"sentries" poems
Goats eat and **** the grass of ramparts,
stupefied cannons sit, garrisoned sentries
primed for nights of buccaneers,
seared by centuries of sun. Down shadowed
cobblestoned ramps, fortified shutters
covet rifle forend and barrel,
wresting rumored slave rebellions
from the locker of history,
while languid waves whisper indifferently
a roll call of human cargo,
chattel displaced, cast to the sea.
Here history sways to sounds
of brown skinned children
at play in breakers,
laughing, shrieking, thrashing,
buoyed by time to this vaulted brick
reverberating chamber,
here a window’s light is cast
beckoning vision past the beach,
to seek the horizon Icarus like,
to fly towards beauty in terror where
an azure sky conjoins a turquoise bay.
Copyright © 2003 Gary Brocks
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 5:14 AM UTC
There's a meadow past the village
On a hill...where magic swarms
You can see it on a summer night
When the clouds predict the storms
Life from time eternal
Starts appearing in the field
Gnomes and bluebell fairies
and the magic that they yield
You can see them from the village
Dancing in the moonlights glow
You can see the lightning jumping
You can see the ebb and flow
The pixies and the fairies
Folk who are part of their own world
Light up the distant meadow
As the magic is unfurled
Daisies and soft bluebells
fill the meadow in the sun
there is clover and some dragonflies
And young children having fun
The magic folk are hiding
Lights are hid, and tucked away
Until the humans in their world
Pack to end the day
It's then, from down the village
That the meadow lights begin
Where the magic lights the sky up
In the early gloaming din
If a human breaks the borders
Coming out and much too near
The lights go dark...and silent
For the magic world has ears
There are sentries in the meadow
All unseen to you
That alert the makers of the lights
When the humans are in view
there is magic in the meadow
magic lanterns are set free
where the world becomes a canvas
Of dancing lights for all to see
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 5:36 PM UTC
As the sun moves to the western horizon
Colors are skilfully blended in a palette
In an instant the sky becomes an exquisite canvas of art
Making even Van Gogh burn in jealousy
With the last glimmer of sunset
When the shadows chase the light,
The aerial folks fly back to their nests
Like black and white specks dotting the sky
With a dark drape stretched across the Earth’s face
The arrival of the night is a spectacular sight
Cicadas and crickets welcome her with their ceremonious band
And street lamps blink their eyes to catch a better view
While truant clouds still wander around aimless
The cerulean sky signals them to hurry
Stars slowly appear in the night sky
Like sequins stitched on to a blue brocade
The crescent moon smiles down
The empress of the night, proud and regal
She and her retinue keep guard over the slumbering Earth
The unpaid sentries of the night!
A gentle breeze makes a palanquin ride
Wafting in the scent of opening buds
The beauty of the night sends me to raptures
My heart exploding like foaming wine in a bottle
Yet I cannot but keep wondering
How many dark secrets
The night holds
Within her tenebrous folds!
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 12:52 PM UTC
The crockets are launched
The people are killed
Crits are ringing
Sentries are shooting
I know this, I was there
I'm not a dactor, not yet at least
I took spawn camping to the next level
It's true, they can confirm it
look it up yourself next gen spawn camping
I did it, you didn't (unless you were there)
it was at 11:00 this morning
yea
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
A poem by my friend Stan Blackberg (the total ******
There are flowers standing proudly, one for each whose loved ones mourn,
Speaking out so clear and loudly, for that fateful treacherous morn,
When the aircrafts bashed them up and all their flesh got burnt & torn!
Do we honour them with killing, taking up arms to spill more blood,
Or take lesson if we’re willing, a bitter pill for common good,
Or sit unbeguiled with our faces stuffed with fattening food?
There’s no god would take such action, justify such murderous deed,
Those insane within such factions, find posthumously they heed,
It's upon such wickedosity that our nostrils froth and bleed.
Hear the painful hard earned lesson, lest their names we desecrate,
Take not slaughter as your banner making killing escalate,
And by no means forget to have a mutual **********
Place our sentries all united, shed thee not another drop,
Silence now all angry gunfire, when’s the killing ever stop.
And the blood falls from above with a loudish plip and plop.
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
For the past two hours
this Mac has hypnotised
my gaze to its white screen
and every website has
sentries at the door -
Username ? Password ?
Already registered ? Login
When did we become so
chary one of another ? Were
folks so paranoid in the pre-
digital age when existence
had not been magicked into
noughts and ones in Silicon
Valley? It did not seem so.
(c) C J Heyworth July 2014
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
My friends without shields walk on the target
It is late the windows are breaking
My friends without shoes leave
What they love
Grief moves among them as a fire among
Its bells
My friends without clocks turn
On the dial they turn
They part
My friends with names like gloves set out
Bare handed as they have lived
And nobody knows them
It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their
Cups that are found at the wells
And are then chained up
My friends without feet sit by the wall
Nodding to the lame orchestra
Brotherhood it says on the decorations
My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling
With a nest of salt in his hand
My friends without fathers or houses hear
Doors opening in the darkness
Whose halls announce
Behold the smoke has come home
My friends and I have in common
The present a wax bell in a wax belfry
This message telling of
Metals this
Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart
And these hands one
For asking one for applause
My friends with nothing leave it behind
In a box
My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night
They take the same road they miss
Each other they invent the same banner in the dark
They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe
At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish
The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise
Like a monument to my
Friends the forgotten
2.2k
First Contact
"How did I get here,I can't remember,
my brains burning out like a dwindling ember,
are those tears in my eyes?-no its pourin' rain,
I'm lying on my back in the bottom of a stormdrain,
hunted like an animal,but still I'm deadly,
like a wounded lion,you better bet ye,
will lose more men than I've already taken(taken sample),
the hunter hunted? I think you're mistaken,
I'm a one man army,armed or not,
you didn't bring enough manpower,have you forgot?,
that the sandman(badman,phantoms in the dark)
has more in his bite than you do in your bark,
it's getting dark now,tables turning,
tyger,tyger,my eyes are burning,
better keep your guard up,I've been confronted...
but how can you tell who's hunter or hunted? 16.
Riposte
Better count your sentries,I think ones missin,
when you see his blood glistenin your pants your ****** in,
should have been listenin,I gave you a chance,
now its time for the Sandman to do his dance,
like a praying Mantis I move so swiftly,
bullet's fly like locusts,but each one missed me,
the Locus and Focus of my 3rd eyes movin,
got your sentries rifle,but I won't even use it,
taunt you haunt you,flaunt skills I honed,
from a broken home,to the streets to battlezones,
catch you alone,smash your skull with a hanbo,
appear behind you from the mud like Rambo,
bodies placed like hannibal,a deadly scene,
you're a ****** housecat and I'm wolverine,
told your boss you could get me now you know you fronted,
cat and mouse reversed-YOU'RE the one who's hunted.
Denoument
Now I know who you are,and I know where you live,
and in this line of work I can't forget or forgive.
We were partners once now you've betrayed my trust,
taught you everything you know,now it's ashes and dust
your bodyguards are good,but they know I'll get ya,
more ghost than man,a modern day ninja,
leave you injured,begging for mercy,
but you know the concept is alien to me,
grabbed the bull by the horns,my hand you forced,
you're a moveable object,I'm unstoppable force,
force feed your limbs til you beg for death,
line your family up and slowly take their heads,
then I'm in the wind,gone like keyser sozey,
the word is spread,don't try to **** me,
you were my friend,but you crossed the line,
try to hunt the Sandman,"you're all ****** dyin"
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 3:36 PM UTC
Monet, Manet, Morisot, and the tortured Vincent
a long century or more ago,
filled their palates with color,
their canvases with impressions of life, love and loss.
And we, the great masters of civilization,
have treasured these like newborn babes.
I wandered through the polished halls
of antiquities to see them—
some hidden even from the harsh light of day
to protect their precious prinking from decay.
I strained my eyes to see their soulful strokes
and wondered why artists carried such painful yokes
McMurtry’s ranch has no paintings
but sculptures from a vanished sea.
A quarter billion years it’s been,
and yet they’re here for all to see
Rocks carved by patient scratching time
and stock tanks covered with putrid slime.
No lilies float on pools of blue
and no guard carefully watches you
Their sentries are the desert rattlers
and the sun scorched prairie lands,
but these ancient masterpieces
are safe from filching hands.
When I kneel on hard rock soil,
I forget my daily useless toil
and dig in clean eternal dirt
with no canvases to belie the hurt
of gentle men who felt the call
to let their heart be seen by all
Monet, Manet, and Morisot
are now laid to rest, with their burdens set aside,
but their colors are a reminder
that beauty and suffering abide
McMurtry’s rocks no longer feel,
but who could say they are less real
than colors fading from the light
and lonely artists’ painful plight.
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 4:17 PM UTC
A foul wind blows off the wastes
Across a border set in stone
A land caught in winter's embrace
A fortress stands,
Stark and steadfast against the dark
Walls that have broken sword and tooth
Helmeted sentries
Alert and ready upon the ramparts
Never knowing peace
Wed only to death
Within the walls, life goes on
The chatter of townsfolk,
Hawkers shouting their wares,
The stomp of armoured feet
Marching to the city's heart
The keep
The citadel at the heart
Firm and steadfast
Held by men of valour,
Peace favour their swords.
Aug 11, 2010
Aug 11, 2010 at 9:33 PM UTC
Eyes closed, counting the careful sheep
Bounding over broken fences breathlessly,
Tired and unused to tripping over traps
Spared by the seconds sat in contemplation's lap.
Your lids, lying lushly atop layers of
Dark pools of depth, spinning splendid tales of love,
Trust, and heartache, I can truly tell today
Was a day of definition for words I wisely said.
Lips moving in silent rhythm, rhyming, I imagine, with words unsaid.
And as I assume the memories in mind the moment falls silent and dead.
A quip, perhaps, spawned by sentries of silence growing lax,
Falling in frequent motion to the floor - hypothetically, for I cannot ask.
Your sleeping state causes silence to spread and create
An empty essence in the heavy air around us
Birthed from broken intentions and misapprehensions
I had upon our meeting of matters as such.
Please, presume to sleep through my present departure
Deprived of arrows from Venus's archer
Allow my invading presence to avidly intrude
Once more, though his objection's mouthpiece does not move.
Lightly, so as to lay loosely upon the morrow,
I brush bold lips upon the brow pulled in sorrow
But whose silent reverie starts in sleepy surprise -
But, to my relief, falls back to oblivion with a sleepy sigh.
Brushing trembling tips of fingers foolishly
Across the air that passes on the lips
That burn with oxygen's contact with it -
I start when I see his tired eyes
Regarding me with scant surprise.
Those dark pools of infinite sorrow lay sight
On me, caught sneaking silent vows of affection,
And a blush engulfs everything from my eyes to my knees
On which his wary hand waits in his wakeful state.
Several silent moments descend indignantly,
And I dare to risk retribution for crimes committed
But to my sudden surprise I see a challenge in his eyes
And abruptly I am bound to the ground beneath him
And though I know once I stole a simple innocent kiss
He steals now from me my heart through my lips.
Feb 28, 2011
Feb 28, 2011 at 8:13 PM UTC
Isolated faces paradoxically surround
Bound by wants infinity
I strayed away from banks
Cause greed was just to trendy
The idea of friends and numbers
Threw me to the ground
Figured we'd crown 4 quarters instead of 100 pennies
Swede shoes, silk shirts, and bentleys
By some is defined as plenty
While little Lenny with stomach empty dreams of Denny's
Or some water or a Father would help immensely
Afgani blowing and Hennessy gulping MC's
Take their aperture and narrow it densely
Make millions off the Emmys some how erases Memories
Of pennies struggling in this world
Mother fiend'n they're just fending
Against the many
In class they're considered lowers
Below us they just a penny
I say our morals need reordered
cause no doubt that they're all Quarters
And deserve entry into this bank of respect
That has become run by hoarders
Loving to build borders 3 times the size
Of their self righteous shoulders
This is a disassembly of a culture surrounded by sentries.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 12:32 PM UTC
black sky, black road
yellow lines like warning signs
i turn my head away
from those flashes of colour
and look out the window instead
at the grey fields of evening
grey fields, grey grass
bulrushes like sentries
and one bird that calls to me from beyond
as if it understands this feeling
some days it mocks me
other days, it lets me speak
and i hear it often late at night
telling me to dry my eyes
and sleep
black sky, soft wind
that creeps through the netting across my window
and sweeps the salt water from my cheeks
while the coyotes howl, voicing what i cannot
and the crickets play their violins
as if i needed a soundtrack to this
and the next morning, my door opens
revealing brown skin and a summery smile
and when the sun hits my face
i feel the cold embrace me once again
feelings washed from my body and escaping
back to my bed, waiting
for the sun to set and for my body to hit the sheets
and for my mind to remember a day full of nothing
and nothing sinks into my tear ducts, opening up
the river, and i cannot for the life of me
remember why i am doing this, but i am
and the black sky watches without comment
as i take the bird's advice, drying my eyes
and sleeping
the sun rises again each morning
and so do i
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 1:09 AM UTC
The kindness of melancholy and the trusting stars
Of all sentries, within our slumbering sight
Whose watch was kept by a distant scout
Who held his peace, till death put out the light.
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 1:41 PM UTC
Magnificent castles
Impenetrable
Fortified as a heart
Who let's not an enemy in
Castle walls
Unscalable
Protection from the world
And all of its pain
The lonely king
Wants nothing more than a queen
To love him
As he honors her
As he showers her with gifts of a kingdom
And as she speaks
These kings defense
Boundaries
Armies and treaties
Sentries in the night on guard
Shields and armor
Impenetrable
Blades and arrows
To strike invaders down
The lonely king
Needs nothing more than a queen
A beautiful love
A glorious empire
As he's ruling by divine right
He puts God on her side
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 10:33 PM UTC
Lights strung above this out of place darkness
create shadows of an invisible existence
Filaments of glowing hopes and wants
droop towards empty heart beats
Alone in this overcrowded nightmare,
checking the time on faceless clocks
in no particular sequence standing
like sentries on broken boundary lines
An endless runway of lifeless orbs
dot the landscape in Morse code warnings
as I turn away in a curved defiance,
unable to accept the words touching my eyes
And still, glistening raindrops fall from overhead wires
reflecting each tear drop of prism’d descent
For even if I wake, screaming as the night disappears
she will still be gone, like every other burned out dream
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 10:18 AM UTC
I should not be the only link, the eccentric link, between attractions and deliberate repulsions. I should not be a main character-accomplice, just a simple supporting character-extra, who can be dragged here and there but will not let go, because he tries to live according to his own laws and prosper as long as he can. As an obedient rebel, the trumpeting, hysterical archangels of the Future often sound the alarm above my head.
- I have already changed my course quite often out of necessity, because the World would have expected this of me, even though the "some" knew well that it would be much more difficult for me to balance alone on my lame, club-like legs on the edge of the donkey ladder of Existence. In the fearful cosmic, arranged bends of the road, there can no longer be anyone left who would extend a helping hand as a sign of help, saying; You lived as a human, so we will treat you as such.
Because often I no longer know what the invisible Fate is planning for me, who was a simple mortal in this mud bowl all my life. My eyes would still drink in - if they could - the truthful foam crowns of exiled, foamy seas, where man could finally find redeemed harmony and peace. Virtual silences hardly guard my steps; as if digital sentries were standing watch everywhere. Moving target-human blue It is still unbelievable that they know anything about the personality of individuals.
From sight to blindness, not only the base, vile suspicion against the long-preserved Universal instincts grows in me, but also the haunting vision-image of the One-Beloved has come in and out in the wandering ghost-hour; because my unfulfilled desires are also constantly drowned by the wedding of uncomprehended dreams. The vain camp of self-willed people would increasingly tighten my throat like executioner's ropes. But don't be mistaken, I will catch myself one day and hide from here into the Underworld!
Sep 22, 2025
Sep 22, 2025 at 12:26 AM UTC
Called-up to muster on the streets,
Lay siege with pencils and paper shields,
Place couplet sentries on every corner,
March in-step with iambic feet,
Shoulder prosaic figures of speech.
Launch antithesis and irony,
Landmine metaphors and similes.
The poets engage guerilla warfare,
Surrounding the body politic
To water board with words and wit.
Our units are indeterminate,
Smearing ink for camouflage.
Be wary of everyone you meet,
Every tree lining your street;
We're making notes in small black pads,
To explicate the nots and haves.
Pens are shovels digging trenches,
Editing walls and blue pencilling fences,
Giving refuge to the marginalized,
From the onslaught of towering directives.
We're parading in our uniforms,
Raising banners, ragged and torn,
Calling on all to weather the storm,
To brace against cyclonic edicts
That swirl and funnel from posturing egots.
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 8:24 AM UTC
In silent woods where whispers freeze,
The breath of night kisses the breeze.
Trees stand like sentries cloaked in white,
Their branches bowing, in graceful plight.
The breath of winter, crisp and clear,
Wraps all in silence, drawing near.
A silver quilt covers sleeping ground,
As snowflakes drift and twirl around.
Beneath the moon's observant gaze,
Winter shrouds time in a sparkling haze.
The world sleeps under frosted dreams,
Where moonlight weaves its silver beams.
As frost paints scenes upon the night.
Where stars like diamonds shimmer bright.
Nature's art hangs in crystal chains,
A masterpiece in all that remains.
©️Lizzie Bevis
Dec 7, 2024
Dec 7, 2024 at 7:28 AM UTC
*Bucolic piedmont woodland avenues , where rain clouds touch the hillside after welcome showers have passed
Where pungent fields of green native wild grass connect ones place
with his past
Red-tailed Hawk sentries stand guard o'er Loblolly Pine forest
Contemplative Blue Herons work scenic marshland unnoticed
Land of Pink Dogwood , Cane and blackberry thicket
Of riparian wonders , foggy cattle- worn bottom land , lake dancers that twirl morning side West Point , Lanier and Oconee inlets
To rural lanes colored with the blessings of home* .....
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 8:48 PM UTC
Bring me back to you,
So that I may see you.
Grace me with your presence
So that I can confess to you.
Admitting this love that I've kept
Hidden for so long
That walls have crept up
And now you are gone.
Pining away, I wait for you,
Slowly pulling apart
This fortress around my heart,
Brick by brick
So that when you do
Come back, you will see.
The guards have left,
The sentries gone.
Bring me back to you
And you will see that
It’s finally just you and I.
I promise I do love you.
There’s never been any doubt.
I tried to be platonic
But that was bound to fail.
You just walked away.
I hope you feel me
In your heart, ready
To open up to you.
Ready to open the doors.
I’m afraid to show you
But more so to lose you.
I know you’ll leave for real
If I don’t open my heart to you.
Be warned now, it’s dark
Under all the brightness
That fills the top layers
Of my soul. Buried deep,
Dark secrets never told
Fears.
Anxiety.
Depression.
You can see it all.
All these parts of me that
Makes me whole.
Just as long as you
Are a part of this puzzle.
Without you, I’m incomplete
A mess of pieces,
Never whole.
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 7:40 PM UTC
mine own psalm musings
*living between two broad, sea-emptying rivers,
a Majesty’s sentries to mark the differentiation~
division tween divine and a moderate human’s
moderating steps, as his stride shortens as the y/tears
lengthen, and it is accepted as an inevitable musky must,
no matter how the sweet spring day refreshes, the newly
planted trumpeting shards of bright yellows daffodils
pinch his yellowing eyes, few notice the tiny tears of
discrepancies of an annualized emboldening, a grand
heavenly rebirth and a slow man’s body self~editing,
shedding of a life’s~ending~of~story psalm musings*
*the man looks for the terrible swift sword, but its
failure to grace us with an appearance, is but a
modest disappointment, for a deferred delay is but
a causation to eke out a few mordant, pungent, caustic
reminders of all that is yet to be, to be accomplished,
though the smirking lips of the necessity of yet, one
more unloved poem extant, tilting the Earth’s axis
benevolently toward the open palms of his beneficiaries who*,
you,
*are among them numbered, is but, a green shoot in a city’s
hopeful earth planted, by summer, will shed seeds to come
thy way, as an evocation, a good consternation, a joyous
provocation, an asking kingly~gentle, a royal polite inquiry,
would you care to add a a verse to this eternal verse?
before time shreds it too into a yellowed crumpling,
and to the earth it is returned, for the mine of this
psalms is only generic, genetic, and what is mine is well,*
and truly yours too.
nml
<>
March 31, 2024
NYC
9:16am
Sunday Mourning Service
Mar 31, 2024
Mar 31, 2024 at 9:25 AM UTC
*2002
Dearest Klara,
hope you enjoy
the poems as you dream to write
one poem
happy birthday*
There are still many books as though
parliament. A miscalculation based on coordinates
in a wry scene.
Two bookshelves creating a labyrinth, enough that you
are alike. Juxtaposed to scent are many words
and the day is almost done. Ignore fragments once,
but never overdo. I can outlast moonlight’s procession
into a dark cathedral by the window.
On this side – reason; the other, hesitance.
This is no heist. This is what belongingness refutes.
What willingness bandages. The absence of sentries
made for easy rapture. You slid your hand into the dusty
fort and in between them, the paperbacks ached.
“I will do it.” and after that, cursed at the farce.
Slid into your bag – you, surrounded by the tense air
of silence. A dilettante at being a fugitive. What is it that
you stole?
Your body, elsewhere. Flailing. Failing. There are still
many marvels in the scene, but says precision is key.
Cuts as if contravention. This was as calm as painting a child
in his early years, the hue of anomaly.
Quiet in amplitudes doles out a mystified sense of completion.
I can hear an ajar mouth unwind a soft humming.
It was time to go – tomorrow when we rise with no memory,
it will be all but one and the same fault together with many others,
as if your face that day and your image now
compels me the cold of a foreign city. Riddance.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 9:12 PM UTC
i sometimes think the thunder is the sky raging
for some unrequited passion
the li
gh
tn
in
g
is its showing
the gashes in its heart
bright shining silvery blood
splattered across for all and sundry to see
but for no one to understand and feel
an ache unrecognized must be
so much heavier a cross to bear
with no one to nurse or heal or care
the sky must be lonely up there
all it can do is roar and thunder
acting out its anger
the moon and the stars just stare on
unblinking sentries keeping watch
from too far
and when I think like that I feel my worries slip away
no longer afraid of the thunder and lightning
its just a poor hurt boy
crying his heart away
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
15.09.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 10:48 PM UTC
Brother moons chalky,
saturnine crescent
could barely penetrate
the giant’s
match-stick forest:
its burnished copper foliage
would remain latent,
for now.
This night antagonized
our souls,
darker when I stared into its
vacuous depths
than when glanced
from my minds periphery.
Pervasive,
it exploited the valleys repose.
Crystal.
Morning’s volition was heralded
with a transient
thaw.
December’s waking drafts
spoke ardently
of a daughter lost:
for centuries
a solitary bloom,
sustained by unseen conduits,
grew
upon the surface
of a fallow field.
Now it lay,
defiled by my hand.
Her blood-stained spray seeped
into the earths russet tunic.
Dawn’s sentries:
two soot black crows,
stalked a field’s beaded
hawthorn seam as a
church knells cadence
punctuated
the airs discourse from its holy precipice;
death, death, death
sonorous
on my ear.
©Thomas Gabriel
Dec 4, 2011
Dec 4, 2011 at 6:40 PM UTC