"pipers" poems
Forlorn beauty-child
Living in my night
Crying in your dream.
Sounds of sorrow
Linger in the morning mist
Of subdued consciousness.
Troubled water falls
From awakened red eyes
That searched inside loneliness
Only to find more.
Now...
Behind my faceted face
Your countenance lingers...
I glance quickly within,
You disappear!
Your gaze lit my shadowed mind.
Your presence was there waiting
For me…
A Sonata…
A Fantasy
A Major key bright-shining
Singing sunbeams to lift me.
After the music...
Shards of shattered dreams
Scattered like felled icicles
lying in the sun, melting into mulch
They dawned bright green
Pipers on Scottish dew.
The mourning moon is
Catchlight in your eyes
Bright Bird...
Captivating sailors
Reaching down evoking vulnerable
Aspects held so long secret...
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 2:38 AM UTC
Saturday I was the happiest knight in your kingdom
Sunday I extinguished loves burning embers with mere chewing gum
Monday I answered your call..... to muster arms, your period enemy.
Tuesday I saw my purple sky fall around me like attacking dragons.
Wednesday I cried bitterly making my own wailing wall.
Thursday I built a trebuchet, to catapult me back into your life.
Friday I lost my sanity when I heard only the Pied Pipers fife
I wish there was another day, I need another chance.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
(spot the Carol)
These three kings of orient are
unfairly competing with one little drummer boy,
all dashing through the snow for the last boughs of holly
to lay them before the King.
Meanwhile three ships come sailing in
and certain poor shepherds leave their hot chestnuts,
each keen to hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace.
Later,
in Royal David’s city,
there are ladies leaping, pipers piping
and drummers …
drumming, apparently.
The restless cattle are lowing big-time;
no wonder the baby’s awake.
All have come to proclaim the Messiah’s birth;
the king-of-angels baby who out-shines any wondrous star.
A child born of Mary, on this most holy of nights;
born to give us second birth:
This is the Saviour who is Christ the Lord,
come to redeem us all.
‘Come – receive – your - king.’
Merry Christmas.
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 3:50 AM UTC
not since nor silk.
Mother's milk for the generations.. yes she was .
Greeted Lindbergh on touchdown.
Society clone. Rich ************* could not leave her alone. Tall tale teller.Paperback
construct. Stepping into the ball with no invitation and stopped the music and conversation.
Pale skinned poser.
Gettin over.
Her daddy was a man of means.
Hired by the Majesties to count jellybeans.
He loved the local **** to the tune of
Poppa was a rollin stone.
The magistrates and potentates in the republic of bananas. Pinkys up tea sippers .
Could not get hold of collective zippers.
Faded portrait. long dead poser.ball buster. Pretty as crystal.Tough as pig iron.
She was high flying flapper. Cutting a rug. Charleston,Jitterbug. Short skirt flirt. Grandma ?
Smokin hot and smokin when women did not dare. C.O.P.D. and a hacking cough came the pipers toll. The Wages.
Just keeping it real.
Slip sliding away.
Drove a Jalopy.
Aiee Pahpi chulo. Bestin May West with a smaller life jacket.
Turn the century.
Trench warfare.
Over the top.The war to end all ? shiiiit. Great Grandma
was a show stopper. To the very end.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
Kneeling on the very end, first position just by the isle
closer than I had ever been Looked up at the man of sorrows a crown of thorns pierced his brow.
His eyes are half shut in pain and downcast.
A crimson trickle starts going south
His lips are taut against a cry.
And I wonder Why. A ragged spike or nail stand in bold relief
Mid palm both hands. another crimson testament
Begins to speak.
Sunken with ribs protruding
Nails driven through doubled feet.Not where the ankles meet.. My Lord ?
Why hath thou forsaken me.
The statue of sorrows nailed to a wooden T.
Is pipers fee.. Paid in full for me.
What sin then must I atone for.
To avoid the wooden cross or the eternal fire ?
Six years living. I need forgiving ?
For what ? Even then.
I could not be a true believer.
so fire and brimstone for me.
Cast down in the pit.
Perhaps.
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 12:35 AM UTC
Minions marching to the pied pipers flute.
Sheep herded, dressed in fancy suits.
Walking amongst the crowd.
I wonder if I'm allowed.
To buck the trend.
The rules we bend.
When It's hard for us to compute.
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 5:01 PM UTC
We had dreams
about the crystal sun
the juniper wind, apple
blossoms and glowing evenings
comfort and quietude
We had dreams
lollipops and no one crying
no pain-and love if not
everlasting
solid and smiling every day
We had dreams
about great ships sailing
wind filling all speed ahead
never becalmed, no one dead,
no rotting bodies on the deck
no witness to inexplicable agony
We had dreams
garlands from gardens
nobody had to tend
ice cream cones piling
sidewalks high
shade for the asking
from every uncomfortable
ray of sun
water enough for everything
lawns and trees
flowers and livestock
children running in sprinklers
water for the taking
every day
We had dreams
soft conversations in
the lamplight, hands to hold
slim and strong whenever
we needed, voices filled
with understanding and strength
for every fear
and every tear dried
by gentle caring touch
We had dreams
that did not include random bullets
sudden death and no clouds
exploding to rain death
on helpless heads
We dreamed we would never be helpless
we had dreams
we bought on time
amortization forever
and no one would ever
have to pay the bills
We had dreams
someone would always save us
mother always did
even when she didn’t want to
even when we made her mad
even when we broke her china
and her heart
We had dreams
laughing and crying
talking into loud speakers
shouting our claims
and never thought how
to make them come true
We had dreams
of glory and taking
down every flag from every
highest hill
and no one would ever be found
face down in two inches of water
drowned on ***** and disaster
We had dreams
that did not include spit
on the sidewalk, in the gutters,
but only clean skies
and apple pie, organically sweet
every day
and endlessly billowing
wheat, and sailing ships
and all the pure water
we could drink for free
and play in
We had dreams
that we could demand pain away consequences
and guilt and the necessary play
of our dreams that mothers would
if we dreamed hard enough
and played hard enough
and the nasty old piper
never called for his fee
We had dreams
and when they didn’t come true
we had curses
We cursed the lollipops
we cursed the ice cream
we cursed the wheat
the cornucopia
the great sailing ships
and the sea
the mother
the sidewalks
the highest hills
and the trickling ditch
we cursed the livestock
and the stereos
the loudspeakers and the glory
and we cursed crying and apple pie
we cursed suffering and anguish
the pipers who demanded to be paid
the ones who paid and complained
about the mess we made
we cursed fine china plates
filled with hard-earned harvests
we cursed love and freedom
we cursed crystal sun
and shade.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 1:40 AM UTC
Can you hear the sound,
Of drummers marching?
Can you hear the pipes,
As the pipers are playing.
Go forth, yon brave men,
Fight for the country today.
March on, march for battle,
The fields will run with blood.
Centuries ago, they fought for country,
Times never change for they fight still.
Guns replace swords, bombs replace arrows,
Go forth brave souls, you are fighting still.
When this battle ends, remember the dead,
They fought with honour, fought with pride.
Be remembered boys, we will not forget thee,
There will be flowers, always, on fields of blood
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 8:01 AM UTC
A chanter cracked from overuse
Cheeks salt stained from shed tears
Shed for those who lost their lives
Lost well before their years
The piper played for seventeen
Who never saw their best
Amazing Grace hung in the air
While our hearts beat in our chests
The massacre at Dunblane School
took seventeen that day
One teacher and lo, sixteen more
Beneath a sky all streaked with grey
The Pipers lips were dry and cracked
And the salt burned as he cried
but, he played the best he ever played
For the seventeen who died
The world was once their oyster
But, it never saw them grow
If you listen, you can hear him
That lonely piper blow
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace."
When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 6:35 PM UTC
Caribbean waters wrench my gut
with an instinct to sail too far
into the blue plunge
of shark-finned waters
and sharp, yellow coral structures.
Those nature beasts rip wetsuit,
my sleek, stone shade wall from internal chill.
I am, feel, like a tanned fish
on these tire-weathered, cement streets.
Towering above are the heavy looks
down
from windows of sunned glass castles
of plastic and sweat.
They're calling,
pied pipers, to what is steel-stable
and rooted, in unforgiving fashion,
to the death of primal sense.
The urge to rip apart is tied back
around collared neck.
My boat is ashore
as I sea-dream-see of horizons unseen
while clenching an ill-fated
armrest desk of destiny
unexplored.
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 12:00 AM UTC
In the eye where I am
where there's peace,(so to speak)
I take out the album which I carry in a telegram and in those few stunted phrases,
my heart again blazes with desire,full of fire and of want.
This is punishment for me and I see retribution in these lines,
times though be far are near as I wear out my eyeglass making pass after pass at the words on the clipped sheet in my hand,
telegram and the full of memory man and the eye carries me on to the storm that levels all in its path,
I shall weep for this no more,bring the winds and let them bore through me and the rains to swallow my tears unshed.
I am led like the goat to the pipers of Pan.
I am the telegram becoming the man and the album's a plan to destroy me,though the Devil employs many vices it seems that nothing is fixed and there's a swirling of voices which melt into one,(am i to be that one?)
This saxophonic cacophony within which I am caught teaches me, what once before I was taught,
I'm a prisoner in the dock and the black cap is on and the 'beak' up ahead says,'you're going to swing John'
And the beggars and tramps and those bums that you meet on the islands of midnight where the ne'er do well greets you with,'lend me a dime' all make some time to come to the show where I swing to and fro and...look at my face all bloated and blue,
(it's only make up,but what can I do,poor ******* I am)
and the eye winks at me,winks at me as if I could see the joke in this,it is funny though, that one feels so tall as the trapdoor opens and you begin the fall
but then it's snap, crackle and pop
full stop
dead end.
telegram sent,
I'm going home.
stop.
end.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 7:10 AM UTC
chiaroscuro moment
molten chords
in golden glow
titian ringlets cascade
from linen shoulders
as your hands bring liquid color
to idle black and white
chorded words of three parts
Not easily broken
Ebb and flow as breath over water
a shift in timbre
resonant teak fettered in silver
*heady scent of resin and balsam reeds
echoed drones the cantored dance begins
Taking flight the quiet arias rise
coursing low over open moors
Eyes veiled green
a fog shrouded shoreline
We leave transient prints
In damp sand...
Sonorous notes
From kilted pipers
A flash of tartan on thistled field
Drummers pulse the motion of life
You raise the standard
This ancient song is yours
and mine.
Open eyes to desert sky
Burning blue and empty
As fresh pages fall un-inked
on thorny ground
Only the ache of a melody remains
Lost refrains
broken notes in my DNA
Inspiration drifts away
*I used to have a recurring dream of me, and two other friends - in a recording studio with the complete sheets of music in front of us - which we were singing...and when I wake up...I can never remember the song.
03/2008
© 2008 TL Boehm
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC
Moonwalker
We said goodbye to him today,
the man who walked first on the Moon.
We commit his ashes to the sea
as pipers play a mournful tune.
He'll feel Selene's pull in the deep
Until, in time, his urn dissolves.
Then, everywhere and nowhere
He will ride the Ocean tides.
Once, on a very different sea,
Armstrong brought his spacecraft down
At a place they called tranquility .
the Eagle landed, strong and proud.
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 10:52 PM UTC
It's raining. It's pouring. Here's another poem for your exploring. I implore you stop snoring and ignoring the resonant glow of morning.
Touring forgotten graveyards should never shed tears of mourning. Celebrating life, while others die, isn't scorning.
Happiness and love that you're storing, sheds bright light on the adoring. Painful funerals seem quite the time, that sounds boring.
Bringing respectful flowers of purple and golden hues equals scoring. Harnessing the power of the Sun is more powerful, than the pedal of the Hummer that you're flooring. The glum guns over soldiers' shoulders fire heart-warming bullets into the sky.
Past souls still swarming, adorning their tears of sadness that rains down to the ground in the light.
Your fear and doubt, swimming around, will swallow you into lost depths for the drowning.
Sprouting up new life from the mound sounds astounding. Crowning new Queens and Kings for selfish deeds, indeed are alarming.
Memories of noble families are founding truths for crowning and gowning. Wealth to weaken poverty, for the pounding.
Quit the clowning, as the pied pipers at dawn wield magical flutes that wipes off frowning faces.
Amounting to the sorrowful pain, gained from the Earth, go wash your dirt, hurt, and pain away in the rain.
Apr 29, 2013
Apr 29, 2013 at 5:34 AM UTC
In from the mist of our material plain
Out far in the East lay a trail by the sea
Dotted with wells and the sounds of quails
Crusted jets of shined Earthen fits
Rubbed down from its shear as a mountain
Played out by the watery, rusted brass section
The Cliffs rise and fall on the water
And the Cliffs sit and wait on the water
Slowly lowing pours of passes,
Brooks and weathered ravines showing
Tracing inwards, out to pasture
Winds the coastline to these towers
Birds of Dover hover, soundless
Mixing air gusts line the pipers
Where Cliffs rise and fall on the water
And the Cliffs right down to the bottom
So may a beetle missing wing
Come eventually reach the sea
Gull by way or ever scaling
Geologic clock come sailing
Scoring drums the cheer of tides
Into when years are fossilized
As Cliffs rise and fall on the water
So Cliffs sit and be on the water
And all that stone bore out of time, styled
Dark and plinthed come moored day round
Ornate platters, restful gravel,
Granite or a painting gathers
Art and sky are matched as one, within
Centered over sunset blazing on
And the Cliffs rise and fall on the water
And the Cliffs soar beauty mined on the shores
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 5:01 PM UTC
On late the by-lanes one night,
unusual spot I green, a bottle
like any, but for words, may be,
on the label printed:
'Old wine. Hamlin. Best before: the future'
Scarred, the mouth, to fire
a rocket used, ringing in a day
when celebrating, a hero,
Goliaths thumped by a David new.
Hope, on the horizon, the word rising.
Threw it away, almost I, when
reversed comes, rolled up a parchment,
by ash burned, from the ******* a part:
a mix strange of clippings and retort.
Marked, astonished, the date, I: was it
from today, even of TV, a listings part;
'...mesmerized by the language of hope';
'Parks fill up as people gather to celebrate';
'Our democracy is alive and how'.
Of proportions messianic, news frothing
how new born, a leader is. Familiar all :
myself now, from one such, returning.
But curious, written, the words indeed:
*'Monuments wear and rivers thin,
as boatmen sing the evening song,
miracle-workers and peddlers of
honey and mead, pipers at the gates
of dawn, not men of mettle and deed'*
Of a piper, suddenly, as in a fantasy
a song, and heard I, helpless, wails
of mothers, a hundred .
Strained, to read, further my eye,
when tore up the piece;
Broke up green, a bottle on the street.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
If I am Queen of Scotland and you are King
We will wander thro’ all the castles, you and I.
Who knows what the years ahead will bring?
One thing I know, we will see endless Skye.
We will feel so small but yet so free;
Mother Earth steady beneath our feet
On every blade of grass, to the highest tree
We can curl up and sink into sleep.
Scotland, O Scotland! Here we come whilst we are still at one,
Your pipers, bagpipes and drums tug at our heartstrings
When dusk falls and all is said and done,
Only the Gods know what the future brings.
My heart yearns for you, your passion and your fire;
Your world is strangely dark and deep.
Can a heart smoulder with such love and desire,
Mesmerised by your magic and mysteries, and secrets you keep.
Dec 22, 2017
Dec 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM UTC
He barely remembers Verdun and then when that was done
it was Passchendale
but now old and frail on a walking frame
with a gammy leg full of cold shrapnel
from the hell
of the bravery
in the war to end all slavery.
He moves slowly along the top of the cliff
leg quite stiff in the stiffening breeze.
And the falling stars
those medals with bars upon his lapel
another reminder
from the long ago hell.
He hears the pipers
fears the snipers but they've all gone
somewhere on the Somme.
Lulled into some false sense of serenity
I took my eyes off him and didn't see
him go over the top
Pulled away
and then he rose and went marching off across the morning bay
to meet his friends
(from a friends battalion,somewhere up Wigan way)
I watched them as they knelt to pray
and then go off into yesterday
to fight a war
and win their
peace.
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 3:40 AM UTC
Some folks follow all the rules;
Others like to bend 'em,
Feeling like it's only fools
Who staunchly would defend 'em.
Which way that you lean begins
When you're just out of diapers.
Followers fear that their sins
Will make them pay the pipers.
Benders, though, might get a rush
From tempting fate and winning,
Even if they have a brush
With blame at the beginning.
We each know where we belong
When rules are in our faces
And since we all hate being wrong,
We never will change places.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
If memory serves, we were let out that day
So all the kids had fun that day.
The details blur with time.
What above all is crystal was the motorcade.
The kids streaming west as if a pipers note was struck.
Throngs of people old and new stood curbside .
My friends and I ran breathlessly to the corner.
Stood there in the moment. I could feel the moment.
but who could know the tally.
We were let out of school that day.
We wanted to get a good look.
I saw kids pop in and out of the crowd
Just running alongside. so I figured. me too.
I stepped from the sidewalk and ran up to the car
leisurely rolling north on Central avenue.
He turned as I ran up and looked down. That window to window
moment stays with me. Still to this day.
I stuck out my right hand he reached with his
just for an instant we crossed over. Then done.
I ran back to the crowd and out to 48th street back to my
game off football. That was all.
The news announced he was shot the next day
That was the end of hope when he killed R.F.K.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 3:44 AM UTC
Adieu I will curl away
and reawaken ten years from now
like an unwitting coil
I spring some confounded earnestness
of built up creaks and misalignments ,
serenade me not,
for discordant pipers foil
their sepia tinged pedestraness.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
i went to tipperary with its land so green
with lots of different things that made a lovely scene
there were hills and mountains and castles everywhere.
lots of lakes and rivers i saw while i was there.
i saw pipers playing such a lovely tune
walking through the glen underneath the moon
there was lots of grass as soft as eiderdown.
clouds that looked like silk in tipperary town.
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC