"porches" poems
The dogs chasing the late autumn leaves
Fluttering down the lane way
The sound of the train as it passes by
Peaceful afternoon walk
The cottage walls and porches
Flourish of colour
Enwreathed with ivy green
Bellflowers, hollyhocks, hydrangea
Scents of lavender and sage
Evoke
Memories of childhood days
Visiting grandparents cottages
One in the Irish Wicklow mountains
The other in the suburbs of Athens city
The free flowing sound of the river
Smoke billowing from chimneys
The cottages have no pretense or grandeur
Just a sanctuary of comfort in the silence of the lane
Reaching the darkest corner of the soul
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
*hints of auburn drift creating a soft cadence against the autumn wind
almost heard in lieu 'tis felt somehow awakening souls buried long ago
giving birth to falling crimson leaves tinged with maroon and gold
abandoned dusty roads transform under enchanting spells cast by fall
burnt orange pumpkins standing solitary on wooden porches threaten to reveal
hidden secrets held by dusk’s luscious cinnamon seasoned air
once fulgent sunflowers begin to slumber softly beneath the harvest moon
whilst autumn’s trance brushes all it touches with honey colored hues
i stand pensive as an amber leaf gently twirling falls to the ground
bewitched by thine supernatural powers; thine gifted artist’s hand
who with one stroke turns to butter amber all that once was forest green
and imbues my soul with thine exalted essence forever ripening
©2016janetaylor
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 2:15 PM UTC
I'm trying to meet new people and everything in between.
I like to get drunk on patios, porches, tailgates, and float trips, and any outdoor scenario.
I have a definite weakness for all things sweet.
Pipeline rig welder in the making.
Ask me, voted most likely to succeed in highschool.
I watch too much netflix and enjoy crying over Frank Ocean.
I am going to sue the **** out of you.
I'm a guy that sometimes carries a pocket thesaurus.
Socially conscious dude who probably drinks too much.
Amateur chef. Banjo Jedi.
New to this Midwest life.
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 3:19 AM UTC
A few things for themselves,
Convolvulus and coral,
Buzzards and live-moss,
Tiestas from the keys,
A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.
The dreadful sundry of this world,
The Cuban, Polodowsky,
The Mexican women,
The ***** undertaker
Killing the time between corpses
Fishing for crayfish...
****** of boorish births,
Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas,
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting,
Insatiable,
When you might sit,
A scholar of darkness,
Sequestered over the sea,
Wearing a clear tiara
Of red and blue and red,
Sparkling, solitary, still,
In the high sea-shadow.
Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover--
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.
4.5k
There were four pines,
Straight, that branched
Out over the hedge
With holes.
High beside
The cement goldfish pond
They stood, near the fence
And alleyway.
From our rows
Of potatoes,
And needed weedings,
A hedge ran across
The back, connecting
The Tehtercotts and Taylors;
We worked the garden
Beneath the line
Of drying clothes,
Throughout our summers,
Beneath the shade,
And the intermitent shadow.
***** blades heeled
Into mounds,
We five posed
For this poem
Half a century ago.
Over the hedge
Carriages and bikes
Rolled between houses
With porches,
And patios,
Leading to lawns.
Near Kevin's *****
A red and white rubber ball
Had landed,
From beyond the hedge.
He turned it over
With a shovel of dirt,
And broke the sod
With his blade.
He was distracted,
Singing us a Beatles song.
But it wouldn't have mattered.
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 10:43 PM UTC
BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.
Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the cornet staccato and the tuba oompa, gigglers, God knows, gigglers daffy with life's razzle dazzle.
Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor-a giggler, God knows, a giggler-and the summer-white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.
The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the story.
3.9k
Quietly the shadows grew one into another as the day withdrew
softly from the hollows of the trees until at last it stood
far away. The night crept up the lawns and rested
on the porches and peered into the windows.
The night came through the screens with the easy Summer breeze
and made us idle with its foreign song, chords of gray,
melancholy dissonance, its song that makes an end of songs.
Then we wanted nothing of the stuff of life however dear.
Yes, it pried the pens and hammers from our hands and wrought
with them nothing. It took our many conquests and made
one of them, shared by great and small alike that one ambition -
sleep. We were turned like strings around our newel posts.
We climbed the stairs and darkness followed, and darkness waited
while we bared, and darkness swallowed our last light.
We lost possession of our world tonight, sold it for a song,
rid of it as long as we could sleep.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 11:37 PM UTC
Summer would be the sunflowers seemingly blooming from beneath telephone poles as a reminder that love can travel upon the wires connecting long-distance lovers, the ropes that cling to trees as though reuniting after a twelve month absence as they bear the weight of two bodies more entangled in each other than the pattern of the hammock that they lie upon, the ice cubes that float atop the glass of sweet tea stealing quick kisses each time the glass is lifted as they melt together beneath the heat.
Fall would be the leaves clinging to the tree limbs whispering secrets to each other as they flutter in the wind and change color according to the lovers that will one day float to the ground beside them, a calm pond reflecting former versions of couples who have always desired to know each other before their time of acquaintance only to realize they never existed until the day that they met, the stone path that weaves through a graveyard that has felt the light footsteps of paired souls wandering the grounds during midnight strolls.
Winter would be the snowflake drifting in the wind quickly memorizing the patterns of each familiar one it passes in an effort to reunite with its match made in the heaven from which it has fallen, the steaming cup of tea that collects condensation in the hands of lovers who find solace in sitting upon their front porches when it's freezing, the parallel lines of sleds that have etched temporary tracks in the land as representations of the distance that once separated those who created them (but does no longer).
Spring would be the first sprout of the season persevering through the darkness of the soil and finally pushing through the light at the end to feel the warmth of the sun upon it, a bridge the connects flower-covered hills that houses the memory of two lovers who reunited after being apart for the winter, the daisy that he planted beneath her chest the night that he told her he loved her and promised to always water it.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 6:38 PM UTC
Rows of starched green and yellow paisley feather stalks
Marching in ordered lines along the road to 57 Eldon Way
Hot dogs and char burgers charge the air with yesterday's homecoming
Buds of moxie memories tipping long ears to big blue
Listening to the chickadees vocal pecking at kernels from the past
Morsels fall to the dirt signal life again for those willing to root
Pulled magpies to lines spy intimate joy-scattered seed below
Promising fortunes creased by hourglasses settled sand
White washed porches with rose printed borders
Nestle a "his and her" swing vantage over familiar fields
Imagined better-time scenes from selfie soaked movies
More real than all the forgotten stones ever stepped upon
Sweet tea sugar fills tall glasses of yarn spun dreams
Glory red and navy rippling a windy beat
To the clang of their steal pole clasp
Dance
Swing with them and recall a time of slower horizons
Of richer baskets
Of brighter springs
Of longer summers
Take a dip in the swimming hole
Naked, together, and happy
© 2019 MJL
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 7:43 PM UTC
Our houses, spitting-distance close
Feet propped on railing
cold beer with fresh lime
watching robins flung in flocks
to the failing of August
Too close-- Really?
John, on his cell
is fu_king the world again
from his garage
Why not-- squeeze in pool or a dog
Lawn mowers and **** whips tune in to whine
late Friday afternoon 'bout dinner time
Clinking silver, scrapes of plates
Running water for suds
through open windows to the thunk of pots
Doors bang behind on pathway to garbage
or joint in the woods
wafting over all
wordless squeals of delight from autistic child
Meanwhile, the odor of nail polish removes
all doubts of--
--Gawd!
lodging low and toxic
as the sun dissolves orange
in its acetone setting
Kids playing Man Hunt as darkness falls
Leaping hedges, slamming gates
No yards can contain these kinetics
restless legs, furtive minds
Muttering wind chimes
from four different porches
above the drone of highway
a half mile yawns
Pieces of talk
flipping the crickets
over--
Why or who or at what time?
Other-worldly glow from The Mall
dims stars
outlines mountains
brightens the horizon behind
Mosquitoes coming in for a landing
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 5:20 PM UTC
Is it my priestly duty
to be denied?
love—time and all else, at all cost!
while he went home alone to watch a movie?
Another victim
sacrificed
having squandered all my pieces in his game?
Trudging home
along the river
slow, in snow
I parse my losses
At the outskirts of a homeless camp
I pause below a viaduct
hauling passion by a leash
warming hands
avoiding hovel-eyes
Flames flicker on our faces
receiving absolution over embers
of a burning embrace
There trace
in glowing holocaust of skids
in human bleatings and crumblings
our smoke rises— pure obscure
Appease with boozy-blur
the icy, stinging God of winter stars...
G’nights inaudible as blessing
Am I derelict enough to be worthy?
Fallen far enough?
from the porches of prosperity?
to escape it all?
That wedding white
the newborn’s head
that numbing denial of decay?
Am I depraved enough to make it?
to the pages of your tragedy— minus poetry?
But the angel said
“The poetry’s more!”
Than leaving me—beyond you
...in the shambles of my words
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 10:16 PM UTC
As rain beats down on canvas,
I squeeze my face through the zip.
The clouds are swelling and angry;
The wind hits my cheeks like a whip.
I retreat to the core of my tent
And trip on the wellies inside.
Still covered in last year's mud,
These purple boots fill my mind.
I am fond of my waterproof shoes.
I ponder their rubbery struggles:
Abandoned for most of the year,
But mighty when dealing with puddles.
The water rises and enters,
It covers my groundsheet in mud,
But I've got wellington armour
To conquer the enemy flood.
I must learn to rely on my wellies,
When storm clouds rumble and growl.
I have come to a happy conclusion:
My wellies will not let me drown.
I squeeze through the zip of my tent
And plant my feet in the slime.
I am met by a brave fellow camper
Wearing wellies the colour of mine.
There are porches all over the country
With lonesome wellies inside.
If ever a storm is a-brewing,
Put them on, take it all in your stride.
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
So desolate, I walked onward
An expanse of sand running mile after mile
In the distance the sound of thunder
Then as if a mirage at sea a village of ramshackle homes
Single story on a sandbank all with gardens of the strangest design
A flea farm, gooseberry bushes and butterflies in net cages
Children playing, the voices of grandparents
The sea now lapping at my heels and between their twisted porches, where on earth could I be
In reality?
For I no longer walked the earth
The thunder was the howitzers shelling the beach
The vilage, that of my childhood
For my mind in its last throws had given me a thought of memory, that of childhood and family that of loving not war
The sea and sand being of beauty
Now limbless, face down on a Normandy beach drowning.
Then darkness
Silence
Peace
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 8:09 PM UTC
Can we believe -- by an effort
comfort our hearts:
it is not waste all this,
not placed here in disgust,
street after street,
each patterned alike,
no grace to lighten
a single house of the hundred
crowded into one garden-space.
Crowded -- can we believe,
not in utter disgust,
in ironical play --
but the maker of cities grew faint
with the beauty of temple
and space before temple,
arch upon perfect arch,
of pillars and corridors that led out
to strange court-yards and porches
where sun-light stamped
hyacinth-shadows
black on the pavement.
That the maker of cities grew faint
with the splendour of palaces,
paused while the incense-flowers
from the incense-trees
dropped on the marble-walk,
thought anew, fashioned this --
street after street alike.
For alas,
he had crowded the city so full
that men could not grasp beauty,
beauty was over them,
through them, about them,
no crevice unpacked with the honey,
rare, measureless.
So he built a new city,
ah can we believe, not ironically
but for new splendour
constructed new people
to lift through slow growth
to a beauty unrivalled yet --
and created new cells,
hideous first, hideous now --
spread larve across them,
not honey but seething life.
And in these dark cells,
packed street after street,
souls live, hideous yet --
O disfigured, defaced,
with no trace of the beauty
men once held so light.
Can we think a few old cells
were left -- we are left --
grains of honey,
old dust of stray pollen
dull on our torn wings,
we are left to recall the old streets?
Is our task the less sweet
that the larve still sleep in their cells?
Or crawl out to attack our frail strength:
You are useless. We live.
We await great events.
We are spread through this earth.
We protect our strong race.
You are useless.
Your cell takes the place
of our young future strength.
Though they sleep or wake to torment
and wish to displace our old cells --
thin rare gold --
that their larve grow fat --
is our task the less sweet?
Though we wander about,
find no honey of flowers in this waste,
is our task the less sweet --
who recall the old splendour,
await the new beauty of cities?
The city is peopled
with spirits, not ghosts, O my love:
Though they crowded between
and usurped the kiss of my mouth
their breath was your gift,
their beauty, your life.
2.9k
The wind is whistling through my cracked windows and I'm trying to sing along because I think it might be the song you wrote for me. But now I can't keep up and I'm falling behind because the song was too much, too soon and I wanted it to be longer. I'm completely lost in the music now because I am just a pair of wind chimes among the thousands of others on the back porches of the lovers you've had. You were the wind and I was just simply one more pair of chimes singing your song.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 11:37 PM UTC
Strumming the untuned strings, he stares drunkenly into the setting sun of yesteryears songs, sung of lost dreams and the birthed ambitions of the dark, dark days to be.
Happily, he tears up in the fortunate tragedies, of the reclamation in his dreams, as he seethes out the damnation of his steeds, galloping gallantly through his being.
All seeing, in the finite fleeting when he sings, of strummed dreams to the rhythms of heart beats lost, embossed on the epitaphs of kings.
Sad songs of dreams once had.
Be glad for that, which does not **** you, only to bestow upon you, the gratitude of the weirding ways, in passionate display for us all to play nice.
Shake these dice and jump aboard this bus of wandering poetry, from the porches of poets singing to the sun.
From the morning Moet, to the afternoon beer run.
we sing of dreams
of better things
we blaspheme
and spin the scenes
of our murdered dreams
and just clean the guilt away
I am so awesome as to be devoid of fault.
I am a god that cracks the asphalt.
I am the angel signing the clause, of deserved harm.
I am the indentured servant sounding the alarm, with the charm of a Trojan horse, forced to adhere to the most righteous path.
The first
The last
Laugh of inevitability
Honing in on the ability to capture the longevity of dream warriors, in the lock of predators, in the employ of a senator, from the center of the heart, to impart on you the fear from thieves caught in the plight of those fraught with the graces of an exterminator, exterminating the pro-creators of your world. Soldiers unraveled in the lavished gavels of real criminals drowning in their own subliminal theories of the self imposed heresies of intention.
Free will
A fragile blessing
I cracked, all so long ago, as i gently bestow my belligerence upon your innocence and **** it all away.
I'm the ******* son
Strumming for the only one.
Once.
Before the lore of the storm.
Born of the swoon of a gun.
More than one.
Once.
As the day faded into night, his strumming turned plucking, as he slightly eased from reprise to silence, in the whisper of nights words, easing him into the blur, of sleep.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
THE POLICEMAN buys shoes slow and careful;
the teamster buys gloves slow and careful;
they take care of their feet and hands;
they live on their feet and hands.
The milkman never argues;
he works alone and no one speaks to him;
the city is asleep when he is on the job;
he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day's work;
he climbs two hundred wooden stairways;
two horses are company for him;
he never argues.
The rolling-mill men and the sheet-steel men are brothers of cinders;
they empty cinders out of their shoes after the day's work;
they ask their wives to fix burnt holes in the knees of their trousers;
their necks and ears are covered with a ****
they scour their necks and ears;
they are brothers of cinders.
2.7k
I live in a small town with nice people.
Nice community theater people.
Nice non-swearing churchgoing people.
Nice people who keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.
Nice people who live in ticky tacky houses and sweep their front porches.
Nice people with children who send text messages and drive to nowhere in the middle of the night.
Nice high school teaching, comfortably living people.
Nice mothers-and-fathers people with bright voices and dark eyes.
Nice bored people.
I live in a small town with nice people.
But occasionally they all go momentarily mad.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 2:04 AM UTC
Last night
I tried to forget about my uptight blight.
My friends are timeless
We drive around in Porches
Drink champaign for days
Swim in caves
and talk of old sexcapads
2 cups of vodka--wanna stay the night?
Don't think about the over site.
Early morning
I took off my clothes
He is the neighborhood *****
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
In August, 1977, My wife, Karen, and son Russ, moved back to Texas after eight years of being away. Back to Dallas, Karen's hometown. A house which just happened to be next door to her parents was going up for sale. However, the owners decided to rent it to us, with an offer no sane person could refuse.
Now the neighborhood was a long- established residential area. The majority of the residents, like my in-laws, had been there from its inception, which made the move easier, for we knew most of them. But, there is always one, whose antics over time, become legendary.
Joe, a Scotsman to the nth degree. Every new years eve, at the stroke of midnight, he would appear on his front porch dressed in his kilt, with his bagpipes, heralding in the coming year with supposedly,
"Auld Lang Syne ". At least that's what it was supposed to be, but with bagpipes, how does anyone really know. He didn't stop there; never ceasing to take advantage to publicly play that over-sized vacuum bag, he would often welcome newborn children, puppies, kittens, etc.
The day the moving van arrived, there he was, out on his porch wearing that plaid kilt, bagpipes clutched against his chest. Except, there was an unexpected "twist." After every two or three bars he would stop and yell out, "Stay away from the moors! Stay away from the moors!" Some of the neighbors stepped out on their porches just to see what was going on now. Even the crew unloading the van seemed to enjoy the entertainment and it helped the time seem to go faster.
Within ten days after somewhat settling in to our new place, Karen and I realized that the "moors" of which Joe spoke, actually were the "Moore's" who were our next door neighbors. Needless to say, it was an interesting neighborhood. That could be "another story."
copyright: richard riddle-august 03, 2015
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 4:29 PM UTC
Padre day always felt so gray
Typically too clouded for anything uplifting to say on a personal plane
Nor much of anything for me to really celebrate
Many moving pieces, some removed before "too late"
This month wouldve marked year 8 -
Of revolutions and opportunities to be great. I would've stayed and stumbled into ways to be brave.
*Instead again I sit here and isolate
Called upon a necromancer for a family to raise. He handed me a mirror and said, "Start here today."
I am grateful to be, and honor the planting of seeds from generations prior
But the cold washes over me alone staring at the embers of a life that was a fire.
I wouldn't say that this is all a test
Life is stress when comparing with the rest
Judge self only by your personal progress
Try not to take it personally and trust the process
When this sun sets, there wont be any regrets. Instead whispers in the wind reminding you to keep steps to the beat in your chest
Ive had my talks with suns, moons, and planets in their orbit...in many driveways, backyards, and various porches. Kicking it with night sky, a dark cave, with stars as my torches. These conversations elevate and ultimately nourish. Still, I can only fantasize about how we'd all have flourished. One daydream at a time finding the courage to surface
Jun 18, 2023
Jun 18, 2023 at 5:21 PM UTC
The smell of new rain
permeates the air
the first heavy drops raise little puffs of dust
in the dirt.
Covered porches protect her
from the storm outside
and the dread inside
where benign neglect reigned
ennui and death strained
children’s hearts
threatened to pull apart
the joy sleeping in their wondrous souls
that lived beyond the confines
of the dark brooding grip of family
inside the ancestral home.
Jul 29, 2021
Jul 29, 2021 at 2:28 PM UTC
Mixy-Twixy
Atom-Smasher
Take my brain
I hope it's matter
Break away from all the things we said we'd be
Internally
False pretense
On happenstance
All my socks have holes
Breaking molds
Of wither and tither
I keep your family on standby
Hand-holding lullaby
There was a cake on my doorstep
And a front porch on my brain stem
Again and again
And Asian
And never have I ever
Played a game with this many fingers
Following muffin-tops to your local coffee cart
There's a joke there
Breaking, breaking
Silence retaking
I haven't heard from you in a fortnight
Mind's eye
Zip-tie
Bedroom follies
I hope you get better
As I write letter by letter
And hope that you're not mad
Sad, enraged, but glad
Butt-mad and tired
Fired the liar
Who broke the back of the cat next door
Heart attack on front porches
Cause distress and sores
On the back of the man
Who did nothing but hoard
For more and more and more
God be with us, I do pray
But Mary take my prayers away
Make them better, I ask, I say
And send them to who needs them most
Today
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM UTC
The long white curtain is still hanging on. The baby still
sleeping somewhere in all of that. I don’t mind
a thing. I don’t mind at all. See how slow and good
it can be? He says and points to my gizzard. The one he
insists upon me having. The same one I have given up insisting I don’t.
I’m addicted to the pith and gaff of his arguments,
how stalwartly he rows them down the narrow
passage of our trying not to hurry banter. I curl into the slow
lilt of how he doesn’t mind strolling around inside of promises,
like Burt showing Mary Poppins another chalk Paris. Look! A
riverboat! Lights and parasols. Pretty lovers laughing on the prow.
We’re both still wearing your T-shirt
inside the stewpot dreaming we do between sex. Aprons
and porches, babies and waterfalls.
The kinds of props you bandit from other people’s dreams.
Shorthand for lovers, with an hour to prove they exist.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 7:12 AM UTC