"retiring" poems
I. Scared
This is real for me
This is love to me.
And some days I’m scared out of my mind at how genuine this is.
Nothing has ever felt this authentic to me, other than maybe pain.
This is new to me.
You read the stories and love is this all powerful magic and its so **** powerful that it scares me. It scares me that this thing, this emotion, may rip my heart out of my chest and leave it in a million little pieces.
I’m not scared of you,
I’m not scared of us,
I’m not scared of a fight,
I’m not scared of love,
I’m not scared of forever,
And I’m definitely not scared of heartbreak, my heart has known its scars and I’m not afraid of gathering more.
I’m scared of an ending that’s everything but happy,
I’m scared of the strength of my feelings,
scared I’ll let you down,
scared I’ll hurt you,
scared of anything and everything, all my demons coming out to play and every inch of me is screaming run.
I’m scared that I’ll run,
I’m scared of losing you,
of not being enough.
But as scared as I am, I’m willing to fight for this.
For us.
For our forever
Our happy ever after.
II. Two
Two souls, more different yet similar than most, met while on their own paths.
They continued together for a while, like many others.
A poet and a soldier, each claiming their own hell, living in their own darkness.
Finding comfort in each other’s arms.
III. Love
How do you measure a relationship?
By the future?
By the arguments?
I’ve always measured it by how far I could see down the road.
And honestly, with some I could see into 20’s or 30’s, but never the end of our road. Those thoughts were foggy, these are too but more clear, everything is blurred but your face, where with them everything but their face was clear.
With them, I saw lives I didn’t want, lives that were comfortably numb. I saw superficial happy endings.
But with you I see my forever.
I see 5 years down the road, chasing dreams
I see 10 years, building a family
I see 15 years, balancing life
I see 40 years, retiring
I see 50 years, walking down random city streets, hands intertwined
I see 60+ years and meeting again someday in another existence
I see forever with you
I want forever with you.
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
Home bound after work
near 12:30 am
just a few minutes from checking my email
then retiring
as us old folks like to call it
from the North side of route 7
at a slight angle
there and gone in half a second
was the biggest meteor I've ever seen
if that's what it was
so big that I slowed and listened for a boom
but nothing came
I have no idea how far it went before touching down
but this isn't about the meteor
this is about the fact that when I got home
and thought about who I would tell...
there was no one that came to mind
I've seen so much crazy **** in my life
that the stories have grown old
even the new ones
I breathed life into a dead woman one morning
then faced the fact that I couldn't save another
hit by a truck on my way home
just after midnight
on the day before the great Russian meteor
I saw 2 objects in the sky on fire
and not moving...
in broad daylight
I've been touched and spoken to
by spirits or ghosts or phantoms
take your pick
I saw 3000 people sacrificed in the name of what?
and as a child I witnessed a president murdered by those supposed to follow him
I've grown to see the young know nothing of that last President who actually had a vision and a spine
and when I quietly leave this life
there will be little to note...
a brief glance
of my obituary
by a few sad souls
I often think of a quote I heard as a young man
by a comedian; George Gobel
who was on the 'Tonight Show'
Dean Martin and Bob Hope were also on that show
and unknown to George, Dean was flipping his cigarette ashes
in George's drink as he was telling his humorous stories
this caused the laughs to come out of sequence...and finally a confused George said; 'Did you ever feel like the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?'
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 11:37 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;[email protected])
It is the 30th day of the months in Kenya
State and corporate capitalist have now paid their workers
Wages or salaries or stipends or emoluments all being remunerations
While the rural bourgeoisie and urban bourgeoisie have also paid ex-gratia
To relatives come over-aged workers who have declined retiring
For the fear of looming starvation if at all they go home, where they were born,
Nonetheless; proceed they receive will do nothing whatsoever
As it will be stifled by the monster of desperate consumerism;
So fat and gullible in this tiger of land in the region called Kenya;
The terror peddling rent, courtesy of ruthlessness of the landlord
Bills of electric power in their full monopolistic gear
Bills of water devoid of quality, indifferent dysentery monger
Wages for maid who keep on usurping the food of my child; milk
Bills for gas, all of it redolent of comprador bourgeoisie in fashion,
Hotel and bar bill - a surreptious one, as the bar girl only knows
Airtime and renewal, TV channels and other screen capitalistic ploys
Family trip to local resort in a feat of foolish consumerist venture,
Money to the old mother at home and, sometimes depraved but patient father
ARV’s money to my *** aids stricken sister at the village, my aunt also
Tuition fees for my son at the kindergarten, who goes to schools but learns nothing
fees balance which my wife has to pay at the tailor to ransom out her dress,
M-Pesa and M-Swari loan repayment, this only for Kenyan 30th dayers
They know the agony of dealing with Kenyan mega-capitalist safaricom ltd.
This consumerism and **** consumerism,
It is the menacing bane of the Kenyan poor
It is the avaricious tube which siphons back
The hard earned money from pockets of the poor
Back to despotic account of the pitiless world pigshotry.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
It’s my river,
Giving me the life
The sky is there on the other side,
Tears roll down from the sky
To my river
Feels the fathom
My river roars….
Bring tears like anything
The furious river breaks home,
Washes golden fields
Their dreams are shattered
……………
It’s the same river
This side is the heaven
We enjoy the beautifully setting sun
Searching out poems of life
Picnics, outing, retiring life,
Smiles, laughter and everything….
But
The sky on the other side,
It remains gloomy
May it be Majuli or Dhemaji
Dreams go away forever with the river
I cry for those dreams,
Curse my river
The same river…
That gives me life,
It’s my river still
And will always be!!
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 10:55 AM UTC
My lips can no longer hold back.
The muted tones cannot bring out the infinity that hides
discretely
points
to an exit sign.
Certainty waves goodbye. My only function now is to collapse it.
To put the past behind.
The barred doors allow the bottleneck to tighten for a few hours,
but memory has a way of sounding the alarm in the morning
when the early birds rise,
armed with ancient lessons
that remind me they're the ones who are eating well.
I want to come up from the dirt and drink from the well.
My low-life self can no longer heed the worm's advice:
"Sleep all day and you won't get eaten."
Out.
Out with your tepid voice and halfway disposition.
Out with your elevated mind, your profound commitment to the mediocre task
of enlightening the little people.
The empire you fabricate may stay stitched for a while.
But the clothes of emperors always burst at the seams.
A workaholic, addicted to the common
you're winning your converts with tired dreams, vicarious imaginings of those finer roads, well tread by shoes that are not your own.
You don't believe in the masses. Fine. But get the **** off
your throne.
Reciting badly drawn poems at four in the morning
(it could have been worse e.g. I could have wrote "mourning")
looking to insight myself,
not into a passionate frenzy
like Bacchae drunk on the moonlight.
No -- I want piercing red. That's what I want to be.
Want to show the heavens how I use the precious wine.
Sip it.
Out the undulations go.
Sweating out the great myth that time forgets when it flows.
My pagan-witch ego has put me on the hunt for blood tonight,
and the full moon is giving rise to ****** undulations,
washing up teeny-book explanations
of loves once lost.
But I'm far from my being,
and from the infinite ocean.
And the only sound I can hear right now is my one hand clapping at the curtain call,
retiring my broom,
bowing goodbye.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 12:23 AM UTC
I’m not feeling all that well, my friends.
It’s been that way forever.
You could see the clearest of days;
I would see stormy weather.
The doc said that there’s nothing we can do.
He said, “Just blame it on the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.”
Now some pills will make it all better;
others will make it much worse.
It feels like I’m in a witch hunt
and everyone else threw the curse.
I really could use me a broom; this is true.
I’ll just get away from the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
I just can’t get out of bed today when
it feels like I just jumped in.
With this little game of counting sheep,
you know that I just can’t win.
The mathematician will be retiring soon.
He has a bad case of the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
The hours—they turn to days.
The days just turn to weeks.
A squirrel just had his nuts drop.
You can bet it’s one of the meek.
Whatever sound, it really was in good tune.
Perhaps it was the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
It’s time to get the oil changed—
getting thicker deep inside.
If I get a few more things fixed up,
I’ll have me a real fine ride
with a radio inside that ride just for my crew,
one that plays my low dopamine
and my serotonin blues.
So the ambulating bandleader quit.
I think that he’s still on the mend.
He claims that bad-boy poetry could
lead to a worldwide trend.
All agree this cat has way overpaid his dues.
It’s only the low dopamine and the serotonin blues.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC
Down horse drink gentleman alcohol
Ask gentleman what place go
Gentleman say not achieve wish
Return lie south mountain near
Still go nothing more ask
White cloud not exhaust time
Dismounting, I offer my friend a cup of wine,
I ask what place he is headed to.
He says he has not achieved his aims,
Is retiring to the southern hills.
Now go, and ask me nothing more,
White clouds will drift on for all time.
4k
I see her
Again
I searched for her on the internet
I found her
She is naked
Again
Having ***
With different people
Again
Why did I look for her?
What was it about her?
That sparked my interest
Her body is nice from what I can tell
But her smile
Her cheek bones
Here eyes
Friendly looking
And kind
Beautiful long hair
She seems so approachable
I don’t know anything about her
But I want to know everything
This is why I don’t normally look at ****
I see a face of a beautiful person
And I want to know everything about her
So I search
And download
Telling myself I am not a stalker
I am not a pervert
Telling myself I can be her knight in shining armor
I can save her from the life she has chosen
I am not a stalker
I am not a pervert
How long can she last?
In this kind of work
Before she goes crazy
Before she gets used up
How much money does she make?
She has a twitter account
I will never tweet her
I am not a stalker
I am not a pervert
A couple of years go by
I keep following her on the internet
She has changed her body
With plastic surgery
She isn’t the innocent cute
Girl/woman she was
She is still doing this kind of work
Why?
She needs to get out
She doesn’t have much time
She needs to learn a skill to enter the work force
I follow her on twitter
She has wish list on Amazon
She lets her fans buy her things
I want to buy her something
I don’t know why
I won’t
I am not a stalker
I am not a pervert
She is dating a man
Months go by
Now she is dating a woman
Months go by
She is retiring
I am happy
For her
But sad because I won’t see her
Her twitter account is still up
She keeps taking pictures of food
Months go by
Now she is coming out of retirement
Why
She can’t
It’s not healthy
Then I realize
I keep searching for her
On the internet
I’m responsible
For her being in demand
Myself and all her fans
Why do we watch her?
We are sick
Chasing an image that isn’t real
Her name isn’t real
This is a job to her
She needs money
And she needs it from
The pathetic losers that are her fans
This is why she is in this business
For the money
Is so simple
I’m so simple minded
I begin to hate her
I will never buy her anything
Or ever pay for any of her content
I will never tweet her
Or view her again ever
Never
never
I am free
Days go by
I am watching a television show
The actress is beautiful
I search for her on the internet
I want to know everything about her.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 7:05 PM UTC
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
3.1k
What you get
with a basic life:
College diplomas
to hang on the wall,
a full-time job
that lasts 40 years,
dating resulting in
marriage and maybe divorce,
children are born and stick around for at least
18 years,
retiring in your sixties then finally
death.
Are you bored yet?
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 8:12 PM UTC
“What can a poem do?”
—————————-
***”A poem
is a not a tourniquet
when you’re bleeding.
It’s not water when you’re thirsty
or food when you’re hungry.
A poem can’t protect you from an airstrike,
or from abduction, or from hate.
It’s hard to write when our words feel
like they’re not enough—they can’t do
the real, tangible work of saving lives,
or making people safer.”***
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
<~>
as is my wont,
I write,
as is my Natted~inhabited,
retiring to the local watering holes of
Cerebrum & Cerebellum,
them regular haunts,
where all requests are mailed, processed, satisfied & marked;
‘return & render to the sender, who’s on a cerebral ******
and that request?
‘give me the words’ (2)
those ‘to do’ words, floaters, direct to top of list,
those ‘can do’ words, that can effect the affect,
spare the despair, realize the fungible, concretize cures,
soften hard waters, giving a worsening worn life fabric a
curated baby blanket feel, a 4-ply human tissue of
‘words that tell me everything’ (2)
salve solution verbs that bounty-wipe spills in entirety,
vacuum up spillage spoiling of 17 days of terrible nouns,
uncovered-unknown rages caused by inflicting prepositions
released a hatred rising,
safety rebury it deeper, drug & destruct the sleeper agents,
and let me start over again with
‘telling me everything by saying nothing’ (2)
the pausal silence, the quieted spaces tween the heartbeats,
where ‘reflection,’
the noun,
and its world of alternations,
reflection,
the noun,
look inwards, but shining outward,
this, this!
is where the poem goes to do!
enervating & arresting
its contradictory powers
rock you into wild docility,
possessive and submissive,
contradictory interferences,
smoothing the roughness,
closing the gaps it opens,
healing the caused truthful cuts,
with words that tell you
everything and nothing,
open the holes, filling the gaps,
that is what a
poem do,
in and by
the manner it is spoken…
<~>
“Sometimes a poem is the stone you carry in your pocket—the one you rub when you’re worried. Let’s fill our pockets with poems.”
(see (1) Maggie Smith)
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 10:10 PM UTC
Pub poetry is a form of performance poetry consisting of the shouted word which has developed in UK urban pubs, dating back to the 1940s and 50s. Words are typically yelled over ambient haphazard rhythms which are not especially chosen for the piece of poetry, rather the poetry is performed over the generic sound of empty bottles and part filled glasses and live samples of patron conversation that will be familiar to those frequenting hostelries around the UK.
Sometimes the audience will employ call and response devices to distract the poet, such as calls of "W##k-er!', with the traditional response of "F##k-You!" before the pub poet continues with his yelled out verse, often read from the beer stained back of an overdue envelope.
The pub poet usually appears on a chair or table, surrounded by immediate family or work mates cheering him on.
Invariably inebriated, the pub poet may not appear to make any sense to the uninitiated - but once you too have availed yourself of your 4th or 5th pint, the words become clearer and easier to appreciate.
No musicality is built into pub poems and pub poets generally perform without backing music, delivering chanted speech with pronounced modulation, broken-rhythmic accentuation and dramatic, though random, stylization of gestures, often resulting in the pub poet losing balance and sustaining a head injury thereby losing consciousness and bringing the evening's entertainment to a premature, but often welcome, end.
It is often noted that many pub poets are remarkably shy and retiring when sober.
Dec 17, 2019
Dec 17, 2019 at 2:38 AM UTC
since I cannot write poetry
which is of the highest degree
forthwith I shall be retiring my pick
to pursue other pursuits
that don't need writing skills
the knitting needles
have lain idle
in the cupboard
for yonks
I must ferret them out
and give them a click and a clack
do a purl stitch
do a yarn forward
increase at the end of the needle
in the following
four rows
that is where my talents lie
in knitting
that I'm sure of
and the quality
of my knitting
has always made par
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 9:48 AM UTC
Year after year
--at daylight savings--
he kept moving his clock backward,
but never forward,
until he wound-up in the wrong century.
He then slept in masks,
his dreams repeatedly
disbanding and reforming,
as if in someone else's show,
but it was his hallucinating set-list, for sure.
He lived at the call of the void,
feeding off peppermint sticks
and clusters of chokeberry,
to help ease the pressure.
One phantom summer,
he read The Joy of Euthanasia
from cover-to-cover, over and over,
until he could recite death.
He poured his heart
into his new work
as an artist of tacenda,
--yes, he kept a lid on it.
And when the pretty young bees
buzzed about underneath
their brazen parasols,
he'd smile up at the sun
for her complicit glow:
the warmest days
always drew them out to him,
like honey on the tongue.
Now naysayers may keep
him out of Canton,
but one day, like most serial killers,
they will name a school after him
and his hijinks.
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 2:21 PM UTC
"A man is a wolf to another man",
What utter nonsense! What a silly thing to say!
I see no wolf-like qualities in the hearts of men,
No shy, retiring qualities, or unerring loyalty,
And certainly haven't noticed that men ****
Only when absolutely necessary for survival.
Perhaps it is I who am being foolish though?
As I stare deep into the noble eyes of the wolf
And see no hint of malice, or greed,
Or religious and political ideologies,
Or desire for such petty things as man wants.
Yes, indeed! Surely the fault lies with me,
For I am human, and can't begin to understand
Such simple things that those wild beasts can
Seem to so effortlessly comprehend- compassion,
Love, respect, and sense of unity.
Men are not wolves in the eyes of other men. No,
It doesn't describe the potentially ruthless way
We act upon meeting a stranger of our own species.
I wish such accurate statements as this held sway;
Men are like men to other men- **** homini ****
Since we've proof that men will oft rip men to pieces.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 8:48 PM UTC
professional thieves and lunatic royalty
rule the alleys and burned out geniuses collecting cans
to earn the morning's medicine
fighting off last night's tremors
vampyre women that eat men alive
and live in darkness and
nobody's ever seen the forest
central park predators
Mad Hatter transplants
and eternal sages who stay drunk by being interesting
and getting good at giving tourists a smooth line of ********
(you can always spot the tourists in new york. they are the only ones wearing bright colors. in portland, they can be spotted by similar means, but the eye must be trained. the city abounds with sprouts)
always looking up
eternal chatter of madness from corners,
doorways, windows, liquor stores
*** barrels floating on tears
with a police state terror squad
2 floors above
killing justice and truth
black ties jumping out windows of Wall St.
cracked by pressure and greed and ego
street hustlers retiring at 35- or dead at 13
the street musician dying from apathy
he is a withering poppy flower
cut and bleeding
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 1:56 PM UTC
Undefeated. Undisputed. 12 wins, 0 losses. A perfect 12-0 record.
You’re the crowd’s favorite as Vegas odds are in your favor.
Through the years of being in this game, you can almost get used to the fame.
“This fight’s going to be an easy one” – you assured your Coach.
You enter the octagon and see her warming up. Then you hear Bruce Buffer laying out the ground rules.
You’re excited – but nervous.
You feel the pressure of having to live up to everyone’s expectations. From your coach to the little girl on the other side of the world rooting for you.
You thought it was going to be another landslide victory.
Barely 2 minutes in and you feel scared.
Suddenly, you feel a numbing pain on your chin. It was a left hook.
As you fall face first, you feel nothing. Your unconscious body lays flat on the octagon floor.
Lights out.
Moments later you wake up to the sound of the fans cheering in the octagon.
A left hook was all it took for your dream of retiring undefeated to come crashing down.
For the first time, it wasn’t your arm that was raised by Herb Dean.
For the first time, you heard the words, “….and the new Featherweight champion”
You don't let it sink in at first but you can only hold back for too long before you realize that you lost.
You stood up, wiped the sweat off of your forehead, removed your gloves and marched out.
Suddenly you feel this weird feeling of embarrassment.
"So this is how it feels to lose?" you said to yourself.
You found a chair, sat down and composed yourself.
You’re still in one piece, which is a good thing but you know that fact cannot compensate for the emotional disorientation you felt.
Broken bones really do heal faster than injured egos.
Maybe your loss was a way of knocking some sense into you.
Winning is not everything, the same way that losing is not.
Sometimes you need to experience defeat in order to appreciate how satisfying every victory is.
As a fan, I know it's going to be hard to bounce back from this loss.
But you're going to be okay, champ. You always do.
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 9:06 PM UTC
Engagement isn’t just a promise
But also the beginning of a transition
From being a child to an adult.
Here is to the boy that is falling
And to a man that is raising
Here is to the one retiring from age
And the other taking the charge
While the chaos of life
Keep rising with time
While countless concerns
Poke and wander inside
But with the passing of time
And a grown man in charge
With the cooling of blood
And running of age
All wandering things shall settle.
-TG 20210107
Jan 10, 2021
Jan 10, 2021 at 3:02 PM UTC
A philosopher is one who
strives to think new & original
thoughts; I think you need to
rethink your views on
Christianity...or philosophers;
And I get to say this, because
I was raised Catholic; In church,
every single week, we open up
a book that has not changed
in about 2000 years; I was raised
in an Irish-Italian & Hispanic
neighborhood & lived across the
street from Our Lady of Good
Council, I got to see them all
suffer & most go straight to Hell;
I used to fantasize about being in
the Spanish Inquisition & going
on Crusades slaughtering Infidels
& joining the Knight's Templars;
****** killing & pillaging, then
retiring to a quiet life of Sainthood
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 9:59 AM UTC
after Gwendolyn Brooks
Last night we got fried
While you stayed inside.
Can’t say we tried.
What’s your excuse?
Tonight we drive cars
Drunk to bars.
You’re stuck in the tars
Of that **** Spanish.
We’re good to go
You repeat “No.”
What a great show
bare-breasted ENCORE!
Have fun retiring
We’ll be expiring
Our children perspiring
At the thought of us leaving them nothing.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 3:59 AM UTC
the Internet sets
higher aspirations
a teaching guide,
on how to
go beyond and deep into
the fast lane's curved and wide,
stretching
the straight and narrow
longer than lasting,
lasting no longer than
memory feelings
blurred overlapping burnt edged video recordings
pores pour oil and noise,
differentiating little between
beginning ending continuous
in the mind, from the walls,
Santana Rob sings "Smooth,"
but it is
the guitar wailing controlled penetrations.
a national anthem
of driven perpetual needy fomenting
outspoken physical truths
you don't care how you
got there,
where you are,
anybody's name,
high octane high performance
*** today,
is not for
the shy and the retiring, sissies,
we all got the necessary expertise,
with violin accompanist of pharma teaching aids
recalling first time tumblings,
exhaling
deep down throated rumblings,
rushing
fumbling ********* an ****** innocence
rushes of surprise and discovery,
success of feeling successful,
the shame of miscommunications
think I'm gonna watch me
a romantic comedy,
write her a love poem,
come up from behind,
caress her *******
kidding kissing her ear lobes,
then entering her entry point,
her neck
even when she is
armed
but forgiving,
busy chopping dinner's vegetables,
make them make them
give up the hidden
soft atonal squealing
like a
piccolo on steroids,
high pitch teasing,
pinched by air ****** intaking
I'll play the bass,
hitting those low notes,
********* my own strings,
deep ooh's and aah's
diode emitting,
the drug employed
is unadulterated
wanton but wanted
desire
this won't be the poem of the day,
no mind,
it already is was and
will be...
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 7:27 AM UTC
Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give
Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals
Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.
Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 5:22 AM UTC
Despite impending loneliness threatening to suffocate me, one optimistic thought came my way as I strolled wearily homeward today from my work at the library.
Some compensations for isolation might prove as written in the following list.
1) I am not required to retire to bed or awaken at any given hour.
2) I possess the rare ability of being allowed the choice of my own meals and also the given time at which I prefer to eat, whether it be meager or hearty portion of vittles. Perhaps I may fast from breakfast altogether, and then again may feast upon indigestible dainties such as doughnuts or fruitcake upon retiring, accompanied by a novel of my given choice.
3) I am free to write poetry or from such to refrain according to my mood.
4) If I spill my tea or bread and butter falls onto the floor, who cares?
5) Nobody can demand me to clean the house even if it looks quite untidy.
6) If I sing or hum out of tune, there is no risk of anyone laughing at me.
7) If I fall into a trance of reverie and am out of touch with reality, who can upbraid me?
The list could go on and on interminably, but to sum the matter up, in short, I can most thoroughly indulge in all my whims be they ever so eccentric in tranquil solitude with no threat of a wife to nag or henpeck me. I am free to cry, laugh, sing, daydream, talk to myself, and every other foolish or wise thing a healthy man might crave to accomplish.
Thus musing upon these blessings, I strolled homeward with a lighter heart despite life's insurmountable obstacles.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
Goodbye, lover that never was.
I will not forget.
Desire as sharp as a razor to the tongue, laced with honey,
Cut so sweetly, an agonising rapture.
We both know what must be retired,
But I am weeping as I lay you to rest.
As I burn what must be burned,
Regret has no part to play, guilt and despair have nothing to say,
I am retiring both those too.
Welcome back, my friend,
I missed you so. You, you,
I lost you for a time.
You were stolen away, replaced with a changeling,
He entranced me, but could not replace my old friend in my heart,
I have said my goodbyes, did what I had to do,
I missed you, I want you.
I know you. I love you.
Welcome, welcome home.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC