the poetry meanders like
a pleasant stream
singing of autumn leaves,
    
breath as tranquil as a star in
the blue night,

our margins gather space
wait for the poetry to emerge
like trembling smoke,

our love rushing to wake
to gather songs of an
october sea.

Through an open window, I hear
      the Big Thompson's steady music
drifting up from the valley below.

May breezes and gentle rains
     coax the snow-capped peaks
to surrender their alabaster cloaks
      downslope into gathering streams.

Silhouetted by light from the waxing moon,
      a cinnamon bear lopes along water’s edge,
pauses for a draught and meanders on.

A bull elk newly coifed with velvet antlers
        folds his legs beneath its belly
and kneels into grasses beside a tranquil pond.
        while the Big Thompson rushes on.

Spring beauties, calypso orchids and geraniums  
       shake off their winter's sleep and
dot every vagabond trail and verdant hill
        while fresh new leaves adorn the aspen boughs.

The Big Thompson inexorably presses on
        bound for rendezvous with time and space
and tumbles into the always patient sea.

© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard

Poetry has a sensitive soul
A drive and impulse
Telling stories the way they are
Feelings of soberness
A heart felt word

Poetry has a sensitive heart
Beautifully immense
A heart of gold
Giving values to life
Adding years to life: Poetry is beautiful

Poetry has a sensitive soul
Like streams that meanders slowly
Like a river glorious: It Flows
Poetry has a sensitive heart,
A beautiful soul; A flying Angel.

Poetry is the signal
that
The soul sends into the world
Like the river, it flows into the sea,
yet the sea never gets filled.

Poetry is the fluid for the soul,
The liquid for the yearning of the Mind
That which quenches the fire
Feeding the deepest desires
Poetry is Gold in essence

Ovi Odiete©

The mist meanders through the copse
Beside the bridge over the brook,
Where both daffodils and snowdrops
Emerge everywhere one looks.
Watched over by weeping willows
Amongst other old ancient trees
A babbling brook gently goes
Winding through woods and valleys.
Further and further, on it flows
Below bridges both old and new,
Meanders through fields and meadows
Blanketed by the morning dew.

All through an awakening park
Warmed now by a weak winter sun
Night creatures leave only their mark,
Bedding down now day has begun.
Silence surrenders to bird song
A sure sign that day is dawning
Lo and behold before too long
Casts of creatures greet the morning.
Dawn gives way to a brand new day
Leaving a slight sense of sorrow
As magic moments slip away;
A different dawn tomorrow.

Music meanders mightily moving my soul seeking songs sung by strings and piano plays purposefully pounding perfectly pretty rhythms running round through thick thought of only one nicely named note.

I expand, ingrediently.
Song
sun, bare foot
on accelerator
all the way, heart
at last
excited.

What roads where?
Who wind who?

Because day meanders a tra la la alchemy

And night shivers me into
the furthest permissions of gold

Peri Kousmos became effective with the thunderous lightning and mighty deluges, huge exhalations of fire Spiritu et Igni began with all the beads from the bottom of the sea rising by the seven suns that were duplicated odd, and even on the firmament of Agios Andreas. It was three o'clock in the morning of the antipode, and a splendorous halo with seven satellites that had at their summit the tops of roosters on some resplendent rays, which covered the meridian of a Demiurge that existed erected and frozen, opened over paradise. on the Peri Kosmou or Reference of the World of metamorphosis. Spuriously the emanations of the pamphlet that began to move from its geological boundary were made where everything was silenced and bruised in the compact parts, with all the wandering parts that wanted to enter under the ***** of the islet that was becoming spiritually. The Necromancer Monograph or work was violently prostrated in the four elements of nature with the geodesy of Vernarth, towards the Mandragoron Surveying for when Vóreios slipped into Nótos when Borker and relaxed both senses, then Dyticá with the demiurge Leiak relaxed from the Equinoctial of the Aftó, to fork through the narrow spaces and finally rise in an eternal vertical, whose center was relieved of a non-bellicose admission in a tremolo that wanted to shudder and defer from an extreme like the Eplinctae that made them move obliquely, the Stymphalos came out from the meanders, then the Brastae earthquakes bubbled from the Notós de Borker when he held them on the straight that contorted on the lacerated ones, later with the observation shot of Theus when the subsidence of the ground with the Hizematiae held them evidently parapsychological. Vikentios did the logistics of bridging the lands that were opened and divided around the perimeter, Marie des Allées held them with great force the ground that naively used to quiet for ephemeral moments with the Astae earthquakes, until Wonthelimar appeared and became effective in the verticality that expanded when it sank due to its shaking with the Palmatiae, and finally Vernarth bellowed with disgusting gutturals so that they would react to the Mycetas earthquake, which was exhaled from disgusting visions of the Peri Kosmou evidencing incidental paragraphs of Apollo, which although he understood of analogous emanations that seemed to be demonic plasmas of the aldehyde in the Valley of the Pleisto close to the Phocis. The sublunar pretended to have tangible oracles through the gasifications of the original Epiclintae earthquake that moved them towards the meanders where the bronze birds awaited the precepts of the Saint to take an advance on the celestial kingdom. This implied that the nature of the Stymphalos would require the sensory stimulation of the golden cowbell of the *** to stimulate them in their gift of flight, with their heavy wings that rested at the right angle to later draw on the cavities.

The sky was beginning to disappear and in the fissures that the Dyticá de Leiak line leaned, the shores of the sea were rearranged to assist them by magnifying the supine lines with the vertical ones, within the microseisms that began to increase from the earthquake, avoiding breaking the surface who was still generously supporting them by the cross of Patras that was he bilocated with his five-meter golden cross, up to his goddaughter island with the little finger of the Apostle Andrew. From here in the surface of the earth would be ajar when cracked by the little finger of the Apostle, then he would leave in his hand a minimal piece of earth so that they could be preserved from the cataclysm, and be redeemed by the bronze birds. Only in this way was the revived earth aware of what was happening, and let it escape in the concrete stones that had evaporated from the apostle, only letting in some bursts of the Metelmi that interlaced by springs of the lusters of the sublunar cycle, which intermingled with the land and the ocean, and the fire with the scalded air. The rebellions of the Mega Seism transferred them in psychic divergences towards the Palmatiae earthquake, which recovered the edge of the pilgrims who did not manage to attend the course of the Mashiach holocaust when they were apprehended by this force of the Palmatiae earthquake on the path of Bethany. From the valley of the Pleisto the uproar effects of Golgotha were counteracted, and from Patras when the sense of the earthquake shone on Vernarth's Mycetias in the 70th Earthquakes with the reverberated waves that flared in the verb, and in the guttural lows that They freed themselves from the subsoil, when the substrates of the mother's possession forged discrepancies of order or Kousmos, having to be reissued with so much rapture and sordid frenzy of the verb that did not recognize him from the stench of the waves that rose from the creeping subsoil, like a cobra that smiled linearly through the eyes of the fire conjured by the infected, and with the disproportionate deviations of the adjective, where salvation was the correct invocation where it has not been seen in the pharynx of the cobra, which struck itself in the impetuous fierceness of the burning global balance. The Peris Kosmou or reference of the World was compared with the paragraph that the evangelizing writings indicated with the chromatic, and not with the adverb when the fiery red of the Mycetias Seismic went directly to his fetid belly with halitosis to fully protect the wounded and Marie des Vallés with the reasons for the vertical and horizontal movement of the “Brastae and Epiclintae”.

The markets up, the Markets down
For weeks it just meanders.
Alas, my stocks are always down
Each time I take a gander.

GM, Lehman, Citicorp
My broker bought for me-
And you can guess the net result-
IHe bought a yacht, not me.

Those friends who don’t avoid me
Say I’ve reversed Midas’ touch.
I don’t turn things I touch to gold
I turn gold into rust.

I’d heard dart tossing Simians
Can best the S & P
So I went to the Zoo this March
to consult a Chimpanzee.

He took the chartt, he threw the dart
And picked a stock for me-
And now I’m getting margin calls
because I bought BP.

He seemed the sage of Omaha
before he ruined me.
I should have tried Orangutans
And paid their higher fee.

They wanted five bananas
My monkey worked for three.
But now I’m bust because I used
the discount Chimpanzee.

exude the moment;
you are a transformative fulcrum

of intersubject's rent and awe:
anthropomythic ecolaw

the dream cascades into words,
birds fly little crisps of meaning
into morning light. last night's
snow leaves a crystalline spark
of you subdued, become a finer point
of tantric sight, gazing rose-blue pulsar
lashing through a cosmic garden,
delicious fruit of spacious letting be.
i'm grasping for that pleasure,
vermillion moan of lifestring vibrance,
but the wind carries on outside,
swirling pieces of the mind in
flux of upturned joy~
our heartbreeze summoned,
now whispersssoulsounds to come
and earthly darkness grips the future frost,
thaw, break and steam as it wills;
the churning ground sings to us
of bear-sleep and jackal-howl,
of seasons transpiring,
one lost sled of memories
leaves us empty, pressing crystal sky:
my aching ideality trounced in bliss-meanders
!stunning revelation! you! You! yOu!
bringing all to be a second time,
as it was.. in me.. now new,
sweet novelty of union,
this gathering of nervure self,
gliding insights, sudden soundsss.

like a node of forest-echo swirls
it dazzles: unseen colors for my inner eye;
ancient tones of fog ripple
off something you are,
creaking center easing of my sidling,
spirit drop and wavelet growth:
as if you were a branching greenery
of my own once lost other-self,
last gasping there as what i pictured 'you'~
swayingss.. sun-spikes speaking,
sky-gaze and soaking barky iris sssuck,
moulding into me the wisdom of our past leavings,
those raspy kites of sap-filled yearnings
shadow sunshower evening.
i would be a tree with you and
let you pierce our foundations
with roots of gaiasight slipping though
our primal urgings, concrete deference
under sun arch, spin of moon. let
ignorant insistence on fetishized divides~
slipping past my grounded darkness
still unknown, remain
my underself unleashed
my silent trunk-swilling soothed,
stable chaos-other, self regiven,
life renewed in leaf,
the touch of you imbued.

the whole vision lost
but for that glimmer~
it finds me writhing unknown spirals:
ringing wonderment in a seed,
or dormant sporocarpic lineage of life,
the vast hyphae-humming cups of death-born
nethergenesis of cycled hyle me.
a womb that never knew of pain
or being evertorn in dessicated spectre-sea.

the burning desert-storms helixify our rain,
a heaving hiss-like suncry
from that dark, sandy baobabic throat.
the earth consumes in shifts,
and blossoms toward the alterbliss of you, too,
an expanse of solar flare
its beautific reach engulfing terribly,
nepho-logos spanning all the air.

ssssunlit boughs of winds' remembrance
grow soft across this window,
then shift with forest breath,
their snowlace puffed before
an azure true expanse,
the burdened greens stirring a needlish depth
of metawinter, all-too-human
starfields constellate in hiding
far behind my starshine there a curtain blue,
whose prismatic humor lights more
than scenic treescape, frigid dust.
hair, nose, glass enframed by sapless wood
of window cut to square my void revision of the world.

the colors whirl into mindflow,
inter-material upsurge-undulate,
abyssal cauldron seething passions stilled by
comic symbols of a secular mystic;
dancing eddies convey my sense of sight
just thought, then lost into a wider dance
of tensions eased and drawn,
of geometric visions seemly here and gone,
inner, outer: conveyed by stroke of
spinal eidos, its rhythm set
before my time, its tone the vital,
draping earthverse
recited in my veins, the sinews of my
life in other lives,
the song of us expressive in my gaze~
one blink()a single point of beauty
fades into another haze,
lighted icedrift iridescing evanesce.

The Cornish shore …
Where golden sand lies next
To dappled grey granite rock,
Where the sea breeze sweeps
And the mussels flock,
Where the rock pools gather
And the small ***** patrol,
Where the white foam curls
And the breakers roll,
Where the sea birds call
And the salt spray stings,
Where the seaweed sunbathes
And the limpet clings,
Where a stream’s course meanders,
And reflects the azure sky,
Where a starfish gazes skywards
And white clouds go scudding by.

By all means take treasured memories,
But please take nothing more,
And leave nothing but your footprints
On this sacred Cornish shore …

On nights like this
Tired eyes reminisce
Of a former life
Like French doors opening
To familiar gardens
Where prunes grow on fingers
And lavender blooms
In the iridescent luster
Of warm water droplets
Serenading shoulders
Where reason and chaos blend
Into peach white tea
Swallows carry songs
Through their wings
Stirring decadent incense
Of exhaling trees
Sunlight waltzes with
Saturated leaves
Their indelible patterns
Rhythmic marigold sleeves
Carefree meanders along
Luscious promenade, swathed
In pomegranate-stained poppies
Ripe for the picking
In them, a fragrant ecstasy
Alive inside this memory

Deep between the veins of a crying leaf

Lives a sneaky green thief.

Hidden deep within is an infinite release.

Under his cracked wooden dome, found belief.

Creating magnificent worlds abound!

Fascinated with the life that sprang from ground.

Humming, he meanders from each sparkling leaf.

Catching a wind breeze drifted by belief.

The vertical of the routing kinetics was far from the contemplation of the gods of the catastrophes, accepting that they had to save these souls that were tied before the inclination of the southern part of the island when it loomed in the height, related and when the lord He appeared to Saint Paul in Damascus for the reconversion of souls. Fury dried the air and became unbreathable as it exploded before the astonished gaze of those lacerated by the ins and outs of the earth, seeing that Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter came into conjunction, when the sun revolved around itself, accelerating its kinetics perigee. The misgivings took hold and the feet of all were static without, finding footholds in some astromethereology, to ask the archangels for the vindicatory fiery flame, far away in the arid atmosphere that Mercury produced when he wanted to abstain and block the unbridled Sun. The intense and changing winds emanated from the caverns, like micro hurricanes that constellated Aorion and Taurus. The darkness came out of the Pleiades from the dark Manes who envisioned the codes and omens for those who were not empowered by the claws when they aligned themselves in Taurus, and Mycenae anticipated said forecast in the Agios Andreas chorography, which on this occasion was trilocated, to resist in the same chorus of Patras, where the Apostle Andrew was announcing them between kings and generals. Everything argued from the veins of the meanders where it could be described that thunder came out from the clouds and that they were absorbed by the cracks preceded by the vigorous bells, and the bellowing of Vernarth as if they were in the hypocenter of the Arbela site, when all soldiers ran after other human species and Brisehal bellowed at them, emulating his master's senses of terror. The roar of combat was comparable to the convulsions of men running toward the lows of the earth, spitting foul-smelling whiffs from within. The galleries were hidden above and below the earth, the blows were overwhelmed by compact solid plates that flew over the lost earth, the Stymphans protected with their bronze wings the lacerated and Marie des Vallées, who in turn encouraged Vernarth who fought to protect Theus and Vikentios with Wonthelimar near masses pierced by the blast of the fiery wind. Some adobes were classified within the taxonomy of the brick that was fortified in the corners of the Hellenic temple that resisted with their flying buttresses when the parapet was raised, and they settled again after an undulating goal of venerable swaying to a Sybilla in trance. The waves ceased the high tide wind and the contrary Metelmi winds were made worse by any anger in the wreckage of a forge when the *** scarce to open the Apollo wasteland.

They all had to wait forty-five days, sheltered in the meanders. When the sea was collected after having overcome the masses of hydrosism, in any exhibition in front of anyone saying goodbye with inept imploration. Vernarth was possessed in some declines with the support of his donkeys, who had come from the Eclectic Portal to assist him in the face of this typology that only with them could he minimize. In the sixth version of his reposes, Vernarth gave them up due to the delirium of repentance, which revealed the image of the Twelve Apostles, before the scientists approached from Vernarth's Rhema who quantified the approach to austerities, which could not even be gathered in all the libraries of the World, not least in the insight of who can describe it extrinsically in the Parnassus or the Acropolis. The whole irrational focus was deified in the externalities of all the slight edges of the Milky Way, creating arcane incense fires in what is said of the trials adjacent to the springs of knowledge, to console the mourners towards a Tractatus where they will revolutionize the meanings of the signifier.

Zefian says upon emerging: “what collision affects the movements of the world when the body vibrates with confusion and not with emotion! The Fourth Sagita collided with Mercury and the Sun, everything took hold from the Aurion Belt, for them, the uneasiness is reflected in the death, by not resisting the rude speed of the ancient episodes, which in turn are in the geological testimonies from where all geological ethical matrix is born. As dignity is aquatic given its immense containment of the sinful solid, the solids want to get out of their penitentiary causes, with a habitual bustle breaking down in the valleys and mountains, which only the land contains and not the sea. When the ocean shakes, it lashes with the Aurion club at its antagonists, who could be imaginary or its own ethics that cross the seas and takes hold in amphibious larvics lands "

Zefian leaves and begins to order and incur in the surfaces that became tenuous and discreet in the labyrinth of the Tractatus and in the linguistic signs of retro life, which came to redeem their progeny that lay in the same spheres that the earth itself possessed, flooded with silt in the superimposed light of the fire as a collateral external factor that moved with all lightness, throughout the circular surface as if snatching the dynasty that the Peri Kosmous claimed, leaving it in the fractal of the nullity of the excursion, with the factorial of starting Relevant areas that do not tremble, until the soul of the world was in the trance of the same excursion, while time froze as inert matter, and real-time emerged from the thread of the excursion's digression when the mountains were not sinking, probably being so. ? That verisimilarly it would pre-exist after the final excursion where it showed its splendid chorography authentically intact.

There we were
In the midst of an oriental expose
More like a permanent museum display

The history of our foundation here in the West
Build on the backs of the yellow and black
Only I prefer to keep clear of the festering beast that is Oakland at high noon

No
This was someplace stranger
Chinatown, San Francisco

A soy canker in the greasy mouth of America
In some circles this was the closest thing to an escape
Or the closest thing to internment

It’s all about perception
A pompous soccer mom/beast attempting culture meanders through the local chaos
Green beans or shallots tonight?

A psychedelic mess with an unwarranted response
Could she handle the absurdity?
I care not, choose the latter sweetheart

“Shallots”

The markets up, the Markets down
For weeks it just meanders.
Alas, my stocks are always down
Each time I take a gander.

GM, Lehman, Citicorp
My broker bought for me-
And you can guess the net result-
I’m broker now, not he.

Those friends who don’t avoid me
Say I’ve reversed Midas’ touch.
I don’t turn things I touch to gold
I turn gold into rust.

I’d heard dart tossing Simians
Can best the S & P
So I went to the Zoo this March
to consult a Chimpanzee.

He perused the chart then flung a dart
to pick a stock for me-
And now I’m getting margin calls
because I bought BP.

He seemed the sage of Omaha
before he ruined me.
I should have tried Orangutans
And paid their higher fee .

They wanted five bananas
My monkey worked for three.
But now I’m bust because I used
a discount Chimpanzee.

I might have dodged a massive loss
And profited besides
Had I but heeded the baboons’
Sell signaling behinds

It can be dangerous
     To encounter something
     Thought provoking before sleep

Maybe you will have a couple of minutes of afterthought
     And then drift to Sleep
Or you may catch Insomnia caused by, and causing,
    A series of jumbled thoughts
Thoughts that change paths quickly, sharply and often

So they are crossing and weaving
     Going up and down, side to side
               Forwards, backwards, short and longways
                         Until you have an apparently infinitely tangled mess
                                   And that point a 9mm seems appropriate
                                             To clear out this heap that has kept you from
                                                       Much needed slumber for the past few hours
-Whew

Don't take this as a suicide attempt though
     No this is merely a desperate, fantasy of an attempt for some rest

The next plan may be to scream,
     as if jumping from a building
     Hoping that the thoughts would leave
     With the air from your lungs
Of course that would not work
     Seeing how breathe and ideas
     Come from different parts of the body
And your not so cruel to wake those who do manage to sleep

So now try to scream inside your head
     But really you want someone to hear it
     So the purpose (which I believe I no longer grasp) is defeated
Well, you could scream to yourself,
     Or God
     So someone knows what going on
But then out of now where arguments break out
     Upon realizing that you are fighting with yourself
     You fear a schizophrenic diagnosis
     And argue with God (if you haven't already)
     About why he gave you two personalities
          That fight each other into the wee hours of the night

Then your mind will just happen to wander
     From the quarrel
Analyzing the last point to come up
     Which drifts into a semi-related tangent
          Then wander to something some one did
               That this particular thought reminds you of
                    Maybe that meanders on ever to the actions
                         Of a character from some book you've read
                              And after rereading the book inside your head
                                   Go on and review everything you've read by the author
                              And relate how similar the name of the author is
                    Related to a cast member of a mind bending movie
               As the lost pattern of whimsy gurgles like a puzzle of
          Light bulbs flashing with assumed direction but no
     Real goal in mind, but just on and on, etc, etc, etc,

Captured inside a tighter, messier ball than before
It can be dangerous
     To encounter something
     Thought provoking before sleep

Maybe you will have a couple of minutes of afterthought
     And then drift to Sleep
Or you may catch Insomnia caused by, and causing,
    A series of jumbled thoughts
Thoughts that change paths quickly, sharply and often

So they are crossing and weaving
     Going up and down, side to side
               Forwards, backwards, short and longways
                         Until you have an apparently infinitely tangled mess
                                   And that point a 9mm seems appropriate
                                             To clear out this heap that has kept you from
                                                       Much needed slumber for the past few hours
-Whew

Don't take this as a suicide attempt though
     No this is merely a desperate, fantasy of an attempt for some rest

The next plan may be to scream,
     as if jumping from a building
     Hoping that the thoughts would leave
     With the air from your lungs
Of course that would not work
     Seeing how breathe and ideas
     Come from different parts of the body
And your not so cruel to wake those who do manage to sleep

So now try to scream inside your head
     But really you want someone to hear it
     So the purpose (which I believe I no longer grasp) is defeated
Well, you could scream to yourself,
     Or God
     So someone knows what going on
But then out of now where arguments break out
     Upon realizing that you are fighting with yourself
     You fear a schizophrenic diagnosis
     And argue with God (if you haven't already)
     About why he gave you two personalities
          That fight each other into the wee hours of the night

Then your mind will just happen to wander
     From the quarrel
Analyzing the last point to come up
     Which drifts into a semi-related tangent
          Then wander to something some one did
               That this particular thought reminds you of
                    Maybe that meanders on ever to the actions
                         Of a character from some book you've read
                              And after rereading the book inside your head
                                   Go on and review everything you've read by the author
                              And relate how similar the name of the author is
                    Related to a cast member of a mind bending movie
               As the lost pattern of whimsy gurgles like a puzzle of
          Light bulbs flashing with assumed direction but no
     Real goal in mind, but just on and on, etc, etc, etc,

Captured in a tighter, messier ball than before
     Still no closer to falling into bliss and dreams
     Continuing a run around circle of red eyed agony

And what of Emotions
     Before it was a string
     With many frayed and loose ends
     All tied into a childish knot
Now add your emotions from the day
     A bunch of gunky wax and slime
You stuck with a coarse
                                                  stringy
­                                                                m­ushy
                                                            ­                  smelly
                                        ­                                                    tangled
     ­                                                                 ­                                        and damp
                            pile of sspthpthtphtphthhh (a.k.a. crap)

And the only things
     That seem a proper remedy
     For this pile of crap
     Are tranquilizers meant
     For animals much larger than you
     Or just a friendly bullet
     (One with a hollow tip to really clear out)

You know you could get up
     Read,
                 Write,
                              Watch some TV
But even though you are
     Completely awake and
     Fully alert
You are just too tired to up

But if by some miracle
     You do manage to just doze off
     This perpetual law of irony dictates
     That your alarm is not even
     Three moments from sounding

And in that ringing
     Is a true moment you may wish to have that bullet

Calmly the river flows
To many creatures, yet unknown.
A place to drink for those who know,
And a place for many to call their home.

The river meanders through the countryside
Like the veins essential to our lives.
Carrying nourishment on which to feed.
Vital to our daily needs.

An abundance of food for man everywhere
And a bounty of salmon for the hungry bear.
But, do not be fooled by its magnificence
For the hidden reality is far more intense.

The river so powerful yet seemingly steady
Barely a sound echoing in the valley.
So very quiet, yet mightily strong,
Silently waiting for victims to come along,

To the river the victims now belong.

But it's in the nature of the beast,
And man tries to tame it
By putting in place
A huge wall of stone
To slow down it's pace,
And in the end, sadly,
It's life, man will take,
And this wonderful life force
Becomes just a still lake.

The rain falls in whispers,
Meanders through the
Cracks in our lives.
The sky claps sardonically
Prophetic, pathetic fallacy
Alive and well.
As time swells and breathes
Solaris flares, coughs and heaves.
Scorched earth, ashen leaves.
The rain is gone but so's
The emerald green.

For Basil@Egmont

Old school hotelier, conservationist, mountain man.


Festooning drapes of weeping moss
Hang damply from the trees
Cascading lengths of dripping fern
Bring wetness to your knees
The clutching boughs of gnarled branch
The olive greens and damp
The winding path meanders up
This mountain's rocky ramp

Grey boulders in the river bed
The rush of torrents fast,
The song of falling waters
Plummeting into the past.
The flash of brilliant plumage
A  blue kingfisher in a dive
And the tragic death of this field mouse
Means other creatures stay alive.

The mammoth mountain hangs above
The snow is clean and white
The cornice shadow aqua blue
Ridge ice is sunlight bright
The summit wind is blowing hard
The snow is curling round
To recreate a billowed crown
Atop that seaward mound.

A dancing *** is eyeing me,
Impossibly it clings
Inverted from a totara trunk
With rapid flitting wings.
Exploding from it's hiding place
A ponderous pigeon *****
And weaves it's way between the boughs
With noisy wing tip slaps

The magic of this secret place
Is the drama in the air,
The solitude of teeming life
In green-ness everywhere.
The hardness of the freezing night
The harshness of the wind,
The grandeur of it's wilderness
Paints splendor as it's sin.

Taranaki's goblin forest
Is resplendent in it's garb
Of emerald green and turquois-ness
And rugged rocks and shard,
Cascading rivers, waterfalls
In sweeping walls of trees
Where pools of still transparency
Bring you breathless to your knees.

Where Egmont's goblin forest
Will make your spirits sing
And the urge to climb another mile
Will reward you with something
You had not bargained for in visiting
This remote and splendid place,
......It will reward you with a warm,
And knowing smile upon your face.

Marshalg
Dawson Falls Romantic Hotel
Mt. Taranaki
15th September 2008

T'was little fun
T'was a little town,
No virulent delirious runs
No irking sounds
As t'was a little dangling town

All t'was a feasible brew
No meanders to sought
No conundrums of anew
just wired timely things to rot

When all t'was a portent upcoming
For t'was clad and veneered
In a amicable sun-daze groaning

T'was a peaceful loop of mono-gradient seasons
and all to do was ponder
For t'was guzzled with reasons

T'was yesterdays jigsaw puzzle
T'was a nightmare in sun-light
But for now, let's retch our unknown dazzle

As t'was,
A flippant fuss
For what shan't be
A beguiling me

©Jeannine davidoff 2011

table 22

sitting at table 22
wondering what to do
life meanders around
keeping me on the ground
opening options
opening dilemmas
process thoughts
delight in fantasy
develop dramatically
time is ripe
pick the fruit
sally forth

* * * *

here i am again
at table 22
knowing my heart
knowing what to do
(moving on is easy - jack johnson – playing in the background)

Take a step
Breathe
Take a step
Off the edge

Fall free into the air
Nothing is up
Nothing is down
Floating in freefall

Wind meanders by
Your body speeds
To somewhere
But the mind is behind

The air has stopped now
Were you in distress?
Or did you imagine that?
Either way, you’re finished now

Falling ends at the bottom
Of the endless nether
The ground creeps up
Then your body assaults it

Laying on the concrete
Waking from a dream
Brush yourself off
And take a step off the edge

Dappled sunlight filters in
Late afternoon meanders by
Absorbing my thoughts,
They filter through
And I am dozing,
Warm and cozy
In my bed of grass
And time just passes,
Never rushing once to fly.

Fear waits upon its prey
where the light is a shamefaced girl

wind is a fragmented guest
where silence fools the unwary

to chirp the birds forget
where the baiter might be the bait

the hush is not all white
as in that ever ruling night
blood is spilled without sound.

Forlorn as the lovers' lost track
meanders the creek
in moans for the lost
shedding its sighs to the tides.

He veers to the left when he walks
in and out of lives
up and down city streets.
His gait clumsy
and haphazard
bumping passersby
and knocking glasses off tables.
Slack jawed stares and
excited whispers;
unphased
unwavering
steady in his unsteadiness.
He meanders down alleyways;
breaking hearts
and preconceived notions about
what a vagabond should
or shouldn’t be.

4/29/18 5:47 pm

I wish you wouldn't blame yourself
For those memories I'll never get
I wish you wouldn't flinch so much
At dinner
when the conversation
meanders to my name
I wish my happiest moments
were shared with some of yours
I wish my accomplishments the same
I wish you could make a guilt-free trip
To see me.
I wish when I smiled
Your soul would adhere and do as such
I wish those times when I was knocked off balance
Your love would have been my crutch
I wish in our text messages there was no distance
I wish phone calls between us existed
I wish my existence didn't make you so uncomfortable.
Pops
I wish you would have gotten to know me
I wish you could have helped to paint my canvass
I wish you knew I'm not upset
I wish it wasn't too late

I rest , slightly out of breath
Floating ...
In a little canoe carved with etched markings of ancient tradition - native - to mama earths paintbrush
Offering my naked body sleek with a slight sheen of daytime heat,
my face shadowed by the brim of a banana tree leaf sombrero ,

Lazily drifting into giant Lilly pads , lotus flowers spring up , rich sumptuous yellow suns adorned with skins of deep purple petals
Where I go , I don't know - Rivers leads the way

Curvaceous as my curls the water meanders into Lake Meru

Gently disturbing the pristine reflections of misty cloud mountains
Ripples cascade into the placid watery depths as I dock in where the river meets land , to find the seven nymphs waiting , to guide me home.

All this time , woven into a shirt that is iradeccent as the halo around lady moon as night falls across the vally.

The last drops of sunset burning orange adorn my locks ,

Fire light calls and beckons , dancing flames whisper sensual pleasures and lick my skin leaving residual memories of rooftop nights , but , today we lie on the earthen - hearth falling asleep to the cradling , rocking rhythm that is
Sacred lullaby

Notes got us high on paper wings

Leave these flesh bodies in favour

Of ethereal

And father sky's cloud kingdom - star shine
Coats each kiss in bioluminescence
Forget cloud 9 , this , I, heaven on earth

When we return , bodies paired with dew

Under the blanket of sunrise
Serene

I have drunk from the mountain stream
Clean , clear , free.

after Alexandra Leaving, a song by Leonard Cohen

<>

to go where?

to a city self-consuming in madness,
giving every excuse to stay, and yet,
it came to me just now when the poet
must be leaving his redoubt, with doubt,
and return to the concrete and anomie
of a different kind of splendid isolation

when the last leaf meanders slow down
to the battlefield, and the falling terminado,
and the tree branches are stick figures, each
finger pointing skyward in an j’accusing manner,
accussing & conceding defeat, begging for mercy,
their pleadings too much for me to bare and bury

when green has been wiped clean, and deleted
from the dictionary of colors, my moth eaten soul,
can no longer be granted a stay of execution by
merely looking at the landscape and seascape
to admire their friendly contrasting schemes,
their installation in me of the awe of a visual
quietude, that was an astonishing injection
not truly appreciated till now, too late and
still early, the awe colorations of nature’s vibrancy

The gods have come, my soul hoisted upon their
broad shoulders, the dead-appearing tree branches
can no longer keep their poet safe, hold him back from
meeting his fate; now, he too is a leaving but
floating upward, unlike like the fallen crowds that have
come to rest upon the soil that born them, now to be buried,
all saying: Goodbye Island Poet leaving,

Island Poet
has no poem, no good understanding, no vision,
had no plan, no foresight, only a hope against hope,
that safety was/is not seasonal, Van Morrison reminds,
“These are the days of endless summer,”are memories,
to be held onto tightly, until when if I pass muster, angels
will return to my island abode, where my natural friends
will greet me again, with a flowering and new births,
and The Island Poet can once again revel in ideas in words like
future, sanity, when boarding the ferry with a one way ticket smile.

I open my blinds for a bit o' moonshine ..
If a 'Peeping Tom' meanders through
our bushes sneaking a peek at night ,
his criminal eyes could quite possibly lock on to
a fifty three year old , portly , farmer tanned
Old Buck wearing absolutely nothing , holding
his favorite coffee cup ..
My case study in Criminology .. ****** Prevention 101 ..

*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]
*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]

Sitting at the window staring at sliding rain
I mentally slip on the proverbial banana peel

*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]

Floating deeper into consciousness’s backwater
I ponder the reflection of a mirror in the lake

*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]

Looking down at shoeless feet fraught with fear
I turn to run, only to find cell bars, box cars, sticky jars, and the planet  Mars

*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]

Momentarily, my movement meanders making me
a microcosm of mankind’s malady…another Monday morning

*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]
*** *** ba dum dump da dum *** ba dum dum
                      /\                        /\                                /\
                  [snap]                 [snap]                         [snap]

Santa Claus is 100% pure love
his heart does not divide
the starved and homeless man with his tin cup
from the wealthy politician in his black limousine

nor does Santa ever blame
the frightened small town girl
who paints her lips and struts unsure
down hard dark streets

Santa Claus remembers his own mother
and weeps for the lonely karma of octogenarians
diapered in wheelchairs along fluorescent hallways
abandoned by the ones they birthed

our great elf winces every time
he feels the crocodile's fearsome jaws
drag the wildebeest down
while the zebras flee

he prays relentless sailors
stop harpooning the great breaching whales
and hears the grasses scream
when bloated oilmen pound holes
in the prairie dog's kingdom

he regrets that schoolteachers lie
about what a great man Columbus was
and why the Sioux, the Apache and the Arapahoe
were incapable of evolution

he knows you don't need a bicycle helmet
to ride downtown for ice cream
knows our legal system is for sale
knows surfing is Neptune's brave ballet

Santa delights in the spiritual joy emerging
when patients see angels hovering everywhere
before doctors scream psychosis
and numb what they do not understand
with sad needles and leather restraints

his reindeer are the dreams of the spastic child
who knows he will never run
his sleigh a zero carbon emission vehicle
and his great heavy bag carries
the sweet prayers of the Jew, the Christian
the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu
the Gnostic, the Wiccan and the existential humanist

on the night before Christmas
Santa dreams that all the cars and trucks disappear
and every freeway grows trees and flowers and grass
where everyone chats and meanders and strolls
and vendors sell SnoCones, apple juice and pears

because Santa Claus is just doing
the one thing he knows how to do best
on a long winter's night
to bring some light to a world
that races toward extinction
while the butterfly sleeps with the lizard
and the children still believe