"scaffold" poems
Oh Language, where hast thou hid thyself?
Thy once-bright spires decline to dust.
The calm, well-reasoned flow of wisdom
a bygone memory. I’ll not trust
these tween-to-twenty-something’s prattle;
endless babble of self-absorption
centered in pleasure-maximizing:
narcissistic thought-abortion.
Dude—they’re SO not app’ed for language
used by dad ten years ago.
I’m totally DONE with their, like, verbiage
They’re all: Smartphone Teenage Show.
It’s just, like, TALKING—without words
in language ghettos; texting proud . . .
Their lack of precision offends my brain—
They ought to be ashamed (out loud).
Vygotsky’s vaunted Z.P.D,
and Bakhtin’s heteroglossic crack
along with Roland Barthe’s pet parrot
Are SO like totally talking smack.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 3:00 PM UTC
178
I cautious, scanned my little life—
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till Heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.
I put the latter in a Barn—
The former, blew away.
I went one winter morning
And lo—my priceless Hay
Was not upon the “Scaffold”—
Was not upon the “Beam”—
And from a thriving Farmer—
A Cynic, I became.
Whether a Thief did it—
Whether it was the wind—
Whether Deity’s guiltless—
My business is, to find!
So I begin to ransack!
How is it Hearts, with Thee?
Art thou within the little Barn
Love provided Thee?
6k
Once at the guillotine
Now an out-of-focus angel
"Crime is shame, not the scaffold!"
She's got a '45 strapped
To each of her thighs
Speaks French with a Martian accent
Wishes she was a siren
When bathed in happy thoughts
Wishes she was the ladybird
When her wings
Confuse amuse transfuse
Into dreams of blood
Lukewarm prisoner
Detained for seven years
Now lies beside her
Asking for a helping hand
She loosens her corset
But tightens her grip
Jan 3, 2022
Jan 3, 2022 at 9:10 AM UTC
Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks
An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again
Ponders
Ideas that collapse
At the first touch of attention
The light at the window, so square and so same
So full-strong as ever, the window frame
A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on
Supporting the body, shaped to its old work
Making small movements in gray air
Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived, the fatal, real injury
Under the amnesia
Something tries to save itself-searches
For defenses-but words evade
Like flies with their own notions
Old age slowly gets dressed
Heavily dosed with death's night
Sits on the bed's edge
Pulls its pieces together
Loosely tucks in its shirt
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The Crickets cackle “crisp,”
With an only interruption, being I,
Atop dust, whisper and
Desert highway.
I’d tell you if I were running,
But I’m not quite sure, not yet,
Leaving the Coyote to eat,
Respite, and devoured,
The singing Crickets,
A’howl later,
To deliver answers unimpeded.
I have a faint memory –
A snake’s grip promised, via hand and
Crystal contingency,
“Wiser,” once bestowed, the mystic;
An epic complete, atop 17 years of thunder,
Steel stained crimson,
Street stained whimper
And forever remaining,
“Under-construction.”
Symbolic a more relevant scaffold,
½ bamboo and the other steel, the tower,
Note ‘fore me, it’s only purpose –
Elsewhere, and anonymous,
While I tap my belly to some
Melody we’d once enjoyed;
Maybe something by, “Coltrane,”
Or maybe not; but music we’d both
Recognize and reminisce too.
It’s an awkward alchemy of sorts,
As the Crickets, post-mortem,
Persist if only to chirp, and the Coyote mulls.
When the dust continues to cake.
When the whisper finds newer ears.
When interrupt’s abrupt, erupts,
Pacifies and interrupts again;
My precious distraction –
An amnesia loyal in away from, “then.”
Somewhere beyond, “there,”
And onward, “anew.”
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 4:17 PM UTC
Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!
For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue;
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope has wilted, undone.
How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here’s my neck—
rise up now, rise and slaughter!
Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
although we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.
Executioner, my blood’s a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
drenching your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.
If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I’ve been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.
You too arrogant men, with your brutal injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries "Vengeance!" on a maiden;
such cruelty was never contemplated, even by Satan.
Let innocents’ blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents’ blood seep down into the congealing darkness,
eat it away and undermine
earth's rotting foundations.
Al Hashechita ("On the Slaughter") was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in response to the ****** Kishniev pogrom of 1903, which was instigated by agents of the Czar who wanted to divert social unrest and political anger from the Czar to the Jewish minority. The Hebrew word schechita (also transliterated shechita, shechitah, shekhitah, shehita) denotes the ritual kosher slaughtering of animals for food. The juxtapositioning of kosher slaughter with the slaughter of Jews makes the poem all the more powerful and ghastly. Such anti-Semitic incidents prompted a massive wave of Eastern European emigration that brought millions of Jews to the West. Unfortunately, there have been many similar slaughters in human history and the poem remains chillingly relevant to the more recent ones in Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, Bialik, translation, slaughter, massacre, God, prayer, executioner, hangman, blood, innocents, justice, false, scales, injustice
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 at 4:00 AM UTC
In early eighteen-forty-four,
In Cornwall’s heart; on Bodmin Moor,
Charlotte Dymond, a young farm maid,
Had her throat slit with a steel blade,
She crossed fast streams and deadly bogs,
Found her way through mists and fogs,
But couldn’t stop that fatal blow,
That stole her life and laid her low,
She walked to meet someone that day,
Just who that was ... no one would say,
Found days later beside a track,
Laid on a cart; her shroud a sack,
The surgeon, Thomas Good, was fetched,
Had in his mind, her white face etched,
Charlotte untouched by fox or crow,
Had she been moved ... he did not know,
No evidence was ever found,
But her young boyfriend had gone to ground,
Fingers so quick to point his way,
Matthew Weeks panicked; ran away,
The hapless ******* was soon caught,
No other culprit was ever sought,
The judge was just a rubber-stamp,
Bodmin Gaol was dark and damp,
The scaffold built, the crowds arrived,
Matthew swore he had not lied,
The floor gave way, the rope drew tight,
Was justice done ... the verdict right?
Jun 13, 2017
Jun 13, 2017 at 2:34 AM UTC
there are no pins,
no easy way to fix
some things.
this time, we wait
to see the outcome.
mended plates aren’t funny,
scaffold a life.
don’t laugh, it may
happen to you.
listen, repeat the
random insects.
stitch another way.
sbm.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 12:57 AM UTC
Come dance the Tandava with me and you too will be free
Creation सृष्टि
I am Shiva’s Shadow
स्थिति ..... I exist to support life’s precarious platform
संहार ..... I feel Creation’s seed.... cosmic genesis
The first wave of flagrant eruption
Ending in the the cosmos’s destruction.
तिरोभाव There exists illusion
Which gives rise to me
The obliteration of ignorance.
We live in times of ignore-ance
Here I have little sway.
Years from now....maybe.
Until then, kali decides to dance with me. Primal संहार Destruction
Bloodlust and Fire
******** and desire
Quantum tantric tangle
***** the world’s funeral pyre
Goodbye beauty, Goodbye love
WE bring it upon ourselves, creating shells and building shelves
to stack the wonton clothes of identity, the context of all hells.
The layers are too many
It collapses
And if not, I'll ******* burn the scaffold.
I know why I am here now.
To destroy tirobhava,
all this pain is an illusion
I hereby release this sickness from the world
in prophetic burning grace of emancipation अनुग्रह is foretold
To dance the sacred tandava
say goodbye once more and end it all.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 3:44 PM UTC
I used to be a
mortar forker
when I was a kid
working construction,
packing tongs of brick
and slinging cinder blocks
up three levels of scaffold
only to have the block layers
complain about how the mud
was as dry as a camels ****
but the pay was good
and it was drank up every weekend
while the chicks admired my
tanned and buff skinny frame
but shunned my drunken advances.
© 2013
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
Is it sounds
converging,
Sounds
nearing,
Infringement,
impingement,
Impact,
contact
With surfaces of the sounds
Or surfaces without the sounds:
Diagrams,
skeletal,
strange?
Is it winds
curling round invisible corners?
Polyphony of perfumes?
Antennae discovering an axis,
erecting the architecture of a world?
Is it
orchestration of the finger-tips,
graph of a fugue:
Scaffold for colours:
colour itself being god?
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Hand over hand,
You slowly ascend,
Afraid of the impact,
You would have in the end.
Many times had you dreamt,
Of this very day.
The day that your fears,
Would all go away.
You have summoned the courage,
To climb to the top.
But more courage is needed,
For the hundred foot drop.
You remember so clearly,
The snickers and sneers,
The way they would tease you,
For showing your fears.
But today will be different,
You will prove them all wrong,
And show them how truly,
You want to belong.
As you stand there triumphant,
Perched up on your ledge,
you make the mistake,
of looking down over the edge.
The people below,
Looked at you in awe.
They watched on in horror,
Couldn't believe what they saw.
From up on the scaffold,
Way up in the sky,
The dizziness got you,
You fell from ahigh.
At first, just a gasp,
But then to a scream,
Then suddenly you realized,
This isn't a dream.
You really had done it,
It wasn't that bad,
You thought to yourself,
Then suddenly...Splash!
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 5:03 PM UTC
Honeysuckle infused those summer nights
Painfully sweet perfume that dulled thoughts
Like narcotic-fueled fantasies
Replacing will with complaisance
While children plucked the soft posies
Eagerly ******* their sweetness like free candies
All season long tendrils encircled and wound
Around each bush in a push from ground,
Thieves stealing away life-giving sun
Choking old life from the garden
Unnoticed, leaf by leaf perishing, dropping
'Til shrub and tree stood each a lifeless scaffold
Sep 12, 2009
Sep 12, 2009 at 8:20 PM UTC
An Old Story
I
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day!
II
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries.
Had I said, “Good folks, mere noise repels—
But give me your sun from yonder skies!”
They had answered, “And afterward, what else?”
III
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,
To give it my loving friends to keep.
Nought man could do have I left undone,
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
IV
There’s nobody on the house-tops now—
Just a palsied few at the windows set—
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles’ Gate—or, better yet,
By the very scaffold’s foot, I trow.
V
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind,
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year’s misdeeds.
VI
Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go!
In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
“Thou, paid by the World,—what dost thou owe
Me?” God might have questioned; but now instead
’Tis God shall requite! I am safer so.
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Hops and topsy-turvy jumps ― blurred movement
muddles across the dewy meadow floor,
as though dawn brushes away the sandman’s magic
from the corner of sleepy eyes,
to cast an enchanting spell
A sudden hazy yet abrupt stop…
hastily, halting , frozen motionless
Stillness, as if some final destination has been reached…
Neck stretched and craning,
tilted with an eye to mother earth ;
a canted focus beyond interruption
In the blink of an eye,
with a vigor too rapid to capture,
as the nowness of urgency flashes ―
She stretches the earthworm
with the grasp of subsistence
knowing after fall becomes the long winterlude.
The morning sun illuminates the glow of the native Maple’s
glorious fiery orange and yellow color palette
A steady stream of animation rushes in and out
of the giant tree’s golden splendor
Abundance perishes with the seasonal gardens decay.
Mornings of blueberry and strawberry feasts
have left the red breasted robbers foraging
for the last rotting apples the deer have left behind.
Harbingers of spring…
Blueberry sneakers…
Gleaners of fall and winter..
“Teeek” “tuk” “tuk” “Tseep”....
fills the overhead air
with a beautifully chaotic verve
The flock returns repeatedly to and fro the towering Maple
to the ripened cornucopia of scarlet berry clusters of the Mountain Ash
The Robin’s flock ravage and gorge on the plentiful delights
Soon the crimson berries fuel of flight will disappear
as if it were only an unspoken allusion
of the passing seasons
The pearl gray sky is an ominous backdrop
for the fickle fleeting migrants
Daylight fades as the flock disappears
into a break in the clouds
fleeting unto the ominous pending winter sky…
In the blink of an eye ... life’s senescent seasons
transform the stormy whirling winds of change
bearing the golden Autumn leave’s splendor
across the rolling vista
like a higgledy-piggledy murmuration
of a migrating beautiful mess
The naked rooted scaffold’s branches stretch
across the sprawling tapestry of the wooded sanctuary.
Winter flocks of Thrush and Robins,
arrive on a frosty new dawn
Red breast feathers puff with the morning sun’s rays,
warming the tree tops leaning toward the southern sky;
Their journey here and now,
from distant mountainous horizons,
is part of a soul’s sacred circle of life…
November rivers ...the final autumn entry of 2017
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 10:26 AM UTC
she'll walk off
and you'll walk behind,
you feel like a man
and see everything in soft focus exposure
and her walking ahead, timid and feeling triumphant.
this was your first kiss
and not your last kiss
but your most important kiss;
the foundation kiss,
the scaffold kiss,
cathedral columns holding up the whispering gallery of this kiss.
or did you walk off
and she walked behind,
did she feel like a woman,
soft, warm, and kind seeing everything is a hard focus exposure?
that was her second kiss,
not her last kiss
and not her most important kiss;
it was a mill stone kiss,
a grist lipped ground-down-again kiss,
a motel-hotel-roadside chapel of cheap kisses kiss.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 9:37 AM UTC
*adverts and the internet medium:
d'uh... you forgot the capacity
of the mute button...
wha'? wha'?
audi tt?
(let's expand on the title:
geometry (Y) the three dimensions,
and trigonometry (W)... cosine rule,
i.e. how three-dimensional space behaves).*
i was born in the late 20th century,
and, right now,
i'm seeing the "problem"
you thought jews in europe
were the problem...
ever read anything
on the subject of kabbalah?
i can only reply
with sepultura's:
ra-ta-ma'h-hatta'h...
**** me, the tetragrammaton feels like
licking a pharaoh's toes in linguistic terms...
*and there are always four,
to ensure there's one*.
but at least the aztec pyramids
were not burial grounds, or burial monuments,
rather, sites of capital punishment...
which the conquistadors misunderstood!
only the whites know the concept
of ethno-masochism.
by common-tongue standards
so thoroughly expressed with
the desired eloquence, stated, already.
social sciences are a disease
in terms of science per se...
why isn't there a divine intervention
story with regards to the aztec pyramids?
**** me and the scaffold!
the largest bird on earth,
and instead of flying off,
it sticks its head into the earth
to "hide".
that's pushing it...
that's saying the non-existence of god is based
upon the non-existence of a good joke;
i just don't think he needs to be
revered...
but obviously people have other
plans...
never mind the comedian...
mind the moloch;
so they pray, and pray, and ask, and plead,
and end up looking like amassed lunatics...
they demand praying...
me? i demand of myself thinking about him...
hard to think about nothing,
if i were thinking about nothing,
i simply would be, not thinking;
and you'd probably find me:
painting.
but **** me, aztec pyramids didn't receive
a divine intervention
but the egyptian pyramids did...
clearly the aztec pyramids weren't vanity projects
akin to burial sites / tombs...
clearly...
sites of enforcing capital punishment;
years later mis-translated by conquistadors...
and in militant atheistic form...
said: retarted.
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 3:09 PM UTC
What I miss most
about you
is those
hidden powder keg stand
salmon net blood stained
scaffold pirate rigging
crumpled roof
dense smoke cloud cabin
dangerous flirtatious biker bar taunting
staggering pool playing
yellow and black liquid haze
full on sensory assault
adventures
we both knew
would never last
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 10:45 AM UTC
I
GRANDFATHER sang it under the gallows:
" Hear, gentlemen, ladies, and all mankind:
Money is good and a girl might be better.
But good strong blows are delights to the mind.'
There, standing on the catt,
He sang it from his heart.
Those fanatics all that we do would undo;
Down the fanatic, down the clown;
Down, down, hammer them down,
Down to the tune of O'Donnell Abu.
"A girl I had, but she followed another,
Money I had, and it went in the night,
Strong drink I had, and it brought me to sorrow,
But a good strong cause and blows are delight.'
All there caught up the tune:
"On, on, my darling man'.
Those fanatics all that we do would undo;
Down the fanatic, down the clown;
Down, down, hammer them down,
Down to the tune of O'Donnell Abu.
"Money is good and a girl might be better,
No matter what happens and who takes the fall,
But a good strong cause' -- the rope gave a **** there,
No more sang he, for his throat was too small;
But he kicked before he died,
He did it out of pride.
Those fanatics all that we do would undo;
Down the fanatic, down the clown;
Down, down, hammer them down,
Down to the tune of O'Donnell Abu.
II
Justify all those renowned generations;
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavem, crevice, hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
"Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman,
"They killed my goose and a cat.
Drown, drown in the water-but,
<1Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman.
Justify all those renowned generations,
Justify all that have sunk in their blood,
Justify all that have died on the scaffold,
Justify all that have fled, that have stood,
Stood or have marched the night long
Singing, singing a song.
"Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman.
"They killed my goose and a cat.
Drown, drown in the water-butt,
Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman.
Fail, and that history turns into *******
All that great past to a trouble of fools;
Those that come after shall mock at O'Donnell,
Mock at the memory of both O'Neills,
Mock Emmet, mock Parnell:
All the renown that fell.
"Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman,
"They killed my goose and a cat.
Drown, drown in the water-butt,
Drown all the dogs,' said the fierce young woman.
III
The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,
Troy backed its Helen; Troy died and adored;
Great nations blossom above;
A slave bows down to a slave.
Who'd care to dig em,' said the old, old man,
"Those six feet marked in chalk?
Much I talk, more I walk;
Time I were buried,' said the old, old man.
When nations are empty up there at the top,
When order has weakened or faction is strong,
Time for us all to pick out a good tune,
Take to the roads and go marching along.
March, march -- How does it run? --
O any old words to a tune.
"Who'd care to dig 'em,' said the old, old man,
'Those six feet marked in chalk?
Much I talk, more I walk;
Time I were buried,' said the old, old man.
Soldiers take pride in saluting their Captain,
Where are the captains that govetn mankind?
What happens a tree that has nothing within it?
O marching wind, O a blast of the wind.
Marching, marching along.
March, march, lift up the song:
"Who'd care to dig 'em,' said the old, old man.
"Those six feet marked in chalk?
Much I talk, more I walk;
Time I were buried,' said the old, old man.
1.8k
Within the forms of the ledges and ridges,
threads of the feeble breezes tried to confer
and draw forth, as their explanation, an
acceptance through traveling with companions
who did not reject the powers of conversation,
held within the scenery and handed across
without any alarm or voice of awakened
hostility. The rejection was strong enough to
stay in sight as the hovering screech of the
necessary owl. Watching the bird, the
creature of the steps above the spiral arm
seemed to be at liberty to discover the gentle
voices swirling through the mist. While the
division of the stars proceeded to wash the
scaffold free of a slow moving controversy,
the remaining voices presented rambling
rings and the stripes of planets. It was late in
the evening. Swirling spots remained to be
counted, an expense that provided sustenance
to families of flowers and the wafted powers
of pollen as seeds with mechanical metal
threaded between one nebula and the next.
The waves tossed a small barn up onto the edge
of the mountain but used reassuring words to
surround the animals allowing them to travel
comfortably. Conversation usually included any
of the stars that were emerging from the
entertainment field. These had been packed,
carefully, with the necessary, spare parts and
albums filled with memories in photographs.
Frequent glances wore a familiar trail between
the shelter and the edge where moss cascaded
like rivers of joy moving among the banks of
grass, carrying the hulls, like fish, through
channels into the city. Acutely reminded that
serious people would be encountered before the
ages ended, the mice were nice and did not
tempt the birds into flights and attacks. The
exception to this was hunger which ruled the
loyalty of the rodent population. Any, of the
gathering, with reddish fur cast a shadow down
the stairway lit, as it always had been, from the
tremendous stellar flights that were lost, as
sparks above the dark chimney, the matter in
charge of all convection for a reasonable and
eternal distance into the mine.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM UTC
Poetry is not frozen.............
Still surged in poetry
A stream stemming from the crux
An energetic reflection
An external of internalized intuitions
The flow of the words
Attuned and harmonized
Umpteen snow, melodic tunes
Visualized dreams mending arts
A bursting imagination
A word behind the beats
A free energy of octaves
Pulses of natural architecture
HP our home of anonymities
Acquainted monikers broadcast
Poetry strum through the universe
The singular tones attached
Poetry a scaffold of true expression
A design encoded to amuse
The beauty silhouette on plinth
Hollowed ice with steaming warmth
Poetry the distributed condenser
Sliding from 126hz to 136hz
The domineering kingship
Posing the echoes in words
Keep going everyone at HP, you are all beautiful!Lets the words dance
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 12:24 PM UTC
REMEMBER all those renowned generations,
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavern, crevice, or hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
But time amends old wrong,
All that is finished, let it fade.
Remember all those renowned generations,
Remember all that have sunk in their blood,
Remember all that have died on the scaffold,
Remember all that have fled, that have stood,
Stood, took death like a tune
On an old,tambourine.
Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
But time amends old wrong,
And all that's finished, let it fade.
Fail, and that history turns into *******
All that great past to a trouble of fools;
Those that come after shall mock at O'Donnell,
Mock at the memory of both O'Neills,
Mock Emmet, mock Parnell,
All the renown that fell.
Be still, be still, what can be said?
My father sang that song,
but time amends old wrong,
And all that's finished, let it fade.
The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,,
Troy backed its Helen; Troy died and adored;
Great nations blossom above;
A slave bows down to a slave.
What marches through the mountain pass?
No, no, my son, not yet;
That is an airy spot,
And no man knows what treads the grass.
We know what rascal might has defiled,
The lofty innocence that it has slain,
Were we not born in the peasant's cot
Where men forgive if the belly gain?
More dread the life that we live,
How can the mind forgive?
What marches down the mountain pass?
No, no, my son, not yet;
That is an airy spot,
And no man knows what treads the grass.
What if there's nothing up there at the top?
Where are the captains that govern mankind?
What tears down a tree that has nothing within it?
A blast of the wind, O a marching wind,
March wind, and any old tune.
March, march, and how does it run?
What marches down the mountain pass?
No, no, my son, not yet;
That is an airy spot,
And no man knows what treads the grass.
III
Grandfather sang it under the gallows:
"Hear, gentlemen, ladies, and all mankind:
Money is good and a girl might be better,
But good strong blows are delights to the mind.'
There, standing on the cart,
He sang it from his heart.
1
"A girl I had, but she followed another,
Money I had, and it went in the night,
Strong drink I had, and it brought me to sorrow,
But a good strong cause and blows are delight.'
All there caught up the tune:
"Oh, on, my darling man.'
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Robbers had taken his old tambourine.
"Money is good and a girl might be better,
No matter what happens and who takes the fall,
But a good strong cause' -- the rope gave a **** there,
No more sang he, for his throat was too small;
But he kicked before he died,
He did it out of pride.
1
1.6k
history -
a history -
I wanted to know what that sound was.
I wanted to know what made your hair so straight.
I wanted to ask you to kiss me on the cheek.
You told me the sound was an Aeolian harp
imitating a macaw.
I am a boy on a scaffold imitating a window.
My hair is always the wind's *****
So the trip was a disaster.
So there was
an insufficiency in my reassurances.
a crab in the bed.
a wish in the closet.
But I meant it. I did mean it.
history-
at least I knew where the sound came from,
who made it,
and why it was beautiful.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 1:43 PM UTC
Her wide-brim hat was pointed, and worn with ne'er a tilt
Her midnight robe was flowing, and wove from satin silk
Her Besom broom was hazel-hilted, twigged with fresh cut birch
As she flew o'er the hill, until she spied a rocky perch
The hill was trapped in moons light, caught in its silken nets
And grizzled trees were swaying casting eerie silhouettes
A howling wind came moaning, as it wailed a haunting sound
When her swishing broom came whooshing, as she swept o'er the ground
She alighted on the hill top, landing dainty on her toes
And took a tattered grimoire which she held up to her nose
She raised a magic talisman and cast an ancient spell
Then she waited through the gloaming, till midnight chimed its bell
The hill stood gravely silent, as the wind restrained its breath
The grass and flowers wilted and released their scent of death
The shadows neath the trees became alive and took on shape
And ghostly figures rose, as Hallows Eve called them awake
The sounds of horse drawn carriages, came trundling up the hill
Whilst babbling jeering voices exorcised the silent still
A sudden gust of wind called out the names of those condemned
Each manacled and chained up, as they rode to meet their end
As time echoed its memories, she watched the scene unfold
The victims forced unwillingly, to climb upon the scaffold
Some offered up the Lord’s Prayer, and ne'er a word was stumbled
They took a final breath of life, and into hell they tumbled
Their bodies swung ungainly, as they swayed a ghastly dance
With lifeless spectral faces locked into a stone-like trance
Their deathly shrouds were pale, reflected in moons silken sheen
And she watched as they cavorted, ne'er attempt to intervene
They slunk back into shadows, at the fading of the night
The hill reprieved from darkness by the early morning light
The ritual was completed, as she whispered them goodbye
And she climbed onto her hazel broom and kicked into the sky
On Gallows Hill neath stars and moon they hung
And ne'er a one had done the world a wrong
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
Beneath a grey, forbidding sky,
as all the Saints looked on,
Kevin Barry climbed the scaffold,
by the order of the Crown.
He would not betray his fellows
to the agents of the State.
By Courts martial, they condemned him
to a common villains fate.
This morn at Mount joy jail
as the World looked on, aghast,
the hangman’s rope snapped Kevin’s neck
and Barry breathed his last.
Denied a soldier’s bullet,
Kevin hung upon a tree,
Just eighteen, but a martyr
for the cause of Liberty.
Let him never be forgotten;
As long as we have voice to sing.
He is past all trial and suffering
at the hands of Earthly Kings.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 10:45 PM UTC