"hovels" poems
And so the girl child sat
knitting melodies beside
the great river of words.
Soon her songs were heard,
beyond the Lake of Lyrics
and the vast Sea of Verse.
The evening tide carried them
across oceans to foreign shores.
Field workers sang her songs
to children in their hovels.
They escaped the lips of scholars
in the great halls of learning.
The child became a woman,
and still she weaved the magic,
from the words of the river,
for the hearts of all who read them.
As she weaved she told the secret
to a child who knitted beside her.
Emerging from the womb of time
I heard her whisper to my heart.
I felt the great river in my being,
and I began to knit a melody.
I heard my soul sing with joy,
I am the child of an ancient poet.
© 30/12/2009
Oct 27, 2010
Oct 27, 2010 at 9:51 PM UTC
Sopor fuels the pen
Darkness devours the sun
As she carves the page
With beautiful words
*Ethereal, Opulent
Sonder, syzygy*
*Vellichor, Gambol
Efflorescence, Effluence*
Words without meaning
Lurk in the shadows
And hovels of ambition
Creep onto the page
But the mind embraced
In a blanket of obscurity
Cannot find their worth
*Her Mellifluous song
Ensorcelled her lover
Bliss in limerence*
How can the stagnant
Heart waltz with stars, write of love,
Beat in unison?
How can the lifeless
Soul connect with humanity?
My words are worthless
Dec 22, 2015
Dec 22, 2015 at 7:05 PM UTC
Passover Moon's
****** hue
eclipses
the ordinary
in veils of
miraculousness
obscure
rouge
halos
illume
elliptical arcs
guiding
footsteps in
a righteous
exodus
across
troubling
waters
forsaking
hovels
with
painted
doorjambs
dripping
lambs blood
Mezuzahs
bleat
memories
holy
murmurs
bespeaking
lamentations
of ancient
hosannas
our
desperate
supplications
flesh out a
distressed
humanity
seeking
deliverance
from the
vengeance
is mine
Elohim
may it
be nigh
we wait
watching for
an always faithful
Good Deliverer
to honor the
covenant
to lift
despair
with a
liberating
yoke
lugging
leaden
burdens
Oh Holy
of
Holies
banished
in the wisp
of a bitter herb
our
distended
bellies
fill with
unleavened
grace
sweet
droplets
of manna
consumed
with extreme
gratitude
arriving
at journeys
end to
promised
lands
fully
satiated
and free
to rest in
sanctuaries
of radical
hospitality
luxuriating
in an infinite
abundance
for all
sojourners
Selah
Music Selection:
Big Mama Thornton
Go Down Moses
Oakland
4/15/14
jbm
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
I.
something within me,
maybe its my amigdala,
misses the oven-turned-gentrified clot,
that great collection of want,
of transient soles-souls.
I miss how we’re piled three stories high,
so close to each others’ mouths that we must
burrow in criss crossed, colliding tunnels
to our point b’s, our job sites,
our lovers’ houses.
maybe it is indeed part of our un-nature to do this,
to cling to one another even
as our unforgiving sungod bakes us whole,
cornish game hens on the el train,
hurdling 40 mph, to and from
our personal hovels, heavens
and bedsheets,
tethered to this place, possibly indentured,
definitely flawed,
where we revel under roofs to prove incredibleness
an virility.
II.
our eyes are not closed today.
they may not blink in unison
as mannequin lids do,
so effortlessly, plastic and mechanical,
but those, we are thankfully not.
for we are flesh,
and air, and miles of gastrointestinal turnpike, if unpinned,
would stretch from here to panama.
we are each of us
a viscous mound called
Sally, Bertram and Queen Mary.
We are the collision of milk flowing, divine,
a whirling dervish
in scalding darjeeling.
we are air,
gliding over enamel into the collective breath
to be devoured so sweetly by others,
as saintly man-scripted gelato,
dribbling down our chins in piazzas.
la dolce ************* vita.
III.
that’s the funny thing about living
in this size 2 world,
the ability to appear anywhere upon its face at a moment’s notice,
to be in front of any face when desired,
to live sans toll booth or customs desk,
to simply dust off our ability to fly
and tumble icarus-adolescent into the collision
between the two blue planes called sea and sky
Jun 7, 2011
Jun 7, 2011 at 9:58 AM UTC
Arctic and Pure
cups emptied of Western laziness
gratis
Sapphire tears and sparkling beams
gathered from the fields
shining Pez and elecution exercises
Hey Miss, Tell me something
a poem
about everyplace
no fooling, You're so serious
and the serfs of the modern hovels are well behaved
and none
fleshen bodies
heads full of squishy wishes
consumme
my amusement is like a panacea
a corporeal healing
Flying who-I-haven't-people
someone down in my
constant solar blaze,
one who I devote all clear evidence
all the right answers,
fairness
Ignorance always harms our potential
reveal deaths inconsequence and void
flying through tunnels
creating opportunities for life.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 7:22 AM UTC
the curling smoke
from warming fires
rise into the slate
gray sky of the
Beqaa Valley
sheaves of
rising prayers
expire in twisted plumes
dissipating into the
gloom of an ever
looming winter
overcast
refugees from
the Arab Spring's
uncivil wars
gather for warmth
around waning embers,
smoldering in the underbelly
of the lowliest bottom of rusted
steel drums, tended
with scavenged debris
some thought better
suited to fortify the
faltering hovels of
last resort
the fires
join us in
communal rings
straining the
tenuous links of
brotherhood, the
politics of men
assiduously tear
asunder
we count ourselves
among the fortunate,
blessed exiles recused
from the acrimony
of desecrated cities,
welcoming the
residencies of
bewailing lullabies
of colic infants, the
searing hunger of
stunted children and the
incomprehensible babble
the elderly eloquently
speak in tongues
of a desperate
exasperation
our nagging impotence
swaddle us in ambivalent
inabilities to master circumstances
profanely denigrating our humanity
privation is
our daily bread
the bitter manna
feasting on the
animosity the banquet
of rancor generously
prepares for
peace starved
pilgrims
in these
refugee camps
the cold cuts deeper
hunger pangs
grow sharper
our blighted dignity,
vanished livelihoods,
and the presence of
recently interred
loved ones trudge
through our mean
encampment as
fully enfranchised
citizens in our
distressed
kingdom
what was lost can
never be recovered
our homeland leveled
yet doors still stand open
silently pleading all
to cross a new
threshold
the full restoration
of our hope,
the reconstitution
of our flagging
humanity, the
spark of the
holy spirit
willfully uniting us
in the salvation
of reconciliation
is nigh
we are
the divine children
stoking the embers
tending the fire
that light pathways
through the cold
darkness of a
broken world
Oh come
Emmanuel,
dwell among us
Oh come
Emmanuel
ransom once
again the
poor captives
of Israel….
Selah
Music Selection:
L'Accorche-Choeur, Ensemble vocal Fribourg
Veni Veni Emmanuel
Everywhere
Christmas
2013
jbm
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 10:48 AM UTC
in this city's jungle haze
the mortar shells bricked gallows' glaze
every pause for which a breath was shed
has returned now to this blankest page of night
the constant newborn night that wants your haloed angel dead
(above)
from the feline night returning
the baritone blues
stalk halo's yearning
every lissome hustler
knows the answer
cuz he's got it in his blood...
blowing silk cut smoke
before God's greatest flood
(below)
now sapped in amber's
wedded stasis
a knife edge wrought
keen for the basis
of a clean cut amputation
of ***** lustrous hesitation
(equals) (static)
in gutted hovels by the hour
archangels sing of
God's illuminations
and sweetest disavowal
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
i keep the squalor of our opulent hearts
in heavenly hovels, and i mushroom harps
in the damp lurch of our fever dream
monastic,
i combine the river with the sea
and swamp the ether of our delicate masquerade.
we don the ribbons of a hag
and scoff the ludicrous
of Sunday.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 10:00 PM UTC
Start with the breath,
Shaky lately, it changed with the stains a painting formed on my chest came leaking, sneaking black bubbling death
It foamed up towards the roof of my vest,
Cough is hoarse excuse me my poorly conveying the truth I confess that maybe I've trained my brain to ignore the distress culminating the gruesome express
Eyesight now, and my Eye's feel numb
Two flocks fly in the light of the sun, side by side in a sign like a gun that stops my stride in time with the young, I wonder why and who had time to train these geese to write ******* W's alright, soon it fades from mind a two days wait until it's time to light up the night blunt try somma my cut the line trust is high up sigh at thoughts thought in my mind fuzz fought climb up bought thine scuffle what ******* geese fly in V's I'm blind cuz.
Minds in circles my muscles in decay my brain can't keep track of the ******* days
I'd buy the parcel from hovels of dismay trade for ants to keep mortality at bay
I'm afraid I wished for death too often, it waits till I'm content to grant it's bubbles while I'm coughin.
Nov 13, 2020
Nov 13, 2020 at 7:58 PM UTC
sifting through aeons of green plums
we stagger in the hollow reeds of the wrong sun
under sorcery and utter love
ginseng in the choir of
our up above
we weave decay
we soon knit with icepicks, our idiot summer.
swinging from the chandeliers of our hovels
boiling rain
in ruby pots
delving into soft focus you can cut with a blade of gasp
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 11:42 AM UTC
There lived an old man in the kingdom of Tess,
Who invented a purely original dress;
And when it was perfectly made and complete,
He opened the door, and walked into the street.
By way of a hat, he'd a loaf of Brown Bread,
In the middle of which he inserted his head;--
His Shirt was made up of no end of dead Mice,
The warmth of whose skins was quite fluffy and nice;--
His Drawers were of Rabbit-skins,--but it is not known whose;--
His Waistcoat and Trowsers were made of Pork Chops;--
His Buttons were Jujubes, and Chocolate Drops;--
His Coat was all Pancakes with Jam for a border,
And a girdle of Biscuits to keep it in order;
And he wore over all, as a screen from bad weather,
A Cloak of green Cabbage-leaves stitched all together.
He had walked a short way, when he heard a great noise,
Of all sorts of Beasticles, Birdlings, and Boys;--
And from every long street and dark lane in the town
Beasts, Birdles, and Boys in a tumult rushed down.
Two Cows and a half ate his Cabbage-leaf Cloak;--
Four Apes seized his Girdle, which vanished like smoke;--
Three Kids ate up half of his Pancaky Coat,--
And the tails were devour'd by an ancient He Goat;--
An army of Dogs in a twinkling tore up his
Pork Waistcoat and Trowsers to give to their Puppies;--
And while they were growling, and mumbling the Chops,
Ten boys prigged the Jujubes and Chocolate Drops.--
He tried to run back to his house, but in vain,
Four Scores of fat Pigs came again and again;--
They rushed out of stables and hovels and doors,--
They tore off his stockings, his shoes, and his drawers;--
And now from the housetops with screechings descend,
Striped, spotted, white, black, and gray Cats without end,
They jumped on his shoulders and knocked off his hat,--
When Crows, Ducks, and Hens made a mincemeat of that;--
They speedily flew at his sleeves in trice,
And utterly tore up his Shirt of dead Mice;--
They swallowed the last of his Shirt with a squall,--
Whereon he ran home with no clothes on at all.
And he said to himself as he bolted the door,
'I will not wear a similar dress any more,
'Any more, any more, any more, never more!'
1.4k
I feel your heartbeat in my feet.
You swallow me up playfully
Your children floating daintily
they're dancers in the breeze.
Your other kids are tumbling
'Round about in their hovels
freshly broke slumber has got
Them wound up. I hold one in my
arms, I think she broke her wing.
Don't mind mother, I don't mind
babysitting.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 7:05 PM UTC
Like **** you look; like you cry yourself to sleep.
I want yeah love, not yeah tears.
You laugh in public, but in private you're crying.
Stuck to old fabric when you should be in silk with me.
'Cause of me, you say,
You can't hear The Bees.
I want yeah love, not hyperbole.
I thought I had you lost,
But you know,
I see:
Holding up,
That face, yours,
Behind the big plastic frames,
Who you kiddin'?
Not me.
I see the blue.
Who you kiddin'?
Not me, babe, not me.
So we're both unhappy, you in yours,
And yours in you,
And me in mine.
Mine in me.
Me and ******* me.
Still, I am free to not be free,
You are love, that can't.
Now ain't that a pretty irony?
Why aren't we turning?
Like we're meant to - two matchsticks burning as they coil each other round -
The white,
Burnt charcoal for all to see.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, blind ambition for a dream - that through entreaty - can't be met.
From tinctured gray hair,
And looped repetition,
Patriarchy's silver,
Its forked deceit.
You ********* you.
Come here I'll flail you proper,
Open up your flesh with my acid tongue,
Lash you to a better place so make your skin red like the devil's own.
Ahhh, come on!
Summer's buried,
So to our hovels,
Our fake wombs,
And see what emerges when you can't long any longer our hardened decay.
When desire finally awakens and brings you skipping to our light.
I'll be there in the shade,
Waiting to dominate,
As best you had.
Come lover,
Before all meaning's lost,
All passion's fury spent
On false gods who live to lie.
Come dart with me in the shadows and the light.
Take me to the sun's core.
Strip me,
Make to me, again,
My deepest rings penetrate,
On my face scathing drip,
Savage in my ears,
Over my minced and dessicated body rage,
Your clear **** in my hair.
Animal; you, I miss.
Oct 11, 2019
Oct 11, 2019 at 7:28 PM UTC
I First Saw Scranton
...and did not unpack
my life
Iron-- ic
as if always
meant to be a rusted ruin
I first saw Scranton
Not much of a view
beyond the smoldering mountains of the culm
dumps, decrepit
mills, of once...
prosperous coal
city in denial
decay of Great mansions--abandoned
on the Hill
away
from clapboard and spit hovels
of miners
in the barren
mud beside the river
below
and I remember thinking:
"How can I ever live here?"
I own one of those hovels now
48 years-- under foot and harnessed
in the stays
Just another in a string of small
sad
cities'
people
so used
and
waiting
to be
covered up
once again by heaviness--
Its sin
in the mercy of snow...
Aug 2, 2017
Aug 2, 2017 at 2:26 PM UTC
The evening song of the boatman
rowing into the sunset,
mingles with the waves,
sailing past mausoleums and mansions
long deserted by the banks.
In a moon beam's flash, to the slow beat,
come alive the pasts that
play out by the stars
wading through the skies:
bedecked women of the household,
servants in toe, about the courtyard,
children frolic as feasts are announced
and the nights of splendour where
music and magic become one;
In the flutter of rain,
pigeons hide, and bats, in corners
where heirlooms were locked precious
through generations; unknown
then, the hovel of a hermit
is thronged by the thousands whose name
now mingles with those of the Gods
for a glimpse into whispers past time;
It is the beauty of the tree that bares
her soul in winter offerings to the Earth;
Of the stream that offers oblations
shivering through moonless nights;
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
the heart,
and how it loves,
i cannot say.
but you forgive
me.
i cannot know the untamed thing
as much as feel
it's sting-
and I have no god to approach...
to reconcile the
irony.
only the pit
in me.
only the furnace of lost moons.
the ****
jewels
of nightfall,
and nothing
else.
i keep the squalor of our opulent hearts
in heavenly hovels !
i denote the flat note
in a fife's
throat -
and blow the trumpet
of silent
things.
so...
how
it loves,
is lost to
me.
but i burn more
constantly
than I forgive
it
empty.
full of
you.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 6:03 PM UTC
In case you forget,
In all your darkest moments,
Warmth,
Sunshine dancing petulantly on the water.
I would like to share the majesty-
Windermere.
Endless lawns of forlorn, scraggly grass
Stretches and etches hills into life.
Formed from the hand of an artist,
Stroking the countenance
And beaming beauty into its many folds,
Little hovels of black, vert and emerald
Hide like mice and voles,
Shivering in the sanctity
And uncertain security
That the upside-down mounds afford.
The lane is a wash of blue,
Smiling delicately at a distance
Flowing as it waves,
Languid and gay,
Comfortable in it's age.
Island.
But one tree,
Standing helplessly,
Hopelessly, out of place.
Feeling content, in its lovely face.
Even the sky agrees,
For there is no quarrel
Between it and the translucent, ethereal colours
Flooding the canvas.
What is the work of man compared to God?
And how much more beautiful it is than anything I have seen
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 5:47 AM UTC
The poisoned soul, tainted--
victim of its owner's own hand.
Twisted;
tight and coiling as a filth soaked rag;
contentment, elation's enchantment,
wrung like water clouded the filth of grey--
cast from the fibres' binding
binding life to purpose. Worthless.
Popping pills
to cure an invisible ailment.
Smartphones, gems, unhumble hovels,
ineloquent words impotent
to wash the essence sickness--
treating symptom rather
circumstance. Jailing the spirit in
sedation's purchased trance.
The cure found not in
possessions procurement but
by moments in time too brief.
A loving embrace, the hand of a child,
smiles and laughter--
relief to soothe
the poisoned soul poisoned by
sadness.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 7:56 PM UTC
On a power cable
trembling
before the wind
that plays havoc with trees and tiles
of cottages and hovels
a typical feudal lord, violent
power-drunk, indifferent;
Up there, on that throne---
sits a lonesome Kingfisher
regal, haughty, detached
from the ground zero
a visitor from the far-off heavens
a pleasing sight
on this rushed
Mumbai early- morning.
a creature, tiny, vibrant
dressed in a multi-coloured coat
worn earlier
by an agile harlequin
doing acrobats in an Italian court,
for the seventeenth-century audience;
the feathered guest
lightly sitting
on that high perch
a stoic
silhouetted against the
immensity of a dark-grey sky
threatening rain.
@Sunil Sharma
Sep 15, 2017
Sep 15, 2017 at 11:25 AM UTC
In the presence of you all
I am the minuscule whimper
The pliable verdant sapling
Absorbing the sunlight
Devouring the moonlight
Chilled by the darkness and the winds of December
I await my moment of clarity in which echoes will become foreign, and I will deafen with discordant absurdity established by only me.
I await the stripping of the senses, to be ensconced within an elaborate dimensional fold, neatly tucked in plain sight for all to behold.
Yet I revel in dampened caves, in frostbitten hovels where my body grows restless, and my mind objects claiming we are timeless.
The thriving essence of that weary traveler with a tireless spirit
And every primeval music note I’ve salvaged from the stars I will use to compose my insanity
And you will hear it on windy days where the sea looks unusually reckless
And you will feel it during moments of transience
And you will see it lingering briefly when you witness your future
And during those moments of lucidity you will come to realize how far I’ve come from where I stood
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 5:15 AM UTC
I began my humble journey
At the peak of a mighty slope
Dropped by a humble poet
Making his long walk home
As I started my wis'ning voyage
I spied the miserly rich man
Counting his weekly excess
Money, gold, silver, land
His heart, consumed with greed for his gains
Was too focused on his returns
To care for a common penny
So on I went, for a home, my heart, it yearned.
As I passed through the place
Where daily, business was done
Buildings, structures that scraped the sky
Blocked the sun, where once it shone.
My passage continued through the city
To the crowded shopkeepers' stores
A wonderful place of smells and sights
Cooked goose, cattle, and boars!
But the keepers' minds were distracted
With the day's stresses and concerns
To notice what was around them
So on I went, for a home, my heart, it yearned.
Then I came to the ghetto,
That horrible, wretched place
With hovels and shanties and shacks
Loan sharks and gangsters and snakes
The people there were fearful
Of what, I could not tell
For it was more than thugs
It was their hate; love was encased in shells
Then something that I saw made me stop,
A family of five, happy and alive
Their love for another was stronger than fear
So on I went, toward home, I would strive
Until I was taken by the lowly thief
Looking to pay for his next meal
He dropped me when he was arrested
For as you know, thieves, they steal.
I stopped at the bottom of the slope
Where hill turned into rolling plains
I thought there I would rust forever.
Until I saw the humble poet, flesh & veins.
He picked me up and told me of his day
And how he had followed me, a mere penny
For I was important to him, special.
He put me in his pocket, with my family to join!
So there I stayed, returning home,
Recounting my tale to the rest.
How he had found me when all hope had been lost
And my excitement for new journeys, and what would come next.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 2:02 AM UTC
In rows they stand,
Locked in patterns, one after the other.
In the field they are one mass of land,
Stalwart in their stance, as similar to their neighbor as to their mother.
Within the fiery skies above their planted heads,
In lanes unmarred by planned similarity, flies a beast cast of a different die.
Black as night, with wings of smoke; within those fiery skies they fly.
There you will find me.
In lines one by one,
Single file on either side of tamed nature,
Grazing along black river avenues, stand carefully planned hovels beneath the sun.
They are faceless, markedly lacking the unique touch of artistry to mature.
While crowded entities parade upon the market,
Great amphibious royalty croon ancient songs to the land around,
Gifting the night with the grand chaos of their sound.
There you will find me.
Not content to face bitter winds upon modern lanes,
A dweller of the urban landscape seeks out that which most abstain.
Deep in the dark hollows, where the gods of yesterday lie within still,
A fool seeks sanity amongst the ancestral beings who, within these spaces fill.
In the shadows of the great old ones,
Reveling in the divine lost amidst human progress,
There you will find me.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 2:02 PM UTC
come earth
come flushly
come trees
come birds
come all warm living heat
come frothing leaves and grass
come oceans brimming deepest
come able breaths of god
come creation
come body
come soul
come all rightness; all rawness; all bleeding and kissing
come hurt
come pain sorely and pleasure elated
come knees greenly sooted in the Summers virginal lush embrace
come lovers
come clear crystal nights
come drunken muddled nights
come stars
come lips and cheeks
come arms
come hearts
come urge
come increase
come wilt
come rind
come life
come death
come all things simple
come all things complex
come all
come everything
come and i will meet you
come and i will greet you
come and i will touch your bodies with my bodies
come and i will brush the lewd breaking dirt of you with the clean sturdy skin of my body
come and i will know you
come and you will know me
come O soft careless husk of amorous purple spring
come lilting
come graceful careful colours of flowers blossoming
come sun
come light
come women
come men
come **** ample female things
come mothers
come children
come into each distinct infinite freckle of the days agreeable self
come churches
come houses
come hovels and shanties
come love(and hate even)
come each thing and i will kiss you and i will tangle the crass and the beauteous in the immutable soul of my flesh
come and make
come and do
come and live
come and rejoice
All things good
All things evil
(nothing was ever either wholly
even holy neither)
All things studious
All things slack
All things fair
All things ugly
(the world's a body innumerable
a body complete
a voice and sinew
and to each great
frolicking kind bit
and to each meek
cowering mean bit
we are all
and everyone of us is
we contain every creation
every destruction
every birth
every immolation)so let's reconcile our own flesh with it
and let's meet it squarely
let's fit into it's cracks snugly
and let's kiss each grain of sand
let's love it
let's become it
(for it was always us
and we were always it)
(and i know it)
Jan 12, 2012
Jan 12, 2012 at 11:53 PM UTC
The Judge came into the village with
A troop of the finest horse,
The sunshine gleamed on their breastplates
And their guns and their swords, of course,
He wasn’t there to be friendly, but
To make the rebels aware,
And carried the King’s own warrant to
Set up his courthouse there.
The troop took over the Mason’s Hall
The Judge took over the church,
And set up a bench down in the nave
As the troops set out to search,
They looked for the signs of weaponry
In the homes of the poorest men,
Tearing apart the hovels in
The search for the rebels, then.
To root out the roughshod army that
Had marched to defy the king,
Who tore up the standard prayer book
That the king was offering,
They forced the priests to reverse the mass
To the way it was done before,
Laying a siege to Exeter
In the way of a civil war.
Now the troops rode into the villages
And they held the men in chains,
Sworn to see that they paid in blood
For their temper, and their pains,
The women were wailing in the streets
As their men were taken in,
To answer to a black-hooded Judge
For their crimes against the King.
There wasn’t a gallows large enough
For the men that he meant to hang,
But plenty of trees around the leas
That the cattle grazed upon,
And plenty of boughs and branches that
Would groan with the weight of men,
Whose only fault was this one revolt
When their faith was changed again.
They hung like fruit from the saplings,
They choked their lives from a limb,
They swung on ropes from the mighty oaks
In an **** of suffering,
The farms lay waste in the country,
The crops lay waste in the fields,
There wasn’t an army of labourers
Just troops, with their swords and shields.
The Judge climbed into his black teak coach
Rode out of the village grounds,
While children wailed and the women paled
In cutting their husbands down.
The horror lay in the children’s genes
For generations, it’s said,
Till years along they would right the wrong
By taking a bad king’s head.
David Lewis Paget
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 4:16 AM UTC
An arc of embodiment
Decadent perfumed petticoats swirled to order
Power ****** from the sweat of the land
Stone hewn from its very foundations
A spider's web encloses the flowering art
Phoenician helmeted raiders
Roman taxing invaders
Trespassing Gaulish voices
Thumbed rosary transcenders
The dawn of a walled resistance
A Religious pandemic
Storming Carcistes
Razats rebel
Friends denounce their own
A castle evokes revolutionary fever
Ghosts reverberate running the embattlements
Proletarians open the walls
Guardians red and blue
White clergy take the souls
Swords discarded, a tricolore soars
Slaves to the chisel
Open pits for Vulcan to dip his toes
Gothic Cavernous quarried vaults
in search of Sade’s demons
Stone to shape Provencal style
Dereliction a Maquis delight
Refuging resistance and the persecuted
Destruction and collapse
Artisans and folk revive
Paint brushes to the fore
Transientents page the streets with blood red gold
A coat of arms rings its bell
Lowly hovels now adored
Gaping holes swallow the light
Sleepers enrichen the ground
Too long a museum
Stirring string notes
Cherups embrace their calling
Voices rouse the deities
Banners furl in mistral breaths
Spirits hightail Lacoste’s new allies
Iced sun rises over Luberons range
Warmth caresses the blood of day
School children playing, wake the sleepy
Warm stews vie with Pistou
Hallowed vines are groomed
Long walks with herbs to find
Boars try and outwit their hunters
Dogs smell the truffles afar
Ventoux snows cool the view
Cyclists roar through in celebration
Village a transforming microcosm
Artists absorb, evolving a creation
Animate habitants living and the vogue
A hearty cocooned culture emerging out into
longer days luring the coming spring
Feb 8, 2021
Feb 8, 2021 at 9:51 AM UTC