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SøułSurvivør Jan 2017
The story Clinton Jarvis - my father.

Isle La Motte Roots

There's a place of quiet peace
In beautiful Vermont
It is filled with history
It beckons you, and haunts
In pacific Lake Champlain
It's called Isle La Motte

The lake is long and narrow
A lovely gem-like blue
The Island lies within its shores
It is a jewel, too.
Emerald in the summer
In fall a topaz hue

Old style houses charm us
With plain stone quarry frames
There are many maple trees
In fall these become flame
Churches with tall steeples
All barns look much the same.

From Blanchard's Point to The Head
North to south we go
Clark's & Reynolds to Fisk & Scott's
These east/west points we know
From The Lighthouse & Fort Stann
To the marble quarries low.

It seems the rock on Isle La Motte
Was formed from glacial ice
Which pressed the clay beneath it
As if it were a vice
The marble from the quarries
Is especially nice!

Samuel Fisk founded some of these
Marble blue, black, and grey
Many used the sturdy stones
Solid houses in the way
They can be found everywhere
And still stand to this day.

There was an ingenious sawmill
Powered by a boat!
A large and hearty steamer
By The Dock would float
The "Utica" by name
As sawmill founders wrote.

The taverns and inns
Had distinctive place
It would be so heartening
To see a merry face
There the weary travellers
Could find warmth and grace.

Famous for its apples
There are many orchards found
John Bowman & William Yale
Planted in the ground
My father was one who picked from them
Folks came from miles around.

The Fleury Store had merchandise
Sold to people from their stock
Carson's Store and Naylor's
Store to store the folks would walk
Often a place of meeting
Where people stood to talk.

Elizabeth Fisk. Creative.
She had looms, and linen wrought
This fabric so very fine
Much of it was bought
There were also boats and ferries
On an island... used *a lot!


Nelson Fisk secured the Post Office
James Ritchie built in stone
His relation, Cynthia
Maintained the library alone
Succeeded by M. LaBombard
For faithfulness much known.

Both Methodist and Catholic
Worship the Divine
The faithful go to churches
No matter what the clime
A place of fame on Isle La Motte
Is lovely St Anne's Shrine.

The original schools on Isle La Motte
We're founded by strong men
Independent. Intelligent.
Created they back then.
Back in 1782 they had discerning ken.

The school my father went to
Only had one room.
He graduated the 8th grade
For his future groomed
But went to High School elsewhere
Back then quite a boon!

The Jarvis' were tennent farmers
Not much to be made
But the beauty of the place
Embraced them in its shade
T'was in this environment
Where young Clinton played.

Amongst the leaves - jade and fire
Honey'd amber caught
He found a love of nature
He was reared and taught
Here his story started

A place called Isle La Motte.


SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C)1/11/2017
Finally completed! This segment in my father's biography took a while due to the
amount of research done. As you can see!

Sorry i haven't been around. This poem is
part of the reason why!

I'm going to present this to my now
hospitalised father this weekend. It will
be written out on posters in large writing
so he can read it... he's completely deaf and
going blind. It will bring back many fond
memories to him I'm sure! He certainly
deserves happiness about now!

PLEASE PRAY OR SEND GOOD THOUGHTS!

♡ LOVE YOU ALL! ♡
The news came rustling through the trees
As I tethered the horse’s head,
It came with a gentle sigh on the breeze,
‘The Lady Mulcrave is dead!
She waits for you to attend her now,’
I shook in a craven fear,
‘Her arms are crossed in eternal rest
As she lies on her oak wood bier.’

I stared in horror about me then
For the voice I heard in the glade,
Though nothing moved in the gloom out there
But the shadows the fire made.
‘You lie,’ I cried, as I saddled the horse,
Buckled and fastened the bit,
Then spun around by the river’s course,
‘I’ll not hear a word of it!’

We galloped over the rickety bridge
And the hoofbeats rang in the air,
They seemed to echo the one refrain
That desperate word, ‘Despair!’
The moon hung over the distant hill
With the Motte and Bailey Hall,
Where I’d left Milady an hour before
At Sir John FitzAlan’s Ball.

She’d said, ‘Be certain to call for me
When it strikes the midnight hour,
I wouldn’t like to be left in there
Bereft, in FitzAlan’s power,
I’ve fended off the proposals that
He’s made, in the times before,
Be sure to wait at the Bailey’s gate
With my father’s coach and four.’

I’d left her there with a merry throng
In their masques and gowns and lace,
The gentlemen with their tricorn hats
And coats, cut high at the waist,
I’d ridden off to the distant wood
To sit out the time before
I’d ride alone to her father’s home
And collect the coach and four.

But now, I hurried on back in fear
That Milady was taken ill,
I prayed to God on my foam fleck’d ride
As we crested, over the hill.
The Motte and Bailey was dark outside,
Not a lantern at the door,
And not a guest to be seen out there
Where they’d thronged, an hour before.

I rode on into the courtyard where
The coaches had wedged in tight,
There wasn’t a single coach or horse
To be seen in the pale moonlight,
I called, ‘Is anyone left in there
I’ve come for Lady Mulcrave!’
There wasn’t a sound in the silence there,
A silence, deep as the grave.

I beat on the heavy oaken door
It echoed on through the hall,
I thought that I heard some breathing, breathing
Whispering through the wall,
‘Open the door and let me in,
I know you were here before,’
The hinges creaked and the door gave way,
Into an empty hall.

The air was rank and the walls were damp
And a moss grew on the floor,
There hadn’t been anyone living there
For fifty years or more,
And standing near the ancient hearth
Was a shape that brought a tear,
For stood in the gloom of that ancient room
The remains of an oak wood bier.

I sit in my cabin, deep in the woods
And avoid the world outside,
Something that happened late that night
Disturbed my time and tide,
The Lady Mulcrave died that day
In that Motte and Bailey Hall,
On the same day I was born, they say
As Sir John FitzAlan’s Ball.

David Lewis Paget
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2020
i just can't get rid of the moths...
5 for one bedroom
and... it's hardly an enterprise
in cubisms' revisionism...
daddy larva -
should i leave some
cotton for these poor
delights...
                  am i riddled with
a western "world" exhausted...
like... the pops of no new
genius?
  like polyphony was never
at play:
   when the rigour of man
made it: less of an affair that might
suggest green tea
and the superfluous
fling of a pancake at
a constellation of: nowhere...
  a crucial time for messiahs
and for caricatures...
magicians and iranian baklava bite-sized
retreats...
  not necessarily iranian:
could be lebanese!
       it's not like this grand past,
this grand history...
this inheritance tax on the mind
was to be ever borrowed from
a concentration on the trade
routes surrounding the baltic sea...
i... inherited... nada! nothing!
i acquired english when i should
have given inclination
to tsarina cyrillic and minor hector
mandarin...
       it's so unsurprising, though...
to catch up on the bbc radio 3 adventure...
to reach a platitude of i.q.:
i finally! finally!
fathomed the point of an english
soap opera... eastenders...
i didn't find an i.q. focus to mind...
a continuum perhaps...
but it has and always has been
just... ever so tiresome...
to compensate i.q. -
or to overstate it...
             it's not that i found soap opera
dumb... but after waking up
to bbc radio 3... i knew i was missing
a narrative: an assurance...
a soap opera is an assurance...
however banal the pursuit of harlequin
is...
it's there: a persistent brick upon brick:
wall!
      well... it's one compliment to hear:
that children "like" you...
that dogs or cats like you...
but... for god's sake... moths?!
i am not quiet assured a status in alignment
with a buffalo bill...

so much for nabokov
and the whole ****** and the entomologist /
etymologist...
catch them with what?
my bright oozing bulb of a phosphorescent
appreciation for the punchy cliche
goldberg variations?

to be honestly endeared by a dog...
to be made forthcoming
by a quizzical attention span of cats toying
with poker...
      but to make endearing
inquiries in the realm of insects...
who... fathomed... the flies...
a mythological man with an authentic
given name that came to be
the realisation of the myth of Beelzebub...

well... so much for sharing...
on the crux of a noun... like any other...
be it a moth... motte... ćma...
or a butterfly... schmetterling... MOTYL...
globalisation and...
well... no real etymological sensibility....

not even in sharpnel wording:
    in: w,
               im...
                        z: with, mit
o: about, um...
                      od: from, von...
so much for a shared purpose a sharing
of tattoos and ******* blisters...
like old age is a crease...
and youth an argument...
best invested in pickles...

                the ordeal of the night sky...
while having to grind a gripping
reality of something profoundly
stupid that it cannot be anything beside
stupid...
         a concept of a solitary pine...
when a pine as solitary is
impossible to fathom:
or a birch thus solo...

        an oak: while the adventures
of birches have come to their
natural advent of regrets...
           and this solo coffin shadow come
noon stans procrastinating a
show of shadows borrowed from
an overflow of the Styx...

Thames: a river... with... no authentic
tide: from mountains toward
the sea...
no... the Thames is an inauthentic river...
if it's a river to begin with...
a sea knows a concern for tide...
but a river?
a river should know no mirror
bogus "now" of a tide...
the Thames is like the Bermuda Delta...
an irrational high-rise ****...
enough to pluck one's eyes
out for...
   or don a sheikh hanky panky teasing
that 19th century morbid whitey
of celestial: wool! my eyes! needs! woolz!

some banal Clarice chasing a hunchback
Circe with a Charon towing...
impossible gravity of walking a stupendous
walk of arrogance:
this two-feet-tow...
my bucktooth and arithmetic:
theatre von der nacht:
lepper zeppelin -
   authentically lisping minor details:
an accent "here" or... "dasein"...

teatr nocy...
               ćma i jej obcy:
a moth and her other...
              like some proto-digestion
of custard and borrowed glue...
me left to my own: deus "ex" machina /
**** in machina device-works...
a concept of switzerland came
with both the tickling time-keeper
of a form of clock and some lesser
known 20th century protagonist
by the name of Young...

                  persuasions please!
i can leave my i.q. on the diatribe for
the persistent allowance
of the desired... "englishness" of:
queue...
            bread the brittle futurism of
a sanctity of bread:
beside this "thing" dubbed irish...
and gnats and breadcrumbs...
itches furthest from the last
encompassing loiter...
of a truth salvaged via
a tartare steak...
a kogiel-mogiel...

                  a bread-owned soaking
up of a spilling yoke:
like it's a french... "thing"...
teasing an affair of a wig...
best: warsaw will forever be...
an interlude of:
the concept question from
london toward tokyo...
i.e.: why can't we have nice things...
answer?
we... ahem... never had them...
we tried... vaginal ****-wit
from Brandenburg or that ****-****-wit
from lady muscovite...

here's to samson-frankenstein's monster...
the furore surrounding
the faroe islands...
the 20 thousand(s) composition
of the shetland:
united schkootland repose:
'aggis neeps 'n' tatties!

enough salz undz pfeffer
und we have haz ours...
hinderburg-esque hogmanay!
of the british:
not lived among the vilsh...
or the scuttling furore of the:
'igh 'anders...
          
cutie pie pork chop
worth a *******'s towing:
that last vanguard of / if:
              "too few"...

no... no good lending an ear
to listen to "shared": charred...
etymology of greek or russian...
London's desperate plight:
*** ordeal that never has to happen...

there have to be concerns
for calling it a new 9am...
just because it just so happens
in Edinburgh...
  there's the chopping of wood...
there's the ordeal of castratos
attired in niqabs...
the harems of the ottomans are
still a fetish for imagery best
sourced in Vienna...

            to worship the night:
is to find enough of day...
as sacrificial:
as banal... as enough...
to think with an exhaustion
of compensation:
     it's not that i dare not: dream...
but it's not enough to dream
to begin with...
i will harvest this eternal night...
to eat away at the day's
mediocre...
              mirror mirror...
             your wish for status lake...
i see no question-worthiness
in either sea or river...
how is it that i write
to fathomable formal linguo?
                  mirror in the shadow...
mirror in the lake...
murky time of river
and the hiding grey of the sea(s)...
come tide come swelling of
hinterland ambitions...
this little norse retreat of my
last perspective...
            perhaps i just want
to die a death pronounced by
having to don an agitating
pair of shoes: that demand...
towing a scenic incredulity of
a miser's mile?!

         how's that? roundabout
faroe isles! an itch of spreading butter
on... toasted bread:
notably a sourdough crusted:
new holborn sort of "adventure"...
no.. nothing new...
here's to drinking some more
while making it simultaneously
well-reserved ast having
the same inviting prospect of...
looking for:
a loot of a shakespeare and a full-stop.
Roselyn Oct 2013
Beautiful flower poem in japanese:

Utsukushi hana:

Utsukushi hana no yona
Sore wa chimei-tekina kakusa reta toge o motte iru
Utsu no o matte iru
Umareta bakarita jinsei o shuryo suru
Hayai, sore o haishutsu suru
Sore ga kanso suu tame ni
Jinsei o mite kare
Fuyu wa kono michi o kuru toki,-suki
Katsute atatakakatta subete no seimei o korosu
Sore wa taikutsu ***** ita toyuu riyu dakede
Sono utsukushii hana
Sore no tame ni jinsei
Meiwakuna hachi no yona monodesu
Marissa Navedo May 2012
Your insatiable appetite for food and life alike;
has compelled me to re-examine.
To delve into the blessings that life has to offer,
and live each day with conviction and purpose.
I will always imagine you swaying to the music,
as the boat rolls over the gentle waves of Lake Champlain.
I will imagine you recounting stories on Isle La Motte,
as you joined us on blankets in the grassy knoll .
Each moment is ingrained in my mind,
so I can relive them always.
I will miss your natural ease,
the way your smile is quickly reflected in mine,
the warm embraces and kind welcomes.
I will miss the wisdom you instill in me,
to help me conquer anything.
I know better than to be sad,
for you are a part of all of us.
In our smiles, kind actions, successes.
Without knowing you,
I would not be able to culminate to success,
or strive for what I deserve.
I want to thank you for be an inspiration,
and above all accepting me in into your heart;
without thinking twice.
Leon Qafzezi Dec 2014
My trembling Paris,
When I come e don't find you..
Paris my sadness,
When I sit at the Bar"Motte Piquett"and..
Cafe drink with you as before..
Paris my pain,
We emptiness of table
We once were at my mam,Paris,
Paris,lonely,you also...
I am
water and
wry here
that watch  
this motte
with Lucretia's
but her
riverbed yet
a glorious
day foretold
if her
buck didn't
sight this
and her
knot was
spangled in  
her earring.
A   Quaker Note.
As glory nigh she warble attire
with a chirp brilliant as the sun.
Tonight a sheen still by window
When neither wield home.  As batland
might loom until dawn.  While winter
is never time for naught but things her fancy tote.  
So true now her perch and appeal to hunt in motte
by a stream till torrent has raised the waterline.
Amanda Shelton Oct 2019
How can you breathe if life
tries to smother you?

Well, I breathe deeper
and slower, I learned
how to hold my breath longer,
I don’t panic at the disco,
I keep calm and collected.

Life is beautiful and fragile,
like a porcelain heart
its known to creak and
fall apart. But if you use
the best glues and thread
your life can be brilliant
and strong.

Mind you your no Superman
or some superhuman, but
you can be anything you
want to be.

The only thing holding you
back is your heavy self-esteem,
letting go of regret and
learning from it instead,
that is what will pave
your path to success.

Don’t let life smother
you, you jump higher,
you build your own wings,
you train yourself to
be better, you smother
the fire that burns
your bridge’s before
they collapse under pressure.

Fight for survival
be the best you can be.

You want to travel the world?
All you need is a plane ticket
and your things, make friends
and work hard, don’t forget
your destination.

Life’s a bucket of water,
it’s always running over
or running out, building a
motte might work better.

© 2019 By Amanda Shelton
This poem is for everyone who is dealing with struggles.

— The End —