"milled" poems
He smelled like my Dad
Or like Old Spice and Zest
He smelled like a person working on cars
Or of the outdoors
He smelled like fresh milled wood
Or like a shirt worn with sweat
He smelled like our living room
Or like our dog named Stanley
He smelled like green trees
Or like a tavern where an un-known band plays
He smelled like an antique dresser
Or like a vintage vehicle
He smelled like warm buttered toast
Or like fresh brewed coffee
Although his smell's been gone for ages
I can still remember the way he smelled
Sometimes I can still smell him
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 9:21 AM UTC
My Estranged Dear
Why couldn't we piecemeal the past
The pieces that crashed
Over dinner and a cup of joe
Over the branches that glow
Why did the leaves fall from their limbs
Before the Autumn hymns
Before their time
Our days lost in chime
Why do two hearts sever alone
Confetti tomorrows falling to stone
Why my estranged dear do you dread
A benevolence served over broken bread
A posse of good nature willed
In fall of olive branches milled
To my estranged dears
Collectively over the years
I sat in front of the mirror
Farther away than nearer
Pondering the same sad old song
Of where golden went wrong
Was it being on the ruler of the river
With no catches to deliver
Being next to our campfire
Small flames freezing your heart's desire
Was the heat of the night
Dancing in plight
Were the words I spoke
Just a convoy of smoke
Was it sleeping in the restless tent
Your pent up passion spent
On black bears in others, you see
And not in me
To my estranged dears
My eyes were blind to your fears
I admit with regret
And knowingly I know my debt
Yet I can only wander on the past
In hopes that an ember is cast
A ruler I was not
Though vetted by such for naught
Logan Robertson
8/11/2018
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 7:02 PM UTC
Moving amidst my Ramona chapter books,
I make out your movement, M, the moody turns
Of your mounts and valleys, the moniker of
Family names, you marked me like a maternal
Emblem of the generation’s matriarch,
You mingled amid reminiscences of former matrons
Maria Helena from the Midwest,
Who crossed the mountains in a wagon,
Madeleine, a migrant from Marseilles,
Who baked warm loaves in San Francisco,
And her own daughter, my Mimi,
Who muttered merde while she drank martinis.
In my own time, you materialized in
Marjorie, my nana, and Maria, my mom,
The women in which I knew you growing up,
Then Molly, who made dreams out of
Magic and Movies and Marie Antoinette,
You embellished my most favorite things.
In my monogram, you aimed my impulses
in your masts’ diametric directions
Towards competence, towards imagination.
In your middle ‘s mysterious compartment I make snug
With magazines and novels and mugs of hot milk.
You nuzzled me in moments of melancholy, then motivated me
To meander among your fundamental family,
The sumptuous L of melt and mélange,
The meticulous N of man or monk or money.
Even W, which matches your mien in mirror
It warped wicked witch while you
Milled maidens and damsels, so I imagined
The mutilation of those two majuscules formed
My image of womanhood. M, Molly Smithson materialized
From a meek mademoiselle into the mistress of mischief.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 10:09 AM UTC
Dawn
The routine
Awake to a standing pause
Before the wheel turns again
Beans break the seal
The fresh start of a new day
Slowly grinding into movement
This disturbance is accepted
Its purpose is measured
Against the quiet peace
Deep berry-breathing oils the wheel
Pale orange rays soothe the stiffness
Inhale everything
Milled dewdrops drip comfort
Share the moment with an old friend
You
No words needed
Just a nod between turns
© 2019 MJL
Mar 7, 2019
Mar 7, 2019 at 4:17 PM UTC
Helping a child with a mental illness and co-occurring disorder such as substance abuse disorder. Our little diamonds who grow up with a broken mind.
Diamonds are in the rough. How long does it take to mine a diamond?
If you as a parent do not have any tools, you will have bloodied hands and feet and never will you get to where your child can shine without the addictive source.
Diamonds are found in many ways, but to communicate with the diamond, the ore around it is crushed and milled.
Diamonds repel water, but are drawn to grease.
Expect to get down and ***** when helping your addict, but DO NOT, go into the pit. You will be of no help once you are in.
Jul 3, 2022
Jul 3, 2022 at 3:08 PM UTC
The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason.
That's why the taste of it
drove us from Eden. That fruit
was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder
for use a pinch at a time, a condiment.
God had probably planned to tell us later
about this new pleasure.
We stuffed our mouths full of it,
gorged on but and if and how and again
but, knowing no better.
It's toxic in large quantities; fumes
swirled in our heads and around us
to form a dense cloud that hardened to steel,
a wall between us and God, Who was Paradise.
Not that God is unreasonable – but reason
in such excess was tyranny
and locked us into its own limits, a polished cell
reflecting our own faces. God lives
on the other side of that mirror,
but through the slit where the barrier doesn't
quite touch ground, manages still
to squeeze in – as filtered light,
splinters of fire, a strain of music heard
then lost, then heard again.
3.2k
They found her sprawled back there in the alley.
Dead. Asleep in the Lily of the Valley.
She was obscene and cold, flat on her back,
All for a **** hit of five dollar crack.
Beneath the grime and the blood and the gore,
The innocence, before she was a *****
Could not be seen for she met her maker,
A one hundred percent street-wise faker.
Dead blue eyes, peroxide hair, a wild vine,
Earrings in her nose, tongue; defiant sign
To the world that she is a wild child,
Who many years ago learned not to smile.
There was one thing which stood out about her,
Where everything thing else was an ****** blur.
A gold cross on a chain under her throat.
It looked out of place, as a sable coat.
A gold cross, from her unknown, murky past?
A present from someone she held onto fast?
A detective, hardened to scenes such as this,
He shuddered, covered her with a low hiss.
Blue strobe lights lit up the night near the dump,
Police milled around the unmoving lump,
Keeping the official face was a test,
Sheet covered her body, outlined her breast.
Each man, woman, working the dreadful scene,
Spoke terse, if at all, about the *** queen.
Many times they'd been called out in the night
To look at and ponder similar sights.
How much can one take before giving in
To the horror and suppress it with gin?
The one, lying still, sculptured by a fiend,
Wicked hand carving out her end, not clean.
She came to this end living the life she did,
But she was much than a ***** on the skids.
God, a detective screamed at the slaughter
Please don't let this happen to my daughter.
©August 4, 2003 / Jerry Pat Bolton
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 10:13 AM UTC
Pearl earrings. They came
in a red box with gold lettering
I unwrapped in the
restaurant parking lot
on a humid evening before
my college graduation
where we milled around,
waiting for our table.
My father's gift.
One year later, in the same place,
I put them on;
my father walked me down the aisle
to marry a good man.
Wrapped in a princess dress.
Towing a six-foot train.
My mother's dream.
They stayed in my jewelry box
for one decade plus five.
Years while I played
hide and seek with depressions
and wondered who that person
in the mirror was.
My straight persona.
When I think of that now
I remember--
pearls are made of pain.
The substance the oyster makes
to coat the grit, or
whatever makes its way
into the shell.
The process transforming
the ugly, raw, pain
into the lustre of something
priceless.
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 12:46 AM UTC
We ...
Are The Architects of Our Fate
we build the walls
all these gates
We construct solid walls
they take them down
let them fall
then look around
for Solid Ground
until it's found
I plant my feet
Take a seat
share a story
of honored Glory
My Father was a Carpenter
a Master Builder they would say
And I see his buildings
every day
Arts and craftsman
my kind of build
houses filled
engrossing skill
amazing will
holes were drilled
handhewn milled
beams
intricate details
imparted to me
you can see
by carving
wooden
weathered
leather hands
It's good to admire
though I do not aspire
to live in one now
I miss the farm
in simple charms
A time exsist my memories
Queen Abigail of Chelsea
a border collie
she was our dog
Willamina a hog
or the name of a pig
rooting earth she'd happily dig
a silly gig
She never was a meal
Her funny squeal
Saved her life
had a horse named Cochise
no wool from lamb
that we could fleece
you could not ride
but would stand on hind
legs
and beg
for marshmallows!
I miss the Farm
all the time
it taught me
life is worth living
to keep on giving
what I can.
Cherie Nolan © 2016
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 8:30 PM UTC
(for my daughter, Mary Ann, soon fourteen)
I was eleven years old when I first had something taken from me. My parents were still married and my two younger brothers had not yet chosen to choose differently which one they’d live with. My dog had not yet been made lame by a falling fat man who’d taken the gift of my father’s strange rage square on the nose. And my older sister had yet to misjudge her jump from a moving train. No, none of these things, whether they happened or not how I’ve remembered, had happened.
I was eleven years old and in love with an old red bike. It had a license plate that obnoxiously read Go Now Mega which I’d scratched at with a fork and so became Gnome. I would fail my whole life to accomplish a thing greater. Before school, I’d walk the bike carefully to the end of our short drive and then seat myself on it and be still. I would often be so perfect in my stillness that I’d forego riding it and just listen for the bus and at the last possible moment walk the bike, still carefully, back into the garage and cringe at the sound the kickstand made when lowered. If ever school didn’t go my way I’d think of the bike, alone, in the garage and be calmed. When I did ride the bike, I did so slowly and deliberately that I could feel my soul get a bit ahead of me. On the best mornings, I would have for company a bed sheet of fog which made me want to fake being asleep on the couch while my mother and father milled back and forth about who would carry me to bed.
The bike had come with the rental house we moved into just shy of my tenth birthday. The house was a three bedroom one floor with one bathroom and what felt like two kitchens. I was too close to my hands and feet to now recall any vision that might tell me how these rooms were mapped though I’ve always held aloft the word blueprint. I should tell you that what I previously called a garage was actually our backyard and that our backyard was really the backyard of those living in the house behind ours. I didn’t want you to know right away who took the bike. Who’ve no imagination.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 1:25 AM UTC
Some days we'd lay about the milled plank deck
eyes to the sky
shoulders pinned
deliberating
on the hickory trees
and pillow clouds
and heavenly contrails
the warm caress
of a mid-summer wind
whispering through the hayfields
coondog at our side
sandhill crane still
feet in the shallows
of the Haldimand pond
a soft trickle coming
from the Pickerel stream
creaks from the woodshed whistle
as the Massey Ferguson
putters her way
up the county line
catharsis in place
(in this ethereal space)
just a garden variety day
...with fire ants
and fowler toads
and golden honey bees
Aug 20, 2021
Aug 20, 2021 at 2:40 PM UTC
Invalid curtains
Broken down houses
Mold is growing
Everywhere
Not many live here anymore
Used to be a boom town
babies born
Everyone was employed
Took coupons at
the company store
Milled that wood
Ground that red ore
they don't build
washing machines
around here anymore
Invalid curtains
blowing in a toxic wind
nuclear plant failed
but that wasn't
the end.
The wind is still blowing
down main street
twitching the
"For Lease" signs
If the mud doesn't getcha
The *** holes will,
Schools?
Salting the roads?
There isn't any more revenue
At least Rays is open
the general store
Thomas's, the hardware store
next door
Tony's One Stop Coffee Shop
Barney's Pharmacy
Sellin' out those Oxys
The gas station pulled out their tanks
The doctor's gone
The dentist closed
Got to go forty miles to go to Costco
Still catching trout
at Jackson Meadow
down the highway
Pulled out an 8 pound bass
Never knew it was there
Put it back
Old guy one more life to live.
Staying here is all we know
No one knows we're here
Just like that 8 pound bass
One more life to go?
even though
We keep hearing singing
in the sundown snow,
the dying song
of a dying town.
May 24, 2018
May 24, 2018 at 9:12 PM UTC
people **** themselves all kinds of ways. round here being Millersport, Ohio. dark and stormy is how we talk about hair. the dead before they go. my mother’s hair was dark and stormy. wasn’t a monday; her boyfriend was upright and able to hold a pan. she took a couple to the back of the head but kept walking. went to this particular barbershop that’s still there, same barber, still cuts out the dark. passed people no street to be on so they were milled about and missed her darker and missed her stormy looking up as they were. something coming and it wasn’t my mom. all kinds of ways and my mom had to use a tornado. the upper half of her body was too much for the tree but it got its mouthful. her boyfriend held that pan for a week in the same hand.
as I am now turned out you might call me on the disconnect, heck, the dialect. you might want it to be horrible putting only half of her in that tree my own mother. truth might be, tree, my whole mother, and no tornado. I might take you at your word and tell you the tornado carries nothing but my home. that my mother locked herself in the cellar on the sunniest day of the year. that I knew beforehand what the year would bring weather wise. that she lived through all the following malevolence behind those would say to her son she ain’t all there. that when she came out of the cellar it was because of a bird she’d claimed to have heard in her belly.
Jul 2, 2012
Jul 2, 2012 at 1:49 PM UTC
In fallow field
Where corn once grew
I chanced upon
An old mule shoe
I pondered on
The many miles
The shoe had plod
In mulish style
In river bed
Now dry as bone
I came upon
A worn millstone
Wondered aloud
The wagons full
Of new milled corn
The mule had pulled
In old grey barn
Within a stall
I found these words
Carved on the wall
*George Washington
Once slept here
Best **** mule
From far and near*
;)
r ~ 20Mar14
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 8:53 PM UTC
Swift, teach us that a modest child will leisurely be milled
Eschewed from aid, withdrawn from conscious need
A child’s mind an empty bucket, waiting to be filled
And to earth’s throne, invalids will accede.
Dec 5, 2011
Dec 5, 2011 at 3:57 AM UTC
though strictly Fermi, and oh...(en Rico) plus sun
dre other parvenues, a rapture
surges thru me,
when audibly communicating, enunciating,
and speaking English words
as if hi ken run
a marathon, or zip to the moon,
(take as cheesy tong in cheek)
from this pun
gent, who relishes reading for my eyes and ears
asper myself, which purported nun
sense ink reese sees learn'n
den earn an award,
especially wash'n black board
den breathing intelligent dust
from eraser head could awk cord,
I utter Hieronymus Bosch, bing enamored,
and aye actually confess
tubby a model United Nations chimp
pan zee, and/or other
type of survey monkey hook can huff ford
Old Rotten Gotham horde
sliding down into the behavioral sink...
exclaiming "oh me jack lord"
and getting rescued then getting less on,
sans get'n taut how (muss elf George Eliot)
tubby comb moored
flossed, milled, and taut
tubby trained for Operation Ready Date
by a coop pull oof oot standing chap,
named Adam West, who poured
salty epithets (reminding me, as they roared
that life iz brutal, short and nasty),
part tickly ne'r the end
wharf hew scored
and majority got de toured
until emotionally, physically,
and spiritually enlightened
By Rabindranath Tagore and Burt Ward.
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 2:11 AM UTC
It is art that oils the moving parts of me
the free flowing nectar in the seed of me,
art in ******* tips and the half full skips,
the 'tramps' that ship the coal around the coast.
I play host to the wonder of words that make up the rhyme,
more 'fog on the Tyne'
the lowlands and highlands within these Islands and bridges to cross,
It is art in the heart and what we see with the eyes,love it,despise it,ignore or get wise to it,
everywhere I look, I see that someone took time,moulded , transformed it and changed forever this world a bit
and every bit helps.
My fingers are lazers ,blazing out art,starting to burn in every sentence that turns and turning to light,
gutters that utter to me prophecies and in the pharisees I see only samaritans who give
salute to the pimps and the prostitutes,the Kings and the courtiers,those who buy and who sell,who are
milled in the gin of it,the thin and the quick of it,tied to the wheel in the cockpit and spitting out what could be me for the hell of it.
I see art in the faces that stare blankly,to flicker at screens in store windows,art in the glow of the cigarette end,in the bending of imagination, where salvation is palmed off to an ungrateful nation as corn from the candyclouds,art in the female,the he man, the mail man,the banter of cantors,the whispers of sisters the sadness,the badness,the joy and the gladness is there,
out looking to share,insiders,
outsiders,lone wolfstate riders and in pairs or in threes all looking to please,
street paintings,feint bread lines on fences,dull
brush strokes on brickstock
unlock your mind
find your
art.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 8:22 AM UTC
Catching semiotic holdings from a cow-licked brain ****
Matching periodic scoldings, from a plough of picked-plain art
Filled prescription left for digestive tracts dissolution
Milled conscription cleft as congestive cracks merge in illusion
Temporal reconstruction, as the Adderall seeps into place
Federal distribution, as the admiral heaps the case
Welled as the spineless listen to a cautionary thought
Held as a timeless vision of a stationary plot
Pillbox running on fumes, causing fresh hysteria to solidify
Paradox coming, dawn looms, pausing thresh, staging an area to demystify
Later, new levy forbids pawing fear, spoken rotten, a deloused baiting sound
Cater to heavy lids, drawing near the cotton housed waiting ground
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 1:39 PM UTC
He was leaning against the wall, backed up
And staring through fumes of gin and whiskey,
Glaring at all the toffs, dressed up
And ravelling through his sordid history.
But never a sense of ‘us’ with him
He was more like a raging arcane animal,
Caught and caged, as they looked right in
To poke and pry at his painted trammel.
Oils and charcoals, water colours,
Pinned like an insect by their gazing,
Pointing fingers would **** his skin
Pick through his pockets, grinning, gaping.
What would they know of his woods and fields,
The towering oak, or the dew at dawning?
Only the light that a lamp post yields
In the mean streets when the world is yawning.
Theirs was a world of tile and brick
Of diesel fumes and the rail line snaking,
His were the hills of hay and rick
The tumbledown cot and the farmer, raking.
‘What did you bring me here to spill?’
He said to the shyster gallery owner,
‘There’s nothing you couldn’t print at will
With a Laser print, and a barrel of toner.’
‘They’re coming in hordes to see your myth,
You’re a breath of air in a jaded Autumn,
A genuine Primitive, Jordan Griff,
I lured them in, and your work has caught them.’
But Jordan scowled and he curled his lip
As the crowd milled using an unknown language,
‘I’d rather be down at the ‘Rope and Skip’
With a pint of ale and a cold meat sandwich!’
‘You’re really an artist?’ said the woman
Who stood at his shoulder, pale and shaking,
‘I like the one at the farmer’s gate
With the girl, head bowed, as her heart is breaking.’
Griff looked deep in the woman’s eyes
For the chord she’d struck was his secret mourning,
‘How did you know?’ He’d sobered up,
‘I was the girl your paint was born in!’
Jordan halted his glass, mid-sip,
He seized her hand as his heart was pacing,
‘Years have slipped between cup and lip,
I’d give them all for a second tasting!’
He led her into a lumber room
And she locked the door as they pulled apart,
Then found some cushions and in the gloom
They lay on the floor there, making art.
That’s how his Primitives came to start
With a joy not there at his god-rot dawning,
A horse and cart with his palette heart,
And a tousled woman each tumbledown morning!
David Lewis Paget
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
His wife was due on the midnight plane
That was coming from Beijing,
He got to the airport early so
He wouldn’t miss the thing,
There wasn’t a seat at Wenzhou so
He found that he had to stand,
It’s always tough when you’re sleeping rough
Away, in a foreign land.
He settled down in a corner, set
His back up next to the wall,
Pulled out the pic of his own Mei Ling
In front of a waterfall,
Her eyes smiled into the camera when
He’d taken the snap that day,
But that was before they married,
Now it seemed an age away.
They’d both had to fight her parents when
They saw he was from the west,
They called him a foreign devil, a
Yang wei, and all the rest,
They wanted her wed to a Han, they said,
Mei Ling had answered ‘No!’
She’d made her mind up herself, she said,
And would be his own lӑo pό.
She said she was flying China Air
And that gave him cause for thought,
He knew that their safety record was
The worst in any port,
But he waited patiently by the clock
Til it gave the midnight chime,
Then wandered into reception where
She’d be, most any time.
The Chinese waiting beside him
Milled and jabbered as they stood,
He never could understand a word
But he smiled as if he could,
And then he found they were friendly
Though they nudged each other now,
And some had even approached him with
Their greeting, their Ni Hao.
By half past twelve, there wasn’t a plane
And the people looked upset,
He thought there’d be an announcement,
Someone said, ‘there’s nothing yet.’
At one o’clock there were tears and fears
That the plane would never show,
And then he heard that the plane had ditched
In the waters off Ningbo.
His heart had sunk and he almost cried
But he thought to grieve with grace,
And everyone else was struggling
They were scared of ‘losing face’,
But they all broke down when a man came round
And he said, ‘there’s little hope,’
There wasn’t a single survivor,
Then he cried, he couldn’t cope.
He’d lost the love of his life, Mei Ling
With her beaming almond eyes,
Her jet black hair and her loving stare
But he got a quick surprise,
A man led him to a phone where they
Had called for him in vain,
And from Beijing he heard Mei Ling
Who sobbed, ‘I missed the plane!’
David Lewis Paget
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 9:47 AM UTC
Where did all the trees go Dad?
Why son we cut them down,
milled them into two by fours,
used them to build the town.
And what we didn't build with,
we burned upon the stove.
See we never thought we could,
use up this treasure trove.
Once, we started planting,
a tree for each cut down,
but then we ploughed them under,
to make room for a bigger town.
And then all of a sudden,
(at least thats how it seemed),
we had so many people,
more than we ever dreamed.
We had nothing left to build with,
and nowhere to grow food.
So people started moving out,
in a less than happy mood.
With everyone so angry,
at all that was so wrong,
they raised their voice in protest,
at marches and in song.
But nobody could help us,
cos in our hour of need,
we'd consumed or sold off everything,
to satisfy our greed.
We wanted it all now,
didn't want to look ahead,
so in answer to you question son,
all the trees, like us, are dead.
May 3, 2010
May 3, 2010 at 4:05 PM UTC
I feel abused
My heart is stilled
When you're amused
My heart I spill
A heartfelt bruise
My love is still
Enough to fill
Your golden cup
Emotions milled
To grind enough
My heart is chilled
Your words are tough
My heart is kind
Yet you can't see
My love so blind
If I could be
Your man to find
Your love to be
Your love I'd be
r
Jun 1
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 3:25 PM UTC
When I saw that the black had permeated
Every last vein, nail, and hair
and That it finally stopped to rest
Deep inside me, somewhere
I pulled out my best knife
and I rolled up my sleeves
Without thinking, I tore open the skin
and What I found wasn’t regret, but relief
I watched as one by one
They milled about and then out of the room
They stopped to peer inside the box
Before they left, they each caught
A glimpse of the beast that
Loomed underneath
No one dared to touch the thing
The oddity that had become me
So I guess they wouldn’t have known
I was harmless back then
I wasn’t a monster yet
I guess it doesn’t matter now
Like everything else, it’s water under the bridge
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 7:46 AM UTC
Rings on rosewood linger
from a cold glass of ice
that warmed but soon after,
whose contents evaporated away.
My chaser became the room,
matching it twice
in form and temperature,
Would never have stayed.
So I roll the glass
with a retrograde tilt,
but keep it in place,
but keep it at hilt
such that knurls on the crystal,
jagged knuckles on the base,
make it thump in a path
and it steps and it stilts
in its own kind of track
while connection with the ground
through multiple laps
stipples neatly on a plane—
infinite curve by singular tack.
And this motion is contained
to the confines of the round
of a bullseye-mark stain
where a highball was put down.
Reminds the afternoon patina,
the hunching over my piano,
the warmth of its shade of cocoa.
And the mug I placed on its bench,
where subsequently the lacquer
gave way to warmer matter
and a matte “O” was forever etched in print.
Reminds of sap-stuck fingers
that ailed us backwoods explorers,
that neither the soap nor the hottest water
could manage to separate.
Reminds of the smell of the road
that gashed through wild mint
with its tire-milled dirt pounded thin,
and the hazel dust that arose
and managed to stay ever close
when the little Sahara was traversed again.
Those clouds would form and move and clove,
and the dry would pinch in your nose;
yet it seemed the only stretch of land
to never see any rain.
And now it strikes as strange,
and I’d love to explain, but can’t—
the green was never killed,
while cleaved, and beaten, and grilled;
it managed to weather the dust
and ride on the cusp
of the electric months after May.
These things don’t peel away.
Reminds how none of this strays
too far from the path,
or too far out of mind,
and the nature of present and past,
how inseparably they bind.
Like the light to the glass,
one moves through the next,
and all the moments hug tight,
each forebears another's context.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 5:51 AM UTC
I chanced upon old standing stones
Bedecked in lichen green
Arrayed in banks of marble rows
With walk-ways in-between
Each bore the scars of craftsman’s graft
Recording time and toll
One fading remnant epitaph
For each immortal soul
And earthward bound the sun polite
With mountain cap in hand
Fell silent as the hearse of night
Rode forth across the land
The distant city lights awoke
Like lanterns on a lake
A bubbled haze of smog and smoke
Above the city scape
Large crowds of late-night shoppers milled
Around the late-night stores
And roars of drunken laughter spilled
From dingy nightclub doors
The squealing cries of lorries lade
With goods to stock and stack
Were echoed by the cramped stockade
Of dwellings back-to-back
As one by one the lights went out
In windows dark and dim
Arrayed in banks of brick and grout
Old dwellings grey and grim
Stood sentinel to souls entombed
In plots devoid of green
The living mass of those inhumed
With walk-ways in-between
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 5:01 AM UTC