"plinth" poems
Why is there no monument
To Porridge in our land?
It it's good enough to eat,
It's good enough to stand!
On a plinth in London
A statue we should see
Of Porridge made in Scotland
Signed, "Oatmeal, O.B.E."
(By a young dog of three)
11k
.
*Tumbling stones rumble unheard,
a slide that sends gravity shifting,
starting a new path through time,
the butterfly effect begins shifting.*
i.
The ancient track
is solid beneath her feet,
though she has walked
between the stars.
She knows not the place
but has been there before,
And the trail wends its way
through forest dense and dark
to a hags tooth mound
and the Tomb of Travellers,
upon the stone door
an inscription, a warning.
'Prepare to go everywhere.
Prepare to go nowhere'
ii.
*“Let time take me wither it will,
be it fluid or be it still”.*
iii.
The slow grating of stone on stone
as the door swings open,
light penetrating the gloom,
and the Tomb reveals its treasures.
She enters with reverence
and moves to a vacant plinth,
a marbled seat warm and empty,
her place for the connection ritual.
iv.
A mix of herbs into a secret potion,
preparing herself to swim Time's ocean,
clear cool water to bathe her skin,
awaiting the pendulum of life to swing.
The symbols in her third eye complete,
she eases so gently into her travel seat,
bringing the brew to her expectant lips,
a bitter taste as over her tongue it slips.
v.
Oh gently rock her mind to sleep,
just one last barrier for her to leap,
through Times gate to other places,
as the drug through her mind races.
vi.
A small squat figure emerges
in a midnight blue hooded robe,
Grimly the Guardian of the Gate,
carrying careful an ancient globe.
And her eyes glow with wonder
as she receives the Seers Sphere,
cloudy with the hue of pearl,
its significance is so crystal clear.
vii.
She places it in a depression
in the arm of the marbled chair,
settles herself and closes her eyes,
letting her mind drift on the air.
The connection ritual reaching ******
acceptance or rejection time is near.
Will the bond form betwixt them?
She places her hand on the Seers Sphere …
© Pagan Paul (30/09/18)
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 6:04 AM UTC
Train spotted on ancient rail tracks
Mucks and grants on submerged pasts
Copper and ***** metal poles point
Upwards in heaven above the panelled tops
Price all the intentional conditioning
A paradise of self sufficiency
A dew of ranting , the metal raiding
Price the substitutional compressions
A timber frame of tunnels
The heightened temperature
Price and tag her beautiful mind
An attachment of glorified plinth
The punch of the chaotic medals
Pride and rearrange her plentiful plight
Show all her cast frame in crimson and greys
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 8:57 AM UTC
From within a blackened heart
spawns madnesses twisted Invictus,
a severed head sat atop a plinth, filled
with decaying thoughts of cyanide and citrus,
completely crazy, inverted, perverted,
infected with an insanity that dances from the eyes -
pouting lips tempestuous and alluring
from the tip of a tongue he sews insidious lies,
roosting upon the bleeding emotions of others
a vile disassociation sanity can't pertain,
charred lips from suckling the ******* of Hell
the back-broke miracle nature refuses to explain,
exhaling noxious fumes, a pyro-manic incense,
one soul re-arranged, deranged and blisteringly intense;
so much so, it disgusts me beyond words -
so kick the rotten apple,
watch the maggots writhe within thou sour curds.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 5:56 PM UTC
Poetry is not frozen.............
Still surged in poetry
A stream stemming from the crux
An energetic reflection
An external of internalized intuitions
The flow of the words
Attuned and harmonized
Umpteen snow, melodic tunes
Visualized dreams mending arts
A bursting imagination
A word behind the beats
A free energy of octaves
Pulses of natural architecture
HP our home of anonymities
Acquainted monikers broadcast
Poetry strum through the universe
The singular tones attached
Poetry a scaffold of true expression
A design encoded to amuse
The beauty silhouette on plinth
Hollowed ice with steaming warmth
Poetry the distributed condenser
Sliding from 126hz to 136hz
The domineering kingship
Posing the echoes in words
Keep going everyone at HP, you are all beautiful!Lets the words dance
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 12:24 PM UTC
terrible machines slipstream the extreme in-between where they grind the invalid star heaps into dust
there, they spike the lion's paw of life's Sphinx, methinks it winks at God's Riddle, and twiddles a thumb of some god, in a sky pod of dead people, hording jasmine and madness and pancakes, upon the everlasting Maybach sedan with the chrome piping and the platinum plinth, regal in ice and fire !
what aspires must be crushed into tiny little else. into neutrinos of speculation in the non rational abode of our most holy joke. the spun spoke, in a wheel of cold lotus. we know this is not a dream without motive. we know this because we notice, know this because it's flawless, and flawless reveals a mind of terrible machines that slipstream the extreme in- between where they grind the invalid star heaps, into dust ! they might spike the lion's claw of Life's sphinx, where it thinks that most people are dead inside, that might can take a joke if joke is told in a void baritone with Gamelan Bells of Unbearable Revelation, the revery of a Greek nose on the face of a broken clock.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 2:49 AM UTC
Upon this rainy day
I stand on a boggy bed
Alone, untouched, unscathed
All to clear my head
For if I return I am hurt
And if I run I am without
This day of wet and murk
Is the best without a doubt
My thoughts are washed away
Onto this muddy plinth
I want to run and play
But I'm cursed, stuck and skint
And now I must return
And recall the deep, dark blue
I cannot help but burn
For I cannot escape from you
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 7:09 AM UTC
This is just a reflection of a reflection,
nothing more
than a mirror watching
a reflection pool
as it ripples in the wind,
the lone grand path
to the statue at the end.
If we could, but
walk on water we would reach
this marble plinth
and read in its lines,
in its form,
what it means to be human;
a secret we long to learn fully.
As it is we content ourselves with this-
the reflection of a reflection.
Today the water ripples;
pushed by the winds not found yesterday,
and in each small wave
the reflection of a reflection
dances and glitters, showing us
one new piece of the plinth we long to see;
taunting us with beauty,
filling us with peace.
Each new day brings a new
reflection of a reflection
giving us hope to find the subtle meaning
and youthful grace we knew so long ago-
but that is lost to us.
We leapt for knowledge
and forgot the ways to walk on water,
so now we watch and write about
our reflection of a reflection.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 3:03 AM UTC
Sleep.
The vast world of dreams, leaden as oceans deep.
In the depths we find our dear prince, but this time—dreamless—in a place of ether and temporal energy.
Woven throughout a nebula are paths of light leading to distant gates and far off doorways.
Plinths of stone floating about… Orbiting…
On one such path our prince finds himself, his means of arrival… not remembered.
If this is not a dream, then how can I be drawing breath? Where am I?
The luminous pink and blue gasses impart nothing. The twinkling dust scattered all around only twinkles.
This place is beautiful… and has such strong magic, on a scale I have not seen before.
Calypso looks to the path on which he stands. Made of energy, it winds, curves, dips, rises, and connects with many others. A few end at what appear to be large doorways… portals…
He starts to walk down the path.
With barely three steps taken, Calypso senses something… a slight breeze… he stops and turns to see a storm.
A massive squall line of dark rolling clouds with sporadic flashes of light emanating from within.
Thunder, ominous.
What brought that about?
No sooner had the question formed in his mind than he realized the speed at which the storm was traveling. In a mere minute, it seemed to have moved a mile closer; another minute and he will be in its clutches.
Tracing geometric patterns in the air with his hands and using words of enchantment, Calypso creates a sphere of magical energy around himself.
The storm, an unstoppable force of magic and nature, consumes the prince.
The shield, conjured by one of the most powerful sorcerers, holds.
There is darkness…
The clouds move around Calypso’s magic sphere, lightning flashes nearby and everything is lit for an instant. A moment passes, and the hairs on the back of his neck start to tingle…
And a massive bolt of lightning connects with his shield, turning its blue hue to fiery orange—and another arcs into the path close by—Calypso, eyes closed, is thrown from the path by the shockwave.
Through space, the prince flies…
On stone, does he land…
His shield, gone.
The hungry wind starts sweeping him from the plinth—lightning flashes—he finds a hold and grips the stone with all of his strength.
But such is the strength of the wind… Is this it, then?
And in an instant, the storm passes, the wind moves on…
Silence.
Calypso pulls his battered body to the middle of the floating stone and stands. His wonder, greater than anything he had felt before. Moments pass… he senses something…
A slight breeze…
He turns and looks.
Out in the distance, in the void between the stars… a silver sail.
Jun 19, 2018
Jun 19, 2018 at 5:17 PM UTC
bronze statues sit along the fence
singing through multi-coloured-
feathers and beautiful beaks
they mimic others song putting-
a twist of their own into the mix
they take off from their plinth
massed air acrobatics in sync
one bird with a thousand wings
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 1:51 PM UTC
The crucible was a battle
fought by two sinners
both likely to sell the other out
or to shoot one another.
One wore a necklace
of tight inlaid shininess and red.
It was laced with a satin bow
and imbedded with an insignificant little ruby
tied around her neck,
her lovely ringlets hid in the sunshine.
She knew her life was sacred.
Mostly she was right,
but christened in her own right,
it was never suggested to her
that there was any other way around.
The darker side was originally ambivalent
to the nature
of the afflicted golden ringlets.
Thrashing and fighting it,
he, the darkness,
was finally struck with love.
The ambivalent subsided beneath
the imaginary plinth he prayed at,
and there he prayed.
Retorted only through silence as most gods do,
God responded.
Each time the ambivalent shook
and chattered his teeth
as his fears were becoming
all so real.
Waiting to hear a sound
And nothing was there.
He understood the emptiness.
He was truly suffering,
but ultimately obliged to the goodness
of every single perfect ringlet
that made up the woman’s hair.
He knew the repercussions
of going on in other fashions,
and chose instead to end it there
before he had her locked in all their passions.
Aug 21, 2015
Aug 21, 2015 at 9:10 PM UTC
About a year has passed. I've returned to the place of the battle,
to its birds that have learned their unfolding of wings
from a subtle
lift of a surprised eyebrow, or perhaps from a razor blade
- wings, now the shade of early twilight, now of state
bad blood.
Now the place is abuzz with trading
in your ankles's remnants, bronzes
of sunburnt breastplates, dying laughter, bruises,
rumors of fresh reserves, memories of high treason,
laundered banners with imprints of the many
who since have risen.
All's overgrown with people. A ruin's a rather stubborn
architectural style. And the hearts's distinction
from a pitch-black cavern
isn't that great; not great enough to fear
that we may collide again like blind eggs somewhere.
At sunrise, when nobody stares at one's face, I often,
set out on foot to a monument cast in molten
lengthy bad dreams. And it says on the plinth "commander
in chief." But it reads "in grief," or "in brief,"
or "in going under."
Joseph Brodsky
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 6:52 PM UTC
"horrible bird"
she called it
telling of how
she had watched
a crow pluck
and pry at
its weakened prey
while perched upon
the bird bath
outside her window
at the garden's edge
despite this sternest
of lessons
nature at its most fickle
she still sits
in her comfy chair
looking out
over a bank of flowers
buoyant in bloom
enjoying the sight
of wagtail
bunting and finch
alighting on the stone plinth
pompous and preening
refreshing themselves
admiring the plumage
of their reflection
before returning once more
to wing and wind
Jul 4, 2023
Jul 4, 2023 at 8:08 AM UTC
Of beige gaze.
Premonition in the river cast passing.
Would those trees looming
uncertain by gravity
fall on us?
The effort tried in setting
oar’s agility,
so as not to
Hit the sides,
For my own persistence
And calm,
willed mistakes is.
As.
Calm.
Demeanour.
Wills.
In steel.
As bliss.
Bliss such of slipping
out of boat’s grasp
to that of illusionary time,
Out of speech’s hold,
Tenfold,
From how summer moulds.
Head out,
it,
I will
to lying in river’s sole
fine line of freeze,
Who holds dear the mute,
those who feign not appurtenance
of this world,
As the sail companion’s
left to thinking.
Though oars may hit the shore
Lungs in silver lining stay aboard.
Face backwards.
And the bottom separating
River and Boat
will pretend its existence
No more.
I walk
and my laudability
can’t be taken
Off.
As a current like I
Runs air-tight bubbles.
/And the sounding:
SHeeSH | CLing |LiNK |
SHeer | CRinge | PLinTH |.
FLOW, mOUld me SOre/
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020 at 4:33 PM UTC
surge
into the plinth
of your
monument.
i
will catch you.
my hands are like all things -
eager to please your
marble nape.
in recline
you hoist heavens.
in love's
shape.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 2:54 PM UTC
The comments of the ocean
Blend nicely with the brush
Of tipper topper dinky dinghies
That paddle all a hush
Ships sailing on the summer current
Keels are black and leery
With barnacles and treasures trawled at sea
They nose ahead worn and weary
I sigh a little on the plinth of my palm
Propped nicely 'gainst the ivory table
And clink ****** cups, you know
Those little things that make you remember
Shame? Not me. When I watch the birds
They hover without shame
Boasting of the clouds they've visited
And castles up high they are welcome to
Take, take, take the spring breeze that simmers in
I couldn't feel the grace of disgust
I couldn't, I'm too happy
With salt ground tea and seemly company.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 4:58 AM UTC
A whole new light means
your spectrum rests indeterminate
silence alone cannot disguise
the sense of foreboding,
darkness parades,
platitudes never vivid
a plinth to past glories
shorn whose rueful possibilities
shuns new growth.
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
They placed my love inside Pandora’s Box.
The box they placed atop a golden plinth.
The plinth inside an empty room was locked.
The room was hidden in a labyrinth.
They built a palace on a desert dune
And sunk it underneath the ocean spray.
The truth behind the myth forgotten soon:
Atlantis: built to hide my love away.
Encased the myth inside a grain of sand
And left upon a lost pacific beach.
I feel the sapphire water in my hand
And dream about my love, far out of reach.
Awakening, my lonely body lies.
Brush the sand out of my weary eyes.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 9:51 AM UTC
There’s a sway to the way you move
darling, like pieces falling into puzzled
places, a song in your hips and a soul in your
breast, in your chest, on your
mind;
Let the color roll on out of you, like the
waves that emptied you at home, like the
flare of your skirt and laugh in your
throat, like the vibration of your ribs when you
sing;
Your clothes are just as much skin as they are
salvation, as they are an invitation, incantation,
invocation, of all the ways you lift your body towards
the sun; towards the sky;
To the fairest;
To the wave of your body, to the pieces you’re
missing, to the way you love like motion is
emotion, like freedom is a right, like there is
nothing you can’t do while your heart is still
beating;
To your confidence, your eloquence, the way your
eyelashes fall against your cheeks, how you make
love like a thunderstorm, drink tea like
meditation, dance like honey, laugh like spring is
coming;
To the one who lives and flows and
sings, the one who wears flowers in her
hair, the one who speaks of the end like it’s
the beginning and never learned how to
stop;
Raise a glass;
Break the plinth;
You need no apple to prove your worth.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 12:01 AM UTC
The land was veiled
and silence exultant -
p e r m e a t e d only by
sporadic
bird
calls
resonating from deep within the frozen forest
where life had retreated,
aghast by the glacial wind.
Cowering together,
dwellings shivered
ephemeral oak structures
bowed beneath
the freshly shorn lamb’s wool that enveloped all,
hastening,
the shearer continued.
You left this night,
without a whisper
of regret
across the interminable,
n u a i g furrows
u d l t n
that ridicule your lifeless,
even features - pitiless,
your sodden soles penetrated the ****** snow.
Impervious to such inclemency
I traipse deep into the thicket,
reminded of how earlier
I collected from this q u i v e r i n g coppice,
no more, no less
than my meagre allowance dictates.
Your stride is familiar,
for it was once mine
with metronomic ease I trace you,
further
further
further
traversing a promontory, I see you,
stood on a limestone plinth
overlooking
shimmering pasture below.
You turn; we face,
unwavering symmetry|
as stained crystals fall red with affliction
caressing the firmament I lace your name with my finger
indomitable,
no more.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 10:54 PM UTC
So, this is
sadness...is it?
Everything & Nothing
at the one and the same time.
Simultaneously even.
Grief: smells like
Loss.
But, then. . .
Loss: smells like
Grief.
Anger tastes like
aghhhhhhhhhh!!
biting the tip of
one's tongue.
Blood flecked
across front teeth.
You:
are present
only by
your
absence.
Your absence much much
more realer than
your presence.
Time: un-picks me...
. . . un-stitches me
& I fall
apart at the seams.
"Happy Valentine's Day!"
someone says.
DO'NT...make me...laugh.
I, "Bah, Humbug it!"
getting my festivities
in a twist.
It was the worst of times..
it is...the worst of times.
I have become
the statue of
mine own un-
-happiness.
I cry pigeon ****
tears
as lovers kiss
beneath my plinth.
"CLINKKLANKCLINK!"
the ghost of you
returning to haunt
me in cliché
the memories of Times
Past.
"Mwaaah...humbug!"
we exchange the one humbug
with a kiss and a kiss
until the kiss
resolves it
dissolves it.
"No...Nooooo more Memory
no more!"
I, the very Scrooge
of Love.
The early Spring air
decorating itself with
the laughter of children.
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 11:45 AM UTC
The Industrialist
When the shipping tycoon
in my hometown, died they
dipped him (Best suit and shoes)
in liquid plastic and
when dry they put him on a towering plinth
so he could
watch over us for all time.
Birds took a great interest in
the statue and soon covered in green goo
it was high up in the air and difficult to clean
birds were declared illegal immigrants
and shot dead.
A night bird, (perhaps an owl),
pecked holes in the statue’s
shoes, the body inside, now slime,
ran down the plinth into
the drain and down a gutter,
the plastic casing imploded and
hung like a ****** in a window sill
of a house scandalized
by unproven rumours.
Since seedy facts about the tycoon’s
shady dealings and ****** custom
********** had since came to light –
as foam in a sewer-
no new statue was made.
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 11:12 AM UTC
As many men sweat and groan
with heavy stones on ropes to pull
the pyramid grows and grows
like a small child growing up
The man in charge watches on
whip in his clenched fist
his dark eyes look over the work
his ears alert for rebellion
The pharaoh sits in his palace
unaware of the troubles of his slaves
drinking fine palm wine
from a large golden chalice
The sphinx lies on its plinth
like the king of beasts taking a rest
demanding respect from all
its large yellow form
casting spooky shadows on the sand
as the sun rises up over the horizon
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
You would have said, seeing the thoughtful reflection of his eye, that he had already...been through the revolutionary apocalypse.
I live in fear that I will die and meet him;
Liberty’s marble lover who once proudly proclaimed that
the nineteenth century was great, but the twentieth century will be happy.
I fear that I will meet him,
that he will ask if he was right with eager breath and waiting smile
and reach behind my eyes to scour my memory for the world he left behind,
for the happiness he prophesied from his makeshift plinth.
I fear that those burning eyes will dull with the aroma of burning flesh,
with the din of anguish and horror,
with the cold fingers of disillusion and resignation that pushed themselves into the minds of those still living,
with the happiness that he foretold overshadowed by the horrors our age has cloaked itself in.
I fear that I will have to apologise (or worse, that I will be able to say nothing)
I fear the downturn of that haughty lip
I fear the cracking of marble
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 8:44 AM UTC
There’s an angel down in my garden plot
But she’s overgrown with weeds,
She looms up out of the sassafras
Set back in among the trees.
I don’t know how long she’s stood out there
But her wings are green with moss,
And her tired face is a study in grace,
Reflecting a sense of loss.
‘Your flesh was an alabaster white
But it’s almost faded to grey,
You’re weather-worn, and you look forlorn
As if you’ve been cast away.
The days when you were a centrepiece
Of a garden, laid and fine,
Have now passed on, with the garden gone
But I’ve found you now, you’re mine.’
‘I promise I’ll clear the weeds away,
I’ll scrub the moss from your wings,
I’ll light that tender smile on your face
With the glow a spotlight brings,
I’ll bring you back to the glory you
Reflect from heaven’s spell,
And people will come adoring you
When I put in a wishing well.’
‘A wishing well for your hopes and dreams
And the hopes and dreams of them,
They’ll touch your gown and they’ll toss a coin
When they leave, they’ll wish you well.
I’ll sleep with you looking over me
And dream of the King of Kings,
And see his crown as he’s looking down
We’ll see what the future brings!’
I worked to see my promises kept
‘Til the angel gleamed and shone,
But one day there in the garden wept
For the angel there had gone.
She’d fluttered off from her plinth one night
With her feathered wings reborn,
And through my tears, and despite my fears
I rejoiced at the Crimson Dawn!
David Lewis Paget
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 8:44 PM UTC