"northwards" poems
I'd like to catch a songbird when I visit.
One that only lives near your house,
One I've never heard.
I'd like to catch a songbird,
And have it sing for me
The songs you hear each morning.
I'd like to watch the moon when it rises.
Lifting itself over the earth, reflecting
As it passes my window.
I'd like to watch the moon,
The same white moon
That you might be watching tonight.
I'd like to hold the wind in a mason jar.
The warm little south wind
That chuckles and breezes northward.
I'd like to hold it down,
Whisper my hellos into its gales,
And let it go darting off northwards -
Whistling and running like a fugitive
To you.
Jun 16, 2011
Jun 16, 2011 at 3:11 AM UTC
***She sits in shadows
Displaced by life
Forgotten by self
Dejected by all those Crows that fly Northwards
A Sparrow hawk calls
She remembers him but utters nothing
that is desirable
He flies onwards
Never to look upon her
Dark princess
Of lower grounds
She holds fast and keeps council with demons
Demons who roam the corridors of her soul
Pulling the cloak over her nakedness
as the stage illuminates the way
An actress of sorts
Another west end show
A vagabond who plays her hero
Darkness falls from her
And all who are touched by her fateful hand
Will linger no more in sun drenched meadows
Too bright to see
Too good to believe
Her fearfulness becomes her
Her innocence laid bare upon a slab of false regret
Be he gone from her mind
She may be free
For what lingers a princess in darkness
Than a love betrayed
The darkened hour may find its way into any heart
The broken man
Can do as he tries
But stumbles when he beholds her stare.***
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 4:42 PM UTC
*for R.A.
our northern friend*
~
one foot in two countries,
she is enjambment symbolic,
running a single stanza
without a syntactical break,
by standing simultaneous
in two neighboring cultures
causing her dear readers
from near and far,
some, like me,
from across the borderline,
considerable multifarious symptoms
of
well considered verbal confusion
this,
a gifted special talent
from
she
who straddles
all kinds of borders
that divide
her
and
unite
her,
that
can be understood/revealed tho,
when observing the northernmost night skies
eh?
expert in modulating
extreme snowed under bay
winterized temperatures,
counterpointed by
drivingopen highways
on summer plains
where the dotted line is
all there is to see
for miles, thousandths wide
she-poet
oft goes quiet,
expelling her breath
between word roarings,
gentlest of periodic
verbal sweets
genteel
my word version for her
gentle so,
in a way that
makes gentility
deserve the nobility
inherent
that is the
work word
that always comes first
when we need to place her,
another star
in the night
flying frying
firmament
enjambment - her word
means I am
all in,
with both hands,
resting on both jambs
of an arched window
that she architects,
peering in,
Making Sure,
I have come to the right place
where she-poet
builds skylights of
northern lights,
igniting
adore her sweet
confusion,
but better yet,
her poems
of clarification
that explain all in,
why when,
we
all look up,
thru her
window exquisite
that she
meant
for us
we always first
turn our glacé glance
northwards
strangely, seeking, illogically,
but not really,
warmth
in the she-poets
northern way
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 8:00 AM UTC
The air, superheated, cocoons us
and we drive,
northwards into the heartland
of the desert.
You, black shirted,
your smooth denims
an intrinsic part
of the landscape.
You were born into dust.
I, crisp and white,
a polarised pair
of mirrors for my eyes.
Your hands on the wheel
guide us into the belly of time.
Intent upon a road with no end.
Sunlight hits chrome,
bleeding flashes of forever
into the gaze of any who glance upon us.
The roof pulled down,
my hat is given up
to a vortex of spinning air,
whipping tiny tornadoes
of grit and long-dead weeds
into a dancing frenzy of celebration.
We have no gold on our fingers.
Our teeth shall not itch
with the sugar of a wedding cake.
And we’ll never look back.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 6:16 AM UTC
A four way crossroad
A decision to make
Each one leads onward
Which one should I take?
The one that goes deskwards
A pencil in my hands
Words shall flow like water
from the tip onto the pad
The one that goes skywards
My dream I shall grasp
Villagers call my
Stethoscope to their hearts
The one that goes northwards
Riches I await
Meet people from around the globe
Maybe that's my fate
Or the one that will go everywhere
No destination I shall have
Stories from here and there
A camera for a pal
A four way crossroad
A decision to make
Each one leads onward
Which one should I take?
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 7:49 AM UTC
goaded by a stereophonic monotone:
a flumine voice waxes with lovelorn dregs.
i heard the plump word of rescue
dangle from the heady decibel of song,
winterward, blue-veined and stillicide.
no more, shall the wind traverse the impasse of the verdigris. the incertitude
of beginnings sigh ultimately.
o people, your darling children soldered
to your denims. o rosefrail and sightless
bannerets — we mourn such coming.
it sleuths with a tangle of fingers
underneath fringes of flesh-warmed
draperies with a different temperament
as moderate as climates in squandered tropics, flows with a truth wishing it
more of the untruth:
never shall return, in faraway lands,
never shall look back and lay in prairies
attenuated, continue to sing oblivion.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
Oh, Polaris, do you remember
Those days when we ran
Clothed in dew and the skin
Of great conquered beasts?
Do you remember our triumph
In the hello-waving grass
That night we were tickled by
Chaff - and calves licked our
Blood-filled cheeks? Do you
Remember, Polaris? You still
Have so much of the old heat.
Even today, when the freeze of
New memories strikes me, when
I'm snapped by the cold, I
Remember our old days. Oh
Polaris, warm my hands a moment.
You were always so sturdy;
Against your shoulder was the
Perfect resting place for cold
Skulls like mine. Of course,
Your fires often melt the ice
In my eyes. I never stay: I
Need the cold, need the new
Frigid day. Without the bitter
Wind, how could I love the
Steady warmth you hold, Polaris?
Sep 22, 2010
Sep 22, 2010 at 6:00 PM UTC
brittle leaves swing with windchime thrills
scattering minature fairy hats northwards
bristle tops of seeded whimsy
light strokes branches of resilience
revealing notches and furrows filled with courage
warmed and hazelnut tones of sap and towering elegance
in the end flourishing into taffeta skirts of green
plumes, plums and sour-apple caterpillars
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 8:59 PM UTC
My house
(which I do not own but treat as such)
tilts northwards
(which is towards this town of isolation in Iowa plains)
as if davening
(which is a gesture of faith in Judaism)
towards the downtown that is not worthy
(which is too small, archaic, dead, ******* in and never giving up, holding forever those that were unfortunate enough to never leave)
My house tilts northwards as if davening towards the
Downtown that is not worthy and soon
It will fall
(which is fortunate, which is good, which is end, abrupt and definitive)
My house topples northward as if dying at
The downtown that is not worthy of the corpse
It will not acknowledge or allow
(which is precisely how it should end)
Finality before conclusion
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 11:07 PM UTC
We are wild and raw for it
Here, in a blazing land,
Sand-burning beaches,
The low colossal sky,
The slow fading of our evenings into night.
Night, when the lapwing calls the world home again
And out of the bay the white gulls fall
Into the ocean, the sea's crawling surge,
Northwards, by currents temperate
And tropical,
The long winding range
That loses its footing in the coastal flats,
In the desert's vast and undulating stride
We are wild and raw for it.
With a sky so blue that you could fall forever
And falling, never fall so far as into its red heart,
Its pumping core, and the majesty
Of bodies skin-tight, raw and moving
In this distant nether-world.
Where the real world ends, our hearts
Plunge fountain-flow into the dance of dreams,
We hold the dancer close, we spin,
Star-tipped and wild beyond the clasp and call,
Beyond the river's bend,
Beyond the treeless hill,
We are wild and raw for it.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 4:08 PM UTC
Migrating white butterflies
Like snowflakes in mid-summer
Dancing on heat waves of January skies
Thousands upon thousands,
Can't tell one from another
This must be the celebration to summer.
Like some mystic fable they appear by magic
Their wild scattered bouncy flight
Springs chaos amongst all city logic
For they paint a rural innocent insight
To the mysteries of summer's secrets.
Their cascade is tumbling northwards
Like bubbles blown from a gypsy child
Hidden in these concrete woods
Hearts wild yet breath so mild
They simply pass as lacey summer reflection.
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 5:35 PM UTC
"It's quite a pretty hell,
quite a pretty hell,"
said the wilting woman
to her plastic window self,
a half-tint fetch, etched
in the eye of the weevil
threading the black dough
of the crosstown bus route.
The nightclubbers behind her
exchange glances and hold hands
as she begins to hum to herself,
but the unvarnished melody
lodges in an angle of odd brain
& soon I'm humming it too
as I step into 18th Street's maw,
already bristling neon sweet
with milkmaid dress hems
threshing ruptured doorsteps -
turning up my street I catch
a last sight of the shushed bus husk
crawling away northwards
with only a scratching hum inside
for its heartbeat, and a face lost
in the catacomb of its reflection.
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 11:07 PM UTC
A rounded globe milky white in the center, crispier as it travels northwards
to the heaven
A valley of bones, Brittle with tightly stretched skin, a dark path
The night sky
speckled with brown
and dusted with roses
Softly contouring, dipping, dancing flowing up, up like a river backwards
Gentle curves and sharp inclines,
fiercely calm plateaus
waiting for you to catch
your breath
And finally
a bud of dusky muted midnight,
grabbed and forgotten
Left to be broken
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 9:46 PM UTC
The girl with the fan
goes up the bridge
the water reflects
her slender image
The gentlemen peer
casually ahead -
to the girl with the fan
who wants to be wed
The girl with the fan
is silently beckoning
the ruffles rustle
what she is thinking
The gentlemen stare
as they portly squire
their fair-haired wives
in fancy attire
The crickets chirping
their love songs westwards
(The girl is hopping
there to the pastures)
The crickets chirping
amidst the flowers
(The gentlemen are
still walking northwards)
Sep 30, 2023
Sep 30, 2023 at 2:10 AM UTC
Growing up as a lil' kid,
I had no father figure to look up to
He wasn't dead, he wasn't just there
I watched my mama hustle like she was 2 in 1
Looking at me now, I hope she can boldly say she's won
And I'm just getting started mum
I've got my hands on the ladder, moving northwards
As a kid, I missed out on all the cartoons
(No Tom & Jerry, No Lion King)
I was always on the street with older dudes listening to Biggie and Pac
I guess that's where I found my love for rap
I was told that I once rapped to 2pac in my sleep
I have huge love and respect for my mum
A single mother that played dual roles
She deprived herself a lot of things
in order to provide for her son
No parties, no friends, no expensive clothing or jewellery
Her son was/is her most precious jewel
School fees were uneasy to pay but she paid
One hurdle after the other but she scaled them all
Oh boy, what a brave & go-get-it woman!
She instilled in me the go-get-it mindset
No one can take her place in my heart
But I still have big respect for my dad
Even though he's back, he still watches from afar
He's a provider, adviser from arm's length
But I guess half presence is better than nada
Isn't it sad that there're countless
similar scenarios all around the globe
Mothers shouldn't be fathering kids
Absent fathers delay societal progress
There are cases of runaway mothers
So no party is exempt
Kudos to all the parents around the world
that are playing their parts
May you excel in raising your kids to excel
And at the end, may you reap the fruits of your earnest labour.
Oct 30, 2019
Oct 30, 2019 at 5:25 PM UTC