"propeller" poems
Riding down the rapidly declining slope
on the bright, soft-water day,
I imagine myself as nothing more than an animal
falling down a waterfall into a lake clear and crisp.
The wheels of my bike turn rapidly
like the a propeller of a plane,
just as powerful
and just as dangerous if I fall,
but only to me.
Catching the sea salt breeze
my blonde, sun bleached hair flies as if
it were flying on seagulls wings.
I am a cadmium yellow blur on a painting,
moving much too fast to be captured and depicted accurately.
I ride until the end of my slope this way,
finishing strong with out a hint of regret.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 10:06 AM UTC
Don't ask me why today I bought
That little balsa wood airplane
One like many I had when I was a kid
I want to think that I've grown up
But somewhere inside I never did
I saw it yesterday and I just had to have it
Though I don't know why
So I pulled out a few hard earned dollars
And bought this memory that flys
It has a red propeller
That's powered by a rubber band
And two red wheels attached with wire
To help it safely land
I can't recall how many of these
I've pioleted through the years
I'm sure at least a few or more
Way back in my yesteryears
It amazes me sometimes now that I am older
That the sight of such a little thing
Can bring a forgotten memory back to life
Like a balsa wood airplane
RLB
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 7:18 AM UTC
Blue is not sure where to find the propeller.
The motor boat sent to scotch the shimmer. The waves
break inside a jar, and the little pieces are swept up by the wind and made into mist.
The Jar is shaken, the titanic sinks,
and the seagulls peck at our eyes.
Covered in barnacles, the new-found fish men
wander onto the sand and get coated,
as in cornmeal,
ready to fry.
Infatuated and floundering
they wander
to water again.
Drinking death hand over fist,
they ring themselves out with simply a twist.
The fish flap their fins so forcefully;
trying to
be flying to
a sea called the sky.
With a crumbled-ed crust they say, “motherboat or bust”,
but the navigation of aviation is a compilation of great frustration
for fishes whose function
is on boats, wrapped up
in those silly greatcoats.
Yet they made it, or so they claim, and with only one flounder or flunder who had made a blunder to blame.
If only old skipper had been a bit quicker, he wouldn't have had such a queer story to claim.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
"Memory is more indelible than ink."
—Anita Loos
~
*Europe, after the rain,
the sun lending warmth and comfort.
fringes come into focus.
shadow journal,
fiscal dreams,
becoming ****** lines on a page;
procession bells
for young brides,
veiled in lace.
a touch from her
outstretched hands,
this honeymoon phase
running up the thigh,
the holding quite still until
she smiles for pendulum.
at first light, breakfast in bed,
granting pastel wishes on
boxing night,
then a letting go of the kite string.
new fingers in the medicine bottle,
tiny geometries
inside a house of reciprocal numbers.
paradise in mnemonic children:
cartwheels and handstands,
coloring books of
neglected spaces,
future ruins.
one hundred violins
play to isles of ignorance,
stray embers settle
along the solemn Chemin De Fer (railway).
a catalogue of afternoons
on the bike path
thru propeller seeds and dragonflies.
arriving in the haloed flesh:
skin dive,
the place of couloir descent;
**** beach,
the place of odd glances;
gun chamber,
the room of secondary light;
all horizon variations.
an algebra of darkness,
this dense Roman twilight,
their exiles unreflected
in blind lanterns.
our brightness will become
refracting silhouettes,
a broken yolk in the incendiary sky.*
~
Aug 29, 2022
Aug 29, 2022 at 12:38 PM UTC
They're dividing up my grandmother's jewelry,
An act that feels more final than death.
I like to think she rests easy as she watches
The women she loves wear what was once hers.
They ask me to choose my top 3 pieces,
And how do I?
How do I choose which pieces of her I want to wear on my body
Like armor, like memories of made of gold or silver?
How do I choose between her trip to the Met Museum
Or the pin with the propeller signalling she was the
First licensed female pilot in the state of Kentucky?
What does it say about me this is the one time I wish she hadn't gotten her wings?
I want to wear her artist spirit.
I already have her poet's blood running through me.
This woman, in all her fiery, tender ways
Touches my life.
I hope she'd be proud I'm wearing her jewelry.
So many decisions to make.
Nov 8, 2020
Nov 8, 2020 at 9:13 PM UTC
I dream as a flower,
opening in waves
as the pages of a book,
I bloom between dreams
and reality while in
sips of tea, the people
who walk past, they too,
are beings of water in the oceans of
the mind and are visitors of the earth,
stars are in the words they speak
within the the ease of the midnight hour,
the propeller seeds lift for the moon in
the eyes they held for one another,
the depth in the quiet longing
and the secrets of love lead
I, the writer, in my wish to sing, “all the
unsung is, by the sight
of the heart, sung forever”,
so then, all the things
they behold become
as they are, wondrous.
Jul 12, 2022
Jul 12, 2022 at 6:56 AM UTC
Flying
is not some motion
caused by wings
or a propeller of sorts //
But rather a freedom
that comes with the absence of weight
And today
I soar.
Dec 3, 2011
Dec 3, 2011 at 9:27 PM UTC
The young boy stuffed his hands back into his pockets and looked down.
His black shoes looked nice against the moldy, rotten, floor of the boat.
Water splashed up onto the back of his neck just as he pulled his hood up.
He had forgotten it was there and his ears instantly felt warmer.
Him, his old man, and his old man's friend had launched the boat 15 minutes ago.
After some trouble they got it started and began across the frosty lake.
The sun was still not up yet, and the temperature was below freezing.
"See the steam rising off the water?" the second old man had asked,
"The water is warmer than the air."
And so they had began their journey.
"Stand up for a sec, James, I need to get to the tackle box."
The boy complied and was surprised to find that it was warmer standing up.
Even with the wind slapping at his face.
Just as his father retrieved the box he shouted "Rich! Stop!"
There was another boat not 10 feet in front of them, running perpendicular to there boat.
Rich slammed the engine into reverse.
He smacked his head on the small windshield in front of him, knocking him out.
The boy's dad fell over and smacked his head on the side of the boat, almost knocking him out.
James went flying. He flew straight over the front of the boat and into the water.
Not even a second later the underside of the boat smacked into his back.
Not even a second after that the propeller from the boat sliced off his left hand
and also chopped down to the bone in his neck.
Time of death was estimated to be at 6:07 A.M.
Rich was alright, the crash causing a minute fracture in the second disk of his neck.
The boy's father was also alight, only re breaking his long ago broken left shoulder.
The single child's mother killed herself six days later.
His girlfriend never dated another boy ever again.
Until she met Bobby, who took her pain away with the knuckles on his strong right.
His father never returned to work, instead drank away his welfare and later his life.
Rich lived almost normally until his daughter was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer,
killing her within weeks of diagnosis.
Then, he moved to Arizona and was killed by a **** dealer.
And the world went on.
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 12:19 AM UTC
*Fishing off Puffin Island as a boy
By Jude Kyrie
I remember back to my boyhood
it was a different place in time.
The little aluminum fishing boat.
Its ancient Johnson outboard motor.
leaving a wake splitting the calm Irish sea
off the coast of Anglesey in North Wales.
My grandfather lived his retirement
years out in the small fishing village.
We reach Puffin Island
a deserted rock of land full of nesting puffins
The anchor tossed over into the deep waters
of the Irish sea.
We dropped our lines in the water and waited.
The heavy lines tripple baited in anticipation
of a healthy dinner catch.
The schools of Mackerel
attacked our bait
We were tired of pulling them into the boat.
My grandfather slitting the bellies
and cleaning them throwing the guts
back into the sea that bred them.
Hungry fish clamored for the feed.
nothing left for waste.
I held a spluttering Storm light
to pierce the blackness of the night.
My fear of a giant shark
attack filled my young heart.
we packed our catch and the propeller
creating a phosphorous wake behind us.
I marveled at the multitudes of species
below my feet.
And at the untamed violence and beauty of life
that we all shared on this wonderful planet.
And then back into darkness.
The total black darkness.*
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 12:25 PM UTC
When the clouds below turn to into carpet
Up there in the cold morning light,
The VFR pilot jitters and frets:
Time to check fuel, to come up with a plan
To search for a hole in the billow below,
And bring the craft in to land.
So it was when a pilot coming back from a lark,
Flew in a circle somewhere over Williston,
Above clouds turning thicker and dark.
In his office sat Phil, across the state line,
When the radio crackled, pleading a break:
"VFR practice," he thought, "He's probably fine."
Phil headed to lunch, had an errand to do...
Drove downtown for a couple of hours,
Returning somewhere around 2:00.
The radio tone carried tired despair
When Phil walked back in from his break
And heard the pilot, still stuck in the air.
Phil knew that the fuel must be drained
In the old Piper Cub overhead,
So he logged a flight plan and ran for his plane.
He flew to the east and banked to the north,
Rising above the gray carpet below,
And spotted the wanderer holding its course.
Coming in fast, cutting his distance by half,
"Super Cub over Williston, this is Bonanza
On your left. How much fuel do you have?"
"About 30 minutes," came a despondent reply,
Standard answer, but gauging the hours,
Phil calculated the response was a lie.
"I am going to fly by your side.
Follow me and dive when I dive;
Keep contact and enjoy the ride."
The planes in tandem turned around;
Phil flew by IFR to find the runway end,
Backed off the throttle, and led them down.
The tail dragger followed, did not complain,
Dropped into the soup gliding blind
Except for the strobe on the faster plane.
The old Cub flared when Phil said, "Land!"
Settled onto the runway end as the propeller stalled,
And Phil had saved a desperate man.
On the hangar wall now hangs a plaque,
Though Phil himself is gone,
The Governor's gift for bringing a flyer back.
--------------
My brother once watched Phil Petrik of Sidney Aviation fly off the Sidney runway, disappearing into a pea soup fog, carrying our father and mother on an emergency flight to Billings, to save my father's life.
I lay this poetic rose upon Phil's grave as a slim tribute to a man who earned my admiration and life long gratitude. Rest In Peace, Phil Petrik.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
all faith was lost in a caravan car park with seats reclined,
a family of four, small and contorted, wrapped
around a car for an uncomfortable night of no sleep,
and for the soundtrack:
propeller blades of the port and a grown man weeping.
now we understand and gather and know and grasp the concept of loss,
now it's a:
brother to a younger sister
and now a lost son to forever mother
and a lonely child to a missed father,
insurance-won't-be-done-on-time
because the route-master turned up late.
now loss can never be found so it stays stuck in memory,
now memory is:
reverse the car into the garage and don't stop for the wall,
or bend over double and crawl into the back of a van
duck down because you're tall for your age.
so now you're no longer and when this is realised
i will write this up into a stage play for you
to hide and conceal and disguise the face that will undoubtedly bloom in tears.
Earlier my eyes wandered looking for someone through a window watching the main street in the rain. It's been a year and still you've missed the refrain, we'll try again on the chorus perhaps next year sometime.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 12:38 PM UTC
She found a propeller in Portland
and carried it all the way to Eugene
under her arm, this western artifact.
Says she’ll turn it into a necklace,
use it to press through the crowds
of people reaching at her hems.
They hold the sidewalks down
as she passes, waiting like wildflowers.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 3:49 PM UTC
We slipped into the same cold
March, forgetting each other less
than a mile away, shifting
life from death:
some sobbing blue, some receiving sun.
You took lemon and salt
to salmon, oil and a cube of sugar
to dry skin.
I wear hats on bad hair days
and don't drink enough water.
Did you know all our spoons were wiped clean
from our kitchen
in a blistering July?
I can hear God's small voice
in a rare fantasy
before I realize it's your favorite
show on the television set
in the living room thirty feet away.
The calendar's propeller
brought us to December.
Iris petals are tucked
into journals. All the cable lines are down.
The lemon trees,
uprooted.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 11:26 PM UTC
Before the hurricane, in my youngest years things were extremely different
My outlook on Louisiana was a place of water and happiness
I was six years old, and boating was what I did for fun every single day
Boating was what basketball is to me today, a treasure, an outlet
The bayous were alive, the marshes were green, and the trees fruitful
You could smell the salty mud, (which smells very different from a beach)
Our white propeller boat sped to the lake, and lake mist sprayed our faces
Fishermen and crabbers littered the banks, pulling in flailing lively catches
We ate the fruits of their labor at the Cajun restaurant on the bayou, inwards
This was no commercial place, but only the locals had ever been
It was rough, light blue paint peeling, men with grey beards laughing
And the smell of fresh fried catfish had taken over the place,
Perhaps the most unique thing about it was the way to get to it, strictly by boat
My childhood is colorfully painted with these memories, however,
The real life experiences have been swept away in the muddy currents
The restaurant was knocked off its stilts and demolished,
The trees now branchless, dead, and the marshes are hues of yellow and brown
No longer is the water lively, but still, no longer is it safe to dive to the bottom
For fear of remains of houses, boats, glass puncturing our bodies
I consider myself lucky to get to experience that everyday, the bayou was my backyard
That was the Louisiana that is on postcards, not the usual experience of suburbs
That was the Louisiana I used to know, the Louisiana that is no more in my life
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 12:28 PM UTC
with disciplined guilt
i can spill a kind of pornographic hemorrhage
provoking a spell into the mind
deluge
a spiel
so many illicit thoughts to priss a label on
laxed into this state
i imagine my punishments
received in swollen glory
and in turn for this ungated imagination
i may earn further punishment
(no glory / dunce / head hung)
skirting dirt for promise
opening the aperture to the wild dark woods
and beyond natures primal propeller
seeking out opportunities for submission
under a church weight
of my own mined and kinkled cranium
Sep 15, 2022
Sep 15, 2022 at 9:13 PM UTC
It’s a simple, mundane day, yet busy with an absolute slew of schoolwork
I take up a table in the library, high up on the 4th floor, overlooking
The shapes below with different work in the same time and place
There’s a large model airplane, an early model,
Suspended by cables that attach themselves to the far walls,
Yielding the illusion of mid-flight
It appears I wasn’t the only one with the idea to seclude myself this high;
Around me are the detached murmurs of still more students, bent
On the conclusion of their labors, some more eager than I, some less so
And closer to me, on a juxtaposed table, is another student, about my age
Shuffling through what looks like math
But I don’t pride myself much on intrusion, so I let him be
For hours we all toiled, us in the 4th floor and us down below
The music of light concentration, fluttering pages, a utensil,
Swathing through those immobile wings and dwindling on the propeller
The time is rapidly becoming the enemy in all our bingo books
And of the books stacked in the cluster of cases, some of which will no doubt remind one
Of the timeless saying that ‘time waits for no one’
The student of the table next to me is still at work, and I’m still at work
And people file in and out of the door which leads downstairs,
Faces going in with indignance and a foreknowledge of what they’re to do
Faces leaving triumphant, secured in another day’s duty crossed off
I steal a look at the student close to me
I see him pass a tired hand over his eyes
(I agree with his plight)
By now we’ve been swarmed with a million like us
Jumping from table to table to seat to seat, in groups or in respectable solitude
A veritable mosaic of people, a timelapse in ironic real-time, elapsed second onto second
The darkness crowds the unlucky surfaces of the windows, tries to push in
And like lichen stuck to sea rocks amid a terrible tidal storm we remain
Jaded and mentally broken down, but finally we see each other
He looks at me dully, I return it with a shrug and the slightest smirk
And I think we both understand it
Though no words needed to pass through the air, nor signals of the eyebrows,
The hand, the heavy persistent sigh
We’ve seen the lapse, just us and the jetstream of the world unending
And he looks away, and I look away at the suspended plane, still as it ever was
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 10:48 PM UTC
*i wait all weak for the newspaper sections i read to arrive,
the magazines of sat. and sun.,
the style section, the culture section, and the news review,
things that matter to be honest.*
i wonder why people want brave ethnicity,
they want the long ships the arabs do
listening to viking metal,
the vikings want peace and quite,
but with global capitalism
and the defunct national socialism:
if only the jews weren't involved
the single pathology, all those able and nimble,
we get no ethnic bravery,
we only get citizens and astronauts,
the only exploration geography is empty and vast
space, and since we're using fossil fuels
we're exploring and destroying at the same time,
like the olden days: plunder and pillage mechanics,
but we're waiting for the other exploration
dynamic, where almost everyone is involved:
turn an autocrat to be paired with a tsunami
or an earthquake and you get panic,
pair the tsunami / earthquake with democracy
and you still get panic...
pair it to a theocracy and you get theories
like evolutionary history with the time scale all
too wobbly extending too far, people
think of gooey eggs easy in 5min,,
but monkey to man in 5 minutes - where's
the adaptability issue concerning?
the darwinian per se dislodges man's
adaptability concerns - historically it was going
to be either Stonehenge or the Giza pyramids,
darwinism dislodged man's adaptability
to future concerns by favouring debate of past truth
and whether mathematically speaking:
the geometric beginning of x, y, z, was
a will to live from the standpoint of (0, 0, 0),
denial of denial creates a propeller, kantian
given 0 = negation.
instead of being as darwin stressed evolutionary beings,
we've become historical beings,
with 24h news reels, with celebrity culture,
trying to piñata nazis... japan conquering with karaeoke
singing... loss of story telling...
with intellectuals trying to pinpoint and in an arena
of plagiarism agree a historical date
where dialectics is impossible... because something
is cited, circa, and the circa defines one person being
wrong and the other person being right...
evolutionary analysis made us so overcome by our history
we're trying to live a single day out,
but in 24h news reels no important historical event will take
place... i call it historical insomnia...
as a scot might say: eh maytee,
das est shovel of ***** (linguistic allegory: shy kite)!
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 7:22 PM UTC
The way you craft your phrases
Gets my propeller spinning
How you settle your disputes
Leaves no room for an underdog winning
So I just keep my mouth shut and wait for it to end
Silence is the spike in your ear
But it doesn't get the ball across
My black tongue is the only thing to fear
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 7:29 PM UTC
i.
Mine love and I art stellar,
We cometh from an open
Window; through the here-
After's crystalline propeller.
ii.
Mine lass is pure, she
Passed from an ancient
Door, one of cherubic
Amour', O' almighty
God; thou hast sent
A rod of electrical
grandeur.
iii.
Whilst the sod neath
Me and Jane's feet shalt
Cook to a swelter; and the
Globe explodes with demonic
Soul's into satanic shelter's, and
Whilst humans killeth, stealeth,
Driveth out; and thus plunder.
Me and mine consort earl-jane
Sardua-nagley, shalt be secured
And endureth, the spell that the
Globe's under.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( Filipino rose) dedicated
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
~
*Weather balloon for a hat
propeller on his back
morning is observably alive
leaving it to atmospheric pressure
he consumes today's newspaper
with the enthusiasm of a bowl
of Corn Flakes
this Heath Robinson contraption
of getting to work first
over enemy lines
is all the rage in his satirical
state of mind
that is until the absurd derailment
of wartime employment
and so he returns home with tubes
and catheters attached to his body
and feeling like one
of the unwieldy machines
he had so often created
full of atmospheric pressure
and apparently thinking it
an undignified fate
he pulls out the tubes
and quietly dies
of his own invention*
~
Sep 15, 2022
Sep 15, 2022 at 1:28 PM UTC
Anxiously Awaiting Atomic Assimilation:
Still not happy.
What is it about being pinned down that causes our hearts to rush
Or the pulse to harden?
I can hardly listen to music anymore: It all sounds like you.
My brain says give up and stay home
My heart says go out and love!
Give it all away! Take them all for granted! Let them use you!
Would it hurt? Not anymore. Not after us.
Random but justifiable meltdowns occurring every day sometime past noon. Every single day.
Your picture still on my windowsill
You in that dress
Our hands melted together
Our arms behind each others' backs
The smiling.
All the holding and kissing we did on the boat.
The propeller spun the water through my head
And out your mouth into my eyes
From there into your thighs
Out your ears and under your bed
From the time we wake up until we're dead
Bolted shut. The door is locked.
Every time I leave, I lock it again.
Robbery is a victimless crime when you don't care about your worthless crap.
Take me. Take it all from me.
Be an angel and sin with me.
She never will again.
Not as long as her picture exists.
She will never leave my head.
Just as long as that picture persists
Or the Pinback track continually insists
I just sit back and cry and open my wrists.
I can't cry. I can't laugh for any real reason unless a hookah is near, AND SPEAKING OF WHICH:
I want to be with you again, man. You left me at the same time she did.
Add insult to injury. Degrade my emotions. "She outranks you. It doesn't matter what you are feeling. Only what she is feeling."
Those words echo like a ton of bricks
Thrown against a canyon
Or a gunshot cracking on a silent, frosty night
The city glows, but not the way I like it.
Not the way you described.
THE WAY I DESCRIBED.
Don't you ******* tell me I ruined it for you.
It was already ruined! I just spelled it out for you!
Have you no eyes?!
Can you not see your impact?
You witch. You monster! You ghoul! You sorceress!
Succubus!
Seraph!
Get out of my head! Leave me to rot!
Let my tears dry! Let my head clear!
Fog from my eyes will dissipate!
But only if you GO AWAY.
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 11:31 AM UTC
I kept staring at the ceiling fan reminding me of a dog chasing its tale, but the breeze relieved me. It kept me from sweating as your heart pounded in my ear begging me to answer your question.
I knew the answer you wanted, but I couldn't give it to you could I?
I spent so much time focusing on the one I lost, so much time knowing that she was the girl of my dreams that I was afraid to wake up.
As long as I stayed asleep I didn't have to live in a world where she didn't walk next to me every day.
Your eyes were burning a hole in my face.
So I burnt a hole in the ceiling fan.
Wishing and hoping it would take me away like a propeller on a helicopter.
Same concept right?
I wasn't going to escape this question that there was no right answer to.
You asked again maybe thinking I didn't hear you, but I heard you clearly both times when you said, "I love you."
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 3:04 AM UTC
If I leave for Africa and take the bus
to the edge, if I step on an animal mine
and write inside the bellies of snakes—
with an alphabet that’s ruined thousands
of years of evolution—dirty letters
to Mr. Rogers who rubs his pockets for candy
then bends pink-mouthed girls like matchsticks.
If I crawl through Kampala and find our bones
lined up like crayons, uncovering themselves
over years and hundreds of years, sifting upwards.
If there are questions behind those
question marks, more soggy appetites whetted,
more curvy rib bones bumping in a soup pot.
If I run into a man who holds an empty bag
up to his ear and takes it at its word,
if this truant god—your cup and handle,
held like a pistol, love like a nail hole—afraid
to be the villain or stay longer
than an atlas, more afraid to hold than jump, chokes
the bag that won’t shut up, snuffed on camera.
Nearer my god to thee. He will take care,
will last out the cave. Hands sewn like armor,
fingernail mosaics and a propeller under each arm
to carry the faces that fell
away, curious as ever, hiding in museum cases
not in the glass but of it, not taking up spaces.
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 8:20 PM UTC
Green crash,
suddenly center signal
on strange, distant announcement squiggle.
Scenery dashingly
simple, single.
Wave shape,
hungering scented cower.
On top, beady dispassioned shower,
shaving or scraping a
wooden tower.
Stale grid,
static or sounding static.
Appear, pointedly under attic,
wailing forbidden, not
automatic.
Big screen
messaging: starlight scatter.
The end. Something but antimatter.
Trigger between, in the
ribbing: flatter.
Soft board,
terribly outer terror
perceives singular, stringent error.
Coughing accordingly
code propeller.
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 9:12 AM UTC