"outpost" poems
Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.
So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history. Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.
Stay, then, village, for round you spins
On a slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any posed
By great Plato's solitary mind.
20.3k
In this evil year, autumn comes early...
I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters,
The wind on my hat...And you? And you, my friend?
You are standing--maybe--and seeing the sickle moon
Move in a small arc over the forests
And bivouac fire, red in the black valley.
You are lying--maybe--in a straw field and sleeping
And dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket.
It's possible tonight you're on horseback,
The farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,
Smiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse.
Maybe--I keep imagining--you are spending the night
As a guest in a strange castle with a park
And writing a letter by candlelight, and tapping
On the piano keys by the window,
Groping for a sound...
--And maybe
You are already silent, already dead, and the day
Will shine no longer into your beloved
Serious eyes, and your beloved brown hand hangs wilted,
And your white forehead split open--Oh, if only,
If only, just once, that last day, I had shown you, told you
Something of my love, that was too timid to speak!
But you know me, you know...and, smiling, you nod
Tonight in front of your strange castle,
And you nod to your horse in the drenched forest,
And you nod to your sleep to your harsh clutter of straw,
And think about me, and smile.
And maybe,
Maybe some day you will come back from the war,
and take a walk with me some evening,
And somebody will talk about Longwy, Luttich, Dammerkirch,
And smile gravely, and everything will be as before,
And no one will speak a word of his worry,
Of his worry and tenderness by night in the field,
Of his love. And with a single joke
You will frighten away the worry, the war, the uneasy nights,
The summer lightning of shy human friendship,
Into the cool past that will never come back.
3.8k
O-One has been kept waiting for a long spell
N-Not knowing if one can get out of this hell
E-Endless days one has spent in an unlit well
H-Hope seems not to be journeying one's way
U-Under clouds of darkness one shall e'er stay
N-Never shall one see a bright sunny day ray
D-Deemed to be unfit to walk that old hallway
R-Realizing this fact sure makes one feel gray
E-Excluded from the folks at the homely bay
D-Dare one say one is mired in a boggy clay
A-All is lost one can't redeem one's former place
N-Negotiations with other are now a void space
D-Dear me one is in a position of sheer disgrace
E-Ever so badly one did behave all that time ago
I-In hindsight good manners needed to be the go
G-Grave is one's standing and so very full of woe
H-Heck the word one called when one had to go
T-Tidings of ejection delivered by the boss honcho
Y-Yonder one was told on the spot to quickly go
D-Down in the dumps one has been for so long
A-Away at a lone outpost well out of the throng
Y-Yearning to once again hear their joyful song
S-So one is on an island for those who do wrong
O-Only three chances did one get at that game
F-Four weren't going to be allotted to this dame
F-Folly to think that one could avoid any shame
L-Leniency not given one has to wear the claim
I-In the finally wash up one's lesson is to be tame
N-Needling the boss honcho scrubbed one's name
E-Erased one shall be for being a bad egg dame
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 3:38 AM UTC
The hiker cannot dwell there long,
concealed on a high gull-lined cliff,
overlooking the grey of the Sound.
Framed in a solemn March day,
two curiously juxtaposed species hold her gaze.
Silent as a fawn she watches
a black wolf beneath her arboreal outpost,
hunched in the fashion of Asian street vendors,
observing the other creatures.
Great humpbacks frolic in icy waters ---
spouting volcano plumes of spray
that catch the freshened wind ---
riding white-capped waves,
till entropy dissolves their mist to atomized brine.
Whale-song, too distant for the hiker's gentle ears,
comes rolling in tsunami-like
to the aurally attuned wolf,
which ***** its head and nods
in musical agreement with the odes.
Then little lupine brother
rears back his head and howls,
so sorrowful a moan, as she has ever heard ---
answering his water-brethren,
hunters of krill upon the seas.
Giggling at the incongruity of this lone celebrant
singing pack-songs to leviathans,
she hurries on her way,
lone wolf herself returning to the pack.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 10:12 PM UTC
You are the outpost
which I explore from
and return to.
Jan 16, 2011
Jan 16, 2011 at 2:34 PM UTC
COOL your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a dark night when lovers pass whispering.
1.9k
The gazelle sits in quiet repose,
In its flighty heart, it knows,
There is no predator nearby,
And it scans the sky with an eagle's eye.
In the grass, fifty feet away,
The lion waits in the heat of the day,
It stalks the gazelle with the silent tread of a ghost,
As it patrols on its outpost.
The gazelle tenses quickly, it knows there's something there,
It stands in the grass, looking everywhere.
There! Near the tree! The tip of an ear,
It starts to bound away, the lion very near.
The lion starts as the gazelle runs,
It licks its lips in anticipation of great fun,
The chase is on! The lion gains,
Its tawny coat covered in mud stains.
It takes only a moment, but the gazelle turns,
The lion skids to the side and the soft ground churns,
It leaps after the gazelle, the tail of which is seen,
The lion jumps on the gazelle's back, their tussle is lost in the green-
A moment later, the lion jumps up, the gazelle lying dead,
The former grabs the broken body and begins to walk ahead,
The vultures shrilly cry,
The gazelle had been killed in only a blink of an eye.
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 12:02 PM UTC
Alien Nation
by Michael R. Burch
for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet
On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices “speech”
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.
And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.
And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.
Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.
Note: The coinage “grok” appears in Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel "Stranger in a Strange Land." The novel’s protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, was raised on Mars by enlightened Martians, and he often feels out of sorts on Earth, where he struggles to grok (understand deeply and profoundly) earthlings and their primitive, often inhuman, ways. Keywords/Tags: Mars, astronaut, alien, primates, stars, words, ice, crystals, Jesus, sparrow, Emily, Dickinson, zero, bone, arctic, thought, human, inhuman
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 5:25 AM UTC
Grace Before Meals
Sunday afternoon, a year ago.
Early but late afternoon, end of July sun still high enough
to provide a loving and kind warmth through fractus clouds,
But doing double duty and
Supplying continuous eye candy via
riots of razzle-dazzles glistenings upon the prima facie of
my friend, my boon companion,
my bay.
Sitting on a weathered Adirondack chair,
grayed like me, a solitary outpost,
our third Musketeer,
it so belongs where I find it, in the corner of the yard,
hard by a white picket fence and footed by
an out cropping,
a patch of wild grass uncarpeted, we are aligned,
the chair and I, in so many ways,
we accompany each other
beach-facing, one unit,
designed by man but
nature-made of, and signed by her in a cursive, gentle script as follows:
**Quiet, please, for this is
a place of our mutual
quiet contemplation.**
These regal chairs are tinged with green moss stains,
as I am tinged with silver streaks
so we laugh at each other
and we laugh together,
delighted to share
the grandeur of the pleasure of
the exactness of this precise moment.
The bay claps its waves
in honor of the symmetry
of the trinity of man, wood and water,
a more perfect union
My woman calls to me,
supper is ready and
I smell the onions and the raisins
and the love that singes our shared salted air
With deep regrets and promises solemn,
Adieu, Adieu my friends, bay and chair, sunlight extraordinaire,
wait for me!
This poem but my R.S.V.P.
an oath of return sworn,
for I am man, placed here only
to sing the praises of my earthly delights,
my truest friends,
I sing of thy grace,
Grace Before A Meal
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 4:06 AM UTC
Not I myself know all my love for thee:
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow’s dower by gage of yesterday?
Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;
And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay
And ultimate outpost of eternity?
Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?
One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,—
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.
Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call
And veriest touch of powers primordial
That any hour-girt life may understand.
1.5k
The last outpost of all there is,
muted colors of Rome burning;
my vast love no longer his,
looted, suffocated yearning.
.
It came sudden like lightning,
shook like spring thunder;
the flame of anger biting,
ripping me asunder.
.
I'm free, but displaced,
carried by a hurricane;
my tears - a waste,
buried with the pain.
.
And now, just emptiness,
stretching over scorched planes,
all-too-quiet heaviness,
poison in my veins.
.
I stand by its headstone,
this monumental thing,
mangled to the bone,
now dead and rotting.
.
Though finally I know:
there's no going back,
my feet fail to go -
paralysis attack.
.
Dismantled, worn down,
seared to the core,
managed not to drown,
but passed out on the shore.
.
And so, I wait, still silent,
for time to end this last moment.
.
Mar 2, 2025
Mar 2, 2025 at 8:31 AM UTC
Sippin' on a Proper English beer,
In a desert not unlike my soul,
My mind is heavy and all but clear,
And my heart is far from whole.
I'll smoke another, and drink my few,
I'm shaking with anxiety at the thought of you.
I'll walk back silent,
Eat alone,
The sadness defiant,
I reach for the phone.
From my desolate outpost your voice emerges,
My thoughts go out through space.
The emotions rise, control my urges,
I fuckin' hate this place.
You must return to your daily must,
Your voice is gone; I'm alone.
I watch the sky as it turns to dust,
A Cigarette; Solitude; is where I'm prone.
It's odd to me to sip a beer,
And feel the way I do,
The rocks reflect my soul here,
The only color blue.
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 12:17 AM UTC
Nature can survive without us
But we need nature
Just like you can survive without me
But I can't survive without you
Which renders you first
Tying in with the consequences of actions
And the significance
The biggest shift in demographics
However heart-centred they may be
A political right for me to say go
But you to say no
To outpost your lies
And join a revolution
But you're breaching my civil rights
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 8:12 PM UTC
She scheduled her death for November 3.
Her orphan hope,
If hope could still be cradled,
Was for a thin sweep of snow on the ground,
Maybe a bit of a howl out of the northwest,
(A dog whistle wind, her son Duncan called it,)
and,
If these fertile and malignant aliens at outpost
In her pancreas and liver,
If they held gracious,
Then she would attempt one last respite
and
She'd stand alone at winter’s edge
Inside the pencil sketch of a forest,
The oak and barren elms asleep,
Their crooked witch’s fingers
Scratching upward, thin and still,
If she could endure long enough,
She’d tempt a final plea,
To overwhelm the Carciginians
and
She would wake these slumbering giants
With her soft envy,
She would beg the forest for its for secrets,
She would kneel and ask for the gift of a long nap,
Her wish to rise,
When all awake in spring again.
Of course in the end,
She bartered her desperation,,
Exchanged the ignominy of begging for her life,
For the crow’s caw,
The ivory of a full moon,
The damp step of a midnight in dew,
Her forest held her,
The wind whispered her name in soft repeat,
As she realized her eternity,
Her evermore,
Her head up, her heart insured.
Always this sheltered wood had counseled her,
She was careful to apologize,
Offer a traveler's grace,
It was her last goodbye.
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 10:51 PM UTC
Light a fire under your assmove boy, moveno time to catch your breaththe fires closing fastthe tree line approachingthe horizon line2 more hoursto the drop zonefreedom at lastto burnthe place downtorch all the animalsVengeance at lastThe small village scaredthey run for their livesno chance at survivalthe ****** blastskin blisters and peels awayscorched bodies fallthe smiles of the killersslowly fade awaynot a guerrilla outpost they thought it should bethe bodies writhingthe faces of the burningwill never leave their memories
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 1:35 PM UTC
is there hope between a stone
like the figurative speech of abstracton
those fragile metophers of life
an essesnce of fleeting moments of existence
like some iconic inventory of bourgious values
that reinscribe themselves
on the inside of your eyeballs
so when you close them
they become a cultural outpost
here where inventory shades into affermation
where poeple come, clamour
to claim it as thier own
where a thousand seductions become one illusion
your eyes closed peer
into and enchanted looking glass of stone
where brooding darkness
offers beauty and hope
but rules here are different
language, customs, values
are not what they seem
for if you look back
it is a piller of salt
who will turn into you
for this is a place of images
images built upon images
constructed upon layers
and layers of so much paint
and you ask yourself ( without much instistence)
is there hope between a stone
and in this brief moment of asking
you give a life time
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
She stares at me with those piercing eyes.
They break down my armor full of lies.
Can I recover from a spiritual demise?
Does she know I try? Will she hear my cries?
Sometimes I wonder if she even cares,
But I just call and I know she's there.
Save me, save me! my little white dove.
Save me, save me! from what I've done.
I try to please her, but I only let her down.
I need to turn my life all around.
My mind screams; My mouth makes not a sound.
Will I always be hatred bound?
Then I see her with hair so fair,
A life so pure it makes me gasp for air.
Save me, save me! my little white dove.
Save me, save me! from what I've done.
Have I gone too far to come back home?
Will I be with you or be all alone?
From a fiery outpost will I be ******
Or will I look down from a higher throne?
A harsh reality will I be spared,
Devoid of love, hurt, and long-term care?
May I be given a life that's fair?
Give me adventure; give me my share!
How much more can my facade rust?
How much longer until I combust?
The life I've held is full of mistrust.
Free me from the temptation of lust.
If dove knew, it'd giver her a heart a scare.
It would be too much for her to bare.
Save me, save me! creator above.
Save me, save me! from what I've become.
Feb 15, 2011
Feb 15, 2011 at 1:35 PM UTC
Born from dove like divinity
Eros emerged in the freest fiercest forest
Far from the sights of man
And it effortlessly enchanted all it ever met
The branches, critters, air, and ground were,
Consumed in continual craving
That only Ero’s fair gaze, sweet touch, serene scent could quench
And for many eons Eros ran and reigned
Until by chance it happened upon a new source of light
Stepping closer, it saw the outskirts of an outpost
Running into the town Eros encountered the children of mankind
Lamps, roads, houses, wagons, and strangest of all, animals bound
Then finally Eros met humans
At first they were awed by it to the point of freezing
Then snatching back their senses they all sought to win her
Men and women, babe and elderly,
All wanted a piece of Eros
Overwhelmed, Eros tried to explain
That it could never dwell in a place so compact, close quartered,
Constrained
But their ears were clogged by lust, and
Eyes clouded in heat to conquer
So Eros ran, later referring to civilization as,
The Champions of Chains
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 10:31 AM UTC
well here it is:
as a good-hearted crazy boy as I am
I can be fixed only by a woman
on the last gear of speed
like a herd of mustangs in gallop
to the abyss or to eternity
a woman who dedicates me poems of hate
in which I'm the last provincial old man
the princess can fall in love with
but actually the joy is shaking whitin
any time she feels me arround
a woman dressed only in swords of Toledo
who can sing on a sword like Mariza
making me climb on the walls
like on the Chinese Wall on the moon
a woman that resists any melalcoholical drubbing
on rithmes of sirtaki with Zorba the Greek
with her heart blowned out of her mind
carelessly throwned like underwear through the room
a long-time woman to lead my way
and night in sleep and life in death
and my god in all its demons of beauty
with the most innocent baby smile
a woman that on the last outpost of her ******
like a wild goddess will laugh and explode the night
as if as if ordering
the happiest end of the world
Jun 8, 2018
Jun 8, 2018 at 7:44 AM UTC
Under the cover of blankets
My eyes close up
Opening my mind to a misty world
With shadowy outlines welling up
From the bottomless depths
Of foggy long times
Shaping the mosaic of my imagination
Into corresponding dreams
Standing guard
At the outpost to my consciousness
Just before I sleep.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 5:27 AM UTC
Putting the world
to rights,
I expect.
She, Mrs Clark,
and Old Ma Collins
are like an outpost
of the United Nations.
They’d put
the world to rights
all right. No one else
would get a word in
edgeways. Had a bloke
like that in the army.
He could talk the hind leg
off a donkey. Bit simple
he was, but he did half talk.
Perkins he was called.
Ronald Perkins.
Lost a leg he did,
but didn’t stop him talking.
Reckon if he lost his head
he’d still manage
to chat away
to himself somehow.
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 6:02 AM UTC
Come with me, for there is a place long forgotten, buried in the sands of time.
A rotting concrete barricade was the tombstone of this ghostly outpost.
The hot white wind whipped up grains of sand, slowly eroding away this dying spot.
Oh how mother of time have done her work.
Come with me to where the sun masterfully paints the fading skies with fiery orange, watch it‘s art on this dead place.
Oh how the sands used to be red, piercing wounded faces who cried so often.
A rusty steel rifle laid on the ground, resting forever.
A red sign, in a familiar language stop, and unto it was carved I want to go home.
Nobody wanted to remember this place, as this hellish ground refused to recognize itself.
Oh how this place has died, oh how the rust of time have taken it’s toll.
Come with me to the forgotten roadsides where the fragrance of once was remains.
The fragrance were whispers of the dead.
Sweet yet salty, the fragrance of the air lingers and dances with the smell of rust with the skies slowly turning night.
The small wooden building slumped and have given up.
The windows broken, the wood ashen, a lonely rocking chair on the porch swayed back and forth, back and forth.
Oh how people refuse to remember.
Come with me to where tears and blood were shed and brothers were lost.
Amongst the rubble, the rust, the building, the sign, and the concrete barricade a massive and horrifying line of worn spit shine boots and amongst each one a worn rifle, a fading helmet, and bent metal necklaces that told stories of the fallen.
Come with me,
Come with me and remember the lost brothers.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 10:19 PM UTC
Oh, Shadowmare,
I ride on your back,
please charge forward for god's sake.
Hopping over squares like a maniac,
oh please,
you're making me giddy alright.
Only at the outpost,
will you be satisfied,
horsing around playing mind games.
On the hill,
the enemy in fear, asking,
what's the stallion doing up here.
Soon the enemy king choked,
and died of a heart attack,
We won the war,
after all.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 4:04 PM UTC
I miss you
Like I miss life
I feel nothing is worth the pain
Except your presence in life
I know I am stupid
For wanting you like my soul
When I have lost you
For the follies of my own
You made me feel loved
Like no one ever has
Now I feel the desolation
Of an outpost far beyond humanity
No one can touch me
For I am marked for life
The other day I heard a good news
Knew you would be proud of me
Tried sharing it
But no one bothered
Felt like a child back from school
No one to show my trophy to.
No one cared no one cares now too
Sadness brims over in tears
And they flow in torrents
Heart utters out but a silent wail
No one to listen to my bereavement
I wish I could reach out
Through fabric of time
Hold your hand right
And drag you where you belong
To grow old together
Like I always pictured it
I have made my life complicated some more
Have a lot of pain and then some more
A curtain of normalcy and expectations
Of desires and fights and some more
But the void inside me echoes your name
Calls out frantically and then some more
horrified of what has come to pass
Hollow from inside I seek life and then some more
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 7:13 AM UTC