"outposts" poems
I gaze into my crystal ball, discern amidst the haze
A world so far removed from that of now, it would amaze,
Where catapulting incidents collide like billiard *****
And sense defies belief as renaissance makes the calls.
Blueprints fresh from Internet supply the suitcase blast
Where the terrorist’s, simultaneously, ignite in cities cast
From Moscow to New York, Beijing to Berlin
Gay Paree to London town then way out east again,
Budapest, Jerusalem Calcutta burning all
And Tokyo is levelled in a ghastly nuclear pall.
Kneejerk reaction triggers contrails in the blue
Crisscrossing all the continents obliterating through
An overkill so vicious that in seconds it is past
And the living cling in horror, bearing witness… aghast.
Restraints are erased as the opportunists dash
Flotillas from the Spratleys sprint to occupy and cash
In on the minerals, oil and potential food supplies
Of uncontaminated nations found beneath Pacific skies.
Hindi, Jew and Muslim settle scores bereft with years
Of resentment accrued in a flood of blood and tears.
A sudden realisation of immensity of loss
Curtails the destruction in retrenchment across
The habitable outposts, the dearth of supply
And the daunting prospects of a nuclear winter sky.
Global collapse of all electronic gear
No power, no phones, and no cars now…for years.
Electromagnetic impulse put paid to all that
And the day is as dark as the cold night is black.
And here all we sit, in the here and the now
On the verge of catastrophes’ teetering tower,
With a fools pudgy finger just inches above
The nuclear button…and all that we love.
……You fear the insanity, sense the insane
Knowing that people like this are holding the reign?
Knowing that volatility strikes
Like the shot of a gun and the ****** of a knife.
I don’t have the answers to hand
But someone out there, knows how…and can.
The sands of time are running thin
URGENTLY needed a LEADER...to WIN!
M.
Planet Earth
6 March 2019
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 12:46 AM UTC
which man has saved us from a dystopian future;
where each one of us must decide between good
and evil without fear of punishment from the camera
lens or laws that have become as onerous upon our
lives as a world without any law at all; which man
would be genius enough to survive his own evil
no matter the height of our intellectual achievements,
it is the emotional strain of one life in one world that
cannot care no matter how much we pray beyond
gravity’s last remaining outposts that lays waste to
souls that beg to be equal among beings made in an
image that has not been defined but merely assumed
when tears are no longer welcome as before and
when anger serves the strong well, then will the
light know to assume it’s place in the darkness which
hides from the absence of the knowing, undefined
by Gods or beasts that live in the depths choking
on sinks of man’s glorious quest for immortality
if one man knows of the legend if not each jot of
the law then would the spirit hover above his heart;
must he decide between living as a depraved knave
or martyred by unrecorded history, unfathomed
by meaning or the depths that have no end except
his will to suffer for what he once knew to be true?
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 11:58 PM UTC
I
LEAGUERED in fire
The wild black promontories of the coast extend
Their savage silhouettes;
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead,
Above the waste of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.
II
Lagooned in gold,
Seem not those jetty promontories rather
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn,
Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy, unconsoling fold
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life's perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope's slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea's golden barrier and the black
Closecrouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and ****** back
Into the primal void,
That should we on that shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?
3.7k
TASMANIA, The Apple Isle,
rooted in conquest, convicts
and cannibalism.
Into this desolate paradise,
suffering, starving Englishmen,
dreaming of home, planted
row upon row of small neat
cottages, graciously adorned
by native English roses.
Convicted felons, shunned
from polite English society,
became her upstanding citizens,
and like her fuel-laden forests,
she smouldered, a daughter of
mother England, steeped in
her heritage like a lauded
*** of Earl Grey.
For two centuries, England
grew, a wild sunflower,
with London's sprawling
population sprouting from
1m seedlings, to over 8m
at the peak of her growth.
And somehow, somewhere,
something broke inside.
Today, proud Englishmen
mourn a loss of the spirit
and freedom of their forebears,
still proud, yet yearning
for the simple, honest
existence of a yesteryear
long lost, and not forgotten.
In Tasmania, time drifted
lazily, as outposts sprawled
into small towns, small towns
into small cities, like miniatures
mimicking the motherland
her pioneers had left behind.
But unlike her proud parent,
Tasmania remained true to
the spirit that raised her
from the ashes of convict
settlements, and a fledgling
society intent on defending
the spirit that put England
at the heart of an empire
flourished.
I am an Englishman, proud
to be born and raised in
her heartlands, and prouder
still, to have found that most
distant corner of our once
great empire that embodies still
the spirit of hard work,
fair play and decency that
is found within the beating heart
of every true Englishman.
Feb 14, 2017
Feb 14, 2017 at 9:50 AM UTC
Its perspective skewed,
the lie of this land
is all tilts and angles.
Black-thorned hedges
rise in white clouds
to the hilltop farm.
On this Damson Day
it is a damp-mist morning,
the horizon a grey smudge.
Up forest trail and fell-ward,
on the left, a winter-laid hedge,
to the right, a mossy wall.
A riot of new growth lies
at the feet, by the hand:
wild garlic, wilder strawberry,
fresh ferns, and the tiniest violets
hiding on this old path.
Steep steps climb
to a four-acre orchard
primrosed under the pint-sized
trunks of its wiry trees.
There’s the blossom, white as snow.
*Hard to imagine
five months hence,
fully plummed and picked,
Bullace and Damascene
driven by the cartload
to Kendal market.
250 tons they’d reckoned
once, taken by train
to the Preston canners.
Nearer home the fruit
was gined and beered,
cheesed and chucknied.*
Then into the forest,
a plantation girdled
by a dry stone wall
tall on the moorland edge
where beyond
the grey limestone shards
have broken through what
little grass is left
for absent cattle.
Wild with wind
up here today,
so down to reclaim
the forest’s shelter,
and down through fields
to a farm en fête
all cars and crowds.
This, a damson day of best-judged jam,
with artisan breads, Morris with swords,
fiddling folk, agility dogs, St Kilda sheep,
blue eggs and tents of crafts galore.
In the mist and drizzle
homeward and facing west,
there across the valley lie
outposts of blossoming,
fields embroidered,
and the farms necklaced.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
Like outposts of Empire
with synchronised obedience,
instincts are embedded
every command unseen, unheard, but done.
People flee toward and from them
in blind eyed hope,
but they are mere reflections
of remote entangled entities,
engaged and yet repellant.
Giant men shake hands
tectonic plates shift, foundations shake.
Little people reach for each other
and fractures knit together.
Like Kubrick’s femur tossed by apes
our existence evolves and spins,
In time will it fall to dust from where it came?
to lie extinct between two poles.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 8:09 AM UTC
A Poem on Zugzwang :
Before your life ends up in Zugzwang
Learn to pin, Devoid of sins!
Skewer your thoughts,
Hope against odds.
Manoeuvre your troops and forces
Plant outposts and seal victories
Remember-
Numbered are your moments,
To post your deserving achievements!
Plan, Work Sail and Prevail
This is the way you must trail.
Chess is timing, so Is Life!
Move with a purpose, Have High aims!
Face the gale when
Defence is the demand
Hold on! Take charge and command.
Do the best and Leave the Rest
To God!
And he will save your position from the Critical Zugzwang!
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 7:38 AM UTC
pale flowers pale proprietor pale ale
i have ordered you to the table
almost funny how quickly you arrive
and funnier
ethanol ice, roots and glasses crash in
celebration
oh branch, gnarled wood with a numbered
engraving - i send thanks
via application
payment as in a pitcher - forget
taste - order it
sugary with a bit of weight yet
you never took credit for
sake of appearances
I only entered you
knowing you wouldn’t ask as much as
the others past 5pm
to sneak out your doors by 11
into gravel’d outposts -
into the dark crying out for something
like your lost beauty.
May 13, 2024
May 13, 2024 at 7:47 AM UTC
I teeter at the edge of an abyss,
Like all others extremely deep and dark,
And, in the fiery depths below I see,
Proven; the ancient Devil’s Mark.
The stench of death escapes out of a vent
Knocking me off my feet with gas and heat;
I gag, cough and fight to draw some fresh air
For this ominous feeling, I must defeat.
Staring into that blasted evil pit
I see familiar hungry eyes below.
This is a place I have been before,
No longer, is this a place I care to go.
One of Hell’s outposts for the Devil,
Places that trap the minds of souls.
I was caught here once by my loneliness
Barely found my way out of these Hell holes.
I will fight to avoid being caught here.
I will fight to give my heart back to Love.
But if you get caught there for a while
You will understand… what I’m speaking of.
Patrick Lee Marshall
©All rights reserved, 2011
May 22nd, 2011
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 11:49 AM UTC
Remember back, yes it was a long time ago
When England and its minions lost their one and only,
Lizzy the Busy, she did get about for an older kind of crow
Flying to her outposts and then in her nineties
Still dragging that old codger about, Philip the Greek
Insulting the natives, well he is a kind of royalty
His odd quip on the colour of somebodies skin,
Never mind how are, what a lovely child and how have you been
She married a corker there, no messing
The lands that carried her name all bowing to her superiority
Many of them just peasants not knowing of her really
From Gibraltar through to Hong Kong where they made her royal tea
Man landed on the moon, remembered for a thousand years
If real or made in a Universal studio
The passing of our Queen so real, some still holding back their tears
Reality strikes when you see what she has left of this once great land
Down to her kids to run this Island of such history
And not left it drift to the sea as if built on sinking sand
Monarchy and Royalty march hand in hand from the times of history
Lets not forget the power that we once held
To be banished away by the politically correct to leave us as a sad story
As she would turn in her grave if this once great power dissolved and died
She may not have said it but her wit and allegiance were British through and through
Grow a backbone and be proud again, and show them at least we tried to be true
JJB
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 10:01 AM UTC
Dictionary in hand Bobbies
manned state of the spy craft created
strategic peripheral outposts
a comma dated,
(sans syntax garnered monies) equated
justifiable to build galley ma free
Highland Manor wing - feted
via "FAKE" glitterati
creating surreptitious hated
surveillance monitor ring, which insulated
decked out starry eyed Starship
Enterprise surprise rated,
as an unbelievable well Spock kin
Duplicated Star Trek venerated
popular culture science fiction set piece,
where elderly residents waited
this other worldly architectural phenomenon
didst immediately outshine by alight
year among the original seven wonders
of the world prominant
as a buck toothed over bite
yet, didst camouflage top secret AngloSaxon
incognito missionaries delight
upholding correct language usage,
Thence trumpeting amidst
nonchalant onlookers as excite
mint hinted grammarians with listening devices
some flying unseen
as period size drones taking flight
other more sophisticated
electronic accouterments
dolled, gussied, issued with apostrophe
shaped flower buds scaling height
of cerulean sky, where blinding light
of a solar ellipsis, thus
arousing no discovered night
gallery suspicion during
feted occasion rife with polite
"FAKE" markedly questionable legatees quite
suitable asper The Art Of The Deal during
ribbon cutting ceremony,
and after words right
ting up citations slyly
slipped under windshield wipers
as the madding massed crowdsource,
would take dispersed out of sight
nonetheless echoes plenti chutzpah left
English figures of speech
uttering unstinting (quote unquote)
premature ejaculations,
eh so blandly trite
non-sequitur visited
by thee epic of Gilgamesh
for a dangling participle
during the split infinitive Sumer season
(exclamation point) no more to write!
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 2:15 AM UTC
*White Oaks display tenuous longevity
Tethered to red dirt , moss populated
living testaments , etched in black decay
like tombstones marking an ending location
What man did fire in anger from this hillside
Fire for daily bread , wracked in hunger , steeped
in the unknown , slighted by his brethren , ill
recompensed , foolhardy leg deep sagebrush
foraging lonely wilderness outposts , a foreign beast
racked with chilblain , feverish at deaths gate
Hickorys cry golden kin in frosted wind , red inquiries
mingled in dark earth decay , vermin infested rot ,
pungent pile reeking recompense , scavenger trolled
dead carpet , crying in fog drenched stupor , collecting
in leaf well , motif sunbeam , signaling the birth of midday
shine neath Maple umbrellas
Beside talking waters , ravenous , diamond temptress , committing Summers deceased corruption to the sea
Mosaic sands , evergreen curiosities , glass creek- boulder
kaleidoscopes , lapping shorelines , mud foaming froth
hiding unknown depth
Laughing , forever cascading artery without mercy
Teeming with pan , bream , perch and sturgeon
Alligator shell scavenger , water moccasin , consumption
Pine labyrinths , sunless Fern gardens , Snake , Dew , Red berry
briarpatch mazes , rolling countryside without fence , encaged in Crescent Moon , lantern fly obscurity with voracious Aedes vampires , humid , blistering night without end* ...
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 8:48 PM UTC
Knowing you're a room away
the hinged hole in my wall tempts me
To curl-backed night wandering, to brush my face alongside yours
I know the paths your hair makes
in tentative trails across your chest
to the outposts of your *******
I know your clever hands
i dreamt of them in detail, of holding your hands in mine
examining them
I know those soft lips
I know how they feel against mine
I know what they are capable of
It's been nearly 9 months since the time when i knew these things
Time enough to incubate a life
Time enough to hold love the way i cupped your dream hands
Time enough to write 25 poems about you
Time enough to shade my dazzled eyes
Time enough to know to leave that door closed.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 8:50 PM UTC
Always build a tower
solid and in the middle
make a daily round
along the outposts, you learn
from that, also from the wind
and the farmers, sit down
with the children playing
and listen to what they repeat
from their parents and the neighbours
Occasionally beat the drums
but never dig holes
for the dead of tomorrow
plant flowers every season
around the squares and the cities
as a welcome to the enemy
in your suspicion, and pay attention
because the better you look
the more you see
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 2:00 AM UTC
“So good to be checked in on :)”
<>
so informed, I’m thinking,
yes, I know,
it is a spécialité de ma maison,
checking in on far and dear, not so near, ones,
periodically.
ask myself why,
and the answer comes easy,
intrusion and extrusion.
the pleasant shock of stumbling into an old friend,
both stuck in the revolving door at Macys Herald Square,
which is odd because it’s DECADES since I was there.
there are many outposts on the poetry cables
who have received this SOS, and the inevitable outcome is
a new poem commissioned and perhaps, no admission,
that’s the why and the wherefore surely so purely selfish.
need a guide to help me pick apples and pumpkins,
which is not in my wheelhouse of expertise,
thinking you could give me a boost,
so selfish, you see, picking up the pieces of fall(ing)
and poem titles from, then for, friends.
for you never know
when and how well,
cinnamon apple and pumpkin cream pie
soothes the souls from home grown tumult,
with hot tea.
SOs, how ya doing?
just checking in...
<>
9/12/19
Sep 12, 2019
Sep 12, 2019 at 4:58 PM UTC
This you say, without
saying, is my frame--
racked by what is
not brought forth.
Triptych of self...reserved by
the momentum of evasion.
Not to outstride holy company.
Compounding the brilliance
of what was stole away from.
As if a face for every
face, that could not bear
its image.
Driven to outposts which
are eyes more naked than
love at war.
So much of self at judgement,
none the more self to judge
having seen.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:25 PM UTC
Don't think of me as some depressed statistic,
or do, if that comforts you,
if you can't understand how for every shade of blue, green you had,
my life has been dominated by grey.
I'm not complaining, its just how things are and have always been.
Its my life, where yellows, oranges, purples just don't seem to have that
POP. As if everything is faded, dulled down.
Where happiness isn't achieved by just being,
but every smile a constant internal struggle,
consciously having to fight, struggle, claw at the outposts in my mind,
just to have a remote chance.
If you don't, the infectious grey seeps into everything, filtering through.
With nothing seeming to provide joy
the little things have an added negative spin,
while the big things serve as reminders as to what it was like
to feel all the bright, fun colors, the carefree optimistic feel of hope,
only replaced by a severe lack of ambition or desire to do anything.
I'm not asking anyone for a hand out, or attention, or even someone's pity
as I've been accused of.
Instead, I'm just trying to help people understand the hardest question of why.
Why I do the things I do.
Why I say the things I say.
Why I act the way I act.
Because my rainbow consists of only a single, monotone, joyless color.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
…clinks in glasses
chilling the lips
unless a sudden contact
is avoided.
…is frigidity –
a grain of water
gleaned by the sun
is preferable.
…lingers slowly
dissipating.
Give me streams
as quick as bullets.
…chills a
red Dubonnet
till the wine
upends the sun’s intensity.
…sways
every eye
towards the skater’s
own uncalculated mastery.
…partners
the gritty frost
that folds the pebbles
in a skein of light.
Ice is the groin’s negation.
Ice is the temperance of nations.
Published in OUTPOSTS PUBLICATIONS 1974 (NO LEEWAY)
May 20, 2017
May 20, 2017 at 3:47 PM UTC