"redress" poems
A squirrel has the capacity
To reclaim nuts from memory.
But they can't make
Peanut Butter
To smear themselves,
Or their nuts,
Like animals
For ***
The Bottlenose
Is self-aware,
We noted in
His glassy stare;
When put before
A carnival mirror,
So covex, concave,
Too complex,
We also note
A confusing quiver;
The water's not
What makes him shiver.
Pigs are said to be
As smart as me
When I was three.
Now I'm four.
A chimp can nail
Two boards together,
To make
A cross;
We pray they
Don't redress
Their loss.
Whale song is said
To carry on
Beneath the blue
For 1 00 miles.
Its got a beat.
Do they
Do the ****
Or slow
Whale dance.
Crows, you know,
Have studied us
For 10 000 years.
They're iconic,
Mythic tricksters
Cawing knowingly
Above our ears.
So much so
For 10 000 years.
10 000 more
Should we rot
So long.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
Rugby town, of landlocked streets,
of wasted field and barefaced retreat;
I miss you now, in absence of a friend,
I miss you now, in the verse that I lend.
Suburb grove, of sleepy mist,
oh, battered housewife, oh blastocyst;
you will remain in place forevermore,
and forevermore, you'll become a bore.
Holding cell, of sporting fame,
you stole my dreams but gave me my name;
I think of you: a multi-storey view,
of happy faces, of which there is few.
Still, my town, in debt's nightgown,
the shop-fronts vacate, we're feeling down;
these streets are poisoned with names of the past,
each memoir to teach: nothing's built to last
Rugby town, of weary folk,
the private school is a private joke;
I miss you now, as I sleep through the day,
I miss the old walks, and all that you'd say.
Old market town, the aftermath,
of British summer, suicide bath;
of open mics and closing the shutters,
of waking graveyards, sleeping in gutters.
Hopeless climbs, of dreary times,
of childhood state and nursery rhymes;
each time that I come home, I know you less,
becoming a stranger in my redress.
Clock tower, chiming, chiming loud,
singing for history long and proud;
of Rupert Brooke and the question: “what if?”
What if I was born to some lover's tiff?
To some large and friendless town,
to some body of land, which I drown;
to some active place of pain unknown,
to some place that I'll not gauge that I've grown,
oh Rugby dear, stay with me,
let me live on the periphery;
and although this town seems terribly dull,
it could be worse – I could live in Hull.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
(Rock Lake, Canada)
In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.
No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.
Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation
Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice;
Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses.
It took three days driving north to find a cloud
The polite skies over Boston couldn't possibly accommodate.
Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit
The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles;
The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance.
Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions
And night arrives in one gigantic step.
It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little.
These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people:
They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold.
In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for.
I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.
The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened.
Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas;
The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs.
Around our tent the old simplicities sough
Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in.
We'll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.
3.8k
"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.
"Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more." And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law--
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed--
Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
3.5k
Ring Out, Wild Bells
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkenss of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
3.4k
A monolithic sculpture stands upon a hill.
Ornate work of marble marks the artisan’s skill.
Clad as a knight of yore, with stony gaze held high.
Pilgrims travel from miles around to fall under his eye.
Epitome of courage, virtue, and respect
effused upon the villagers traits they should reflect.
Elements gnawed at the stone but failed to corrode
the manifold of lofty aims the knight would bestow.
Dark years beset the kingdom causing disarray-
Tyranny, vanity, and deceit led the people all astray.
Artisan's work above, a shining icon of probity.
A resolute bastion against the world’s impulsivity.
A day will come when the people reach distress;
crying out, they beseech the artisan’s redress,
but long has the craftsman been journeying far away
humbly allowing his handiwork, the message he conveys.
Jul 23, 2021
Jul 23, 2021 at 9:26 PM UTC
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
2.5k
1167
Alone and in a Circumstance
Reluctant to be told
A spider on my reticence
Assiduously crawled
And so much more at Home than I
Immediately grew
I felt myself a visitor
And hurriedly withdrew
Revisiting my late abode
With articles of claim
I found it quietly assumed
As a Gymnasium
Where Tax asleep and Title off
The inmates of the Air
Perpetual presumption took
As each were special Heir—
If any strike me on the street
I can return the Blow—
If any take my property
According to the Law
The Statute is my Learned friend
But what redress can be
For an offense nor here nor there
So not in Equity—
That Larceny of time and mind
The marrow of the Day
By spider, or forbid it Lord
That I should specify.
2.5k
To lift a thought to a song,
To redress perceived wrongs;
To relive my youth,
To expose the truth;
To express my love,
To see a pigeon as a dove;
To foresee the future,
To capture the elusive;
To give voice to the abused,
To find refuge when refused;
To immortalize loved ones,
To embrace the shunned ones;
To know stars are fireflies,
To scrape away lies;
To explain time is just a moment,
But enternity's in a sonnet.
Simply put,
It's the right thing to do.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 6:40 PM UTC
somethings really
gripe customers to excess
and in the griping
they seek redress
a box with five tablets of soap
isn't as it used to be
the size of the tablets
have been reduced
quite considerably
in years gone by
a bar of soap
had a fuller dimension
but nowadays
there is only smallness
in a tablet's dimensions
the customers are paying
a mint
for an undersized lathering bar
manufacturers of soap
must bring back
the larger bars
as customers
are voicing their valid
nah
nah
nah
nahs
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
Enraptured in
a fevered spasm,
Captured in the
mind's phantasm,
Swimming through
the ectoplasm,
Pouring from the
roaring chasm,
Hidden in the
soul's recess
A subtle, gentle,
warm caress
So jubilant, it
doth redress,
The hindrances which
so suppress,
The progress of the
spirit's wellness,
Showing things which
words can't tell us,
Giving gifts, which
none can sell us,
Do you
hear the
bell that's
ringing?
ringing
from a
distant
shore?
It resonates from
mammoth spheres,
In orbit, shedding
countless years,
Through aeons of
causality,
And boundless
temporality
We see how worlds
arise and cease,
We see how yearning
lays the fleece,
The wool over the eyes,
deceiving, cool
Dispassion's peace
relieving, our
Great webs
of pain and sorrow,
Darkening,
to light the morrow
For as all things
must come apart,
So suffering's,
great work of art,
is merely but
a transience,
receding slowly
in the dark.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 9:15 PM UTC
Letting the ivy roam...
Moonlight serenade, to a begun favor:
Sense in a gentler breeze, the thought to own
A grace, a fastidious space, for a little face...
Pink, the through and due, irony we seldom
Stink and prosper, the alienation we souled?
Together in legend, we tell a tale to a God's question:
Letting the ivy see, is a redress of futures, fools?
Paces and setting a catch, of futures in the light?
A wavering kiss, and the doles of redemption
Have their solemn kin, taken to remembering a night?
My name is a person, order and truth, to another selection...
Of hearts or the ivy...
Spare to fore, we conceive a notion
Made to tailor, a secret, an irony sighed...
Like the bird it was, a concern that lead to devotion...
Ivy sleeps, shadows play...
In the breeds we assume are, the peace of decency...
That has awoken, and seen the sun come, for why...?
Persuade a kind from dread, our fruit is a gift of agony...?
Building halts; continuing salt...
When has a legend presumed finish, of soon's reasons?
The tow of exception, is a wind to defer to a copious fall?
Looking ivy in the eye, asking nix for not, a needs seasons?
The fight is brutal, letting ivy is like a breath between friends
Aching at the completed hour, the duty of they and strange smiles
Set in similar pasts to a redefining must, that only with help, lends
A role no greater than now, a whisper that ended a world's defiled?
Ivy wants your life for a silence...
Ivy has the stomach to turn direction into beauty...
Ivy seemingly aloof, to worth to realize a gift is fast, to the chin...
Ivy knows you, like a taken privilege on the other side of saying we...
Jan 18, 2023
Jan 18, 2023 at 9:06 PM UTC
That blunt rusted knife
In the clammy night
The boy heard it slice
He heard it slice
Through the night
Before his eyes
As cold as ice
The rusted blade
As the killer made
Way through shade
In wanton hate
Toward the room
In candlelit gloom
The bride and groom
First in desire locked
Then in passion screamed
Then in horror shocked
The blade's dying sheen
He sliced and carved
For he was starved
Redress for broken heart
The boy didn't move
He knew it true
The world was cruel
He saw ****** too
Not once or twice
Could he save their lives
His own made it thrice
Now his spirit walks
In silent morbid shock
The world undone
For a soul so young
Moon and skin are pale
The boy doesn't wail
He doesn't wail
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 1:34 PM UTC
God in the *great *assembly stands *Bagnadath-el
Of Kings and lordly States,
Among the gods* on both his hands. *Bekerev.
He judges and debates.
How long will ye *pervert the right *Tishphetu
With *judgment false and wrong gnavel.
Favouring the wicked by your might,
Who thence grow bold and strong?
*Regard the *weak and fatherless *Shiphtu-dal.
*Dispatch the *poor mans cause,
And **raise the man in deep distress
By **just and equal Lawes. **Hatzdiku.
Defend the poor and desolate,
And rescue from the hands
Of wicked men the low estate
Of him that help demands.
They know not nor will understand,
In darkness they walk on,
The Earths foundations all are *mov’d *Jimmotu.
And *out of order gon.
I said that ye were Gods, yea all
The Sons of God most high
But ye shall die like men, and fall
As other Princes die.
Rise God, *judge thou the earth in might,
This wicked earth *redress, *Shiphta.
For thou art he who shalt by right
The Nations all possess.
1.9k
A name,
a face,
a body,
interlock and swirl.
A game,
a chase,
commodity,
treasures, souls of pearl.
Morals fled,
the soul has bled.
Regret and shame,
myself to blame.
Passion hides,
all subsides.
Feelings faked
for who's sake?
Turn around,
do not go back.
Know it's face
and what it lacks.
Redeem,
progress,
resolve.
Esteem,
redress,
absolve.
Evolve.
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC
Today is your birthday, spindle-top maid.
Another year of desolate bridges.
Bridges by us, once believed to be true,
now laid to rest in mineralised brine.
Though my desires have long since faded,
small town streets will forever sing your name,
calling, calling, for youth and infant love.
Time may have set, but as with Giza stone
you lay in evidence of what has been.
And now, in years progressed, I tend to this,
my page. Some hungover apology,
for cruelness, that in ignorance, I wreaked.
For, though in my life there is ugliness,
and evil now apparent in this world;
I have learnt through experience, virtue
of kindness, of careful tread upon land.
Oh, mother of Horus, and Christian slave,
you bought me devotion in time of aid.
I'm calling, calling, in meekness undue,
for your sandstone likeness to hold in place.
With time comes erosion, African wind,
to scorch at the kindness, held to your breast.
So, in fear of forced blindness, cynical
waste; I mumble in this dirt-kissed prayer.
God of knowledge, oh God of braying flock,
bring to me your scripture, word of Thoth.
All so I can deliver, all so I
can sing; this tuneless ode of my redress,
this humbled hope for spring.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
#Her wails rent the air
*O God how unfair you are
to have snatched him from me
the only man that truly cared
never treated me badly.
Without him is a life to grieve
empty meaningless
take me too O God relieve
this pain of no redress!*
Shouldn't we bring a costly cot
of mahogany or such wood
asked the men what was her thought
about carrying her man so good.
Shouldn't the pyre be of sandalwood
the fuel a pure ghee
your husband ma'am was a man too good
to be burned ordinarily.
She paused a while frowning dark
a shadow passed her face
a hint of wince made its mark
a pall of uneasiness.
*He's gone to never return
the onus is now on me
to run the days with meager earn
and not spend wastefully.
ordinary wood would burn as good
kerosene would do well
prudence demands not one should
be lavish in funeral.*#
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 8:37 AM UTC
Taking dinner from your litter
not a drifter seeking shelter
an organiser
sympathiser
Hero of the oppressed
the distressed
While millions wait in hunger
shipwrecked
poverty entrenched
capitalism unchecked
Does it make you wonder
if your contempt
for the dumpster diver
is justified?
Use the planet
for your plunder
it is a little ******
your appetiser
could quench the hunger
of a village over winter
Does it upset you to accept
your excuses
are inept?
The diver of the dumpster
is an enigma
a free thinker
challenging you
with counterculture
to wake from your slumber
reject
excess
redress
Food injustice
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 3:50 PM UTC
a minority of surgeons need
to have their knives confiscated
their ineptitude with these instruments
can be clearly demonstrated
injuries from scalpel croppers
are carried for a lifetime
poor usage of a cutting tool
causes culpability every time
litigation in court is awaiting
those who can't handle a knife
they'll be tried for maiming
their patients for life
redress must be sought
in the form of compensation
by those who carry scars
out of botched up operations
we entrust our limbs and organs
to the medical fraternity
and they are obliged
to treat us with the utmost care and dignity
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:21 AM UTC
. Ready; reassure.
Relax; recline.
Render; record.
Remove; reveal.
Receive; retrieve.
Refill; rejoice.
Redo; redress.
Regret; repent.
"REPEAT!!" she begged.
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 10:43 PM UTC
The shop girl and the mannequin appear
Together in their shop front window stage -
It’s here the plastic soul gets cleaned, and here
The brand new body dons the latest rage.
The model feels the former’s hands embrace
Her own, and feels the stressed-out beat
Of heart within the arteries, the trace
Of hurried blood where their pale fingers meet.
The shop girl scrubs the limbs to blanker grace,
And twists the head to meet the staring street.
So all will see the calibrated face,
And all will search the heart that doesn’t beat.
Week coming, in the season’s latest dress,
The shop girl will the mannequin redress.
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 9:17 AM UTC
The astrologer speaks with a smiling face
For each of your miseries there’s redress
To calm down the planet subside crisis
There’s a stone to bring back the peace
It’s so clear when I read your face
You’re aggrieved greatly distressed
Fortune is shackled finance on the rocks
Luck is littered with stumbling blocks
On the home front looms a dark cloud
Your progenies aren’t making you proud
The spouse is no help in cutting down cost
In the sea of expense your earn is lost
All your efforts are going for a toss
The grind of job villainous boss
One after other misfortunes strike
Career stalled so is pay hike
But there’s still hope don’t break down
You’ve come to the best in the town
Here you would find at affordable rates
Boost in your fortune by remedying planets
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 10:39 AM UTC
He's sitting on the toilet,
he's late for work again,
he's toiling in the blackened fields
to redress the sins of men.
The letters have stopped coming,
the pen-pal moved address,
the money he had been saving
somehow counts for less.
Mother is calling daily,
mother is sleeping in,
mother takes a pill for her dementia,
and another one for her skin.
Windows are for the sunsets,
windows are for looking out,
windows infer the world's existence,
and yet he is filled with doubt.
Doubt for the academics,
doubt for the pilgrims too,
doubt for days of greener grass
of which he has seen so few.
He's waiting in the orchard,
he's eating from the tree,
he's choosing freedom from superstition,
and he is striving to be free.
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
I meant to pen a happy poem
But somehow, ended up with this same old song
Heart in shreds
Dry tears shed
Overran with a fresh fload as a awake
Been too broken to, again, break
But, that's just a thought, I still break anyways.
Does the sun still smile?
This gloom has lasted too long a time
Does the stars still twinkle?
No equation is, again, simple
Do we still know beauty?
Everything is gone dark and ugly
We must all be a broken people
Weeping last only for the night
Morning is going to bring a new reason to smile
Though the night may seem to have lasted too long
Surely there is always a new song
We could either wait or
Create our own options, which most often wrong.
I am broken
You are broken
We all are broken
But if we treat the threads as a whole dress
Not as single individual threads
Then we are on the way to redress
No more broken me
Nor broken you
Just a healed and mended people.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 7:33 AM UTC
Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the winged days? Thou lookest
from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desart
comes: it howls in thy empty court.—Ossian.
I
Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle:
Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choak’d up the rose, which late bloom’d in the way.
II
Of the mail-cover’d Barons, who, proudly, to battle,
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine’s plain,
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev’ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.
III
No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame, in the breast, for the war-laurell’d wreath;
Near Askalon’s towers, John of Horistan slumbers,
Unnerv’d is the hand of his minstrel, by death.
IV
Paul and Hubert too sleep in the valley of Cressy;
For the safety of Edward and England they fell:
My Fathers! the tears of your country redress ye:
How you fought! how you died! still her annals can tell.
V
On Marston, with Rupert, ‘gainst traitors contending,
Four brothers enrich’d, with their blood, the bleak field;
For the rights of a monarch their country defending,
Till death their attachment to royalty seal’d.
VI
Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant departing
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu!
Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting
New courage, he’ll think upon glory and you.
VII
Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,
’Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret;
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation,
The fame of his Fathers he ne’er can forget.
VIII
That fame, and that memory, still will he cherish;
He vows that he ne’er will disgrace your renown:
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish;
When decay’d, may he mingle his dust with your own!
1.4k