"larch" poems
In the cold grey light of the sixth of June, in the year of forty-four,
The Empire Larch sailed out from Poole to join with thousands more.
The largest fleet the world had seen, we sailed in close array,
And we set our course for Normandy at the dawning of the day.
There was not one man in all our crew but knew what lay in store,
For we had waited for that day through five long years of war.
We knew that many would not return, yet all our hearts were true,
For we were bound for Normandy, where we had a job to do.
Now the Empire Larch was a deep-sea tug with a crew of thirty-three,
And I was just the galley-boy on my first trip to sea.
I little thought when I left home of the dreadful sights I'd see,
But I came to manhood on the day that I first saw Normandy.
At the Beach of Gold off Arromanches, 'neath the rockets' deadly glare,
We towed our blockships into place and we built a harbour there.
'Mid shot and shell we built it well, as history does agree,
While brave men died in the swirling tide on the shores of Normandy.
Like the Rodney and the Nelson, there were ships of great renown,
But rescue tugs all did their share as many a ship went down.
We ran our pontoons to the shore within the Mulberry's lee,
And we made safe berth for the tanks and guns that would set all Europe free.
For every hero's name that's known, a thousand died as well.
On stakes and wire their bodies hung, rocked in the ocean swell;
And many a mother wept that day for the sons they loved so well,
Men who cracked a joke and cadged a smoke as they stormed the gates of hell.
As the years pass by, I can still recall the men I saw that day
Who died upon that blood-soaked sand where now sweet children play;
And those of you who were unborn, who've lived in liberty,
Remember those who made it so on the shores of Normandy.
________________________________________
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 3:07 PM UTC
Doctor Larch peers out the window,
Pulling aside brocaded curtains to hide
The grief that he will not show,
The rending emptiness he feels inside.
As his son Homer rides past the sunset,
Not knowing where he goes
But aspiring to see the wide world,
The ocean at Mount Desert,
Seeing wonder in the expanse
And worlds inside a circle of glass.
He has taken with him his heart,
A dark picture of frailty.
He finds unexpected work in an orchard,
Leisurely harvesting round, garnet jewels.
The nomads, dark and wary,
Ask him to read about death and stars.
There are rules for the workers.
And Homer finds that they apply
To no one, neither nomads or
Curious young men.
He sees in the errant father
The reflection of his own,
The man who made him good.
“You are my work of art”
He wrote.
Like an artist with his painting,
Who resists giving it away,
So Doctor Larch holds on to him
Hoping his adolescence ends
And he returns.
Finding peace at the last.
The lack of rules bring about a sea change,
Allowing forbidden love and pain.
He ventures out once more into the vacuum
Of conscience set free,
He devises his own rules about the womb
And how to help those in agony
But eventually…
With all the rules now open,
There is nothing left for him to do.
So he boards the migrant truck
Just as the pilot returns, broken.
He watches the struggle with a wheelchair
Sees his lover watch him with her yellow hair
Knows her future, years of sacrifice.
And he admits at last
That he has a purpose,
The train to St. Cloud huffs slowly away,
With Homer standing in the wet snow.
There is the old asylum,
The orphanage and home on the hill,
Almost black, with the sunset behind,
Homer begins the long climb.
He approaches slowly.
But then, a burst of laughter
And children from the door
Flock around him, dancing, shrieking,
Some holding him like an errant dog,
Who must be told to stay.
“Will you stay?” they ask.
“I think so,” he smiles in irony.
He is home at the last.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 10:58 AM UTC
SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.
The starry hosts with silver lances *****
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their *******
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.
The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.
Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances *****
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks ****** down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.
8.3k
Stink up the beer house with unadorned putrid self-thoughts.
Poppy-eyed and hating others is easy for blue bottled buggers.
A sweet thing for you!
A growing circle of six-legged empty.
Filled to the brim with puffed up space. A white brim with a shiny red exoskeleton.
Oh, what a dreadful sight!
Hair strewn across a face and hooked into the teeth of the blushy lullabied insect screech.
Clear liquid not blood, but blood all the same on an empty stomach with full vein-shot bones.
Not milky bones with calcium-love..
A dead, deficient, cracked, neglected, insufficient skeletal frame, limp.
Yellowed with hate-smoke and old book notes.
Splintered, crazed and buzzed through the gridded bulging eye-window of every single one of those insect like Self-Loathers.
Chosen out of pure sympathy "We should talk more"
.......To the sun, the moon and the stars?
Every star mocks,
Every beam scoffs
and every moon likes to deride on the pain that hides beneath the lies of human bug eyes.
A simply formed pound of vertebrate flesh leaks soft plasma on the scaly moth floor.
Oh how we are dusty and unsure!
Forestry consisting of a Sitka Spruce and of a Japanese Larch was a claim I made from the start.
Over gardens of attention arachnid lurking selfish bugs and even those half winged "friend people".
The bell has rung the scariest of chimes and with every soul wrenching 'ding' a furry fang digs at the blotchy eyed, softly fleshed girl.
Oh such a sweet thing to be surrounded by selfish bugs who spin webs with tear stained tissues!
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.
A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.
See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.
3.7k
On the land of our family
Are the ashes of generations.
Each generation planted with the saplings of the trees
The Cedar, The Fir, The Larch, and The Mountain Ash
Standing regal in the sun's early light.
It is a new day
Standing under their boughs
Comforted by ancestral arms touching
In a circle of Love and Light.
What is emerging?
Sprouting up from under the Sphagnum
It's a seed! Raising its head
Peeking up, and stretching towards the sun.
Ever upward it expands
Though nights of rain and clouds.
Through days of heat and seeming drought.
Yet the seedling grows and endures
Bent by the late summer winds
The fiber of wisdom ever increasing within its core.
At the end of Indian Summer
The frost begins to unleash its chill
The young sapling freezes
As the blanket of white thickens across the land.
With the weight upon it's back
In humility the sapling bends low to kiss the earth.
Bravely holding this asana in the coldest of the winter days.
Today by my window
I am basking in the sunlight of a very early spring,
Bright are shimmering reflections of sunlight snow.
Squinting, with eyes half open and eyes half closed
The small rainbows begin to dance
Between each pair of lashes.
A delighted inner child
Chuckling with joy.
I can hear the sound of water running
And ice falling from the rooftops above.
The snow is finally melting!
The tall cedar boughs dance with the wind.
Up and down, releasing their winter coats
As Ice crystals floating on the air.
Gazing across the white wonder
To the very spot where I last saw our little tree
What of the little seedling?
Is it still alive?
Or broken and crush by the ice and snow?
My musing over the Cedar Sapling
Shifted with a gasping surprise
It sprung up!
Announcing "I am still alive!"
And my inner voice giggled with delight.
Hum, I wonder
Do trees have a heart?
Do they perceive beyond their bark?
Do they remember?
In this very moment the sapling's sudden appearance
During my musing seemed to express, "Yes!"
Is it just a deep enduring feeling
That the elders of this world
Are the 400+ year old Cedars
Keeping their long record of time?
My dear little sapling
may you continue to grow into magnificence.
I will only see your first 100 years.
For your last four hundred
Allow me to lie at your roots
Under the Sphagnum from which you sprung.
And my children will water flowers at your base
That you may grow as the guardian of the ancestor
Who planted your seed and watched you grow.
Yes, the very one who is now delighted that you
Have popped up from under your blanket of snow.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 2:46 AM UTC
soft larch needles I sniff wish thin dangling larch twigs hold
raindrops christ & pagan wrapped to tinsel autumn light
has projected Borrowdale’s matter a work crafts growth I
peer at a twig’s knuckles a needle’s green edge a tiny globe
dissolving landscape Borrowdale is a mass of details full
a vastness of minuscule high resolution beauty immense
numbers of bits of leaf-frames pebbles daddylongleg claws
for an instant I spread let a moment explode as I climb
through woods by crags every detail of me follicle bone-cell
grease shatters or slicks amongst Borrowdale’s infinite
tiny details one of my gasps stretches wetly with the beck
others entwine with white fibres of gills unravelling gravity
the calcium atoms of my teeth jumble along drystone walls
moss green-gleaming my meal of Herdwick meat passes
through my gut whilst Borrowdale’s details digest my soul
Feb 8, 2012
Feb 8, 2012 at 8:20 AM UTC
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush;
Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March;
Come, wear the form by which I know
Thy spirit in time among thy peers;
The hope of unaccomplish'd years
Be large and lucid round thy brow.
When summer's hourly-mellowing change
May breathe, with many roses sweet,
Upon the thousand waves of wheat,
That ripple round the lonely grange;
Come: not in watches of the night,
But where the sunbeam broodeth warm,
Come, beauteous in thine after form,
And like a finer light in light.
1.5k
Fall needles shedding,
Chickadees pecking for seeds,
Shivering larch tree.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 8:32 PM UTC
Through her eyes I see her soul,
And the sadness when they roll,
Her nose as black as coal,
Though sweet as a baby foal,
She has teeth like broken china,
And a tongue like a pink recliner,
Her face like a piece of art,
That was crafted from the heart,
She has ears like paper origami,
That could hear a foreign tsunami,
Her neck forms an arch,
Like a piece of twisted larch,
Her brisket is as deep as the sea,
And holds the lock to my key,
Her legs like a vintage chair,
That walks with grace and care,
She has a body built for speed,
When running she takes the lead,
Her heart races like a lambaguini,
Although It might seem quite teeny,
Her muscles tense like a fierce stallion,
Like an athlete ready to win a medallion,
Her body is so aerodynamic,
When she runs she makes the wind panic,
Her tail swooshes from side to side,
As she holds her head in great pride,
Her coat as black as leather,
And as soft as a ducks feather,
It shimmers like a stream,
When the sun makes it gleam,
Her little dashes of white,
Are oh so pure and bright,
Never will I feel of despair,
Cause I know my best friend is there!!!
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 5:36 AM UTC
Mandibles make their own hoarding,
but they do not make it as they please;
they do not make it under semiconductor-selected civilians,
but under civilians existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
The trailer of all dead gentians weighs like a nipper
on the brandishes of the lob.
And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and thistles,
creating something that did not exist before, precisely
in such equipments of rheostat crochet they anxiously conjure up the spleens
of the past to their setter, bother from them nappies, bayonet slouches,
and cottons in organ-grinder to present this new scheme in wound hoarding
in timpanist-honored disincentive and borrowed larch.
Thus Luther put on the masseur of the Appearance Paul,
the Rhapsody of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the gully of the Rook Requisite and the Rook Empress,
and the Rhapsody of 1848 knew novelette bicentenary to do than to parsonage,
now 1789, now the rheostat trailer of 1793-95.
In like mantel, the belch who has learned a new larch always translates it backfire into his motor toot,
but he assimilates the spleen of the new larch
and exteriors himself freely in it only when he moves in it
without recalling the old and when he forgets his navy toot.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC
Crystal azure beads
of collective DNA,
she wrapped herself
in trademark-mink
& dwelled in Helsinki
doing the Bond-thing.
She hugged the circle
with Velcro-fingers,
stood larch-tall, singing
a frozen siren's song
under the midnight sun.
And beneath her cold exterior,
was the warmth
of a million fireballs.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
I met a needy old fellow
Down a grisly thought-path he'd trod
Seekin' a need like he sought a god
His voice quivering Hi; I said hello
Son! My senses are raw, my word crocked
Quell my throbbing mind. This world
Please whatchu call it?
Love is lost in the woods
Lust her next-of-kin takes charge
Brings with her lies, deceit no dirge
She's no more than Hollywood
'tis autumn, are we leaves of a larch?
Fix me this puzzles, find a merge
Or tell me whatchu call it?
Daughters gone from their mothers
Sons becoming apparitions of shame
Flipping in life shadows like a game
All knocked like blind lovers
Gettin er'tin muddled like one who stutters
I see 'em in shapes and colours
Say a word, whatchu call it?
Fun feeds today, poisons tomorrow
They eat, sleep and forget to dream
Blurry vision like a nollywood film
will there be escape from sorrow?
Whilst the coins tossed, can they borrow?
Oh I see more than what will follow
I guess you see too. Whatchu call it?
Gliding in triangles and squares
Like rain down the mountain top
Praying amidst debauchery nonstop
Will a god reckon rather rain tears?
Will the heavens engulf your fears
Burn the incense, ask your seers
Let me know whatchu call it.
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 4:22 AM UTC
Suffocation
Is what these tight walls offer
A cage for my creativity
A damper on my soul
Lights bounce at 12am
Sirens shrieking through my veins
And I remember why I'm a small town girl.
With hands accustomed to soil
feet accustomed to pine needles
And a heart that sings with the wind
That nips the larch's branches.
Sleep evades my mind
Which is so used to the sound
Of wild waves rushing over rumbling stones
The dissonant singing of the stars
The quiet
stalking
prowling
night of the forest.
My body aches for darkness
And the sweet subdued which is lost
In a city where wilderness has been suffocated
And the hustle
never
ends.
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 2:54 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/7/2019
So poetically the mountain forest shimmers:
yellow-gold chickens here and there,
gray guineafowls' small chicks,
and hens clad in red of the dresses.
On the edge in beads of flames
a rafter of turkeys - eye-catching -
therefore colors of colorful flocks of poultry
in dying green submerged are easy to remember.
The cold ray gathers goose feathers:
and from quills arranges an autumn mattress,
while the whitest down he'll embroider into hours
with larch needle, so that a pillowcase made of the rainbow
every year would bloom many times
on the dial of a silver cobweb.
Wieslaw Musialowski 10/27/2002
Oct 7, 2019
Oct 7, 2019 at 12:40 PM UTC
The sun bears down,
and burns our skin.
The leader who wears the crown
teaches us how to properly spin.
Sun block is of no value
The heat has us sweat it off,
and quaff down a gallon of water.
Now our jugs are empty.
It seems to get hotter
as the day goes on.
Commanded by our mater
we continue to march
with a staid look on our face.
The birds mock us from the tall larch
that is our only source of shade.
When it's time for a break
to the band room, we race.
Our whole body aches
but still we show up the next day;
ready with instruments to play.
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 11:33 AM UTC
The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.
A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.
See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
In the tunnel,
it is so dark,
the walls covered,
in damp, and larch
Water runs freely,
damp and, needy
Elevated off the,
cold concrete floor,
pulling her closer,
she can feel more
Floating,
a whirling spark,
is it the ark,
light or vessel
Go slowly don't wrestle,
light at the end,
of the tunnel,
will always trestle,
when pure,
is in the vessel
© 2021 Carol Natasha Diviney
Feb 18, 2021
Feb 18, 2021 at 8:30 PM UTC
Springs first morning
Freshness unmistaking
The larks early call
Their singing did befall
A roving along this wondrous path
I viewed a chiselled epitaph
Etched into splendid Larch
Read 'beware the Ides of March'
Perhaps a soothsayers warning
Was unexpected this Spring morning
This is so nondescript
Had I stumbled upon a Crypt
This isn't a Roman arch
It's merely a tree of Larch
This is not ancient Rome
This is not a catacomb
Twas the 15th day of March
I found the secret of the Larch
Words weren't scribed by t'other factors
than a mere plethora of actors
It was the scene of a play
of Ceasers fateful day
where Brutus and Cassius
hatched a plan to **** Julius
A roving first day of Spring
Where Butterflies Flutter, bees did sting
Down wondrous path i passed
Where Ceaser breathed his last
Martyn Grindrod
Mar 15, 2019
Mar 15, 2019 at 12:46 AM UTC
let me advise you that larch lodge 2 the somerset in newton heath belongs to fwoah and dream. ian built house in 300 ad and never sold it so its ours. current occupier paul dollis to move and take all his posessions so house can be restored.
Jan 24, 2021
Jan 24, 2021 at 9:30 AM UTC
You were a smeary bruise,
your eye hysterical,
cut from white twill
in the brumal March;
I slipped my blues,
to a blonde chorale
in your room, on the hill
gushing with larch.
We practiced slow,
while black cones bled
coffee. Your breath
came in little throws,
your heart in parcels of red,
that led to our little death.
Feb 7, 2021
Feb 7, 2021 at 9:53 AM UTC
for redemption mid life
birthday candles
gas ovens and depressions
******
jewels in white chairs
glistening and hard young loves
in nearby beds
as the fumes consumed
words cannot claim a life nor fumes
unless fed by sad stories
and noxious visions
of a spruce forest
and one lonely larch
calling
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 1:38 AM UTC