"norfolk" poems
*here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty*
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 10:30 PM UTC
school starts soon
smoking joints on the weekday afternoon
in a sidelined shady
freight car, property of
Norfolk Southern
debating if this car will be
northbound or southbound
and ************ our fantasy
where we want to be taken
knowing full well maybe one of us -
(and they all looking at me)
will get out of this car and live to
see foreign places without having to
return in a body bag
we argue lazy who should go get the beer,
collect the quarters and sweaty dollar bills
and **** if I am not reappointed
leader of the beer fetching
besides it’s my
tan lab panting needing water so it’s my
responsibility and the nasty liquor store owner don’t hate me that much as the others so he’ll sell me beer without too much **** talk (some for sure)
asking where I’m laying low on a **** hot day like this one
tell him i’m getting on a train getting out of this two bit town which makes him reminisce and ask which direction
could be northbound could be southbound
hell could be west
but for sure won’t be
going eastbound
cause I seen the Atlantic and didn’t like it
too **** big and too **** cold,
too **** mean
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
I always assume
that kids know how to be kids.
I'm sure we weren't taught the skills, were we?
No-one pointed to a tree and said,
"See that? Climb it."
And if Craig or Chris or Jamie pointed a finger
and said, "Bang!",
no referee had to discreetly whisper
"You're supposed to fall down now."
But something as natural as breathing
is falling by the wayside.
These small humans aren't kids -
not like we were.
Company is a chore for them,
screen-seeking solipsists,
and I worry for their future, constantly.
If my six-year-old self
were to appear amongst them
he would stand, baffled,
full of useless power
Like Spiderman
on the Norfolk Broads.
Feb 12, 2011
Feb 12, 2011 at 5:13 AM UTC
the Himalayas rise
there is snow on the peaks
I watch it from my bed
I gaze and gaze at it
in the morning
as a little village girl goes by
sniffling with cold
I too am cold
it is chilly here in Tosh in May
but a young Israeli boy
took off his shirt
and stood on the fencepost of the guesthouse dancing
down was the deep green valley
all of us watched in admiration
the next day I went down to the waterfall
which from here is a beautiful whisper in the air
there are donkeys and a path
and pretty houses on the other side of the valley
and everywhere there are people smoking hash and relaxing
in the cafes and the guesthouses
it is almost like a pilgrimage smokers keep coming
and sit around smoking talking
I pull down my woollen cap my arms and back
feel the chill despite a thick sweater
despite a blanket and a four inch thick quilt
I roll my joints and smoke them alone
sometimes smoke them with others
I look at the hills and the valleys and the wooden houses
I look at the white peaks glowing in the sun
and talk about CCR and stained glass art with Michael from Norfolk
who’s going down the valley to another village for a party tonight
with his young Spanish friend
I talk about Bombay with Puneet and Manya from Kanpur
who’ve come here on a Bullet
Hash Heaven Manya says reading my mind as the joint passes on
to the four engineering interns from Delhi
and all the time I sip on ginger lemon honey
for my sore throat until on the last day it disappears
unlike the young Israeli girl’s pink laptop in a pink cover
found by the part time caretaker in the garden on a pink chair
she left behind last night because it was too dark
come again the guesthouse boys say to me as I pay them
what a scene I think how cool as I begin to leave the village
down the dung-clotted stone steps nodding to the smokers coming in.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 11:13 PM UTC
Friday- the most promising day of all.
The beginning of the weekend, but the one day that will spark appall.
Down on Mainstreet all the girls
In their fringed dresses, pouting their foxy lips and their hair waving in short messes.
The hags frown as the winged ladies pass by- displaying their carriages a little sly.
Oh, but Jane's favourite speakeasy was 'The Back Room' down on Norfolk Street: the place where the lost creatures meet.
Tin ceilings, velvet wallpaper, plush thrones and back in that dark corner, there is the sound of low moans.
'A whiskey, neat, please' as a shadow in a tuxedo walked towards her and he whispered 'Hi,' in a sensual purr.
'Who are you?' he stirred,
'Oh, I'm Miss Doe' and he lept into the stool with a swift flow.
And the jazz trumpets married the spontaneous harmonies and the saxophone created sublime melodies.
So they sat as idle as ghouls in the dim spotlights, until Jane asked Mr Buck:
'D'you fight in the war?' And he whined 'Cambrai, Amiens and Lys' - his lips seemed a little sore.
'I'm sorry - do I know you?' His face looked as familiar as Jay to Nick. A brief pause in time at that smile.
That was the final chord to the "lick".
He drove her down to Roslyn- to his replica of Versailles and Jane looked intensely shy.
'Oh, do come in,' the desperado soughed. And she walked into the gilded palace which Cupid's presence bowed.
'I have a favour to ask of you, Miss Doe. Would you be as kind to wash away my woe?'
And as they congressed under diamond chandeliers, his comrades gathered around the bed in amorphous silhouettes; watching disgustedly.
As for Mr Buck he was an alien, skin-to-skin with a haunted beauty and Miss Doe- a labourer on duty.
Jun 24, 2017
Jun 24, 2017 at 6:32 AM UTC
I
I learnt this week
that time and distance
can be friends to memory
their respective lengths
only wet and sharpen
the edge of love
but for us dear friend
we hold hard to hope
that we may
one day soon
share the present
and live each moment
in each other's heart.
II
Hearing you on Holkham beach
- whose soul is greater than the ocean
whose spirit stronger than the sea -
did I doubt for a moment
that you, though buffeted
by a cold east wind
would never age for me,
nor fade, nor die.
Nor you for me (she said)
Goodbye, my love,
a thousand times goodbye.
Write me well (she said)
and turned and ran.
III
The Reedham ferry was but a river's width
and yet I stood at the water's brink
and watched the reeds quiver in the wind,
watched the rain splatter on the puddled path.
All around to the human eye
this valley, a plain of grassland
broken only by reed-fringed pools,
was a gentle, unpeopled, easy place.
The absence of relief left
no fixed frame of reference.
Places apart from one another
would concertina and merge.
Tempted to cross I waved a no
to the ferryman in his quayside hut
then turned and walked quickly
back down the long, low road.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
Golden sand tickling your toes
Pebbles gleaming, glistening, slushing
When the tide comes back to shore.
Sand dunes hiding wildlife,
Multitudes of migratory birds,
Safely returning every year to
This beautiful, marshy paradise.
Skies so orange, pink and red,
An artists palette of natural art
Greet you at sunrise and sunset.
***** kippers, cod and plaice
Shrimps, cockles and whelks,
Mushy, minty peas and chips,
The show at the end of the pier.
The lifeboats and their hardy crew
Risking their lives to save others,
When visitors run into trouble
At the mercy of the cold North Sea.
Crumbling coastlines, cliff walks
And nature reserves full of the
Scent of wild garlic and herbs,
Norfolk lavender. Steam engines,
Fishing boats, river boats,
Paddling boats and cycles
Take you on journeys
Around the Broads or
Past the famous Castles.
Tigers and leopards peer
Through the bars of their
Zoo homes by the sea.
Easterly winds that bite your
Fingers as they whistle and
Howl through the City.
Guest houses closed for
The winter as you stroll
The lonely promenades
Breathing in the air.
Queen Bodicea, Normans,
Vikings and Romans all
Marched through this
Historical landscape
And yet we remain
Stalwart and strong
Proud of our heritage,
Our roots, our birthplace
There's only one place
Better than Norfolk,
And that's the
Beautiful Ozarks.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
A group show in a city church.
Nothing religious,
but selections from an evening class
occupying otherwise vacant space:
only a tomb here, an extravagant memorial there.
These are 'advanced' painters,
and decoding their statements,
examining their work,
it's possible to imagine daily lives
where art lives in the spare room.
Lewis paints you know.
After Laura died, and with the children distant,
he did this course in Norfolk - oils I think.
That large landscape in the sitting room is his,
all sky and salt marsh.
Jayne is studying the disorder of ******* dumps,
the contents of skips, what's left after a fire.
Her photographs she prints herself you know.
She says she loves to control the image,
chemically, and you can tell.
And more and others,
their 'work' holding stories,
other worlds of imagination and
depths of looking;
the silent collecting of things,
photograph after photograph,
the tidy sketchbook
(with last week's life class experiments).
And yet and yet
at the group show the finished pieces glow
in this badly-lit corner of a city church
where few visitors venture - but you must see this.
It's good, arresting in conviction and purpose.
This is art without artifice, reticent with meaning,
intense with intention, good, affecting, good
well-chosen tutor-curated;
good enough to come back to.
Consoling? Yes, consoling.
I needed consoling.
It consoled me.
I was consoled.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
I thought about Norfolk and Norfolk folk,
And Norfolk bricks and the Norfolk coast,
I thought of winds in a hollow dune and waveless seas
Where the heat washed a breeze -
Into a summer fret!
Where hawking gulls who balance by
point towards straight roads at sunrise
Where the hillocks fall down to
The summer's edge
In the wash of the Gibraltar flats
Reflected fractions of a perfect sky
Form blue pools in the heated sand
The stuff of dreams
That Norfolk
Land
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 2:59 PM UTC
I have written so much
****** poetry across this city;
left it in bars, under streetlights, and
In the bathrooms where people have ******
all over the toilet seats
and I had to use my poems
to clean it up.
They are on napkins
and receipts;
pieces of toilet paper,
and even a one-liner
on the carcass
of a piece of paper
that once held a straw.
The words get soggy on wet bars
and bloom like black flowers
losing all consistency and coherence.
Sometimes
I write them out of pure impetus.
To get me going,
I need a couple beers and those
Pabst-drinking, past-drunk
drunk girls that get close up to you
and put their lips on your earlobes
like they want to tell you a secret
But all you get is a present
of soft stinging breath.
Sometimes
I write them for some girl I meet,
like the one who came up and sat down
right beside me.
She said her name was
so and so.
I said my name was
so and so,
so we got to talking
And the topic finally reared its
fat, ugly head:
“Are you going to school?”
“Yea I go to State”
“Oh that’s cool, whats your major?”
“Creative writing”
Then she smiles at me
like I’ve got some broccoli
in my teeth,
and she wants to figure out a way to tell me
without breaking
this three-beer-good-buzzing mood,
finally she says:
“write me something”
And I become a dog for her.
In my doggish way
I take my tail
out of my pocket
and tuck it's wiggling self
onto a napkin.
I write
about how meeting someone new,
is like trying to figure out
if what you’re looking at is a skyscraper
or a mountain,
or just a Norfolk freight train
barreling down the tracks
with your name on it’s front grille.
Nov 18, 2011
Nov 18, 2011 at 8:47 PM UTC
It's the age range that strikes me, sitting here in the semi darkness, in Norfolk, in the Show Ground.
It's the age of the sky - the view consistent with years past, but fresh each day, each minute, ever changing and ever moving through star-scapes which shift as we speed through created space, spinning and moving on on voyages into the unknown, through brave new skys created for us to stretch our legs: us little space people, tumbling with nothing holding us up or down.
It's the age range - the trees standing for centuries, the insects breathing their last before tea time, and human kind, kidding ourselves that we're in control of all we survey, when the truth is quite different.
It's the age range - the kids in their first year fascinated by all they see; school age children, waiting to be amused and vocal when parents fall short; teens fascinated by themselves and curious about boundaries; young adults finding what lies beyond is just as amazing and just as laborious as they imagined;
and then the middle (and not so middle) aged, sporting practical footwear, factor 50, and voicing their conviction that they've moved the facilities further apart this year.
It's the age range of the new day generation - stretching from nought to mid eighties, all under canvas or luxuriating in caravans that, like their occupants, have arguably seen better days.
It's the age range and God's infinite patience with all of us, as he guides our paths, through space, through fields and through our years seeking him and through what he has prepared along the paths yet trodden - whether in practical boots, flip flops or crocks.
It's the age range that reminds me that we're all one generation as far as Father is concerned, cos we're all his children with no room for grandchildren in this family of God, in this field, under this sky that he created for weeks like this.
Aug 3, 2022
Aug 3, 2022 at 2:20 AM UTC
.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
90,000 Screaming Fans
There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I
wear the crown, there are those like Master Cromwell
who follow me because they are jackals with sharp
teeth and I'm their tiger, there's a mass that follows me
because it follows anything that moves. And then
there's you.
-Henry VII to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons
Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yip! Yip! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo!Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh! Yike! Yike! Yike! Bahhhhhhhhh! Yip! Oink! Squawk! Mooooooooooooooo! Squeak! Cluck! Bleat! Hee hawwwwwww! Screech! Whinnnnny! Snort! Grunt! Oink! Neighhhhhh!
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Oct 15, 2020
Oct 15, 2020 at 9:44 AM UTC
He had no name to call his own
no true home either
he had been following his footsteps into unknown
for an unknown amount of time
days, weeks, months, years?
the convalescent bond he shares with his heart and his gut and his spine
meander around and through his humanity
tributaries of some God sized river
when the night comes around
he hunkers down in a suitable place
and drifts off to restless sleep
his legs twitching with excitement like an old dog’s dreams
he is a biblical figure in a non-biblical world
he drinks too much and vomits up cringe inducing truths
let’s things slip
but all in the name of honesty
all in the name of passion
all in the name of the nameless father who cast him out from Eden
he roams with the cold, the hungry, the tired, the poor
he roams through crack deals on Y street
and date rapes on Laurel
he roams and roams and roams until sneakers become slippers become bare feet
riddled with blisters turned callous
he roams with the forever sleepy drunks who murmur nothings at nobody
he has a harmonica and he plays a song called love
sleeping under the divine sanctity of cathedral steps
smelling like the James River
Norfolk salt in his hair
and a tan that only comes with those who have a pinch of Southern Soil in their blood
he roams seeking out the answers that we didn’t have the time or courage
to pursue
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
*I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.*
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 4:29 PM UTC
.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 6:48 PM UTC
Yesterday, was yesterday and yesterday makes me happy today
I can stand, I can even stand to think, long alone thoughts
when I four to compared to when I was ten more
looking over Norfolk shores building and breaking
moulding and making my time with my family and there Eternal Bliss
I have no worthy words for them
I will see them when I die because I know even then I'l still be ten
I'l still be building sand castles while the ocean creeps in on me
Then, as swift rain
I'l pour into incarnation again
to do my best to help my guest to join me on that Norfolk shore
with all that I adore and so much more
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
I had just graduated from high school
when we sat in the car
right outside of the
residence in norfolk
where he told me
that he wasn’t
sure if he was
my real
father
which
had plagued
him for eighteen years
and finally he had gotten it
off of his chest only to place
the burden on the shoulders of
a man who had less answers than he did
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 10:07 AM UTC
^ ^ ^
I meant to write about two
black and white butterflies,
resting upon the thick leaves
of my Norfolk island pine tree,
i planned to write about
a grasshopper, camouflaged by
the green grass on the front yard,
i almost crashed its body, if it hadn't
leapt before i stepped on it...
i was thinking of turning on the
christmas lights this monsoon season,
for an early holiday start.
i focus on happy scenes,
on good times past...because,
i miss those times, and
i long for them to come back...
there are some things i couldn't fix,
which i think, gave birth to this
pain inside my tummy.
to not know what happens next,
scares me so.
and so, i keep trying...to write of
butterflies and grasshoppers,
and
i might just hang a lantern,
instead.
Sally
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
October 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020 at 8:33 AM UTC
i mourned
us
on the train back.
North East to London,
Norfolk into Suffolk into Home.
England,
a green, scarred patchwork,
blistering apart while i sit.
A woman opposite tries to coax the
context
out of me; the entertainment,
before we're pulled into Liverpool St Station.
to credit my memory -
it frames itself nicely, my mugged up
glasses.
a sunbeaten, reddened, ruddy face -
holding back. swallowing the
outburst -
"i let myself believe for once."
we sit.
the quiet unbroken.
save for the sounds of me
steadily
getting further from you.
the sounds of me steadily getting further from you.
***i mourned us once again.
ten months in and now
six months out
filled with immeasurable moments later.
there was no woman this time.
and only without her
or us -
i found the truth to say***
"i let myself believe, for once."
Sep 28, 2022
Sep 28, 2022 at 5:36 PM UTC
If ever there were a magnificent view
Hooded by a crisp golden sky
It is the Norfolk fields of blue
A first class seat money can buy.
Rows upon rows of lavender divine
In straight lines up and then down
The performance it gives is all mine
And I have the best seat in town.
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 11:38 PM UTC
The boat was moored
In a place in Norfolk
When Summer came
It was renovated
Ready as were the broads
For the sunny season
And trips taking places
Quietly,quaintly.
A favourite spot
To visit and find surprises
A boat of singular, solidarity
Splendouredly
Painted in the colour
Of a great philosophy.
Love Mary ***
Love Mary ***
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 8:32 AM UTC