"metalled" poems
Wellspring of blood and gold
In flame and glory ever
Doest thou faithful rise
Cast off thy vapor shrouds
Radiance of ancient godhood undimmed
Magnified by singing ice
As prophesied in the late darkness thy
Hoped triumph heralded while
Bearers chained on metalled rails
Muttered protest under
Hoary breath of polar air
But lo! The brazen promise of thine
Image graven in beholder's eye
Rings hollow in the bitten ears
And the stung flesh
Feels thy boasted fire
Not at all
Above thee stands the city's goddess proud
So virile once thou smilest
Upon her white clad shoulder now
Ceres scorns thine impotence turns not
But fixes her steeled gaze
On the frozen north
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 10:46 AM UTC
We came upon slowing traffic.
Inside the bus
Standing passengers were thrown
and grips tightened
as we edged forward across
the unfinished road.
We passed the sun-glassed
occupants of cars and busses
and the rolled-up sleeves
of lorry drivers who's
tanned arms hung out
of every window, and
who's fingers tapped
an unheard tune.
I stooped to stare at the
dancing distance of
the baked tarmacked
highway.
Our eyes stung and wet
The metalled road blazed.
Our approaching gaze silent.
Gripped passports Identity papers
rosary- beads
-Letters of transit -
not needed;
The border did what most
borders do-
and shrugged us through.
Laughter becomes all languages.
Later that afternoon,
I sipped from the glass I held.
Jez turned to me and asked,
"Is this what it's like to be drunk?"
I smiled as I slid my wine towards her...
...
words and foto T Carroll..
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 10:27 PM UTC
This is a poem
made by her hand
a poem of marks
you can read
left to right
right to left
any which way
an ascemic script
it tells a tale
late in the day
beside a river still
sunlit clouds vast
in a Maytime sky
down on the mud
and shingled shore
these found things
arrived at her feet
as they do when
waiting for her
dear hand’s touch
upon their metalled
forms rusted and
rivered by the daily
tides the diurnal
wash and dry of
weather and watered
river mud-coloured
beside boats bedded
in the river bank each
plaqued to remember
thirty wooden boats in all
that plied a river’s journey
there and back once
to and fro now
charged up high
on Pulton shore
a motorized trow
a top-sail schooner
Edith and the
New Despatch
steel and concrete
barges Severn Collier
and Mighty Monarch
lying hard into the silt
a yard at rest
a grave of vessels
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 11:41 AM UTC
I picture my crossed legs, cresting a mound of ephervesent green, not tumult Sky with shadowed cloud, but cherry kissed blue rolling with heat.
The morning song sweeps the vale, harkening the beast and fresh fauna arouse, and the morthered trees wheaping away glass tears of mid morning shower.
Not a sound of combustion smoke, or thick air laced with chemical cloak.
But licked breath of sun flower fume, and jolly ring of a blue **** call back tracking the day of English country side sun.
Village in the deep pathed with rosened brick, cobbled with years to their name.
Thatched and single glazed sleep the houses of those in pleasure to live, away from sound and smoke and ever reluctance to give.
Yet bestowed from my world I am ****** back through to a bench in embankment side.
My village blown by September breeze and blue *** lost for lacking of trees.
The birds song unsung and arrogantly moved by the slamming tune of metalled wheels. Locals March by with mission and no excess, thoughts of exploration never sound as each space in the city has already been found.
My poet talk resents the city, as country birth implanted my eye and captures my spirit with intrigued motivation.
Yet opposites attract in such manner or Fashion, that crescent streets and busses red, fill my eyes with more movement than words ever said.
And unfinished I want to be here, to inhale the fume and absorb the sound, and so that upon return to my fields of green, my dream of birds and thatched village lay, that not the strongest of mid September breeze, could ever blow away.
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 7:28 PM UTC
The Australian desert can be very cold at night. It was the cold that woke us early in the morning. We were all eager to be off, and we soon found ourselves drumming along the metalled road leading to the airstrip, in an ex military four by four open topped vehicle. By the time we got there we were all frozen, and waiting for the Sun to warm us up. The pilot asked us if we would donate a shirt, the fitters were doubtful whether they had been able to stop the leakage, they intended to stuff rags into the filler pipes to see if that would help. The pilot had second thoughts, and decided to try without, he thought there might be a danger of blocking the fuel lines, so we took off again to **** it and see,(an old tried and trusted technique in The Royal Air Force, aparrently.)Twenty minutes later, we were back on the tarmack once more ,stuffing the remains of my shirt into the fuel filler pipes. This did not cure the problem, but it did alleviate it to a degree. The Pilot calculated that instead of being able to do twelve hundred mile (hops). we could manage three hundred miles. and there were small airstrips with refuelling facilities within range. "We should be ok, fingers crossed." I liked his confidence, and sat watching the wings slowly leaking our fuel into a thin vapour trail, as we flew along over the outback desert land. We landed several times I think, by then I was so tired that my brain craved sleep. The only stop I can remember was a cattle station at Leigh Creek, it was the last stop before Edinborogh Fields,near Adelaide. I wondered "And then what?" No one was able to tell us why we were in OZ!!
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 5:28 PM UTC
Nothing sadder
Than calling for a mate no longer there,
Last of a kind
Singing into the darkness.
Ousted by the human race;
One small light extinguished in a universe
Of satellites and jet powered aircraft
Metalled roads and all night diners,
High rise living, where we even invade
The skies to get a better view
Of our formidable world,
Lighting us into our own oblivion.
So how do you grade
The importance of a creature,
Not particularly colourful
With a dull song, not very loud,
That no one will really miss as it shuffles
Off the stage of the world,
No great eulogy, no curtain call
Never an encore
To join poor Dodo in the glass cased
Museums of what we have destroyed.
Jul 12, 2019
Jul 12, 2019 at 1:35 PM UTC
The blue green metalled
carapace
shot brilliant shafts of
light ,
blinding him , back to
Akasha ,
as Scarab meandered
knowingly before him .
☆
His left arm was at rest
on the cool slab of marble
while seated , as the other
limb
moved involuntarily
from a hidden source .
☆
Looking up as autonomous
fingers scribed on ,
watching as hundreds ,
thousands of
years flow into a vibration
of centuries ,
caressed by the Divine and
the Holy Spirit .
☆
Then into arms of the
Angel of Dreams ,
to ride in his chariot of
forgetfulness .
As above and then so below
and the spirit of Love will
surely rest on them all .
Oct 1, 2024
Oct 1, 2024 at 6:37 PM UTC
when the eyes fail to perceive
and the heart lessens to drink
when the brain tap nozzled
drips slowly in a lonely sink
when the owls shriek
in melodic tunes
when the moon quickens
like a lightening noon
yet it only a midnight draft
the floorboards creak
the shadowbird laughs
and yet ceases to speak
when the door swings open
and shingles screech for the moon
you think it's early
the crickets mumble in tune
when the night is up
the sparrow has yet to speak
crowing on a metalled fence
glistening powdered bleak
when the night is up
cows bury the dune
the night is, up
the mare is looking for the groom
Aug 20, 2022
Aug 20, 2022 at 12:23 AM UTC