"hinterland" poems
wraith of white
you wander wild
the hinterland
Valkyrie's child
your breath pants mist
in icy caves
you have made
10, 000 graves
your image is
in winter skies
its crystal glitters
in your eyes
loping through
the cold chill wood
its secrets you
have understood
born to lead
long of fang
through the glaciers
your voice rang
lonely in your Lycan heart
you made the ****
your kindest art
wolf of legend
wolf of lore
you'll reign untamed
forevermore
soulsurvivor
(C) 2/16/2014
Rewritten 6/12/2015
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 6:11 PM UTC
i am the proud pond
you are the ocean
our worlds cross a tortuous route
I am the mottled web
you are the hinterland
mighty when expressed
through the seasons we endure
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 1:25 PM UTC
The spotlight is on the broken coastline
porous - like archers spilling arrows
into the vanquished hinterland.
In the ancient West Mercia
wooden bridges collapse
uproar, as the King's regiments
long disbanded , ghosts
into fading memory.
Our defenders, our loyal subjects
enmeshed into the wider fear
our citadels breached,
and where is the valour
the self reliance of our septic isle?
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 3:50 PM UTC
a hinterland
there has
corn and
orient ties
in court
with his
golden tight
sweater so
he'd cook
tempura right
with his
catch of
roughy 'bout
now and
in his
kind place
in Montauk
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 1:31 PM UTC
scavenger bride,
she counted periods
before the children came along,
but never suspected
eyes like bottles
beginning to blue,
a tangle of scars
hermetically sealed,
the new order of
a broken romance,
dead love cassettes
in the glove compartment,
her cold and empty
constellations,
like cold breath
passing through a beam of sunlight,
grid of points, pendulums,
the ratio of freckles to stars,
no subtle countenance,
martinis and bikinis,
soft ******* and ice cream,
slight, elusive things, on a beach
with no more meaning,
the repeating pattern of
her mistakes and reliefs,
a preservation of decay,
sustained by the tiny
human fault line
in that oneiric hinterland,
between dreaming and waking,
she draws around the noise
and the clearings,
she creates within that sightline
the way her sadness can feel
comfortable,
an extension of loss that turns
her ruins into a home.
Aug 1, 2022
Aug 1, 2022 at 2:48 PM UTC
OUR POVERTY HAS COLOUR
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Most illusive and elusive
Like the devils of Congo forest
Is the impish poverty
Permeating all seals with vicious wily
Into the midst of callous humanity
Biting country men and country women
With carnivorous dentalities so ruthless
Putting man to a forlorn shame
As the wife looks in desperate flaggerbastation
Putting matriarchal womenfolk to humiliation
As the expectant sire wallow in the askance of looks
Condemning communities to status ad absurdum initio
Thinning man from man, culling woman from woman
Eating flesh by flesh social koprpers of man
Eating the native flesh in the farms of Brazil
Tearing the ***** steak into ghetto lacerations of Chicago
Whizzling sombre morning tunes to the Zulus in the black tundra
Cementing pale casted clusters for the Patels of India
Commanding suave drills to poor (wo) menfolk; left! Left! Left! –abouuuuturn!
With its accomplice Mr. Hunger son of starvation, they both command drills
For black factory workers, Maids and gravediggers to dance
Watchmen, thieves and prostitutes to match
In the hinterland of Africa all the riff-raff in deep despair
Dance in a tandem to the irritating drills of the duo;
You come on! Left! Right! Left! Right!—fowaaard match!
Backward match! Left! Right! Left! Right! Sharpp uuuuuuuturn!
The duo communiqué; Go home and wait for your pay announcement.
Surely; what colour is our poverty?
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
The snipers rifle hung from the parapet
still warm, cordite drifted from
the business end.
It resembled a cigarette,
dangling in the groove of an
ashtray which was given to you
as a souvenir from a place
you had no desire to go.
And you had no desire to go there
as you had read stories of donkey
cruelty and the militias’ refusal to
accept Greenwich as the
centre of time.
Their struggle against the meridian
has been well documented in film and
prose.
Stories and rumours filtered in
from the hinterland, carried home in
economy flights from different time zones
arriving at the terminal, milling around the
carousel.
****** victim 4 lay in a forensic
scene, white tapped surrounded by
duty free bags, and the secret dossiers
exposing the militias plans drifted, blood
stained in the breeze.
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 5:21 AM UTC
My waking time
in the narrowest part of the creek
chases spots in the shadows
a streak between bushes
thirsty tongue lapping green opal
cautious cotton on the fallen leaves
the priceless prowler in the morn mist
or in the dusk
the graceful glory
in the hinterland of my heart.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 9:45 AM UTC
he wasn’t overseas to be difficult.
he had pain in his arm, he thought
he could find a snake. a cut-off toe.
our insides were still inside the time
that we knew him. his arm it sorta
came like a slug you might see freed
from a puddle’s hinterland eye. slow
like that, wrong like that. like these:
hippies and father time. a mole enters
an infected shoulder: yours. a mole
has been your heart, and peacefully.
your mother doesn’t know about the mole.
it’s not in the letter.
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 11:00 AM UTC
dolly lyrics
doldrums drum's roll
dollop lopsided
doll llama amazon on
dolphin hinterland
dole dolts
dollar large, largess
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 11:20 AM UTC
em...
what's the difference between
refugees, economic migrants...
and ex-pats?
not much...
esp.with regards the latter...
who are ex-pats?
immigrants,
from a de- host nation...
English women sipping tea
with Mussolini...
ex-pats:
out of, what? patriotism?
maybe my latin prefixing is
a bit rusty...
ginger amy adams...
by god....
if a rose... that...
that is a rose...
strawberry blonde...
mmm mmm...
kentucky fried chicken...
f'now i wish for an ***
i can ***** all day long in
Manhattan...
and be like:
yummy and **** me three ways
sinister...
because? why not?!
ginger ninja...
nunchucks up the ***
to replace the ****** or
the cucumbers...
bridegroom of
Bruce ******* Lee...
makes up for a degenerate
market...
slurp an oyster...
bargain on clam economy...
point being?
self-harming of girls
replaces
the tattoo industry...
of girls...
and the world continues
its carousel "enterprise"...
then the world dies...
and then the world revives itself...
self-harming text books...
and then comes along...
tattoo -
the spiral,
deficit woman -
her due, her, own,
her: albatross swoon -
dive into the curtailed unknown -
a woman hindered -
a woman governed by the hinterland -
a scrap of,
what became the scoop of
what later became -
the crown of Poseidon's
scavenger
ushering in...
the last, of what remained:
a peeled onion.
St. Basil -
came the crow,
came the cathedral,
came the gauged out eyes..
came the croak...
came...
the span of wings...
came...
the labors -
a mind, a lost digestion...
came...
a vision of a future...
without the fiction
of an immovable past.
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 8:17 PM 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
Trump's targeted the EPA,
an agency that's in the way
of rich polluters everywhere
who foul the water, land and air.
Employees there may no more tweet.
With journalists, they may not meet.
No external communication.
No Facebook use across the nation.
For issues such as climate change
don't fit the script that Trump's arranged.
Oil wells and pipelines he has planned,
to snake across the hinterland.
He wants to dig and burn the coal.
He doesn't care. He has no soul.
He showers his troupe of alt-right *******
with platitudes and promised riches.
Oh what a sad and tragic day
when Trump destroyed the EPA.
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 8:45 PM UTC
We drove the kids North East to
our adopted hinterland
of moreish moorland, the Brontes
heath and heather hiding-place,
near peacock splendid Castle Howard.
Town kids need more stimulation,
animal animation.
A newly opened zoo park
offered flamingos in the pink,
fapping, fluttering, squarking
round a stinking muddy pool.
We splashed about, rain soaked,
licking mud spiced ice creams,
shivering, slipping, thinking
it's what you try to do for kids.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 6:11 AM UTC
Sky bleeds thin red line__
Obsidian blade cuts deep
hinterland of time.
r ~ 8Mar14
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 4:24 PM UTC
The python crawling
and winding through the land,
decimating,annihilating
and choking lives
out of our youths,
there's fear in the land,
stench smell of blood
from the calamity spreads
through the land.
We must stand firm,
hold the line,resist them
and vehemently oppose them.
This monstrous tragedy
is dreadfully depressing.
weeping of our mothers
whose sons are taken
heard from afar.
There's no war but
there's war in the land.
Who is next to be taken.
This python dangerously
dancing it's way
among the people.
The young men bruised
and wounded by its venom.
Dance of this python scares
the little ones in the hinterland.
They attempt to break,
demonise, belittle,
vilify and wipe us out
through intimidation,
disinformation, mass ******
and ethnic cleansing.
Can the elders magically
unleash the anaconda
to swallow up their python
just like Moses did to
his adversaries.
©2017. Emeka Mokeme.All rights reserved.
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 6:24 PM UTC
They march
withered but undying
with mud
fallen sweetly on their faces.
A new sky and a tender wind
grant severance from the sea.
Haunt us no more
with your pikes and arrows.
Blend our moanings and call our names:
the sunflower,
the wind,
the moonshine breaks
a mirrored frame,
a knighted sky,
and iron cast in embroidered lace.
I lay my hopes in
a hinterland of grace/waste.
What will a soul bring
that a body cannot
in sorrow or in death?
When sentiments of corpses
hang high from windows
paneled by offense,
stars fall on broken strings.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 12:33 AM UTC
Palm Kiss,
my spooky little ***** house
at Halloween,
you are amazing.
I am aware of that...
and, and, and
I'll be thinking of you...
at the moment,
I can't.
That's a waste of time.
Our finest words
hit her bathroom sink,
I know you can't see
the afternoon right now...
not with the Hinterland gleaming
a mustard seed slope
with stems of bushy brown
all aglow where
the sun slants into
heaven's gate.
Love has a selective memory
murmuring an opuscule
melody,
when the sky slides into
droplets,
broken- beaded chain
playing in the dripping
golden pediment
blushing red feathered veins
into the autumn leaf.
I will be thinking of you...
though at the moment...
I
can't,
That's such a precious waste of time.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 9:34 PM UTC
*Maculate Cheddar Moon nights o'er Aquarian countryside
Hinterland for young lovers , pathways for romance rediscovered
Shangri-La midnight glen , flaxen mane , astral beacons of
Smoke blue in concerto with Flame red
A reflection on a chosen star at curiosities unlatched gate
Traipsing rain washed , cool clover with strawberry tressed , porcelain 'Inamorata'
Ebony hour capitulation and seduction* ...
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 9:21 PM UTC
They trade with my dream
training their skills
They shop with my temper
dabble their patience
They bet for my breast
Measure their libido
They drink for my health
get drunk with their money
They are sleepless
Concerned about my problems
They hire a private detective
to write my black biography
counting my lovers.
For all the time
For them
I’m at the public auction
And they try to steal my eye
To **** my dream to push me in the hinterland
And to play play with me.
Jan 7, 2013
Jan 7, 2013 at 3:31 PM UTC
Be that little girl for longer
stay there
naivety is easy lost
once you have
smeared
the make-up
of adulthood
across your beautiful face
something goes
that you will
never
regain
not in the
pocket of
your red velvet coat
or your ripped jeans
or in your toy box
revisited
with a tear
in an attic
moment
when it is all
too late
Stay the charming boy
the footballing
***** kneed
rascal
stay in your
cowboy and indian
dream
your truck driver
hinterland
before the
bubble is burst
by playground
wisdom
and peer
group poison
cherish your Christmas morning 4am’s
for as many years
as you can
before you
know too much
about too little
and find
it all banal
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 4, 2010 at 1:43 AM UTC
Not knowing where I am going
I am lost in an forgotten hinterland
I used to have such direction
But now I have absolutely none.
Wondering in this place
I am lost in Outer space
Surrounded by cloud
Like cotton wool
As all my lists
Dissolve into the mist
I look north, east ,south and west
No land marks valleys or peaks
As I sniff a little heather
And become as lite as a feather
Somewhere in my stomach
I feel an empty passage
But I take a gentle breath as
Something says nothing is urgent
I am cushioned by the cosiness
of the spongy undergrowth
As I Feel myself grow I delve
Into the peaty marshes bellow
Lost in this sleepy land
I can not help but enjoy
The forgotten Hinterland
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 4:53 PM UTC
They stand,
huddled together,
tall protests that peirce the air;
With their shear beauty
they show reason enough,
they need no more justification.
And there, bleeding out of their mass,
mangled hunks mercilessly hacked from helpless trunks,
reduced to a pile of rubble, of rotting flesh,
filling the air with their putrid smell,
murdering the serenity with their own death.
And the perpertrators?
Long gone.
Their blades dripping with blood, oozing with evil,
their stinking motors,
all gone,
leaving only destruction and acrid smoke,
which can not be cleared,
swept away,
by the mass that was beauty,
destroyed by greed.
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 7:38 PM UTC
Remember when the sun would slip behind the trees
Sewing fancy shadows made from dancing leaves
Our first balloon ride in the midday breeze
We always understood there were no guarantees
'♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I came to you unfinished with my childish ways
You were all panache with your silken bouquets
A beautiful stream of sunsets under autumn's gaze
It was you and I , creating our own maze
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦'
The cabin still stands out by Cemetery Hill
You carved a window box for the windowsill
Our ceiling of memories will minify the chill
On the mantle of tomorrow where time stands still
'♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I've carefully placed you on the dashboard of time
Where onward and upward is the only way to climb
We'll draw the blueprints for pipe dreams sublime
While humming our song, about rosemary and thyme
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦'
It's time to go now; won't you take my hand
Across salt-misted orchards toward the hinterland
We'll fly to Easter Island where giant statues stand
In our vortex of infinity; one woman -- one man ♦
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
painted on the azure parchment
wispy cloud tails
sailing through the day
to the hinterland vales
on reaching their designated
stop off point
the cloud's wispy forms dispersed
ne'er again of the parchment
did they anoint
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC