"robins" poems
#*grace on a birch branch
a pair of silky redbreasts
among red buds of spring
no worry about tomorrow
for God feeds them today
and clothes them as kings*#
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
It's cold in Duhallow this morning and the fields that were green yesterday
Lay chilled to the frost that the night brought a cover of silvery gray
And the little dunnock on bare hedgerow too cold and too hungry to sing
On **** branch he perch sad and silent the hardship that January can bring.
The robins and sparrows by back door like beggars they wait to be fed
In hope that when breakfast is eaten the housewife might throw out some bread
With no thought for song or for nesting their battle is to stay alive
How many will live to see April the Winter so hard to survive?
The first heavy snows of the Winter have fallen on the higher ground
On Clara, Shrone and Caherbarnagh the hills are so white all around
The blackbird and thrush on the bare branch their feathers fluffed against the chill
And hare has come down to the lowland there's nothing to eat on the hill.
But I can remember the bright days when sun shone on the leafy tree
And robins and thrushes and finches piped in the woods of Knocknagree
And to her nest on barn rafters the sparrow brought feathers and hay
And out on the dandelion meadow the pipit sang all through the day.
Young calves and young lambs in green pastures were full of the frolics of Spring
And joy too had come to the river the song of the dipper did ring
And moorhen was out with her babies and she chirped loud if human was near
Her first lesson to them survival to teach them the meaning of fear.
It's cold in Duhallow this morning the thrush silent on the bare tree
And gray on the fields and the hedgerows and gray over all Knocknagree
But I can remember the bright days when nesting birds piped all the day
And hedgerows and woodlands and meadows smelt sweet with the blossoms of May.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 6:42 PM UTC
182
If I shouldn’t be alive
When the Robins come,
Give the one in Red Cravat,
A Memorial crumb.
If I couldn’t thank you,
Being fast asleep,
You will know I’m trying
Why my Granite lip!
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.
1
death dirges
Frogs in distance sing . . .
Foxes, herons, join in too,
. . . A round of croaking.
2
love gifts
Her gift of flowers . . .
Came at night without garden,
. . . Were picked in bedroom.
3
twins demure
Full moon and she . . .
Beauties without crescent smile,
. . . Naked in starlight.
4
light music
Before even sun . . .
Gleam opens to paint each day,
. . . Beauty in birdsong.
5
iridescent
After sun showers . . .
Sparkle of rainbow colours,
. . . Busy hummingbirds
6
chilling
Hollow sound through trees,
Naked and bare branches sway,
. . . Old winter creeping.
7
flirting
She wanted a child . . .
Rushed from one suitor to next,
. . . Clock set to maybe.
8
super villain
Truth once singular . . .
Mucked all up with politics,
. . . In cowl of falsehoods.
9
casualties
Blood spills in gardens . . .
Naïve worms torn from loose grounds,
. . . Red robins, green lawns.
10
stigmata
Each spring miracle . . .
Trees blessed by caterpillars gifts,
. . . Holey hands of leaves.
11
consecrations
Ripples lead to bows . . .
After fish breaks the water,
. . . A kingfisher dives.
12
constancy
Steadfast as always . . .
Wildflower in sun and rain,
. . . Showing true colours.
13
roommates
Chaste lovers wonder . . .
How bodies weather the cold,
. . . Never knowing touch.
14
swept away
Suddenly we kissed . . .
At beach as tides rolling in,
. . . Drowning by ocean.
15
seductress
Her red hair so long . . .
Brushing my face, hiding eyes,
. . . A kind entrapment.
.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
Art Bouchard,
My father,
Never marched a drill,
Nor fired an angry shot...
Recounted fond memories
I've heard so many times:
How long ago, when I was very young,
He and our neighbor,
Art Pribnow,
Up before the sun,
Engaged in tractor battles
(Dad was very sure he won).
My father woke those mornings,
Early 1960s,
With the popping cough of
Worn diesel pistons
Clattering out white smoke...
Then blue and black,
As engine heat and friction
Tightened gaps,
Sealed compression,
And the motor steadied into an even roar.
Across the county road
Our only neighbor led or followed suit,
Sending smoke and sound
To drown the morning songs
of meadowlarks and robins.
Fifty years later,
Dad laughed in recollection,
"We started rising just a little
Earlier each day.
Started up our tractors
In a sort of game
Called, 'Who's out first?'"
Six became a quarter of,
Then five-thirty backed to four.
One tractor or the other roared,
Early and then earlier
To be the first to pull
Into the waiting fields.
When three-thirty came around
My mother shook her head,
But if she said a word,
I never heard.
These battling neighbors
Even started engines up
Before they ran,
Milking buckets swinging,
to their barns to chore
As early became earlier
in the little farmers' war.
One day in town,
By happenstance,
A meeting came between the two.
My father, being younger,
Had energy for more,
But old Art Pribnow shook his head,
Grabbed my dad's hand and said,
"Let's stop this foolishness
Before one of us is dead!
I don't know about the hours you keep,
Or what got in our heads,
But I admit, I need my sleep!"
The farmer battle ended then.
A hand shake and a smile
Between two farmer friends,
Created country lore,
Remembered here a little while,
As, "The Early, Earlier War."
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 9:04 PM UTC
450
Dreams—are well—but Waking’s better,
If One wake at morn—
If One wake at Midnight—better—
Dreaming—of the Dawn—
Sweeter—the Surmising Robins—
Never gladdened Tree—
Than a Solid Dawn—confronting—
Leading to no Day—
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Genderless with scraped knees and
A lipstick crush on one who bore the same name as me
Uncut brown hair untouched by bleach and
Stealing kisses from my best friend while my parents lied asleep
Lying in the grass with a picture book on faeries
Listening to the wind whistle through our dying trees
Jumping on the bed with my ***** and my bubby
Giggling hand over mouth when my mother called him "hubby"
Daisy chains and he loves me nots
Unbrushed teeth beginning to rot
***** shoes and ***** shoelaces
Visiting imagined places
Pink striped socks and a skirt to mismatch
Waiting for robins eggs to fall or to hatch
O, to be a child and to live within a dream
To lie awake at ten past eight, imagination like a stream
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
1724
How dare the robins sing,
When men and women hear
Who since they went to their account
Have settled with the year!—
Paid all that life had earned
In one consummate bill,
And now, what life or death can do
Is immaterial.
Insulting is the sun
To him whose mortal light
Beguiled of immortality
Bequeaths him to the night.
Extinct be every hum
In deference to him
Whose garden wrestles with the dew,
At daybreak overcome!
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My smooth vermin, you inspire me to write.
How I hate the way you infest,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about the wicked rest.
Let me compare you to a contender?
You are more ugly and more disgusting.
Hot frost nips the robins of December,
And wintertime has the shocking busting.
How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.
I hate your intriguing infestations.
Thinking of your many legs fills my days.
My hate for you is the implications.
Now I must away with a loathsome heart,
Remember my fast words whilst we're apart.
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 1:12 AM UTC
Just as you Sing to the Pop-Diva's Tune
The Robins will cower and chirp for more
I speak for some News I brought this Noon
Though I believe you have heard this before:
The Pilgrim comes out of the Pool. And begs
Your Seasoned Pucker as you make-decide
His trunks are no-offense. In Truth his legs,
Thick as moss beg your humble dear Confide
I guess you were advised after your Shift
He requested for your charmed Experiment
Second Ghosts appeared; They in turn bereft
And granted his Fantasy's sentiment.
I should go now. Since more time to pursue
Before he stabs me with a Knife-in-Due.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 7:14 AM UTC
Sugar maple’s immature leaves bounce lively on the breeze
Robins frolic through dandelions and freshly cut grass
Brilliant brightness peeks through clouds warming my face
Families of rabbits skip through budding yellow tulips
Lavender lilacs dance with dogwood blossoms tickling my nose
Baby woodpecker taps at the sycamore branch
Fat bumblebees buzz from cherry bloom to zinnia bloom
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 1:24 PM UTC
Writing,
for you
--is a river
a revelation
a sleepless constant gift-- so out-to-see
in a flimsy boat
you built by mathematic rote and laced with ivy
to hold together ******* boards of crazy
with the ease of breathing
Your giant storehouse
wealth-of-words
Your granary of data
the grist of
Music
You imagine wine
from mind
almost without limits
You command it all!
Dancing
in the grapes of moonlight
with tides of words
Their endless-- almost blind
come-ons and gone
in waves!
(my sullen heart)....
still stays
I am digging here
in a low spot
seeking water
with robins and a sparrow
in the puddles
Awaiting rain
Flipping-off the muddy shallows with our wings
I suppose their songs
will count for something
Tasting happenstance
of bugs in flight
maybe catch a firefly or two
at the edge of day
Tearing half a worm
from weeds...the brown of drying grass
near the small lagoon
collecting
'neath my car
Hiding
in an afternoon
too warm for flight
resorting to a place of shade
to smell the fresh-mown
sweet grass
Riding with my training-wheels
in the parade
Like a fool between those bikers' “Hogs”
Turning down my street
by mistake
laughing at the dead-end
of it all
Pulling poetry out my ***
___
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 2:33 PM UTC
A mother whispers into the fire of Night
I hold a match
I hold Yarn
I Am Wool
Shrinking to the formation
The intricate designs of your rib cage
of your brother's belly
of your Grandfather's waist
Am I simply a fool?
And Who
Doth I ask This question too?
A Torn book
A tattered sonnet of Man's sore feet
blistered eyes that are Green
That are Brown
That are Blue
I Lay with myself Tonight
I am Awake
I am Loud
In your Night
I Am the Janitor beneath the hardwood floors
of your Dream
I am the
Poorly Waged Electrician
With Shoes that resemble an old dog
I Light Your Highway
Your Street
Your Morning coffee
your
cigarette
Am I The Child?
I fall in love with women I see on the streets
Their Wavy hair
like a French sea
Her pale complexion
the Brown Glimmer in her eyes
And I paint on her on Tombstones
On Coffee Mugs and on carpets rolled up for the Dumpster
At Nights
I prefer to dream awake
and sit with a BathTub of words
of stories that melt like cheese
that stiffen like Ginsberg ****
that Shriek and Strum like Tom Waits stomach when he starves on backroad streets
And when I cannot
reproduce
I make love to a woman
And a poem is made
and I kiss her
and my lips say 5 am
and I wish her not to go
But the Dog
is waken by Robins
by the Pigeons
by the digestion of night to day
by the Greek Gods and Goddess' Light
That Falls down
like long hair of woman you have so longed for
and you kiss her chest
And there is no Death
There is no Sleep
or ****** addicts or gasoline or paved roads or shaved faces or mothers or Dostoevsky or Beethoven
There is just her
and you run your fingers across her skin
through her hair
She is the bottom of the Ocean
You are a homeless crab
a Shellless Clam
falling down
down
down
to the bed of the great ocean
and there she lays
With a reflection of Youth and Beauty
And her complex simplicity makes me think of
me as a boy
running behind brick collapsed business buildings
Kissing a girl behind church
Buying Icecream with Josh in Winter
That's what a woman does
She erases Death
from the palms of your hands
and your thoughts
and you sink
to the bottom
and you watch the Coral
The other fish
swimming along
and you laugh
Because you do not know Death
And Death does not know you.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 3:16 AM UTC
Crack some fire
everywhere
on the way heaven.
Light the shadow
light a candle
down the moon.
The sun in fact
does it every day.
Scurries towards
the last dark room
down the moon.
With the colour plate
intact and full
passes by shining on
every corner and nook
every untouched end in the day
the rainbows peep on the way.
Sneaks its way through
the deep forests of orbs
up and down the passages
in the mountains of stars
even after nightingales
and robins go deep silent
the sun tiptoes on the go
lights a candle on the moon.
Moments after the sunset
facing its true north in the West
only to find in heaven
the way The Queen of Heaven
puts her footprint less step
it's the sun's true West
shows up the new crescent.
Sep 4, 2022
Sep 4, 2022 at 9:10 PM UTC
Dawn
light just seeping
through slatted blinds
robins begin
their morning song
at full-blast volume
I am awake, listening
hoping you made it
through the wilderness
and are sitting on the deck
with your morning coffee
listening to robins too
or loons calling on the lake
watching the sun rise
you said you wanted
to be lying naked
next to the woman
you love
when you're ninety
I hope to be the one
in your arms
perhaps completely deaf
to the robin's cacophony
and a little
worse for wear
but still loving
each other
just the same.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 9:57 AM UTC
There she awaits-
In her jewelled palace far from faded-eyes
A lily sheltered from the blanket of white;
the air perfume-light from the blossoms,
and a yearning heart -
Lo!
The silver songs of Robins; the heralds of Winters
twirl free.
Lo!
A Hyperborean wind is roused from slumber
and spreads its wings. Leaves drift down are
kissed by frost; lakes, the woodlands placed
under your trance. And your vision came to
be - a polished world on a fair day.
And at a pleasant hour-
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 4:47 PM UTC
Hawks
Poison Ivy
Butterflies
Many shades of Pink
Grass
Hydrangeas
Tiny little ladybugs
Colorful Flowers
Robins
Roses
Many wonderful, beautiful things
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
I found you
on page 119, of the sacred tome
the only sin, to slay the fine fowl
called mockingbird--why blue jays were fair game
remains mystery to me, but I trust thee,
Ms Lee, to have writ the grand truth
though when I look to the skies,
or in the flush of leaves in my oak,
I find only mourning dove, robins
and a plain sparrow or two, all hiding,
from sinners, in the soft rain
they would not heed my words
no matter how earnestly
implored
"stay behind the branches,
do not move a feather,
words cannot protect you;
when the rains stop, those
with sharp eye and cold heart
will rob you of flight and light "
and then I awake,
to a bright sun, to realize
there has been no rain and the slaughter
has continued all along
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 4:51 PM UTC
In sunshine or in shadow how rich the loamy soil
light of earth, dream of rebirth greening
lilac buds and bluebells ring
magenta hills, aubretia spring
of burning fire
A mossy path of violets, soft my feet to wander
muscari blue the garden dew
birds to drink of leafy puddles
bluest skies go grey, drifts so swift a rain cloud by
to water quick the daffodil, silk umbrellas yellow
and comes alas the greening grass
robins hopping, weaving
Spring unfurls in flowery births
tiny violets upon the earth
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
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23
I had a guinea golden—
I lost it in the sand—
And tho’ the sum was simple
And pounds were in the land—
Still, had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye—
That when I could not find it—
I sat me down to sigh.
I had a crimson Robin—
Who sang full many a day
But when the woods were painted,
He, too, did fly away—
Time brought me other Robins—
Their ballads were the same—
Still, for my missing Troubador
I kept the “house at hame.”
I had a star in heaven—
One “Pleiad” was its name—
And when I was not heeding,
It wandered from the same.
And tho’ the skies are crowded—
And all the night ashine—
I do not care about it—
Since none of them are mine.
My story has a moral—
I have a missing friend—
“Pleiad” its name, and Robin,
And guinea in the sand.
And when this mournful ditty
Accompanied with tear—
Shall meet the eye of traitor
In country far from here—
Grant that repentance solemn
May seize upon his mind—
And he no consolation
Beneath the sun may find.
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285
The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune—
Because I grow—where Robins do—
But, were I Cuckoo born—
I’d swear by him—
The ode familiar—rules the Noon—
The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom—
Because, we’re Orchard sprung—
But, were I Britain born,
I’d Daisies spurn—
None but the Nut—October fit—
Because, through dropping it,
The Seasons flit—I’m taught—
Without the Snow’s Tableau
Winter, were lie—to me—
Because I see—New Englandly—
The Queen, discerns like me—
Provincially—
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Mistletoe with berries red
chestnuts roasting, kids in bed
glass of eggnog cheeky kiss
how I live for times like this
wrapping done and stockings filled
brandy warmed and champagne chilled
baking done put up our feet
and sip the drips from lips so sweet
turkey thawed ready to roast
cards all sent by last nights post
treats left out for old St Nick
but maybe add a carrot thick
snowman built and robins fed
so now my love it's time for bed
midnight bells and wicked grin
as one last glass of port and gin
maybe dear before they rise
you could unwrap just one surprise
if you can't find it Neath the tree
then maybe baby. your gifts me
so Merry Christmas all my friends
as with a bang this poem now ends
xx<3xx
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 12:04 PM UTC
82
Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her—”pleiad”—in the woods
And bore her safe away.
Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek—
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives.
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