"porter" poems
For my cousin, Chris Goldrick
Lacing my skates
after walking two miles
in girl-strictured delight
Mom's stories of Sonja Henie--
No, not ever
Lacing my skates
with snow-ball pompoms
felt skirt
and nylon tights
Cute little hat with matching scarf
My thighs and fingers
already freezing
icy burn
from miles on foot
to get there
the lake where--
I must get out
I must get OUT!
Knowing what
to expect from my body
the quick-twitch of muscle
Could always sense
specific--
gravity of water
at 22 degrees
Desiring to feel
the motion between ice and steel
Read speed's vibrations through my body
The brain registers relation
to weather's effect
Tell of velocity
possibility of fall
Feel the slash of the blades beneath me
Throw my weight sideways, sudden
to hear that furious hiss
An object in motion tending, dire
to stay in motion
Threatening to stay there
always
in its heights-- of speed
away--
from the crowds of skaters
swirling distant in the lights
Seeking instead
the farthest reaches of Porter Lake
speed and speed and more
to overcome
inertia
of what it is to become
undone
at the outer edges, of humanity
A force
centrifugal unto myself
Avoiding
Pregnant and slow
with years and babes....
The best
must be broken and tamed
of what it takes to stay free
catching the edges with every stride
catching my toe in the quick
180
spray of frost
to the sudden still
Listen to the frigid chill
and the heave of my breath
tumbling into evidence
Gliding
Once
Forever--
on, into darkness
of woods on frozen water
The wildness of it all
So infatuated with flight
so full of grace
I forgot Sonja
The moon rose
from her seat in the treetops
and applauded
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 3:54 PM UTC
This Advent moon shines cold and clear,
These Advent nights are long;
Our lamps have burned year after year,
And still their flame is strong.
"Watchman, what of the night?" we cry,
Heart-sick with hope deferred:
"No speaking signs are in the sky,"
Is still the watchman's word.
The Porter watches at the gate,
The servants watch within;
The watch is long betimes and late,
The prize is slow to win.
"Watchman, what of the night?" but still
His answer sounds the same:
"No daybreak tops the utmost hill,
Nor pale our lamps of flame."
One to another hear them speak,
The patient virgins wise:
"Surely He is not far to seek,"--
"All night we watch and rise."
"The days are evil looking back,
The coming days are dim;
Yet count we not His promise slack,
But watch and wait for Him."
One with another, soul with soul,
They kindle fire from fire:
"Friends watch us who have touched the goal."
"They urge us, come up higher."
"With them shall rest our waysore feet,
With them is built our home,
With Christ." "They sweet, but He most sweet,
Sweeter than honeycomb."
There no more parting, no more pain,
The distant ones brought near,
The lost so long are found again,
Long lost but longer dear:
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
Nor heart conceived that rest,
With them our good things long deferred,
With Jesus Christ our Best.
We weep because the night is long,
We laugh, for day shall rise,
We sing a slow contented song
And knock at Paradise.
Weeping we hold Him fast Who wept
For us,--we hold Him fast;
And will not let Him go except
He bless us first or last.
Weeping we hold Him fast to-night;
We will not let Him go
Till daybreak smite our wearied sight,
And summer smite the snow:
Then figs shall bud, and dove with dove
Shall coo the livelong day;
Then He shall say, "Arise, My love,
My fair one, come away."
18k
There is a frozen lake with a grand piano in the center of it.
There is an older man playing songs from our childhood as we stand around him and sing the words to his music.
The cool breeze is getting cooler and snow is threatening to fall at any second...
But there is soup on the stove and warm couch for us to sit together and lay down.
Drink a glass of wine, raise a glass for all our times.
Smiles, tears, dances and doors slammed.
Children born, parents gone, friends say hello and just as quickly say goodbye...
The old man is tickling the ivory and the ebony keys - songs like brown eyed girl and I guess that's why they call it the blues. He plays Cole Porter and Ira Gershwin tunes too...
We hold hands and I want to take you in my arms and sweep you off your feet, fly away to another world...another time...
But the lake is frozen, the snow is beginning to fall and the soup is on the stove...I can smell it from here...
So say goodbye to the sadness, say goodbye to that old man, playing Fire and Rain...maybe tomorrow we can do this all again.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 2:37 PM UTC
608
Afraid! Of whom am I afraid?
Not Death—for who is He?
The Porter of my Father’s Lodge
As much abasheth me!
Of Life? ’Twere odd I fear [a] thing
That comprehendeth me
In one or two existences—
As Deity decree—
Of Resurrection? Is the East
Afraid to trust the Morn
With her fastidious forehead?
As soon impeach my Crown!
6.1k
Dear Hot Straight Actresses,
Stop playing perfect lesbian characters on TV that cause me to become wet on lonely Thursday nights.
It’s the equivalent of waving double chocolate fudge cake in front of a menstruating woman who has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
To name a few,
Jennifer Beals as Bette Porter on The L Word.
Stop it!
Naya Rivera as the sassy Santana Lopez on Glee.
Stop it!
Angie Harmon as butch goddess Detective Jane Rizzoli on Rizzoli & Isles.
You may be in the closet but you are gay and stop!
And Sara Ramirez and Jessica Capshaw as the married ****** Dr. Cali Torrez and Dr. Arizona Robbins of Grey’s Anatomy.
You…you keep going. You two give me hope.
Hope that someday my insanely high expectations will be met when my hot art collecting, sassy mouthed Doctor with handcuffs in her back pocket jumps from the screen and onto my sweatpants covered lap.
In this crazy assumption that I’ll end up falling out of an apple tree letting gravity push me into the arms of a woman who fixes my broken sense of reality with a amazing great hair and a wedding proposal.
Missing out on the
Hot barista who gives me an extra large when I ask for a small
or the
Budding **** artist who invites me to her galleries only to realize her muse has oddly the same hips as me.
or the
Best friend who is still stuck in the shadows of my closet.
Nope…didn’t see any of those.
I’m too busy watching the **** tube to see what low cut tops they can get away with before they leave the set and back to their husband and 2.5 kids.
All I’m asking is…
…when is it coming out on DVD?
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 7:17 AM UTC
A short direction
To avoid dejection,
By variations
In occupations,
And prolongation
Of relaxation,
And combinations
Of recreations,
And disputation
On the state of the nation
In adaptation
To your station,
By invitations
To friends and relations,
By evitation
Of amputation,
By permutation
In conversation,
And deep reflection
You'll avoid dejection.
Learn well your grammar,
And never stammer,
Write well and neatly,
And sing most sweetly,
Be enterprising,
Love early rising,
Go walk of six miles,
Have ready quick smiles,
With lightsome laughter,
Soft flowing after.
Drink tea, not coffee;
Never eat toffy.
Eat bread with butter.
Once more, don't stutter.
Don't waste your money,
Abstain from honey.
Shut doors behind you,
(Don't slam them, mind you.)
Drink beer, not porter.
Don't enter the water
Till to swim you are able.
Sit close to the table.
Take care of a candle.
Shut a door by the handle,
Don't push with your shoulder
Until you are older.
Lose not a button.
Refuse cold mutton.
Starve your canaries.
Believe in fairies.
If you are able,
Don't have a stable
With any mangers.
Be rude to strangers.
Moral: Behave.
4.9k
There, in the corner, staring at his drink.
The cap juts like a gantry's crossbeam,
Cowling plated forehead and sledgehead jaw.
Speech is clamped in the lips' vice.
That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic-
Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again;
The only Roman collar he tolerates
Smiles all round his sleek pint of porter.
Mosaic imperatives bang home like rivets;
God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
A factory horn will blare the Resurrection.
He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross,
Clearly used to silence and an armchair:
Tonight the wife and children will be quiet
At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.
4.8k
Light spreads darkly downwards from the high
Clusters of lights over empty chairs
That face each other, coloured differently.
Through open doors, the dining-room declares
A larger loneliness of knives and glass
And silence laid like carpet. A porter reads
An unsold evening paper. Hours pass,
And all the salesmen have gone back to Leeds,
Leaving full ashtrays in the Conference Room.
In shoeless corridors, the lights burn. How
Isolated, like a fort, it is -
The headed paper, made for writing home
(If home existed) letters of exile: Now
Night comes on. Waves fold behind villages.
3.8k
The morning mists still haunt the stony street;
The northern summer air is shrill and cold;
And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old,
Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet.
Thro' the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom
A small, strange child--so aged yet so young!--
Her little arm besplinted and beslung,
Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room.
I limp behind, my confidence all gone.
The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on,
And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:
A tragic meanness seems so to environ
These corridors and stairs of stone and iron,
Cold, naked, clean--half-workhouse and half-jail.
3.3k
The party starts at ten to three.
On the second floor,room twenty two
two vicars who had come down from Crewe were wondering just what to wear, to the shindig going on down there.
They collided,both decided to put on crimson frilly frocks,this was not a 'do' for cassocks or for smocks.
Room forty four up on the forth,was Lucy Ann,a double barrelled name of course,a horsey type who came by invite to liven lively up the night.
In number ten slept teacup Ken,who had never once imbibed,the porter was slipped a twenty,but was bribed to keep his big mouth shut, as ties were cut and Ken found Zen in a brandy glass,
and discovered parties were a gas.
The police arrived to room fifty five and found Miss Sterling doing the jive around the severed head of Fred the cook,
poor Fred never had any kind luck.
There is no escape from the party at Lancaster Gate and those who come are those who'll die
but the party is so flamin' good I'll try to sneak in,got to take a peek in room number twenty seven,where it's said,that the lady there can show you several kinds of heaven before you meet your doom.
Got to get in, get a room,check in time expires at noon.
I shall no doubt expire,naked by the fire in
room, one o one.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC
Il était très **** dehors était noir
Comme un maudit soir
Qui allait porter: angoisse et tristesse
Pour une mère soudainement tombée en détresse
Les escadrons de l’obscurité viennent d’exécuter
Son enfant de vingt et une années
Il avait prétendument un couteau en main
Et l’innocence d’un jeune matin
Fatal dans sa pensée. La technologie
Peut, par hasard, améliorer ou détruire la vie
Plusieurs cartouches tirées, le jeune homme est tombé
Criblé de balles réservées pour des condamnés
Les assassins nocturnes ont abattu une autre victime
Ce qui est pire, c’est qu’ils ne vont pas payer pour cet horrible crime
C’est abominable, le noir est souvent injustement ciblé
Le racisme est un cancer qu’on doit éradiquer
La mère est inconsolable
Ses douleurs implacables
Ses larmes intarissables
Et ses peines incommensurables
C’est triste et amer, la mère va enterrer son enfant
C’est drôle, affreux, criminel et méchant
Les malhonnêtes « foliciers » sans remords
Viennent de causer un autre mort
Ils ne connaissent pas les souffrances
Endurées par une mère pour donner naissance
A un bébé en bonne et parfaite santé
Quelle tristesse! Quelle calamité!
C’est une autre tranchée forcée
C’est vraiment déchiré un cœur jadis farci de fierté
Voir une mère pleurer dans une telle condition
Est écœurante pour toute la famille
Et les amis
Qui brûlent dans un enfer imbibé de pénibles émotions
L’ignorance et l’immaturité sont deux plaies
Qui jamais ne sèment ni l’amour, ni la paix
Les pleurs de la mère sont intarissables
Ses douleurs inimaginables
Ses peines incontrôlables
Et la mère inconsolable.
Copyright© March 2011, Hebert Logerie, Tous Droits Réservés
Hebert Logerie est l’auteur de plusieurs recueils de poèmes.
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 11:02 PM UTC
--To W. A.
Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? a porter?--Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
As here you loiter, flowing-gowned
And hugely sashed, with pins a-row
Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,
Demure, inviting--even so,
When merry maids in Miyako
To feel the sweet o' the year began,
And green gardens to overflow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round
Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,
A blue canal the lake's blue bound
Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!
Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow,
I see you turn, with flirted fan,
Against the plum-tree's bloomy snow . . .
I loved you once in old Japan!
Envoy
Dear, 'twas a dozen lives ago;
But that I was a lucky man
The Toyokuni here will show:
I loved you--once--in old Japan.
2.5k
Though frost and snow lock’d from mine eyes
That beauty which without door lies,
Thy gardens, orchards, walks, that so
I might not all thy pleasures know,
Yet, thou within thy gate
Art of thyself so delicate,
So full of native sweets, that bless
Thy roof with inward happiness,
As neither from nor to thy store
Winter takes aught, or spring adds more.
The cold and frozen air had starv’d
Much poor, if not by thee preserv’d,
Whose prayers have made thy table blest
With plenty, far above the rest.
The season hardly did afford
Coarse cates unto thy neighbors’ board,
Yet thou hadst dainties, as the sky
Had only been thy volary;
Or else the birds, fearing the snow
Might to another Deluge grow,
The pheasant, partridge, and the lark
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing ox of himself came
Home to the slaughter, with the lamb,
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering.
The scaly herd more pleasure took,
Bath’d in thy dish, than in the brook;
Water, earth, air, did all conspire
To pay their tributes to thy fire,
Whose cherishing flames themselves divide
Through every room, where they deride
The night, and cold aboard; whilst they,
Like suns within, keep endless day.
Those cheerful beams send forth their light
To all that wander in the night,
And seem to beckon from aloof
The weary pilgrim to thy roof,
Where if, refresh’d, he will away,
He’s faily welcome; or if stay,
Far more; which he shall hearty find
Both from the master and the hind.
The stranger’s welcome each man there
Stamp’d on his cheerful brow doth wear,
Nor doth this welcome or his cheer
Grow less ‘cause he stays longer here;
There’s none observes, much less repines,
How often this man sups or dines.
Thou hast no porter at the door
T’examine or keep back the poor;
Nor locks nor bolts: thy gates have been
Made only to let strangers in;
Untaught to shut, they do not fear
To stand wide open all the year,
Careless who enters, for they know
Thou never didst deserve a foe;
And as for thieves, thy bounty’s such,
They cannot steal, thou giv’st so much.
2.4k
Carrickfergus (1937) - poem by Louis Macneice.
I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams
The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.
The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn mill called it's funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.
The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.
I was the rectors son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.
The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long;
A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge
Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront;
Marching at ease and singing 'Who Killed **** Robin?'
The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.
The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England-
Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;
I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar
be always rationed and that never again
Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags
And my governess not make bandages from moss
And people not have maps above the fireplace
With flags on pins moving across and across-
Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,
Flares across the night,
Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,
A cage across their sight.
I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines
And the soldiers with their guns.
Louis Macneice
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC
The Christmas spirit is here once more
And Hospital decorations are out again
More Doctors that you get in a Tardis
Putting up tinsel around the tree
A pretty sight greets you to come see
How they have decorated the Nurse's Station
Even a pretty hand made cardboard fairy
Adorns atop the little christmas tree
Maybe they should hang up this porter
Suspend me from the ceiling for all
Because I am an amputee, and it would be fun
For all to come and kiss me from under the missing toes
Copyright Chris Smith 11th December 2009
Dec 11, 2009
Dec 11, 2009 at 11:07 PM UTC
1562
Her Losses make our Gains ashamed—
She bore Life’s empty Pack
As gallantly as if the East
Were swinging at her Back.
Life’s empty Pack is heaviest,
As every Porter knows—
In vain to punish Honey—
It only sweeter grows.
2.3k
I arrive in Lima
The sweat-sogged poverty
lumped onto concrete
pushes at my heels
The tight black air
swallows the nakedness
of prostitutes and thieves
Pockets empty like a traveler’s stomach
growling beneath the world of Los Incas
In Cusco
My head throbs in the thin air
with the sound of boys
trying to shine my boots, my sandals
my bare feet
no problemo
women sell fresh papaya and guava
sweaters and trinkets
Hawkers surround me
like a tightly stitched T-shirt
Cusco
The Navel of the Earth
A bulging belly
throbbing
digesting
living
Sunset
I spread my toes
over the evaporated flood waters
of the Rio Urubamba
where it once flowed
from the fingers of Manco Inca
over the fleeing conquistadors
at the top of Ollantaytambo
Momentary brilliance
before you retreated to the jungle
Spain, always gnawing at your heels
It’s a mouth-full-of-coca-leave’s journey
to Macchu Picchu
I enter the dream
spitting wet leaves
on the silence of a dead kingdom
Gasping for air that once filled lungs
of Inca messengers
carrying news of defeat and conquest
over the great Andes
Los Incas Caminos
The cloud-dripped mountains
spread green across my eyes
I see ghosts
a steady move of feet through the depleted air
Porter, takes my backpack
carries it against his brown crusty skin
ancient, sun-baked descendant
of the Earth’s naval
A toothless, painless smile
It must have been different
before we came
with money the color of unpicked rice
Now I hear your belly-groan
Between the perfectly fitted stones
of Sacsayhuaman
My voice bounces circular
off invisible walls
because your magic has survived you
Macchu Picchu
Unknown and majestic
Hidden from blood
from the stink of vultures
No more
Black raven feather
drops on my skull
floats on the shiny gray stone
under my feet
which are wrapped in dried, brown skin
naked, without a heartbeat
It’s past sunrise
the tourist bus has arrived
and the flat shadow of the crowd
blocks the light of the ascending sun
that tries to penetrate
the perfect holes
of a perfect wall
in an imperfect dream
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
An altitude of ale
A barometer of beer
A circulation of champagne
A depression of damassine
An equilibrium of eau de vie
A fractus of fenny
A gust of grappa
A hail of horilka
An isotherm of icewine
A jet stream of jenever
A kilopascal of kirsch
A layer of limoncello
A metamorphism of mead
A nocturnal of nuvo
An overcast of ouzo
A persistence of porter
A reaction of rakia
A storm of sake
A torrent of tequila
An updraft of unicum
A vortex of *****
A winter of whiskey
A disaster of drink
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 10:10 AM UTC
13.Travel Haiku - Harbour Island (Eleuthera, Caribbean)
Pink Sand Beach yoga
on and on I chant with the sea
seeking nirvana read more »
john tiong chunghoo
14.I Am The Beach...
As we walked along the beach, crashing waves
thundered in our ears and a light, salted mist,
dampened our lips. read more »
(brief renderings) Joe Fazio
15.The Power Of The Beach
As we walked along the beach, crashing waves
thundered in our ears and a light, salted mist,
dampened our lips. read more »
(brief renderings) Joe Fazio
16.Under A Blanket Of Stars
As we walked along the beach, crashing waves
thundered in our ears and a light, salted mist,
dampened our lips. read more »
(brief renderings) Joe Fazio
17.Under A Blanket Of Stars...
As we walked along the beach, crashing waves
thundered in our ears and a light, salted mist,
dampened our lips. read more »
(brief renderings) Joe Fazio
18.ON A ROCKY BEACH
read more »
Aldo Kraas
19.Travel Indonesia Haiku - Batam Beach View Resort
Batam Beach View Resort
holding up the sky
the bull horn chalets read more »
john tiong chunghoo
20.On This Beach...
Life is a beach.
There are jellyfish. And sea urchins…the painful bumps along the road that we all encounter in life. On this beach.
In life..and on a beach there is warm water-like times, when we are happy, and have good times and enjoy living. On this beach.
We also have times, like a beach, when we have cold water times; when we are sad, or upset about losing someone or something. On this beach. read more »
Dark Fallout
21.Somewhere
Oh, to be lying,
On a beach,
Somewhere,
With sand in my toes, read more »
Linda Harnett
22.beach
BEACH
On the beach, egrets sleep, peacefully curled together.
Waves roaring and waves wildness wipe on the beach. read more »
Darryl K. Porter
23.HERE
I am here,
Sitting on the beach
Viewing the wave
Rolling up your name read more »
nice pinky
24.Shell in the Beach
a mother tells a story to her son
'there are three men
one of them went to the beach
and found a beautiful shell in the beach read more »
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 9:12 PM UTC
Water of remembrance sprinkled
On the mountain crest of recollection.
Indulgent mussy memory catapulted
Stones of retentiveness into the
Courtyard of events like bricole
Of battles.
Pendulum of reminiscences swinging
On oscillating milage of roads like
Trotting horse with drippage of sweat
And itching foots.
Ghost of reminiscences restlessly
Roaming with carriage of yesteryear.
Final year educatees required
Boardinghouse,
But list of items engorged dear
Mother's treasury
"where do l raise money
to buy oyinbo mattress, Ilori?"
Mind pullulated with weariness.
Intonation of worries.
Cantillation of wants.
Deficiency of measured means.
Oyinbo mattress beyond ladder
Of reach.
Gluttonously waiting to devour
Lesser items,
But rays of compulsion unslammed
The gate of respite.
Lordly arrival warmly welcomed by
The dorm room's porter,
Walking majestically to the bed-space
With the acquired cotton wool and raffia leaves mattress.
Gamut of items passed through the eagle's eyes of the housemaster.
Silver painted pail donated by a neighbour passed through the sentry of inspection,
And got its admission.
Mother's used cloak turned bedsheets
Passed through the rigorous scrutiny.
Newly built portmanteau unlocked and neatly dissected, item by item.
Agazed eyes focused on the cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress.
Expectations rattled mumbling astonishment.
Legs stuck in the mud of mystification.
Telepathic dews covered ocean of thought.
Tranquil silence engulfed vicinity,
Deflating the balloon of hope like a litigant awaiting verdict from the jurist's chambers.
Porter's gesticulating gesture connoted nothingness of demeaning disapproval, perambulating on the hilly terrain of approval.
Akimbo stood l.
Now the verdict!
Molten volcanic magisterial command erupted in a gestapo gesture,
Spudding out from the barytone's baritone voice from the selfsame housemaster,
From the bastion of authority,
And the house generalissimo like a wild brant squalled, matter-of-factly,
"we do not accept bed bugs cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress here".
Entreaties collapsed.
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019 at 1:30 AM UTC
Once, a young fresher was reading the rules, and was more than perplexed at the place where they state
"All undergraduates, if they are Anglicans, must be in chapel each Sunday at eight."
Wracking his brains, he began a small rumour that spread through the town on the weekdays that followed; he
was not an Anglican, nor Nonconformist; his faith and religion was mere Heliolatry.
Saturday evening, our hero retired with a smile on his face and his bin at his door,
only to wake to a thunderous hammering, made by the porter, next morning at four.
Ah, how a little lie, told with great frequency, gains repercussions that no-one expects!
"Dawn's almost here, sir, the Chaplain expects you; go down to Main Court and you'll pay your respects."
Jun 21, 2010
Jun 21, 2010 at 9:24 AM UTC
Next week, I’ll be 61 years
working the same 93 acres.
The furthest field back
and the 2 joining Peter Burke’s
always been meadows.
Since before my time —
today it takes just 4 hours
to cut, bale and wrap.
Dad and the men wouldn’t’ve
half the first headland cut in that length.
I’d go back with Mom,
with tea and sandwiches;
brown bread and something sweet.
No more higher than the handle of the scythe —
I would try to swing.
Nearly took my leg off the first time.
When it was done, all saved
that was my favourite bit.
There’d be a gathering in the house.
Food, porter … the craic.
Someone would pull out a fiddle
or a tin whistle, the women would dance
it was beautiful — meaningful.
Friends, neighbours. Thankful.
The closest thing to expressing our feelings.
And us kids allowed to stay up late,
what a treat; a very rich treat.
I never did grow tall enough
to wield the scythe.
When it was my turn,
machines had been invented.
Lucky I was told I was.
They lightened the work
and lessened the men.
Horse followed horsepower.
Bigger, heavier.
But there was time for tea,
there’s always time for tea.
The scythes rotted;
the horses rotted;
kids flown into the city;
neighbours dead, don’t care or are foreign.
It’s just one man now doing all the work.
One man called John Deere
who has no time for tea.
Sep 29, 2010
Sep 29, 2010 at 5:56 PM UTC
In the hope of grasslands
stands an ancient Baobab tree
somewhere, a village
of dust & dirt, wakes slowly
she ties her shoelaces
an elephant walks past
on the distant horizon
the camera breaks
right at that moment
when she wants to take
a picture to bring home
so she resorts to postcards,
half-written letters
& learning the language
so she could impress them
the hotel porter, a lean boy
of merely twenty-two
watches her
his hunger is written
like lightning in his eyes
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 6:31 PM UTC
I first tried an oyster at a seafood bar in Melbourne,
and it jarred in that far-away place.
Oysters, so intimate, were meant to find me at home,
And they did.
In the crowds of Borough Market,
A barnacled Titan plunged his pickled hand into ice-water,
And presented me with a real beauty;
Lustrous, mother of pearl shell,
And at the centre,
A sea-fairy, glittering,
Living, existing for consumption.
A tickle of tabasco, and down he went,
An ocean in my mouth.
I could have been a mermaid
at Neptune’s banquet;
So briny and life-giving,
My mollusc revelation.
An image for you;
A man and a woman, very much in love
Feast on two dozen at an oyster and porter house,
also at the market.
Glowing in the light of a dripping white candle,
They sit at the corner of the counter,
A perfect white wine clinking in their glasses.
Two years ago, an anniversary oyster-fest,
Look how happy we are…
This is the best table in the house.
Now, if we returned,
We might complain about people pushing past,
And the arrogant city-types, drunk and dropping crab shells,
But…That night, it was just us, though busy, it might have been deserted,
Our eyes and the slide of the oysters down our eager throats
Made promises, later to be kept.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 2:57 PM UTC
Paul Masson.
Hot sauce.
Colgate - old and stale
as puke.
Grease.
Newports.
Former head.
Recovery.
Country dirt.
Pecans.
Cotton.
A black fist held high.
Hope that one day
he'll be able to fit his ex-wives
into a nice,
cordial sentence.
Love.
Real love.
Man love.
Type love that kicks *** when it has to.
Sears cologne,
OG ****
Some Christianity,
but not a lot,
not nauseating
and obnoxious,
more like
quiet
and
almost not there.
More Masson.
More Newports.
Gold fillings;
the Midas Touch
on his tongue;
the ability
to blind you
in the glow of his breath.
Rotten *****
Real rotten.
Rotted to viral nostalgia
because it tastes
like ****
and makes him lick the roof
of his mouth
to get that smell
out,
just to make
room
for it
again.
Chitlins.
Obama's saliva.
Collard greens
with all the vinegar
and red pepper
in Satan's *******
Herman Cain's armpits.
Fear
for
me.
Love
for
me.
Power.
Former riverboat
porter.
The smell of rich white men
that talked about
*******
while he stood
stoically.
Strength
like
you've never
smelled before.
Human.
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 10:16 PM UTC