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Joe Wilson Apr 2014
The Victoria plum-tree that we planted this year
Is now full of blossom that looks lovely from here
The creamy white flowers and the brightest green leaves
Makes beautiful colour as Springtime relieves.

The garden of Winter, this year so wet
Does blossom herald a ‘best Summer yet.’

It’s quite true of course that village life so snug
Can have a tendency to make one feel smug
But for years our’s has struggled, it now has no shops
And a pub that’s near closure though it still sells the ‘hops.’

We don’t take it lightly the community here
For we know we could lose it which would cost us all dear.

It’s not really the money though the costs would be great
But there’d be no Village Hall and no Summer Fete
No chats with our friends over stiles by the field
Nor any more eggs from the local chicks yield.

We don’t take it lightly the community here
And we will fight to keep it which will cost us all dear.



©JRW2014
Villages struggle much more nowadays, ours does.
onlylovepoetry Jun 2019
Natalie!
at present I am present on a small isle,
which is so green genteel
to the eyes and the ayes,
you might include it
among yet unmastered possibilities,
living here forever.

indeed, the crescent beach so welcoming that
francais et l'anglais des anglaise is spoken here,
but actuality
has a way of intruding,
like
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Bleu,
saying I know you,
even if it doesn’t

this breeze bearing load suggests your name
as a candidate for future, honours, an MBE,
a practiced curtsy for a queen,
whatever is he babbling about?

why I am presenting an outline for a screenplay that
will make you a little rich and somewhat fameuse
so you buy a house on the water,
party all night,
write in the miracle wonder of the late afternoon
on a summery isle,
modestly hungover

say!

where is this isle so sheltered,
where nooks are set aside for poets and drunks
to pub crawl, to stand on tables and Irish sing of
those things that poets endlessly babble?

so add :

come here and let us listen to all your possibilities
and cross just this one,
your presence here,
off the list
A Tale

“Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke.”
                              —Gawin Douglas.

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tak’ the gate;
While we sit bousing at the *****,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o’Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum,
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was nae sober;
That ilka melder, wi’ the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roarin fou on;
That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesied that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon;
Or catched wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthened sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi’ reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo’ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favours, secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E’en drowned himself amang the *****;
As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes winged their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.—
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he tak’s the road in,
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The De’il had business on his hand.

Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow’rin round wi’ prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoored;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo’s mither hanged hersel’.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze;
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing;
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst mak’ us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!
The swats sae reamed in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonished,
Till, by the heel and hand admonished,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He ******* the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shawed the Dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a ****,
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted;
Five scimitars, wi’ ****** crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft,
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,
Which even to name *** be unlawfu’.

As Tammie glowered, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The Piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark!

Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans,
A’ plump and strapping in their teens;
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flainen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!—
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o’ gude blue hair,
I *** hae gi’en them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!

But withered beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags *** spean a foal,
Lowping and flinging on a crummock,
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.

But Tam kenned what was what fu’ brawlie:
‘There was ae winsome ***** and waulie’,
That night enlisted in the core
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore;
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
*** ever graced a dance of witches!

But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitched,
And thought his very een enriched;
Even Satan glowered, and fidged fu’ fain,
And hotched and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a’ thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch screech and hollow.

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle—
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the ****,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:
Whene’er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o’er dear,
Remember Tam o’Shanter’s mare.
Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is beesomd from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi its thorny ******
And yew and box wi berrys small
These deck the unusd candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall

Neighbours resume their anual cheer
Wishing wi smiles and spirits high
Clad christmass and a happy year
To every morning passer bye
Milk maids their christmass journeys go
Accompanyd wi favourd swain
And childern pace the crumping snow
To taste their grannys cake again

Hung wi the ivys veining bough
The ash trees round the cottage farm
Are often stript of branches now
The cotters christmass hearth to warm
He swings and twists his hazel band
And lops them off wi sharpend hook
And oft brings ivy in his hand
To decorate the chimney nook

Old winter whipes his ides bye
And warms his fingers till he smiles
Where cottage hearths are blazing high
And labour resteth from his toils
Wi merry mirth beguiling care
Old customs keeping wi the day
Friends meet their christmass cheer to share
And pass it in a harmless way

Old customs O I love the sound
However simple they may be
What ere wi time has sanction found
Is welcome and is dear to me
Pride grows above simplicity
And spurns it from her haughty mind
And soon the poets song will be
The only refuge they can find

The shepherd now no more afraid
Since custom doth the chance bestow
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of mizzletoe
That neath each cottage beam is seen
Wi pearl-like-berrys shining gay
The shadow still of what hath been
Which fashion yearly fades away

And singers too a merry throng
At early morn wi simple skill
Yet imitate the angels song
And chant their christmass ditty still
And mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits-in humings softly steals
The music of the village bells
Ringing round their merry peals

And when its past a merry crew
Bedeckt in masks and ribbons gay
The ‘Morrice danse’ their sports renew
And act their winter evening play
The clown-turnd-kings for penny praise
Storm wi the actors strut and swell
And harlequin a laugh to raise
Wears his **** back and tinkling bell

And oft for pence and spicy ale
Wi winter nosgays pind before
The wassail singer tells her tale
And drawls her christmass carrols oer
The prentice boy wi ruddy face
And ryhme bepowderd dancing locks
From door to door wi happy pace
Runs round to claim his ‘christmass box’

The block behind the fire is put
To sanction customs old desires
And many a ******* bands are cut
For the old farmers christmass fires
Where loud tongd gladness joins the throng
And winter meets the warmth of may
Feeling by times the heat too strong
And rubs his shins and draws away

While snows the window panes bedim
The fire curls up a sunny charm
Where creaming oer the pitchers rim
The flowering ale is set to warm
Mirth full of joy as summer bees
Sits there its pleasures to impart
While childern tween their parents knees
Sing scraps of carrols oer by heart

And some to view the winter weathers
Climb up the window seat wi glee
Likening the snow to falling feathers
In fancys infant ******
Laughing wi superstitious love
Oer visions wild that youth supplyes
Of people pulling geese above
And keeping christmass in the skyes

As tho the homstead trees were drest
In lieu of snow wi dancing leaves
As. tho the sundryd martins nest
Instead of ides hung the eaves
The childern hail the happy day
As if the snow was april grass
And pleasd as neath the warmth of may
Sport oer the water froze to glass

Thou day of happy sound and mirth
That long wi childish memory stays
How blest around the cottage hearth
I met thee in my boyish days
Harping wi raptures dreaming joys
On presents that thy coming found
The welcome sight of little toys
The christmass gifts of comers round

‘The wooden horse wi arching head
Drawn upon wheels around the room
The gilded coach of ginger bread
And many colord sugar plumb
Gilt coverd books for pictures sought
Or storys childhood loves to tell
Wi many a urgent promise bought
To get tomorrows lesson well

And many a thing a minutes sport
Left broken on the sanded floor
When we woud leave our play and court
Our parents promises for more
Tho manhood bids such raptures dye
And throws such toys away as vain
Yet memory loves to turn her eye
And talk such pleasures oer again

Around the glowing hearth at night
The harmless laugh and winter tale
Goes round-while parting friends delight
To toast each other oer their ale
The cotter oft wi quiet zeal
Will musing oer his bible lean
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen

The yule cake dotted thick wi plumbs
Is on each supper table found
And cats look up for falling crumbs
Which greedy childern litter round
And huswifes sage stuffd seasond chine
Long hung in chimney nook to drye
And boiling eldern berry wine
To drink the christmass eves ‘good bye’
SassyJ Aug 2018
How can Belfast be so cold?
a breeze in a summer front
the unpredictable British weather
Of intermittent warmth and dull
drizzles of a torrential fizzle

The titanic stands erected
stilled by the western winds
In stiles as robust as steel
as shadowy silverly specks
reflect on the unused puddles

Southwards to the coastal shores
where green shimmers magnify
and blue waters justly testifies
of the beauty of the north-eastern waters
flowing from one glen to another
It’s been raining for days and shimmers of sun rays today ***
Mitchell Feb 2012
Inside the morning
Which breaks like
The crippled North
Heat waves of wavering
Truth rings like damp crystal shots
Reverberating with a college education
Low down and empty
Eyes full of soot from the mine
And when I was I
Young and free and unknowing of myself
Without pressure to live while
I lived day in and day out
Like myself
Now the search for the holy man
In holy robes
Makes millions ponder and worry and fear
The clouds and the sky and
The drop of the bomb that will never come
Time rests quiet on my window sill
Alone and shaking and knowing
That we don't need it anymore
Evolved through death
Saw past the silk window shades
That once tried to convince to stay
But now that were gone
Out of the way of technology that
Roars with a voice not like our own
I perish with the church walls
Wild and naked with the stones rumbling
As I'm fumbling
For a place to drop these words
And I know that I'm right
But when the night falls over me
Alone and out of sight
I wince as the moon the silver moon
Slivers underneath my cool bed sheets
The hastiness of my own hand
Worries me at times of control
It shakes and it wiggles and grips with the need
Of a thousand dead men
Whose names I never knew but feel
They are still inside of like in tomb
I wish to walk away from life
To enter something else anew
Without my name without my troubles and
Without my sins
I wish to say hello to a face
That is familiar and without doubt
Friends familarize themselves with the newest wears
I tell the pear tree that their bark is fair
And ask them if they believe in dares
A sigh and a grin as above the clouds passed
And at last uprooted their thoughts
And moved to the other side
Where all was happy and warm
Canned goods rattle within her mind
Money whispers to her, "My way is the only way to be free."
Names backwards spell mom and dad
A misplaced youth who walked everywhere quite sad
I tell no tale I do not know
Yes' the grass is wet as the betting angels
Run in circles giggling, "All we be sold."
And as the tables are being built
And the chairs cut down in the near forests
The nymphs play their white flutes
As the water in the streams
Carry all that is the truth
Child you bear a fruit
That few men can see
It is a place of entranced innocence
That all are born with but
Know to keep and use
The streets grab hold like a vine on the garland
And the waiter drops his favorite feather
On the metro tram made of leather
Dirt covered road foaming at the mouth
A rabid dog whose tongue is yellow and pink
From the high blazing sun
Crystal water wash me clean
Make me new again
As overhead flies the crane
The voices inside the mind
Rattle and pray for rain
Instead of the rain there is only
The gain of sight that when looked straight on
Is not right but a kite
On a distant horizon where young Paul
Allowed his wife to be hung by the pigtails
And killed
The high naked dawn
Pink yellow and blue
Oh' Sue you were the only one
That seemed to know the way
With the whistles down below
Tram cars filled with little children that will grow
I know not their names
But the fame they'll endure to watch
Will of course soon make their hearts stop
And the rhythm of the rubble
Like the stubble on Grandfather Mr. Bubble
But the trouble with the hour
Is that it is never long enough
It longs for hands to caress every corner of itself
Glad that at least there are at least 24 of them
Not noticing that without itself
All the rest would be in disorder
Fast and decoded
Looking for an answer within a book
That has no name or any shelf
Where I knew no one but went anyway
Deep into the cavernous depths of fear
And uncertainty where only love
Would be the way to get in and out
Slipping around the hot ice the melts
For no one
When it is time the ice will choose
Mother nature has no boundaries
Except for the one's she supposes
Caught in the turn stiles constructed not by my hand
Head forward with the wind on my weathered back
The mice run for cover as the tram cars
Rush by smelling of oil and hot metal
I mention nothing to the one's that around me
I recall nothing that I wish not to
For the unconscious is meant to stay so
Give me a couch, a drink, and a man with pen and paper
And maybe I can give you something
With the pink hued clouds that play
Old episodes of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fun
Their sounds bouncing off the Oreo mountain range
The matches the color of my favorite
White and black sneakers
The detail in a film when you are in love
Is the only one that really matters
Same goes for literature
And the same goes for when one
Is in heartbreak
Dear heartbreak -
Without you love would not be worth chasing
Living and
Dying for
Forever yours until you leave me -
Reindeer Al' with the barman's red nose
The sick sync. of the pen to mind
That rattles of only the noise you wish to express
And not here all together
Back and forth whistling with tunes
Of former lovers that broke hearts
And plates
And electric bills all clad in their
Red bucket sombrero hat after
One too many tequilas and a
Wish for world peace while the man outside -
*** in fact -
Was beaten to a peach pulp for the
Slang in his whistle as he cat called
Across the way to a A-MER-I-CAN lady
Hot lady too, hot like the beach sands and
Spiteful like Medusa's stone gaze
Head amongst the clouds who spits
Out only puzzles and riddles on the fiddles
And piddles when fear enters the *****
The groins smelling of ***** dust and aggressive lust
I dreamed I heard the waves of ocean
Soft and wet like the purr of blissful elation
I cried I wept yet I felt no fear
For I knew my end was coming near
I dreamed I met an old old friend
Who once asked me always, "When is when?"
He bounced to a song I did not know
And where lived I could not go
Oh how I miss that friend of mine
I see his sad mournful face
Every hour Oh' all the time
Fuzziness of the business of the chugging gas kind of way
A rare disease that danced when asked
They would basque in their liquor and wonder
When they dream would finally flicker
But don't mention the end of others dreams
Because most of the time they already know its coming
The humming drumming realization
That not all is alright though we continue as if
There is still a little light
An uproar of song all in out of tune
Where ribbons colored red
Can't believe what the people at the party said
With all their drinks you'd think they'd think
To keep their secrets to themselves
Rather to the others like
Grandmas old wars scattered on the shelf
The yap-yap dog colored brown and black
With an old uncle that can't pick up his slack
While the shower is leaking and its cold outside
As the car is running outside but it ain't my ride
There was a Young Girl of Majorca,
Whose aunt was a very fast walker;
She walked seventy miles,
And leaped fifteen stiles,
Which astonished that Girl of Majorca.
Anais Mostly Dec 2013
Run to catch the train
Porous metal sound grinding
Needle drops

The strings creep
tunnel wind sweeps like the first note of the
symphony

Sonic upheaval
Your subway trash
Spending all this cash
Submersible weasel

I'm out of breath
My cheeks are red
I look like I'm 25
You're looking at my phone
Convinced I lied

My bag is checked
I'm on the next plane
I say I'll be back
But what if I never see you again

How angry would you be
How hard did you fall
Racing through the turn stiles
Gotta make last call

I dropped my gloves in the pub
All the mementos you keep in your closet in a corner on the floor

All this upheaval
Your memorabilia
People are just people
You collect them like a hamster like there will never be more
earlyish
in the mourning
the moon
begins to rise
to the
dirtiest
consorting
in the room
between the thighs
forbidden fruit
from a filthy city
that ruins lives
so the troupe
snipped ribbons
ripped ties
flew the coupe
and found suit
elsewhere

Hell

thought it was provoking

when they
caught em
smoking loosies &
tagging in
elementary school
bathrooms &
peeping ****** movies for free
mercy me, a perturbing
flea ridden circus
ballyhoo at
high noon
just
look between
the alleyways
like pearly gates
adjacent to
& facing toward
the gallow stage
saved for traitors

& may I say

these are unhallowed days

triple x files.
furious grady stiles
walked the
daily eighty miles
to the liquor store for
his quick pick or maybe just
a curious
eye sore for bored out tricks
on the nearest corner &
the queerest gory ***** flicks for
a nickel a dime a quarter
&please;

- mind the camera -

hammer
sickle
sanskrit
star
prison bar
stripe

flock stickered on
the flickering light
mock bicker then its
quiet on the farm tonight
⁢ doesn't seem right  
the sicker sheep seek
sleepless nights
in the street
took Darwinian flight &
a diving leap
to diamond minds
thicker fleece &
meaner teeth
drinking on cheap forties
sneakin up on sweet
***** mother glory

lordy.
A memoir.
All we were is what we wore
now and then
way back when

twenty score of memories..... come flooding in,
shiny pin tacked in your hair,
somewhere there.



looking back and in again
silver sun and
shining rain.....
....on the rec' with
Shirley Stiles, a
million smiles..............,

never knew a kiss could be, a
part of it..
the memory,
tasting sherbet on her lips
nature trips..and we fell free
such a time and what we wore
more and more and memory.

dreams may come and dreams may go but
memory runs wild and...see..

..we..

..all we were and what we wore
things we did and what we saw..

you can't buy that no matter how you try,
blowing soda pops underneath
the sky,
bubbles everywhere
somewhere there
now and then.
Ben Denomme Jan 2018
Three years passed by,
Painfully slow, unfairly quick
You will never know
How hard it was, is
Not to see you smile
Not to hear you laugh
Not to comfort your fears
To force myself to hate you
Try to become someone new
And fail
Because you left.
It was never your fault
It will never be your fault
I miss you.
Scarlett O Mar 2014
I'll show you mine
if you show me yours,
there's no end
to the less and;
the more.
Put it out front
On the Merry Prankster bus.
Heads that turn,
on stiles of morose,
sprinkled in
dulcet dust.
Fleeting;
Freeing;
Binding;
Everlasting.
Jeckyl & Hyde,
they took my mind.
Sequoia Sawyer Jun 2017
Rattlesnake*
      or *of zealous sapphire


An era of old and golden skies,
in a desert of silent-film sienna,
ragtime sepiatone and a pyrite sunrise,
pinstriped wiseguys sold the valley sand,
fit in felt fedoras and shaking leather hands
on namesakes ornate with glowing jewels,
a boulevard curbed and paved,
concrete stiles and marble tiles upon
a cosmic palisade of glass, inlaid
and framed in miles and miles
of brass and brightly colored burning gas.
A glamorous new epoch burst forth,
avaricious in its incandescent gloss,
when they raised this monument
of the brightest kind, we gained,
and some gave a dear cost in trade
for the cones inside of our eyes.

I am a chemical reaction
that reels recklessly
between dancing Stardust
and downward spiral.
I am charisma so coy.

We've all slivered shades of silver
and sugar coursing through our veins,
spears poised upon the ancient prairie,
blades of bone, bending bows, and
coursing prey on prehistoric plains.
Mixed in us and inherited still, this thrill -
the chill, the chase and the payoff,
the risk and the waiting, the praying
your scent, your sense, or dollars and cents
aren't fatally spirited away.
Lately, the ferns are thinning
so we've traded them for sins
and felt of the same color,
our hoards of arrowheads and clubs
printed now upon paper cards,
reticulum tuned not for tracking or furs,
but spinning and flashing,
whistling, whirrs, and winning motorcars.

I've a heart that's Horseshoe shaped,
a lucky charm I risk on,
and win and lose on,
and always hope
at least for an even break.

The triumphs of man are the product
of cams and crankshafts, pistons and oil,
plumes of shadow spewing into the sky.
Westward ran the rails, stacking bricks wide,
raising sticks high and uncoiling telegraph wire
into the furious bustle of industrial-grade hustle,
an inchoate flag, perfect suits,
three card monties, and filthy collars
all of zealous sapphire.
Generations admire at the Union's gate
the stately electric minarets pushing skyward,
towering metal tracks ushering light
onto a sphynx of quartz, pitch as pusher breath,
delta at the neon roads,
where chrome locomotives out of Chicago
braked in the glow of this phosphorescent portico
once plated in droptop Eldorados.

My parents are celebrated people,
so I was celebrated in kind
my birthday blazoned
over my hometown Plaza.
A worthy place and worthwhile time.

I drive this canyon oftentimes alone
and watch the sparkle of the valley unfold before me.
It's a sea of glittering scales, hissing "welcome home,"
I'm secure in this coiled-up crotalus that so adores me.
I'm always seeking critique.
cheryl love Nov 2014
Meandering through villages
In the icy haze
Hedges coated with holly
for a winter maze.
Robins bobbing along
with not a care
Rabbits with furry tails
and the look of a hare.
The silver road
with its bracken and old rope
It is what I would give money for
attached with a bit of hope.
Stones and rocks
glisten like flint
wrapped in years
in moss and mint.
Many pairs of old shoes
have walked this walk
What a tale it would tell
if only it could talk.
Moans and groans
happiness for miles
roaming over hills, dales
lumps, bumps and stiles.
Red post boxes with
telephone boxes to match.
Birds with multicoloured beaks
and wings to watch.
Clouds gather to part
once more for the dark of the day.
And the silver road carries on
guiding the way.
I walk for miles,
cross fields,
climb stiles and
sit beside the flowing stream.
A recurring dream from which
I always wake
exhausted.
Tony Luxton Mar 2019
Documentary on fast forward,
lacking commentary, towns flash by
Coronation Street domestic dramas,
ordered rank and file urban pedantries.

Perhaps like one of those old westerns,
where they wound the scenery past
a mock-up stagecoach interrior,
so that's where all the porters went.

Rolling landscapes, seascapes, mile on mile,
stiles and paths and telegraph poles,
rain fraying skies and foaming sea,
criss-cross links and creaking carriages.

Slowing down, a shuddering stop,
stiffened limbs begin to flop,
stiffened brains still travel dizzy,
busy station, platform tizzy.
aviisevil Apr 11

an open door
preched upon a
quiet hill

rusty old door
waiting for no one
stands still

when it rains and
when it spills—

         and

from her rails her
branches burgeon

her roots carved
into the soil

wooden stiles
freed of burden

now sprawl out
into the void

from her keyway
her eyes pry

shattered glass
that took her voice



her hinges


the last of her




last of a home
left for spoils


the last of a home
withered and spoilt




O' the lonely wooden
door!


the paint has
withered away

         time




once it had a
home

once there was
a home



the last of steps
the beginning of
nothing


no windows
no walls
no nothing

       and

my favourite
place

the last of
my steps

my kingdom of
a thousand thoughts
caught and spilled




filled by the silence
that haunts


O' my lonely old
door!


how it weeps
—old door



in the mouth
of autumn

through the month
of summers

in the lashing
winds of mid year

every shade of
winter




now craved in
the ruins

that only comes
but with age



O' the lonely old
door!

holding a sunset


     stands still


within complex edifice...
derelict hulking corpse delineated courtesy
seared, singed, smoldered smithereens
formerly robust warrior
slain during prime of his life
heavenly corporeal outstanding entity
subjected to fateful foragers
courtesy camping buzzfeeding carrion -
fancy feast for famished
uber twittering, jump/kick starting
crowing angry birds

made short shrift
decayed discarded detritus
filched flesh from felled soldier
denuding human legendary poet
picked bone clean
his once powerful promising physique
skeletal remnants displayed burnt offerings
abandoned sun bleached,
petrified lovely bones
strewn across a field of shattered dreams
desiccated skull detached situated askew

athwart castoff liberated phalanges
impossible mission to envision
former formidable specimen
fallen hero pronounced earthen imprint
traced impression outlining
his outsize stature
bonafide definition where his corpse laid
only memory remains of doodling yankee,
(a Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe)
harkening back and plucked from
the "little town that time forgot
and the decades could not improve."

Composite character sketch
of arbitrary conjured fighting
jaunty opportunistic understudy
strong likely to be template
of actual anonymous template
forgotten in the aftermath melee of battle
subsumed by and belonged to history,
a bit part he played after
North and South pitted against each other,
though the former named Union soldiers
during the War Between the States
acquired many names and nicknames,

especially by the Confederates:
They were called Billy Yank,
blue bellies or blue coats,
which spontaneously generated idea
came to my mind linkedin
to a personal affinity
for aforementioned rebellion to some people
after Confederate troops fired
at 4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861
on Fort Sumter April 1861
initially President Lincoln
described the situation as an “insurrection.”

But within months,
he instead adopted “rebellion.”

That word evoked
a more distinctly negative connotation
then than it does today,
or rather prior to the heavily armed,
Trump-incited mob attack
of Jan. 6, 2021, an attack
(premeditated in my humble opinion)
not just on the U.S. Capitol building,
but also on democracy and the rule of law.

Though at no time did I enlist
in the armed services,
(although after high school
my parents coaxed, goaded,
and loathed their second born
and only son intimating
becoming a nonconformist,
and nonestablishmentarian, ne'er do well,
(which outcome adequately sums
up how mein kampf evolved),
nevertheless yours truly exhibits

psychologically traumatic wounds
synonymous with the horrors of mortal kombat,
and clear out of the blue
behavior associated with deadly carnage
oozed out from every one of my pores,
misleading an observer to deduce
writer of these words experienced
and underwent text book example
being shell shocked
under heavy bombardment.

At present attention of mine plugged into a biography titled Custer's Trials | A LIFE ON THE FRONTIER OF A NEW AMERICA | storied author T.J. STILES, current reading material populates thought processes of mine with trappings of internecine bloodshed forever wrenching fledgling United States of America away from slave holding Southern lifestyle.

Enslaved people in the antebellum South constituted about one-third of the southern population. Most lived on large plantations or small farms; many enslavers owned fewer than 50 enslaved people. Landowners sought to make their enslaved completely dependent on them through a system of restrictive codes.

— The End —