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Kida Price Jun 2014
As a child I would play
On my mood swing everyday.
It still new
And hardly frayed
It would take me up and back away.
If someone pushed me up
I'd say
"This is such a beautiful day!"
And if some stole my swing from me
I'd sit and pout
In childish melancholy.
A few years passed
And my mood swing stayed.
I stared at it but hardly played.
I'd sometimes think
"Maybe today
Will be the day my mood swing breaks."
My mother's tears
And my father's rage
Would make my mood swing
Lose it's sway.
My brothers and sisters would look away
While by myself
On my mood swing I would pray.
"Please just push me up again
Make me smile
Be my friend."
In my teens I never glanced
At the swing
It being rusted but not collapsed.
I used it for another wish
Like hanging with friends
Or sharing my first kiss.
The slightest breeze could push it now.
I never had to be in the seat.
In memory I'd see it go up and down
And the ground would never meet my feet.
I gripped the chain
And laughed and screamed
My feelings were transfered
Into that swing.
Then I changed into my adult like skin.
So grown up
I thought I knew everything.
My mood swing was for childish work
And I'm too big
Too much of a naive ****.
I swung myself
As high or low as I'd command
Thinking I had the control all in my hands.
I figured all who we're passing me
Would assume me swinging high
Swinging free.
Unknowing that my mood swing
Was swinging me.
Until those times I'm swung too low
My feet would catch
My adrenaline grow.
I fell so many times,
Looking back on my method then,
It's wasn't as easy as it was at 10.
Of course someone was helping me.
Now my swing is jerking me
It feels too small when I sit in the seat.
I don't go as high now like I used to be
I can only move if I kick my feet.
My mood swing made it so long without defeat
But I have awhile to go
And I'm not confident as it squeaks.
What if my children want to play on it someday
And I give them my swing in disarray?
I've long forgotten how to play
On my mood swing
In the way.
Purcy Flaherty Mar 2018
Some folks pluck a cherry and some folks poke a peach.
I like to choose the far out fruit that others fail to reach!
for~
I’m a *******;
I like to swing from tree to tree,
I’m a *******;
Would you like to swing with me?
We could go out on a limb, tie up Sue and Jim,
If you want to swing then come and swing with me.

We can swing all night and could swing all day;
Till the birds and bees come out to play!
Just sing this song and swing along with me.

I’m a *******;
I like to swing from tree to tree,
I’m a *******;
Would you like to swing with me?
We could go out on a limb, tie up Sue and Jim,
If you want to swing then come and swing with me.

Yeh!
We can swing all night and could swing all day;
Till the birds and bees come out to play!
Just sing this song!
and swing along
with me!
X
A cheeky ******* song!
https://youtu.be/62Twaodb0gI
Sky Dec 2016
Swing high, swing low
To the different birds I say hello
Then monsters come to devour the pretties
They grin and show me teeth full of flitties
Swing high, swing low
A demon pushes me onto a spiky pillow
Then cotton candy softens the blow
and turns to blood
Swing high, swing low
I really do not know
Why the female body causes so much distress
When the moon decides that it's time to fertilize
Swing high, swing low
There are no seeds to sow, so
please, hormones, just leave me alone.
Marian Jan 2014
Childhood memories of yore
Drift through my head
As I watch that old tree swing
Many a Summer ago
I would swing there as a child
But now I am a grownup woman
But my children swing there now
Lovingly I watch
That old tree swing
And memories fond
Fill my mind
Like the rustling breeze
Making that tree swing
Rock back and forth

* * * * * * * * * * * *
My Mother is dead
And now as we fond children recall
How she loved to swing
Upon the tree swing
That is not there anymore
The tree was cut down yesterday
And the swing was destroyed
Vanishing with the swing
Are the happy golden memories
Of many happy days
Spent as children
Swinging upon the swing
That is now destroyed
Along with our Mother's
Childhood home

**~Marian~
Just a random poem that I wrote in my notebook and copied here!! (: ~~~<3
Also, this is inspired by my Mom's childhood home that had to be destroyed
a few months ago!!! ~~~<3
So, here's the inspired poem!!! (: ~~~<3
Please enjoy it!!! :) ~~~~<3
Onesti Sep 2020
Swing with me,
swing with me,
come on everyone swing with me
swing with me,
swing with me,
come on everyone swing with me.
Get a rope,
find a tree,
now you can, swing with me
swing with me,
swing with me,
come on everyone swing with me.
Will Storck Sep 2010
I played on a swing set today. It had to be the first time since I was twelve.  I didn’t even mean to, by that I mean it was an accidental event. Well, I mean I don’t want to say it was fate or something, it just sort of happened. Like when you hear a story of how two high-school sweet hearts meeting for the first time except it’s doubtful that you can achieve the same level of satisfaction from a pair of cold metal chains connected to a polyurethane seat. Well maybe, but you most likely would have to be sick in the head or something. I’m getting off track.

I was waiting for my friends in the park. They were running late so I had about a half an hour to ****. I noticed the old rusty rundown swing set, and I wanted somewhere to sit for a second. I was listening to some music, something by Modest Mouse I think, and I noticed, and I mean really noticed, I was on a swing set. It was nothing special by swing standards. It was old, that was a fact. It only had two swings left: one made for kids younger than three and the other for everyone else. Unfortunately I’m twenty.

Things started off slowly. A slow, steady rocking then I was swinging about a foot back and forth. I couldn’t help but wonder when was the last time I swung. So I thought, what the hell, I’m not doing anything too pressing. I kicked off and started pumping my swing.  I don’t often experience a sort of tangible nostalgia but I sure love it when I do. I was splashed in the face with times throughout my childhood, if you could call what I had that, when we would try to swing as high as we could. Of course we didn’t know about the limits of gravity and universal laws yet, we hadn’t quite hit that brick wall just yet. But that’s what made it so much fun; our ignorance of what governs our physical world made it that much better. Had we known what was to come back then, we just might have told Newton where he could stick that apple.

So using my previous knowledge of kindergarten physics, I was swinging like a pro in no time. It was exhilarating. I closed my eyes and lived in motion. Each swing was like the ****** of a rollercoaster. Colours streamed across the dark sky under my eyelids. I saw blues and purples like Day-Glo brush strokes. Sometimes they exploded with brilliant oranges and yellows. I removed my ability to see for just a moment and saw my own personal firework display.

I remember when I first learned how to swing. It was during recess one day at kindergarten. Everyone knew how but me. Imagine how that plays with an ego. I’m not sure how I exactly learned either. I just sat on the swing set on the playground and just swung. Kind of like how a duckling has the intrinsic knowledge of swimming. I swung for the rest of recess. I felt like a god. I was the master.

I stopped moving and rode the pendulum out. When it all stopped I opened my eyes and welcomed myself back to reality. Back to gravity. Back to responsibility. Back to life. It’s funny, for just a second, I stepped out of my life and truly lived. But back here, with my feet planted in the sand, I still remember my first swing. I remember the feeling, the achievement. It’s for that feeling we fight in this world.

We all are just learning how to swing.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
"Swing is the mythical moment in rowing. When the energy an oarsman puts into the boat seems to perfectly propel the hull forward, when the crew moves in unison and the boat slides over the water, when the output seems to generate more energy and a grueling pace seems infinitely sustainable, a boat and the rowers aboard feel "swing."

Swing is trust.  Trust that you can do your own and the boat will fly because of everyone.  The moment of swing is the moment seared into the memory; a moment to be relived in recollection."


Swing I know.

Swing is when my
living words
fall and flow so fast,
they complain, to me,

Keep up, Keep up!

We are in unison in a moment,
forever sustainable, forever lived,
and forever relived,
a myth created,
a recollection
collected and preserved,
singing:

Swing low, sweet poet,
Comin' for to carry us home;
Swing low, sweet poet,
Comin' for to carry us home.
The swing comments re rowing have been in my "poem to write" file for years. Tonight it wrote itself in seconds, swinging.
John Doe May 2016
Once
on the red tyre swing
we swung
in our red tyre dreams
we sung
songs of red
then we began to swing and swang and swung
till the tired red sun shone
throughout the world of a red tired toddler’s mind  

the redness spread with tired red hands
and consumed every inch of our tired red skin
and there
under the red tyre swing we sat
swimming in the muggy air
breathing
inhalations and expectations of teens
waiting for a life of red faced busy faced love traced excitement

and then
we sat under that red tyre swing
an old couple looking out
our fond red tinted memories of tyre swinging joy
on the red tyre swing with our red tired limbs
and gray tinted minds with hair that once shone
with joy and laughter
and now here we lie under the red tyre swing
with the same tired red sun
tracing across the skin
with grey skin hair
and eyes
and we close them looking skyward past our red tyre swing
into the red eyelids that are all that remain
of our youth
the only unaffected view
for a couple of youngsters
aching to ride our red tyre swing into the red layered sky
at the sunset of our lives.
Marie-Chantal Sep 2014
Sway of a tree, rope hanging down.
Swing, crack, swing, feet graze the ground.
Scruffy old shoes, laces like the rope,
If only you had known that you still had so much hope

Pill Popper, made you feel.
You needed someone to know that this pain was real

Swing, crack, swing, go the branches above you
They called out with the wind and begged you not to
Mutated in the brain, lay the mangled secret
And it whispered to you softly *Keep it, keep it, keep it.
g clair Mar 2014
Minding our own
barely making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
there's dust in the drought
but the rain comes in time.

Nothing held back
I've got nothing to say,
let it roll off my shoulders
puts less your mind
and it's better that way.

(hum or sing chorus)
All I wanted
      porch
             swing
                 rhythm~
                           back
              and
     forth
            with you, babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.

And isn't this nice?
you like hot tea on ice
thank you, yes, I can follow directions
so please don't think twice.
And isn't this great?
we can stay out real late
watching millions of sparkling stars
while you're lickin' that plate?

Bridge---( can you hear it?)

I said nothing at all
it's that horse in the stall
my foot fell asleep but I'm not gonna weep
I can drag it or crawl.

Now the wind's in the trees
and your hand's on my knees
and the warmth of your breath on my neck
puts my tired mind at ease.

All I wanted
      porch...
                    swing...
            rh­ythm..
    back...
              and...
        forth...
        ­with you babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.

Minding our own
making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
and there's dust in the drought
but you rain comes in time...

Distracted, it's true
idle chatter won't do
Better nothing to say
put the music on play
and be quiet
with you.

All I wanted
      porch...
                    swing...
            rh­ythm..
    back...
              and...
        forth...
        ­with you babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.
A daydream, then a poem, then a song....someday a reality.
acacia Jan 2021
caught a wave i didn’t try to catch
i’m over it it wants me back
why does this happen to me
i gotta sail on and i need to try:
wings! i fly way too hight!  i hold hand to mouth to lie my mouth if beings open now  i
relinquish all the time
my brain it said to sleep and die when i freak another five days
only when i will forgive this time be aware my open back eat something drown it all out noise to be blurry clouds i can’t solve the sun but i can stop you from knowing my heart it hurts
swing swing swing swing swing synth synth swing swing swing swing swing synth synth drop bass me too
caught a wave i didn’t want to catch
i’m needing the next one but yet i climbed so high
i looked down i’m scared to go down
i look at down
sky that’s up climb down but up the sky there is a light
i look at down
i’m scared to fall
sky that’s up climb more up but down the ground there is a light
i look at down
i’m scared to go

waves waves waves a little wave got a hold on, i got about three: boys i could call any time but i only want him: he's so. far. away.
waves waves waves a little wave got a hold on, i got about three: boys i could call any time but i only want him: he's so. far. away.
Asphyxiophilia Aug 2013
I don't know why I went to the park that day, to be honest. But it was as though the idea was contained in the center of one of the anti-depressants that I swallowed that morning, as though it was released into my bloodstream along with the rest of the ingredients that usually bring me a sense of peace (on good days), as though it bloomed like a vine that weaved through my capillaries and consumed every part of me. Once it took hold of me, I couldn't rid myself of it, so I succumbed to it. As soon as the bottom of my sandals made contact with the soft dirt of the playground, goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin like every memory bursting through my subconscious. The last time I was here, my shoes never met the ground, because you carried me on your back like a child and set me down gently on the tire swing just inside the entrance. I walked slowly towards the swing, envisioning how we must have looked that day. My hands clinging to the chains supporting the tire like they held tightly to your heart strings, my legs kicking from beneath me as though I were splashing in the waves of every ounce of love that poured from us, and my hair flowing in the breeze with the same ease that we existed in each other's presence. Your hands pressed against my back and pushed me higher and higher, and although I was swaying several feet from the ground, I had never felt more safe. I could hear your laughter from behind me and the soundwaves wrapped around my chest like a parachute that I knew would carry me to safety. I felt drawn to the swing once again, so I lifted my legs over the tire and wrapped my hands around the chains once more, rocking back and forth slowly. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the rythym of the swing throughout my entire body. But my meditation was interrupted by a familiar sound that seemed to be gliding upon the invisible fibers of the light breeze that was softly kissing my cheeks. The sound wrapped itself around my head and entered my ears, filling them. I opened my eyes to see several shadows walking in my direction in the distance. The trees overhead were offering them a cover that they slipped quietly beneath, but within seconds, they stepped into the sunlight and I caught my breath. You were among them, and your head was tilting back in laughter, and your hands were moving gracefully in front of you, and your feet were walking swiftly as though you weren't wading through a swamp littered with my memory. And that was when you saw me, and if I hadn't been looking right at you, I wouldn't have noticed the slight twitch in your smile when your eyes met mine. But you didn't miss a step, you never did. Not even when you wrapped your fingers tightly around my heart and then shattered it into a million pieces. I couldn't remove my gaze from you, from your graceful and unaffected presence. I couldn't even register who you were with because I was so focused on the way your tongue slipped effortlessly in and out of your mouth. And if I wasn't mistaken, you slightly lifted your head in my direction as a nod of recognition, but you kept on walking. And I kept staring, because I always seemed to be the one clinging to something that was already gone. But it was in that moment that the vines in my bloodstream dissolved and I suddenly felt free from it all, as though it was my purpose to revisit the place I have replayed in my mind a thousand times only to replace it with a new memory. And it was in that moment that I realized that all you would ever be from now on is a memory, an empty tire swing swaying in an invisible breeze.
Arlo Disarray Oct 2015
Tales told on a blue bird's wing,
reveal the truth of the old, wooden swing
He sits in an oak,
and he grows on a string
When you look in his past, you'll see when he was king

The children all swung in the air over grass
It was green and pristine
and it grew in a mass
But the jack-'o-lantern smiles grew new teeth far too fast
Soon, the old, wooden swing was a thing of the past

All the grass grew much taller, and soon turned into weeds
And the old wooden swing only swung in the breeze
Not a child who smiled, no more sets of skinned knees
Now the old, wooden swing felt useless in the trees

Alone, he sat waiting for the kids he once knew
But they had their own lives, and the swing turned so blue
He was lost in the sky as they shared the same hue
And the swing said goodbye when he finally flew
when I was growing up, we had this old swing that my dad made for us. And after we'd all grown up and moved out he was going to write a song about it. I'm not sure if he ever got the chance before he died, but I was inspired by his idea. I love you, Dad.
g clair Nov 2014
Minding our own
making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
and there's dust in the drought
but the rain comes in time.

Nothing held back
I've got nothing to say,
let it roll off my shoulders
puts less your mind
and it's better that way.

All I wanted
      porch
             swing
                 rhythm~
                           back
              and
     forth
            with you, babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.

And isn't this nice?
you like hot tea on ice
thank you, yes, I can follow directions
so please don't think twice.
And isn't this great?
we can stay out real late
watching millions of sparkling stars
while you're lickin' that plate?

I said nothing at all
it's that horse in the stall
my foot fell asleep but I'm not gonna weep
I can drag it or crawl.

Now the wind's in the trees
and your hand's on my knees
and the warmth of your breath on my neck
puts my tired mind at ease.

All I wanted
      porch...
                    swing...
            rh­­ythm..
    back...
              and...
        forth...
       ­ ­with you babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.

Minding our own
making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
and there's dust in the drought
but you rain comes in time...

Distracted, it's true
idle chatter won't do
Better nothing to say
put the music on play
and be quiet
with you.

All I wanted
      porch...
                    swing...
            rh­­ythm..
    back...
              and...
        forth...
       ­ ­with you babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.
Alyssa Underwood Mar 2016
I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellows got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.


II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.


III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool’s Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.

The **** crew, the red **** crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”

No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.


IV

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.


V

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were
  If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean *****’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.


VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men **** the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!
Harold r Hunt Sr Jun 2014
The Swing
The old tree is at the top of the hill.
Has a old swing that hangs from its branch.
The swing doesn't see many children these days.
But every now and then you can hear them play.
The swing is mighty still on a claim day.
But if you look at the edge of night.
You might just see the swing movement.
As the wind blows the swing.
Brandon Jul 2014
She sits in a swing beneath a tree all alone drinking her wine out of the bottle like she's been a pro at it her whole life time.

She thinks to herself my happy moments are getting farther and fewer in between and I don't know how much lower I can go but she takes another long drink from the wine to see just how far she can sink into the world and disappear.

The swing swings slowly and the branch pretends to bend beneath her ghostly weight.

Her feet kick up off the ground, she's looking for momentum, trying to swing her way to the skies.

She sees in kaleidoscope and her fingers tighten around the bottle's neck, she needs comfort and something real to hold onto as she soars higher and higher.

Her hair flows behind her in tangled waves of slow motion and hectic abandon.

Her feet kick and pull and kick, higher and higher she goes.

The branch pretends to bend beneath her ghostly weight and the swing swings tightly as the rope's taught against the pull of her push.

She's in the air drinking away the remnants of memories she doesn't want to remember.

She tosses her emptiness away on the backswing and gives her legs one last strong kick and the swing sends her higher.

She jumps free into the void around her, feeling the rush of air and a small moment of absolute freedom.

The branch remembers her ghostly weight as the swing settles to a slow rock and then stops.

She's in the sky and her body lies motionless accompanied by an empty bottle of wine.
Lady Bird Sep 2016
her heart it already knew
she cant hide her tears
once again she's on her own
alone there she swings
all alone there she cries

her heart it already knew
she's hurting from her core
alone carrying this burden
with stress in her heart
again there she swing alone

her heart it already knew
no one's there to comfort her
the only thing for her to do
is swing; swing away the pain
swing just to keep herself sane

her heart it already knew
the swing was not the true
reasons why she sits to cry
this is a special place to think
a place to swing away her worries

here heart it already knew
this was a world of her own
to swing; swing away the pain
here her swinging helps to erase
the stress causing her heart strain
The swing set was an old thing
like the brittle bones of an elephant
so worn that it had started to forget;
that's what her Gramma said, at least.
But Calpurnia Gray loved it
sat in it
till the seat sagged before she sat down
inviting her to rest.

Calpurnia Gray preferred the city
but the suburbs were what she got
and the swing set looked over some deep gulch of the woods
where even the suburbs ended.
Wilderness.

It filled her with such strange fantasies
of leaping through the trees like an ape
tearing off her clothes
and chasing down game
like some odd Tarzan with cobalt blue painted toe nails.
That would be the life for her if only she could go back
back
to the wilderness on the other side of the suburbs.
To the place where concrete monoliths lit up the sky at night
and rivers of asphalt carved always changing paths
for some intrepid explorer
to find a new bookstore
or museum
or something strange.

But Calpurnia didn't have either.

She had the suburbs.

And the swing set.

The swing set that always sat there, that never got away
the swing set that was crumbling with time and stagnation
but at least it was what she knew.
(twas where aye met thee missus, but mooch as a natural euphoria experienced, i rarely returned to said venue, especially for many years when thy now na grown lovely lasses merely toddlers).
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Go ahead and AskJeeves (or another available partner yea, that lonely looking gal or guy in mom genes), who can never refuse to kick up heals in this rollicking shenanigan – the rumor holds that said activity the most fun one can have with being clothed to another.
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The caller will usually do a walk thru, which begins with the first two couples closest to the stage crew of lively musicians (frequently filling the makeshift hall with music aligned the genre of irish jigs and reels) beginning to pair off.
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After couples one and two (nearest the band) complete their quartet, this process (sans participants coupling off) continues until the foot of the line.
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Actually each duo of dancers within the foursome nearest or furthest from the podium dons the role of “first and second” couple respectively.
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The walk thru can be helpful, especially for those unfamiliar with this social activity, which encroaches on the ordinary comfort zones because eye contact plus physical hand to hand fusion necessary.
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Many of the routines utilize various combinations of approximately a couple dozen unique moves, where each distinct extemporaneously choreographed fancy footwork utilizes a unique variation of such movements.
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The most frequent array of moves comprises the following terms, which I located at hyperlink - www.theyken.net/don/PDF/Glossary.pdf
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Glossary of Contra Dance Figures:
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Allemande Left - Two dancers join left hands about shoulder height with elbows bent down and walk a circular path.
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Allemande, Mirror - Two couples, facing, starting with one couple going between the other couple. Give the person you are starting to pass your most convenient hand, right for two dancers and left for the other two, and turn as described in the allemande right and left.
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Allemande Right - Two dancers join right hands about shoulder height with elbows bent down and walk a circular path.
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Balance – The simplest balance is a step forward and backs. Another type of balance is a step on your right foot and swing your left foot over your right foot and then step on your left foot and swing your right foot over your left foot.
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Balance and Swing - Face other dancer, take both hands, balance (as above) and swing the other dancer.
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Baskets - More that two dancers, step in so all the dancers are in a very tight circle, place your hands behind the backs of the dancers next to you and join hands. Put your right foot in closer to the center of the circle and start to turn this basket by pushing with your left foot (like in a buzz step swing).
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Box the Gnat - Partners (usually) join right hands, raise joined hands above the woman’s head, she walks under the joined hands, as the man walks around behind her. The dancers not only change positions but they end facing in the opposite direction.
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Cast Down – The dancer faces up and turns away from the center of the set and walks down the outside of the set.
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Cast Off, Assisted - Two dancers, facing the same direction, put an arm around the other dancers waist, one dancer moves forward while the other dancer moves backwards.
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Cast Off, Unassisted - One dancer, usually moving up the center or up the outside of the set, walks around an other dancer until they stand next to that dance facing the same direction.
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Cast Up – The dancer faces down and turns away from the center of the set and walks up the outside of the set.
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Circle Left – More than two dancers join hands and form a circle. Hands are joined at a height somewhere between you waist and shoulders. Dancers walk around in a circle to the left or counter- clockwise.
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Circle Right – More than two dancers join hands and form a circle. Hands are joined at a height somewhere between you waist and shoulders. Dancers walk around in a circle to the right or clockwise.
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Contra Corners - This figure is done in proper sets. The first couple turns each other by the right hand until they can turn their first corner, The person who was standing on the left side of your partner. The first couple then turns their first corners by the left hand, until they see the partners. The first couple again turn each other by the right hand and then turn their second corners, the person who was standing on the right side of your partner, by the left hand.
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Courtesy Turn – Two dancers with right hands joined and left hands joined, about waist height, facing the same direction, woman on the man’s right. The woman walks forward while the man backs-up until they are facing the opposite direction.
Cross-Over or Pass Thru – Two-dancer walk by each other passing right shoulders.
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Cross-Over is usually across the set. While Pass Thru is usually up and down the set.
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Do-Si-Do – Two dancers walk forward pass each other right shoulders, pass behind the other dancer, and backup, passing left shoulders into the place where you started.
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Do-Si-Do, Left Shoulder (also known as a See Saw) - Two dancers walk forward pass each other left shoulders, pass behind the other dancer, and backup, passing right shoulders into the place where you started.
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Do-Si-Do, Mirror - Two couples, facing, starting with one couple going between the other couple. Then dance a do-si-do, the two dancers who pass right shoulders dancing right shoulder do-si-do the other two dancers who pass left shoulders dance a left shoulder do-si-do.
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Down the Center, Turn Alone – Two dancers, usually a couple, walk down the center of the set, turn toward each other and return to the place where they started.
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Down the Center, Turn As a Couple – Two dancers, usually a couple, walk down the center of the set.
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Turn as a couple, the woman walks forward as the man backs up, until the couple is facing back in the direction they came from. Then return to a place across the set from where they started.
Figure of Eight – Two consecutive Half Figures of Eight (see below)
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Forward and Back – Dancers join hands with the dancer next to them and move forward four steps and back four steps.
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Gate and Post - Two dancers facing in the same direction, join most convenient hands, right to left, keep hands about shoulder height, one dancer will walk forward in a circular path as the other dancer walks backward in a circular path.
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Grand Chain - Three or more woman, make a right hand star, and turn the star until you meet the third (or designated) man, join left hands with the man and courtesy turn.
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Grand Right and Left - Two dancers, join right hands, pull by and give left hands to the next dancer, pull by, and continue this until you meet the person you are told to meet or until the caller tells you to stop. Can be used in squares, contras, and circles.
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Gypsy - a couple, walk once around each other, clockwise, and end where they started while looking wistfully into each others ' eyes.
Half Figure of Eight – Two dancers across from each other, in a contra, cross over while moving through the couple below (or above), the woman in the lead, they then cast up (down) to end in their partners original place.
Hey for Four – Two couples, facing, usually starting with the women moving to the center and passing right, then pass the opposite man who is moving forward by the left, the two men pass right in the center while the two women do a small loop to the left to face in, again the women pass right in the center as men do a small loop to the left to face in, women pass the men by the left, men pass right in the center and all return to original place.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Honor - Bow to your partner.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Improper – In a contra, when a man is in the women’s line and/or a woman is in the Mens' line. The women’s line is the line on the left when viewed from the caller’s position.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ladies Chain – Two couples facing, the women join right hands and pull by each other, then give their left hands to the opposite man, finishing with a courtesy turn to face the other couple.
Lead Through - Two dancers facing in the same direction, join most convenient hands, right to left, and walk between the two dancers they are facing. Often followed by a cast to original place.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pass Thru - Two couples facing, both couples walk forward, passing the person you are facing by the right shoulder and ending in their place (do not turn around).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Promenade – A couple, with the man’s right arm around the woman’s waist and her right hand in his right hand, and left hands joined in front of them, move in a forward direction, sometimes ending with a courtesy turn.
Promenade, Single File - All of the dancers in a single file or circle, facing the same direction, follow the dancer in front of you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Proper – In a contra, the men are in the mens' line and the woman are in the women’s line. The mens line is the line on the right when viewed from the caller’s position
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Right and Left – Two couples, take right hands with the person across the set and pull by, on the opposite side of the set courtesy turn the person next to you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Roll Away - A couple, both facing in the same direction, woman’s left hand in the man’s right hand, the man assists the woman, who rolls across in front of him, as he moves to his right. They both end facing the same direction as they started but they are in each others' place
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Star, Left Hand – Two couples, take left hands with the person diagonally across, then they all walk forward in a circular path.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Star, Right Hand – Two couples, take right hands with the person diagonally across, then they all walk forward in a circular path.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Swing – A couple, in a position similar to ballroom position, except the man and woman are right hip to right hip. The simplest descriptions I have heard is assume the above position and then try to walk behind your partner. The dancers can use a simple walking step or a buzz step.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Turn - See allemande for right and left hand turn. A two hand turn - two dancers, facing, take the other dancers right hand in your left and their left hand in your right. Pull back slightly and both dancers walk clockwise until you get back to where you started.
JR Rhine Jun 2016
Thomas, Tommy baby,
you are both hot,
and sweet.

Tom Cat you’re red hot--
when I catch you in your Tom Cat Strut,
sauntering across campus,
strolling like it ain’t no thing,

cuz it don’t meant a thing
if it ain’t got that swing baby.

So dig this, Tommy Gun,
you groove with the best of ‘em
when I spot you strollin’—

Your head, teetering left and right like a seesaw, boppin’ baby,
arms hangin’ loosely, swinging freely, wildly, go! go!
legs scooping forward in boisterous trombone slides--
Groooooove Tommy baby!

You’re Louis’s best blows--
ten feet from the mic and the Fives baby,
you’re hot, red hot,
any closer and I'll burn up!
Go!

But you’re cool, real cool,
and oh so sweet.
Super sweet--

in your beard like a pepper and salt shaker tossed across the table,
I look to see those rosy lips part,
and peep those pearly whites shinin' like the bell of Louis’s cornet
brandished in the air, under those ballroom lights--
you’re screamin’ Tommy!

Let me hear that laugh that shakes the room,
punches like Blakey’s bass drum,
thumps like Mingus--

T-Bird you’ve got that hard bop in your soul,
you’re gonna bop to the top TB,
into the third heaven where the angels fall in line to your swing,
that incessant strut that keeps the devil at bay,
Blow! Blow! Blow!

And I see you now Tom Cat,
up there in the clouds,
digging your way across eternity,
bopping and jiving, swinging and blowing,

in your faded khaki pants and worn tennis shoes,
loosely buttoned collared shirt,
tight rectangular glasses that glistened the bell of your eyes even more--
I gotta stand twenty feet away Tommy baby!

You glance down at me and wink,
rearing your head back to let loose that Mingus and Blakey
bottom-end laugh,
guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

--so hearty and rich,
the backbone of every nervous first-year classroom,
and the sniggering seniors you continued to befuddle and dazzle
with your mysterious ways
and insatiable swing.

So blow, Tommy Gun, blow!
Go Tom Cat go!
Dig T-Bird dig!
Let loose Tommy boy!

Swing for us, swing swing swing--
Hot and Sweet, Tommy baby,
hot and sweet.
For my professor, mentor, and dear friend, Thomas Barrett. You're hot and sweet Tommy baby, rest easy. Keep boppin. Thanks for everything.
I sit on a swing Knees high, feet planted firmly on the ground
I’m too tall for it, but I start swinging anyway I’m always too tall
Back and forth higher and higher
Higher and higher back and forth
Wind rushes my ears each time I plummet back to earth falling endlessly
I look up as I sway, see the clouds in the sky I want to reach out and touch them
See another world, away from ours beautiful world
Higher and higher back and forth
I close my eyes and imagine a world a perfect world
A world where swings are bigger and people are nicer happiness in abundance
I float away from the swing effortlessly, willfully
I let go drift towards my dream
Higher and higher back and forth
Closer to the world I long for so close
The swing snaps as I wake up nothing to stop descent
Lying broken on the ground bone and heart
I fall asleep forever
And dream of a swing *a swing where my legs dangle
sanch kay Apr 2015
Bipolar is not just
swinging madly across a spectrum
of deep blue to fiery orange without
being stained by the indigos and greens, yellows and reds in between.
Bipolar is not just
a season blessed and a season cursed
on a cycle of happen, rinse, repeat.
bipolar is not just
Loud uncontrollable chatter
laughter that bounces off the insides of your head
Or
earthshattering sobs that give way to
teardrops that are waterfalls.
bipolar is not just
wanting to rove our hands over the
planes and curves of
every body we happen to find ****.
bipolar is not just
an amalgamation of wounds
in various stages of healing
each with an ugly story to tell.
Bipolar is just
so
hard
to deal
with,
(sometimes).
maxime Oct 2016
A girl kicks her legs while sitting on a swing,
unable to coordinate her young body to move forward.
Her small hands are wrapped around the chain links,
holding her high so she can only touch her toes to the ground.
Her stomach hurts and she frowns.
It always hurts when she tries to play, so she stopped trying.

A teen kicks her legs while sitting on a swing,
not having the energy to move herself forward.
Her bitten fingernails pick at the ridges of the chain links,
holding her now that she is far too exhausted to do so on her own.
Her whole body hurts and she can't even frown.
It always hurts when she tries to breathe, so she stopped trying.

A woman kicks her legs while sitting on a swing,
too sleep-deprived to move her body with enthusiasm.
Her hands that have written millions of words wrap loosely around the chain links, gripping on for the sake of formalities and tradition.
Her body doesn’t hurt anymore and she never has any expression.
It always hurts when she felt sympathy, so she stopped trying.

A mother walks up to a swing,
allowing her own child to tug her towards it.
Her actions are careful as she pushes her precious cargo,
cradling it yet letting it roam far enough to find happiness.
Her whole body feels light and she can't stop smiling.
It always was a struggle to keep going, but she never stopped trying.

A old woman is pushed to a swing in her wheelchair,
Her daughter urging her forward as her granddaughter skipped beside them.
Her hands rest lightly and carelessly on the armrests of her chair,
Relaxed and gentle as she teaches the next girl about her battles.
Her whole body feels rewarded and she always wears a small smile.
She never thought she would, but she succeeded.
Sarah Dec 2012
There's nothing
in this moment
but the memory of
you
swinging your legs over the bed.

A dream
of linens
with roses
& checkered
cloth on the
kitchen windows.
and your bent knees
swinging over the mattress
dangling over dancing shadows
on
the floors [are
so **** cold in the morning]

But in that moment
[the one before
your toes touch the floor]
[before the frozen death of morning
slaps you
wide awake]
I will watch your
legs swing over the bed

they swing
and swing
they swing and swing
away from me.
Lendon Partain Mar 2013
Listen to that big band swing,
Jippin dat doo dattin, with Bing.
Twirl and dancing that vinyl black.
Feelin' the beat through the thumpin' bass crack.
Movin' digits like dancin. Dames.
Tease out that trumpet's pinching twang.
Her dress twirls through the floor,
She.
Spiraling blackhole, spiraling through time net curvatures wormhole.
My ears crash, jazzy spats, of floppin' bop, on the tendrils of brain,
The ooze in my ears feels drunk from the tune,
Music peers to the table cloths wine stain.
She's the toilet water of my music.


Oh that swing.
Oh!
THAT SWING.
I cant help but love that swing like, child's kiss.
Bringing me soft love in lime blues, cross jazz legs,
Spazzing with cigarette drags, dragging my nails through your chest,
Oh that swing, smears me through your dress.

Love child, those legs,
Beauty those pearly notes,
Prickling whites,
Shark teeth scratching the record,
Or just dust.
Slides________
Slides the tip of the stylus through divots,
In the pavement street of record.
Missive.

Don't turn that table too slow now.
That swing can't stop.
Oh that big band swing.
Beat that rhythm,
Boys...take it from the top.
when your feeling hateful sit on the swing of love
shuffle with your feet to give the swing a shove
fly into air leave the hate behind
think about the thoughts of the loving kind

keep your swing in rythm swinging to and fro
on the swing of love your hatred it will go
give you back the love  hate  it will be gone
on the swing of love your love will carry on
Michelle S Oct 2012
My swing
        tire swing
Island of joy in a melting land

Swing, swing
        my tire swing
Carry all away from this wasted land

My swing
        I tire, swing
My only refuge, barren land
ADEOLUWAJOJU Dec 2018
Is it your mood,
The one you swing on that reminds you of me
If so,
Act like I’m the air you swing through;
Invisible and intangible.
Swing on and on and on!
Ignore my aura.

I can’t be your stimulant
I can’t be your regulator any longer
So swing on and on and on!
Swing away!
WiltingMoon Mar 2016
Silent swing
Of rope and wood
Back and forth
While a young girl stood
Silent girl
Hands by her side
Remembering the past
When the swing was a ride
Watching
Remembering
Waiting
Contemplating
If she should snap the rope
Watching it fall to the ground
A tangle of past memories
Scream with no sound
Silent swing**
Hangs still of rope and wood
To remind her
Of the times that were good...
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Composed on 00:53, 21/09/2016 using Hello Poetry's 'Words' algorithm. We don't assume this means something.
Angela Okoduwa Jan 2017
That song! That haunting song!
At twenty years of age,
Off his bed he rose
And to his window he went
There she was, seated in the swing
And singing to herself her lullaby.
It was always her favourite.

She lifted her blank eyes and held his
Those eyes sent shivers down his spine.
A ghost she was,
Why wouldn't she leave him be?
Yes, responsible for her death he was
But that was three years ago.

At thirty four, even after marraige
With three beautiful kids,
She still wouldn't leave that swing
Or put a stop to that **** song
He alone heard her
He told no one else about this ghost
But wanted nothing to do with her.

At fifty, she was still at the swing
Singing and swaying in the swing
She still looked sixteen,
But he looked frail.
He had tried to tell her off
But not a single word would she utter to him.
It was a **** gone wrong
A girlfriend in highschool,
Who had been adamant to give away her virtue.
And the overdose had killed her.

At seventy, an heart attack he had,
Right in the yard.
He couldn't breathe
And he couldn't cry for help.
At the brink of death, she finally left her perch
And floated to his dying body.
Only a sentence she whispered,
And it was colder than death itself.

**You were always my first love
Terry Collett Dec 2014
Janice adjusts
the red beret
on her fair hair
and pulls at the hem
of her dress
as she sits
on the wooden seat
of the swing
in the park.

I sit on the swing
next to her,
ready to kick off,
my feet on the tarmac,
my eyes glued on her.

She winces.

Gran spanked me last night
for saying
that four letter word
you taught me.

You weren't supposed
to tell your gran.

You never said
not to tell;
I didn't know
what it meant.

Sorry,
I should have
told you.

(I didn't know,
but I don't tell her that).

She pushes off
with her feet
and she's air borne;
her sandalled feet
high in the air
as the swing goes backward
then forward.

I push off, too,
holding tight
to the steel links
on each side of the swing.

Maybe your gran
should have washed
your mouth out
with soap
instead of a spanking.

I wish she had, too.

My old man's aunt
swears like a trooper;
I used to go
to Sunday tea with her
and her husband
and my Nan used to say:
that's enough
of that language,
there's children present.

What did did she say?

They don't know
what it means,
she used to say;
but Nan'd say, no,
but they might repeat it
to people who do.

And did you?
Janice asks.

No, at least not
if my parents
were around.

I am swinging higher
than her now;
my feet seem to reach
the nearest clouds.

She tries to swing higher,
but I am still higher,
by swinging backward
and forward on the seat
and the holding tight
to steel links each side,
I am up there
with the gods.

Have you ever
been spanked?

I look at her.

Once when I peed
in my toy box
and my cousin
told my mum.

She pulls a face.

How ***** of you.

Yes, I guess;
Mum thought so.

I feel a breeze
in my hair and face
as I ride high,
swinging back and forth
on the swing.

She's beside me
trying hard to reach
as high as I am;
her feet reaching up,
her legs swinging madly;
her body going
backward and forward;
her red beret,
clinging on
for dear life
on her head.

I reach my maximum height;
my feet touching
Heaven's gates
or so seems,
my body going
back and forth
as much as it can.

She’s almost there,
smiling,
the wind riding
through her flowing
fair hair.
A BOY AND GIRL IN 1950S LONDON IN A LOCAL PARK.
In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
‘That fellow’s got to swing.’

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,
and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.

II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the springtime shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men we were:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.

III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fools’ Parade!
We did not care:  we knew we were
The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom:
And each man trembled as he crept
Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
Was the savour of Remorse.

The grey **** crew, the red **** crew,
But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.

‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide,
But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
In the secret House of Shame.’

No things of air these antics were,
That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of a demirep
Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or to give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
From some ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

IV

There is no chapel on the day
On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
And Terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true!  God’s kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison-air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit may not walk by night
That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to m
Just Alice Jun 2012
To love and love again,
with the eyes watching,
staring

Childhood secrets and imaginary pleasures
criticized for naivety by those
who have displaced the memories of a
long forgotten past

Who's insecurities double by the cynical
jealousy built up after
innocence has been torn to shreds

Seductive and approachable
this tree,
this swing
We all believe,
as children,
in that tire swings indestructibility

But
as it ages
and the rope withers from the weight
and frays like a spiders gossamer web
we witness the growth of a sad time

One slow piece at a time unravel
from lie after lie

Love lost several times

Everything holding the rope together
realizing that the end end is near

The tire snaps off and lays
in rest
among the dead and dying foliage
Abandoned,
years pass
and that old tire becomes caked
in dust and mud and
forgotten times

But
that rope still hangs there
swaying with the shifting moments of life
Waiting
waiting to be useful once again

There is only one use left for a lone rope
hanging from an old
and lonely
tree

A rope that offered hope and freedom
can do that one last time
A gift that can once again
release us from the pain
and the suffering
this world throws at us

That old tire swing rope
looped
circled
knotted
is now pure freedom

Standing on that old ***** tire
reaching
for that newly formed circle
Fit it
tighten it
release
and jump
Freedom
once again
because of that old tire swing noose
Tommy Johnson Dec 2013
You can hear the voices of our peers being silenced, ignored, shunned and distorted.
Staggering out of their bedroom doorways to the street corner to score a dime bag.
Bright, insightful millennials freezing in search of warmth from something to believe in that will encourage them to look forward to see another day.
Where our economy has made financial prudence clear when talking about education, yet price tags of university tuition's skyrocket.
The refused, the ones with hope but no money or scholarships; tread the streets with the echoes of electro house pulsing in their skulls.
Those who strip themselves down and shred their own morals to scraps just to find themselves and to see their own limitations.
Searching for answers to the unknown, to ascertain what they are, who they are and why.
Timid in high school, pushed along with nothing and no one to put their creative vigor into.
The squeakiest wheels that were never even considered to be given a good greasing.
Faculties giving them lethargic hellos on the first day of school, bestowing celebrated goodbyes to them on graduation day, diplomas in hand.
Now are the ones slumped over in a lackadaisical position contemplating how they can afford an education.
They work eight to ten at seven twenty five an hour Monday to Friday; and weekends staying in as not to blow their earnings.
Those who commute to university and balance a job with it, I applaud you.
The bewilderment of adulthood, the overabundance of pressure and responsibility.
Awakened from nightmares of lost opportunities, missed trains and lost contacts.
To step out of bed and splash water onto a severely distressed face and staring into a mirror with a despairing look.
Then hoping a bus to Garfield to bring back weight for all the embryonic smokers not yet at the point of make or break, just save up enough to pave my own way.
Gazing at the town on a roof top, chugging down the tenth…no…twelfth beer of the night wondering how this all happened.
Wild sensations of kissing an attractive stranger, the rush of touching on things never felt, tasting pleasures only the lucky have known.
The passionate, yet dissolute yearning for that ever eluding ******* adrenaline. Pounding, Pounding, Pounding until the culmination of energy has come.
Flip sided to those dizzying, tear jerking thoughts of suicide, annihilation of ones being, the contradictions of their faith in themselves and the people around them.
Unexplainable waves of anxiety crashing onto the shore of a diminutive island of optimism
Striving to look past the panic, the gloominess and fury that may or may not be present. But to remain composed and press forward to what awaits them.
Coffee keeps them going. Cup after cup, late night cramming every bit they can; into their caffeine driven psyches until the indisputable crash and failure.
Packs and packs of menthol cigarettes to calm their rattling nerves but at the same time killing them slowly. Their lives will seem shorter than the time it took to finish one bogey when death is near.
Marijuana induced ventures to run down burger shacks, laughing hysterical in the car ride, eyes heavy with a most ridiculous elastic grin extending from ear to ear. While inside millions of thoughts and realizations of consciously simple speculations and troubles become clear and unproblematic. So the joy is mirrored outside in.
LSD trips in Petruska dancing and singing in the rain! Making music, making love; playing pretend and creating art. Becoming a family while kicking back under the warmth of an illuminated tree on a cool fall night.
MDMA streaming through the body, everything is as it should be
Beautiful, lovely to touch, wondrous to stroke, marvelous to move.
To contact and connect, converse and converge with the dwelling desire to share what you feel with everyone for it would be selfish and unpleasant to keep it in.
Mushrooms oh the emotional overflow I need not say more but ****.
Then there are over the counter candies, Oxycontin, ******, Adderall and Xanax, painkillers and antidepressants. Ups, downs, side ways and backwards.
Selling addiction and dependency legally to kids. Making heroine, ******* and speed easily obtainable to them. Changing the names and giving out prescriptions so the parents can feel like they're actually helping their children but are subconsciously making it easier on themselves because they cannot handle the way their offsprings actually are. Some parents a feel it is the only way, I wish it wasn't so. Becoming zombies, mindless addicts before they even start to mature into puberty. I've seen it, firsthand front row.
Oh, the monotonous, mundane rituals and agendas of our lives. School, work, sleep eat, the sluggish schedules and repetitions of yesterday's conversations and redundancy of itineraries we had plotted months prior.
Same people, the constant faces of boredom that groan in apathy and hold the fear of complacency.
We talk about how hum drum out lives have become and what we could to put some color in our world but don’t.
We speak of how unfair the system is but ultimately confuse ourselves and everyone else due to lack or organization and dedication so nothing is changed.
We speak of breath taking women we want to share ****** fantasies with but can’t even muster enough courage to send a trivial friend request.
Texting away for hours trying to court those who now occupy our minds and possess our hearts hoping they may allow us to acquire their attention and affection. Calling them only to receive futile dial tones and know we are being evaded.
Weeping on and on for seemingly endless time frames of a dilapidated relationship that was so strained that a miniscule breeze could cause it to collapse but still clinging to every memory as if they were vital hieroglyphics depicting your very essence.
Brilliant theories blurted out in a drunken stupor.
Ingenious hypothesis shrouded in marijuana smoked out room.
Remembrance of friends long gone.
The marines, the navy.
The casualties of drug addiction.
The conquerors or their afflictions.
The scholars.
The insane locked away on the flight deck never to be seen again.
Teenage mothers unsure of themselves, abandoned by their families for they believe that they brought fictional shame upon the family’s name. The fate of the child is unclear but the mother’s everlasting love shines through any obscurities in its way.
Dear mother of the new born winter’s moon may the aura of life protect you and your baby.
The father gone without a trace.
He will never know his daughter.
And it will haunt him forever.
Parents bringing up their kids with values and morals, The Holy Bible, mantras and meditation, the Holy Quran, The Bhagavad Gita, and Upanishads. Islamic anecdotes and Jewish parables.
The names all different
The message the same
The stories unlike
Goals equivalent
Faith
Kabala, Scientology and Wicca
Amish and Mormons
All separate paths that intertwine and runoff each other then pool into the plateau of eternal life.
But do we have faith in our country, our government?
They do not have faith in us. Cameras on every street corner, FBI agents stalking social media, recordings of our personal lives and police brutality. 4th amendment where have you gone?
We say farewell to Oresko the last veteran of the last great war. And revisit the Arab spring, Al-Assad’s soldiers opening fire on innocent protesters, one hundred fifteen thousand lay dead. Bin laden dead, Hussein hanged, Gaddafi receiving every ounce of his comeuppance. War, terrorism, the fear of being attacked or is it an excuse to secure our nation's investments across the sea? Throwing trillions of dollars to keep the ****** machine cranking away, taxes, pensions, credit scores, insurance and annuities all cogs in the convoluted contraptions plight.
My dear friend contemplates this every night laying in bed, fetal position; the anxiety if having to be a part of this.
Falling apart on the inside but on the outside, an Adonis, *******, Casanova wanna be. Who worshiped the almighty dollar, gripping it so tightly until it made change, drank until he had his fill falling face first into the snow. The guy who lead on legions of clueless girls wearing their hearts on their sleeves not knowing he had a girlfriend the entire time. Arranging secret meetings in hidden gardens, streaking into the early morning. Driving to Ewing in his yellow Mustang to woo a sado masochistic girl. The chains and whips do nothing to him he is already numbed by the thrill. Then he comes home, lays in bed until one, with no job and having people pay for his meals.
He knows what he does and who he is wrong. He recites and regurgitates excuses endlessly. He cries because he knows he is weak, he knows he must fix himself. I sit on the edge of myself with my fingers crossed hoping maybe, maybe he will set himself straight.
My chum who can talk his way out of any confrontation and into a woman’s *******. Multitudes of amorous affairs in backrooms, backseats, front rows of movies theaters. Selfish, boastful and ignorant, yet woman fling themselves at him like catapulted boulders over a medieval battle field just to say hello. These girls blind to see what going on, for their eyes were taken by low self esteem. A need to be accepted, to feel wanted even only for fifteen minutes. Poor self image, daddy issues, anorexic razor blade slicing sirens screaming on about counted calories and social status. Their uncontrollable mental breakdowns and emotional collapse. Their uncles who ***** them, their parents who split up and confusing their definition of love and loyalty for the rest of their lives. Broken homes, domestic abuse and raised voices, sending jolts of fright into the young girl’s fragile minds. I send my sorrows to you ladies, to see such beautiful creatures suffer then be used and thrown away with the ****** that was just ****** deep into their *****.
Then I see women and men of marvelous stature, romantic in the streets holding everyone and everything in high regards. Finding beauty in anything and anyone. Enjoying every second as if the rapture was over head eating exotic foods from unheard of countries and cultures. Bouncing to the sound of whimsical , reverb ricochets and sense stimulating music. Huffing inspiration to create something out of thin air. Dancing to retired jazz and swing albums as if no time had past since their conception. Wearing bold colors and patterns, thrifty leather shoes or suede.
Dawning pre-owned blazers because why spend hundreds of dollars on new clothes just to look good but feel uncomfortable with a hole in your pocket. Dressing up but dressing down, so class yet urban I love it, chinos, pea coats and flannels so simple but chic.
At night they go to underground dens, sweaty bodies, loud music and freedom. Expressive manifestations glowing fueled with MDMA and other substances to further their enjoyment of the dark glorious occasion. Kandi kids sporting colorful bracelets, not watches for time is of no concern to them, they have all eternity they know that.
Going to book stores, coffee shops just to have some peace of mind and a moment of silence to themselves so that can weave the tapestry of imaginative innovation. Writing their own versions of the same story, endless doors of perception, reading news papers and taking it with a grain of salt. Watching the news on TV with a hand full of salt. Searching for the real story so they can know if the world they all live in is actually safe.
She who made her own way breaking hearts, rolling blunts and making deals. The flower child of the modern age, left the rainy days in search of radiant sunshine, idealistic. Reality was subjective, purple dyed hair, multicolored sweater with sandals on her feet. A ten inch bowl with bud from California packed in tightly. Coming from Dumont to Bergenfeild then on to Philly to Mount Vernon. Off to Astoria and the Heights. Now to Sweden laying in the grassy plains below the mountains. Good for you my friend whom I have loved, may fortunes of unsullied joy come to you and all you meet.
Since you’ve left I have encountered drunken burly firemen just trying to have a good time. Pounding down Pabst Blue Ribbon as if it were water; as if it were good tasting beer. But heroes none the less.
EMT's, young eighteen years old high school graduates, saving lives reviving people who are a mere inch close to death.
Sport stars getting scholarships thanks to their superior skills and strength.
Striking beauty school students who are into making the people of this world a little bit more beautiful on the outside.
All these people, successful, doing things. Departing to their desired destinations. I see inside them, they carry baggage, loneliness and insecurities. I can feel their guilt slowing them down. All have their loads but it’s the way they carry them that shows who they really are. And to me their all gems.
Not far in Paterson I watch the junkies limping across busy winding street, perusing a severely needed fix. “Diesel!” they shout beneath flickering streetlights, asking for spare change and if bold enough a ride to some shady sketchy place. I give them a dollar and politely decline. They’ll die without it. Vomiting up bile and blood, twitches and shivers are all you feel when it’s not in you. They cannot stop, they need help. Why not help them instead of “assisting” those who are homosexual? Cleansing so they can be granted entry to the kingdom of God. Looking down on people who have found love and understanding and a deep attraction to others who just so happen to share alike genitals.
Narrow minded uproars about the spread of AIDS, nonsense! The puritanical onslaught of those who want nothing more than the rest of us, love. "Gay", "****", "******", "queer", how about "kind", "funny", "genuine human being"? The right to be married and divorced should be an option for everyone to enjoy. The strains and hardships of matrimony are yours if you want them. If you don’t agree don’t hate or harm just allow them to be peacefully. Same goes for anything for that matter, Jehovah's going door to door, Mormons from Burbank. New ideas are never a bad thing, they’re not a waste of time. On average you have about eighty years to mull over your options.
Some people don’t live long enough to do so, cancer is rampant, blood diseases, ****** diseases, natural disasters coming right out of left field and blindsiding the innocent bystanders of both hemispheres. Some go through life handicapped, autism is apparent these days. Schizophrenia, Asperburgers, ADD and ADHD. Some lose their golden memories of their many valuable years walking down Alzheimer's Lane, not being able to remember whatever transpired only a few moments ago but revisiting gold nuggets from from fifty-some-odd years ago with ease. Some go through life delusional or bipolar. Some can't even sleep at night but they still carry on. And if assistance is needed it is our job as a race to help our brothers and sisters, no one deserves to be excluded from the gala of life. Or be denied by society and pumped with brightly colored pills from doctors promising a cure but prescribing a crutch.
Finding solace in sincerity.
The serendipity of it all hasn’t been uncovered and that keeps me going.
“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world above, below and across. Unhindered without ill will without enmity.” Oh Buddha the truth as it ever was.
Who is he who keeps these thoughts from the conscious minds of the population?
Who is it that distracts us from the humbling beauty and overwhelming devastation of this place of existence we’re in?
It’s they who do under the table parlor trick behind our backs.
Those who broadcast mind numbing so called reality TV shows without an underlying value or meaning.
Those who produce music, proclaiming extravagance to be the end all be all gluttonous goal we all should aim to achieve.
And those who turn noble causes into money making scams and defile pure ideas.
And of course those who give false promises of easily obtained  bright futures, those who don’t care, those who steal, ****, curse, bad mouth and lie. But still manage to get elected into positions that more or less decide out fates. Monsters, demons, banshees howling inconsequential worries and leaving us deaf to hear the real issues.
The
VD Lee Jul 2017
Baby why you hit me up
At three am?
Greet me with a lazy sup
And break my heart

Oh
Darling did you think this through
Darling didn't you know I'd miss you

And for all this time
I thought we'd still be in love
All this time
I thought we'd never be done

But life carries on

And now I can do things
I couldn't do before
I can pick my nose
And slam the door
You may not be here
But I still can breathe
You may not be near
But I am still me

So I'm dancin' on my own!
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
And I know more than I've ever known
(Charleston, swing, salsa)
See me dancin' on my own
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
My heartbreak has made me grown
(Charleston, swing, salsa)

And baby!
I'm puttin' you in a corner
And baby!
I ain't gonna be a mourner
When sunrise come knockin' on my door
Baby, you won't be on my mind anymore

Got my mind on an electric buzz
Got me drunk on a dizzyin' high
I'm spinning dusk to dawn
And I'll forget we'd ever said hi

So I'm dancin' on my own!
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
And I know more than I've ever known
(Charleston, swing, salsa)
See me dancin' on my own
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
My heartbreak has made me grown
(Charleston, swing, salsa)

And baby!
I'm puttin' you in a corner
And baby!
I ain't gonna be a mourner
When sunrise come knockin' on my door
Baby, you won't be on my mind anymore

Oh, anymore

Baby you took my heart
Ripped it apart
And I'm just pickin' up the parts
Part of me wishin' that we'll be together
Another part knowing that we shall never speak again

But now you can do things
That you want to do
Hit up that girl
You'd always talk to
Hope she eat you well
Like I use to
Hope she is just as good
As I was to you

Still, I'm dancin' on my own!
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
And I know more than I've ever known
(Charleston, swing, salsa)
See me dancin' on my own
(Foxtrot, jive, samba)
My heartbreak has made me grown
(Charleston, swing, salsa)

And baby!
I'm puttin' you in a corner
And baby!
I ain't gonna be a mourner
When sunrise come knockin' on my door
Baby, you won't be on my mind anymore

— The End —