometimes: sweet, and in flittering movements. and in this snow-flurry, a single snowflake floats down the river of endless night, and drifts lazy pattern from our respective skins to each other's; i'll clamber up, down, over valleytops and riverbeds
to find you
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 7:48 AM UTC
softly
and deep
and
infinitely
and on and on and on
the night yawns strenuous nude limbs
uncoiled precisely fingers splayed groping the
hillocks. and loves the land with gentle laps
of the moons tongue. refreshed wholly with pleasure.
pale towers undescent pillaring dully.
and the flaccid dawn scallops the piles of mountains.
or about the lips, whom the (day sprays dew), glistening
on the cheeks. and i go quivering between its ivory legs. kissing
her flexing belly. exactly arched. lip biting.
emoc
rehtih; hither coming
giddy mystery.
pumping string. gasping on my stomach.
naked sliver grin for me.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 3:07 PM UTC
just before never...
*my last performance,
the words came original
and easy, unlike all its
predecessors; someone
drew me a map of my
life and times, cities,
countries, and roads
well travelled and a few,
not too. Mountains, each with
a woman’s name, who carried
care, until she couldn’t, didn’t, and
time’s weathering returned us
individually into hillocks, and then
rain eroded us back into old soil.
the broad highways and back roads,
always snaking away, fork-forcing
directional choices, usually taking the
wrong way, the easy and safe one,
and how I have come to hate those
words: easy and safe, for they
are the pill combo that leaves you
for dead, dulling the questioning
one inquires of oneself, late, reluctantly.
But there is always the unexpected.
Today I saw a sunset on the Hudson
River with a humpback whale blowing,
running beside a river ferry, plowing the
waters back and forth tween two states.
Lived by this river for s e v e n t y years,
and have seen the whales in many places,
but here, in my city, in the river of my youth,
never.
and I got the sign, message received, there
are still sights and poems to behold, arms to
embrace, youngers to guide if they’ll permit it.
so this title, these two, just before,
this day, poem, came to remind me, the
days map remains unfinished, there are lands
and voyages and poems still awaiting drawing,
and it is tomorrow, and just before tomorrow, that
recording insistent demands, and a map is just a
moment in time, until just before...never*
5:28 AM Thu Dec 10
2020 (a year deserving
of its own line and ending)
Manhattan, between two rivers.
Dec 10, 2020
Dec 10, 2020 at 5:48 AM UTC
the neighbor's hens ventured into my backyard
and they've deposited the odd calling card
the path out the back has lime hillocks on it
which have proved not to be such a hit
the neighbor and I had a Mrs Harris and a Mrs Higgs
we discussed the hens not so polite depositing within my digs
she said the hen house door had fallen off its hinge
that is why the hens did so impolitely impinge
her hubby the local long arm of the law
later this afternoon shall repair the unattached door
the venturing wont escape custody
they'll be locked up for their impropriety
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 9:48 AM UTC
A Palette of Sunrise
Bronze spears waltz with pure aubergine
amid cauliflower cumulus –
gold touch-paper.
Sugar sprinkled wash with
candy pink bubble-burst
stains church spire and oak.
Saturated in spongy tangerine
night-shapes meld into broken egg yolk
coffee spills through fields.
Foggy wool tufts
grasp mushy-pea hillocks,
sweat drops from tired shoots.
If I was a mender of souls
I would prescribe
five minutes, twice a day.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 2:22 PM UTC
The Tenderness
My hand slow motion falls, with the soft of the gentlest rain,
sensed,
but not disturbing, nay reassuring,
by the quality of the sensation, rolling caresses over
the hillocks of her body, outlined beneath the
Sea of Coverlets
My arm rotates and reverses, back forth, up down,
as if it were a well oiled engine, the hand strokes with
a smooth four cylinder stroke, gentle coating the panorama of
her body on the surface of our Planet-of-the-Bed.
The woman does not stir, meaning the dewey doux
intensity of my touch, there sufficient to please but
not disturb, is a perfect ten, for I intuit, that she attends
to my comforting attentions, with pleasure
by the
absence of objection.
This will not be the first poem I have written on this day,
but though not premiered, the experience is newly born
with each escapade of tenderness delivered, and steel hard
iron of ironies, it please. me as much if not more, for fully
awake and alert, am receiving by the giving and though
she stirs not, my heart does, for the electrical pulses of my
soothing her, soothe me in much the same way.
This is how I make love in the morning.
This is why this Poems is well titled and entitled as
“The Tenderness”
Jul 25, 2023
Jul 25, 2023 at 6:54 AM UTC
My window has no seat, why would it? I wish it did.
There is just a glossy magnolia ledge, barely wide enough to
cater a slender bottom. Upon the ledge books and candles
rest, illuminating the murk outside. Directly opposite orchard
trees recede as I welcome autumn with a zealous smirk.
For now faintly visible between their visceral arms are the
all-seeing hillocks that in winter will dominate my view.
An impartial observer once stated they were mere freckles
on the landscapes recumbent spine, but to me their sight alone
is vertiginous. On balmy April days I would surmount them,
a personal expedition, up there where I’m the valleys curator, wearing
pristine white gloves I meticulously unravel the terrain: an ancient
manuscript, the vellum inked with meandering streams, occasional farms,
cursive hamlets and little else - a land of sobriety and dearth.
In November though there is a permanent mist and its source
inexplicable. Does it simply effervesce from the precipitous tors about?
Is it the villager’s enshrined collective sigh? No it is something
more. Sitting atop the villages head it’s the beloved satin bonnet you
wore religiously as a child. Wholly impractical for this season
its gossamer fabric offers little solace or insulation to those below
as its pleated extremities elope with the moss-brown hinterland.
Fervently stoking their hearths the villagers broaden the
ethereal cloth with a smoke not acrid but satisfying and nourishing:
with a terrifically edible, hardwood flavour. From my hillock
vantage, the sanguine stone of the manorial chimneys is all that
penetrates the film; casually they release torrents of smoke like
ivory doves that weft patterns instinctively into the sky’s pallid damask.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 9, 2011
Dec 9, 2011 at 6:00 PM UTC
Rain dapples in fens of the marshland brooks,
Among the rue hillocks of the sapling woods,
What little peace may fall to drop the shivering
Leaves, rood of the sun, a crop, kestrels quiver
In midair, to keep as they sway into the stations
Of all minions moused who faulter in formation
And bright is birth, when night clothes the day,
As all the mornings long, song of hope, in May.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 9:17 PM UTC
.
Rain dapples in fens of the marshland brooks,
Among the rue hillocks of the sapling woods,
What little peace may fall to drop the shivering
Leaves, rood of the sun, a crop, kestrels quiver
In midair, to keep as they sway into the stations
Of all minions moused who faulter in formation
And bright is birth, when night clothes the day,
As all the mornings long, song of hope, in May.
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 5:49 PM UTC
Down from the icy Sawtooth crags
and through the winter-laden landscape,
the wind eventually dips to the canyon
and creek we loved so well as children.
Continuing on, it threads through the
hollows above the creek, sculpted even
today by stooped cottonwood trees.
Twisting above granite outcroppings
and lava boulders, the wind courses
through the giant arteries of this canyon,
passing among quaking aspen, river willow,
and gnarled cottonwood, shorn rudely
by now of every dryly-veined leaf.
At ancient volcanic escarpments the
wind bears south, scraping hard along
canyon walls. Upward it moves, out of
the canyon, slowing and sallying about
the hillocks, the gullies, the poplars
until it finally comes to stir ever more
gently, warmer even, my dear brother,
around your gray marbled headstone.
Primeval of days, this very same wind
blows for eternity upon eternity, polishing
and purifying even the roughest of
the earth's elements and impediments.
This said, at this hill's crest where you rest,
there is no need of further refinement. Feel
how the northern wind quiets for you,
as if it knows over whose stone it passes.
--
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 4:52 PM UTC
I never meant to fall
but sunrise greased your chassis.
The crest and fall of your jaw—
the blade and bend of it,
mudslide contouring of it—
dropped me ribless at your feet.
O promising land, crisp field
of flesh, whose fireflies
steered my eyes in the darkness—
your land, where my eyes had strayed—
scaled over eolian caves, the slick
basins of your clavicle, onto
the hexa hillocks clustered
like honeycomb chambers
on your abdomen.
I never meant to fall,
but the cursive lines of you,
I might have trod with loose eyes—
even now, there is a voice
drawing them to strike
at the aquifer beneath your waistline,
voice of vined thirst,
of torso and tug—
with them, I struck and drowned
Jul 31, 2021
Jul 31, 2021 at 4:28 AM UTC
Amidst endless cyclones
I kept moving with
dreams in my eyes,
Without stopping
Without bending
Without tiring
I just kept walking
Unerasable
Unstoppable
Always moving..
I heard voices
Crying
Shaking
Calling
Shouting
Yelling
Bribing
Always
Stopping
!!
But I kept walking
To achieve my dreams
I moved forward
Upon
Unknown roads
Unknown twists & turns
Unknown crossroads
Unknown hillocks
To achieve the impossible
To set an example
Filled with positivity
in my heart..
Telling always it's
Attitude that's important
I kept moving
Unthinking
Unbending
Unstoppable
!!
Sparkle In Wisdom
Dec 2018
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 2:43 PM UTC
Rain dapples in fens of the marshland brooks,
Among the rue hillocks of the sapling woods,
What little peace may fall to drop the shivering
Leaves, rood of the sun, a crop, kestrels quiver
In midair, to keep as they sway into the stations
Of all minions moused who faulter in formation
And bright is birth, when night clothes the day,
As all the mornings long, song of hope, in May.
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC