"knapsacks" poems
Take the knapsacks
and the utensils and washtubs
and the books of the Koran
and the army fatigues
and the tall tales and the torn soul
and whatever's left, bread or meat,
and kids running around like chickens in the village.
How many children do you have?
How many children did you have?
It's hard to keep tabs on kids in a situation like this.
Not like in the old country
in the shade of the mosque and the fig tree,
when the children the children would be shooed outside by day
and put to bed at night.
Put whatever isn't fragile into sacks,
clothes and blankets and bedding and diapers
and something for a souvenir
like a shiny artillery shell perhaps,
or some kind of useful tool,
and the babies with rheumy eyes
and the R.P.G. kids.
We want to see you in the water, sailing aimlessly
with no harbor and no shore.
You won't be accepted anywhere
You are banished human beings.
You are people who don't count
You are people who aren't needed
You are a pinch of lice
stinging and itching
to madness.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
6.8k
Anastasia was my friend
her face was always pale
she always wore a ribbon
& her daddy went to yale
she was the talk of all the playground
the new girl always is
excited, unready to settle
like her coke-a-cola's fizz
until she sat beside me
& tapped me very slow
"i want to run away," she said
"but i don't know where to go"
i too was quite unpleased
"come and follow me"
so there we packed our knapsacks
and took off for Belize
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 2:26 AM UTC
*Andromeda Pulses Eager To Shine,
Black Sky Outlines Swirled Lemon Lime,
Comets Race With Tails Ablaze,
Dazzling Dancers Which Capture Our Gaze,
Earthenware Births From A Cosmic Soil,
Fiery It Thrives--To Our World It Is Loyal,
Ganymede Dances With Calypso In Flight,
Heavenly They Dance Through Days And Nights,
Illusions Reality In Wind They Sway,
Jasmine Fills The Breeze Of April And May,
Knapsacks Of Gold Lay In Coarse Sands,
Lavish T'were The Warm And Loving Lands,
Mercury Peers Around The Light In The Sky,
Never Will It Dare To Speak A Lie,
Orion Plays Among The Other Stars,
Prancing He Hunts In A Prairie Afar,
Quiet, Spirits Drift Along The Currents Of Time,
Radiant They Skip Gleaming Like A Dime,
Shrill Heartbeats Throttle The Ear,
Together Moons Lurk--Ever So Near,
United Blue Nebulas Sing In Pride,
Water Crystallied Trying To Hide,
Xenophobes Hide Underneath Worn Roads,
Yonder Throats Sing Untill Their Melodies Erode,
Zipped Were The Lips Of Change*
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 5:20 PM UTC
In Neverland - never to grow old
never to marry that sweetheart
never to have children and grandchildren
nor watch hair thin and grey.
Full of derring-do - more dash than discipline
lanky and loose-limbed they swank and saunter
not like soldiers at all
no doff the cap humility
to the old rules and distant monarchies.
From a newly stolen world
hardly secured or steady with itself
lodged on the edge of a vast continent
clinging to a rim of turquoise blue.
Now cramped
in the pock-holed sores of ancient lands
richly bone-dusted from time to time.
Waiting for the fight to end
to go ‘back home’ ‘over there’
to farms and factories; schools and stations.
Still there - left behind
in the archipelago of cemeteries
as far as Fromelles, Pozieres,
to Bullencourt and Paschendaele
in fields of beetroot and corn,
fields bleeding red with poppies
beside the Menin Road at Ypres
in bluebelled woods of Verdun
in the silt of the Somme
on the plains of Flanders
in the victory graves at Amiens
Monash’s boys - the lost boys
cried for their mothers
begged for water
screamed to die
hung like khaki bundles on the wire.
Commanded by Field Marshalls
who never went to the fields,
who played the numbers game
in a war of bluff and bluster,
who never touched the dirt and slime,
nor waded through the ****** slush
of broken men and boys,
never waist-deep in mud and sinking,
wounded and drowning in that shambles of a war
Wearing dead men’s boots
and shrapnel-holed helmets
tunics and leggings splattered and rotting
with dead men’s blood and brains
Some haunted boys came home
knapsacks full of secret pictures,
old rusty tins crammed with suffering
breast pockets held their grief
wrapped in shroud-shreds.
They brought their duckboard demons
to the world of peace
Gas-choked fretful lungs still brought
the caustic fumes with every breath exhaled
and from every pore the death-sweat of decay.
But most boys were lost boys
lost forever in that no-man’s land
that Neverland of lives unlived.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC
The cardboard jigsaw,an eyesore but it's sods law and when you've nowhere to go and all doors are locked,
you have nothing to lose by sleeping on a box.
We're a city of flatpacks and the homeless with knapsacks are the ones who are stacked up,jacked up and cracked up and for the lucky ones who've packed up and moved on, that memory is gone,
(the one when they're cast out and last in the queue)
So they do what they do when the night closes in,some take to beer and some to the pin and no one can win when the odds have been fixed or the ****** mixed with bicarb' or brick dust,
this twenty five to one shot which the outsiders have got is not a chance,it's a kicking,a beating and they're being deleted,a rewrite and the new world might never know about the down and the outs down and out on skid row.
I say
God bless the Queen but I bet she's not seen the rough sleepers with rough hands and faces and no places to go where they've not been before.
The revolving door says, come in here for a beer or a pin,come quaff some dry cider or fix ******
you've got nowhere to go and all doors are shut,
there's no maybe or might do, you'll pick one of the two,the pin or the beer to forget that you're here where you don't want to be.
Me,
I chose both locks and both locked me in and only my dreams let me out.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
In Neverland - never to grow old
never to marry that sweetheart
never to have children and grandchildren
nor watch hair thin and grey.
Full of derring-do - more dash than discipline
lanky and loose-limbed they swank and saunter
not like soldiers at all
no doff the cap humility
to the old rules and distant monarchies.
From a newly stolen world
hardly secured or steady with itself
lodged on the edge of a vast continent
clinging to a rim of turquoise blue.
Now cramped
in the pock-holed sores of ancient lands
richly bone-dusted from time to time.
Waiting for the fight to end
to go ‘back home’ ‘over there’
to farms and factories; schools and stations.
Still there - left behind
in the archipelago of cemeteries
as far as Fromelles, Pozieres,
to Bullencourt and Paschendaele
in fields of beetroot and corn,
fields bleeding red with poppies
beside the Menin Road at Ypres
in bluebelled woods of Verdun
in the silt of the Somme
on the plains of Flanders
in the victory graves at Amiens
Monash’s boys - the lost boys
cried for their mothers
begged for water
screamed to die
hung like khaki bundles on the wire.
Commanded by Field Marshalls
who never went to the fields,
who played the numbers game
in a war of bluff and bluster,
who never touched the dirt and slime,
nor waded through the ****** slush
of broken men and boys,
never waist-deep in mud and sinking,
wounded and drowning in that shambles of a war
Wearing dead men’s boots
and shrapnel-holed helmets
tunics and leggings splattered and rotting
with dead men’s blood and brains
Some haunted boys came home
knapsacks full of secret pictures,
old rusty tins crammed with suffering
breast pockets held their grief
wrapped in shroud-shreds.
They brought their duckboard demons
to the world of peace
Gas-choked fretful lungs still brought
the caustic fumes with every breath exhaled
and from every pore the death-sweat of decay.
But most boys were lost boys
lost forever in that no-man’s land
that Neverland of lives unlived.
© M.L.Emmett
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 5:44 AM UTC
Before the sun brightens our half of the earth
Birds chirp at the break of dawn
You and I, my love
Turn dream to action and embark
Fill our knapsacks with blankets and sweets.
We’ll slip away unnoticed
Without maps or shoes
Fools desperate to explore the unknown.
We’ll gyre the states as gypsys
Ride rails to the sweet scene of a passing countryside
Our destinations many
Kyoto to Anchorage
Shanghai then Budapest
Should we lose our way
It wouldn’t matter the slightest
Should I wake in your embrace at the crack of a new dawn.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 8:54 PM UTC
The gun bled crimson
tracers
under moonless skies,
penetrated the ramparts
& those with tattered knapsacks
remained vigilant
as stalwart sentries
fell in ****** tatters
to the ground.
Maniacally,
they laughed
at such insane acts,
buried their own dead,
full of enemy-lead.
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 4:40 PM UTC
*It
feels good
to not levitate
beneath your "broad,
wise"
wings. Where the weight
of the world--
or who won the
argument--
while missing parents
canoodled their partners
or pole dancing classes
swept them from their
normal floors;
and kids
fought with sticks
and warpaint
for fun;
until it was war
and the kids
battled kitchen
knives
on the
floor
and the weight
of the blame
fell to the
little girl
who stood watching
from a safe distance
while her
two best friends
fought over tator tots.
{whose side would she
take?}*
*Those tator tots sadly evolved
into **** packs
and late night robberies
& unfortunately the
kids on the block
become thieves--
and the weight
of this economy
this system dancing
on the knapsacks
{as the kids ransack
and abandon for dead}
on the briefcases
{as the adult clones
corrupt til dead}*
*And it
feels good
to not hover
beneath the
view
of chemical dusted skies and factory worked
feathers.*
There is a world
in the sky
where none of this
has happened--
It's a place where humans
don't exist--
{where we cant crush the earth
with our weighted machines}
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
*"Want to wear words,
like clothing, a tailor and an editor,
am I not stitching,
threads into a finest tapestry,
then the very thought to blog,
bogs and constipates desire,
leaving me to log the frustration
on paper pages to cook up ideas of which
the Best of Which,
have simmered away...
but I taste the air above this write of yours;
it restores the delight,
to write for others,
briefly log my take and give on life,
thanks for the encouragement,
ha ha, more, more"*...
Ottar
why write praise of others,
when their own words
do all the work
bring your pen and quill,
he says,
and the hands
by them employed,
perform on the Pantages Theater
in Tacoma
put your toys aboard a
kayak
peddle paddle the Columbia,
blade one in Washington,
the other, propulsion oriented to the Oregon side,
he in the cockpit,
wonder wandering reflecting
what is the life story of a
beggar man
with so many, already,
steve-adore friends
in ore-gun,
who all can carry words
from their ships into shared knapsacks,
all for breaking
the fast
that men's soul
sometime suffer
words given each of us,
free and given freely
better have the wisdom to hear the best,
finery
in them
and this man's soul work, simple,
record, record...record
and share
***the finer, better,
finery of yours***
free
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 17, 2016 at 8:13 AM UTC
home is where the heart is
but what if you don't have a home?
what if circumstances out of your control
have forced you to pack up
your belongings in knapsacks
book-bags
and suitcases
where could you kept your heart?
would you nestle it in-between socks that double
as bubble wrap
or in an old mason jar
cleaned of its old bacon grease and
sealed shut from air
i knew a girl once
who was without a home and instead of packing it away
she carried it on her sleeve
and under bridges and squeezed between cloth and a park benches
it got too ***** for her to recognize
and people would nudge up against it in soup lines
and in the winter time it would smell like outdoors and freezing pines
i would ask her
why not keep in in your backpack
surely it would be much safer there
and she told me
she would never
separate her heart from her body like that
and if she did find a home
she wouldn't keep her heart there either
because houses are temporary and her body would be as permanent
as God would allow it to be
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 9:02 PM UTC
When morning came
We packed up the tent
And our sleeping
And the rest of our things
And this time we traveled together
The birds were singing sweetly
The dewdrops kissed the flower gently
The honeysuckles smelled so sweet
And accented the forest path beautifully
******
After awhile it was time for lunch
We took the knapsacks off our backs
And reached inside
For a jar of honey
And some cold water
Along with some fish
That you caught the other day
After we ate
We were on our way again
*~Marian~
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 3:42 PM UTC
Bravely you answered the call
for your fatherlands,
fought revolutionary wars for your mothers,
protected you children from the scourge
of corruption & greed,
the murderous acts of
villainous human-rats.
You became nocturnal sentinels,
counted stars, cupped cigarettes,
yearned for new creations,
kept faded photographs
in the special pockets
of you tattered knapsacks.
You learned the art of insomnia,
slept in the mud & dirt of your homelands,
spit lead into the sick hearts of the wolf pack,
whom you were always certain would **** you.
You became eternal combatants
& fought with great zest,
confessing your strength
from machine-gun nests,
laughed like mad dogs under fire,
those times when things seemed dire.
You were killed with fireballs & tracers,
gunships & tanks & planes & artillery,
died in shallow trenches
& in hardened bunkers,
in the thick jungles
& in endless deserts,
on mountaintops
& on beaches,
even in the cornfields
& on the city streets
of your own neighborhoods.
You were assassinated by pariahs,
the enemies of your people,
your blood watered your lands,
helped to nourish
your strong beliefs,
the flowers of freedom
& now you sleep soundly,
deep under the sacred-grounds
gifted to you
by the same blood
shed by your ancestors,
your forefathers & mothers,
brothers & sisters, aunt & uncles,
all the members of your family trees.
And with great love
poetry will be written
for you rebels,
recorded histories
& unknown graves
will be the stark reminders
of the size of your hearts
& your mountain of courage
will forever stand as testimony.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 8:34 PM UTC
Someday I will write a story worth telling.
Someday I will compile a little set of memoirs,
Someday someone, somewhere and somehow will stumble upon it;
Perhaps they will gloss over the pages,
Read the words that I myself once wrote –
Thinking to themselves much the same thoughts that
Dripped like water from stalactites onto the moist earth of
The cavernous hollows of my mind,
Or perhaps they’ll listen carefully to the voices echoing throughout.
Maybe.
Maybe they’ll find all of these visions grand,
Or think these encounters simply happenstance,
Happening one after the other with no particular rhyme or reason.
Perhaps they’ll find some profundity in my words,
That’s what I’d like them to do –
That profundity I myself couldn’t find.
They’ll read poems like this,
And attempt to read between the narrow lines,
Stretching the spaces between the words,
Wondering why it was that I wrote them
- In such a way,
- At such a time.
Maybe they’ll see the world through my unopened eyes.
Hopefully they’ll make peace with the past,
Embrace the present,
Look longingly and with undying flame toward the future.
They’ll take me along with them;
I’ll burden them
Weighing down the bottom of their knapsacks,
As they try and juggle everything I’ve said
And everything I’ve been silent upon.
I hope they realize the importance of stories.
Do you think they’d think me some great author,
Some gifted storyteller,
Able to wring from the cloth of time,
Little murky water droplets of my experiences?
And, who knows,
Maybe they’ll remember me when they write their own stories.
And if none of that,
I’ll be forgotten.
All the better,
As with each day comes a little of my forgetting of the world,
And with each the world becomes a little moreso forgetful of me.
Kin die,
Friends die,
Cattle die;
I know only of one thing that does not die,
And that is the deeds
Of a dead man.
I remember you,
Do you still remember me?
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 7:15 AM UTC