"tramping" poems
Hunting has a noble heritage, for sure
Bringing us together, it forged a species
Keen-eyed, communicative, feared by the fierce
So who am I to begrudge you your sport?
I, too, love wide open skies, tramping over bog and fen,
I even quite like dogs!
I imagine nature might reveal herself to you
In signs jealously guarded from the armchair carnivore.
I can almost reconcile your harsh percussion
With the croak of the raven, the sloshing tide
And the chewing and mooing of cattle.
But the pheasant! For the love of God, the pheasant?
It can hardly be a battle of wits!
I've seen him as he sits, a big, red bullseye
On fences and *****
Startled by every day he survives.
How stirring can it be,
Picking off the ones the cars and lorries never got?
When you carry him home,
Better off dead,
Hang him in your garage for a week
Feeling like Henry VIII,
Cut him down, slit him open and find the crop
Stuffed not with heather shoots and beetles
But with half a pound of store-bought grain
(Generously laced with antibiotics) -
I hope the realisation creeps up
That you may as well have asserted yourself
In the hen coop,
Blasting away at befuddled poultry
And saving yourself a walk.
Nov 24, 2010
Nov 24, 2010 at 1:33 AM UTC
We call it “peacock hill”
I love this misty humidity that hangs here
sunlight barely peeking through; lovely mossy ground and wet leaves
turning to mulch under our tramping feet, we hear the peacocks call
in their unique tone - musical, alluring and promising
of a rare treat to the eyes, I’m only six years old, walking by your side,
and I don’t realize that in my excitement to collect peacock feathers-
***i’m missing the peacocks for the feathers
and
I’m missing your company for the peacocks***
and somehow if I could turn back time, i’d like to make that right
pay more attention to you, than to silly feathers or birds, beautiful though they are
just soak in the moment, and be with you completely
so that years later, when we live so far away
i’d look back on this moment with a lot less regret
and be glad, that we father and daughter
had some great times together
-Vijayalakshmi Harish
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 2:57 AM UTC
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and ***** and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
******* his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
4.9k
When they get to the aquarium, the kid asks if they have a Great White shark exhibit.
The volunteer says no, we don’t.
The kid asks, “Why? are you afraid he might try to eat people?”
The volunteer chuckles at this and tells him no. no aquarium has successfully held a Great White shark live for more than a few days.
You see, in order to stay alive, Great Whites and other sharks, like hammerheads, swim on their own continuously through the ocean, never stopping, never slowing, tramping a perpetual journey with many miles to go before they finally reach “sleep”. If they stop, the oxygen rich water around them no longer flows over their gills and into their bodies and they suffocate from the strain of being at rest. So they keep going, like lost children searching for their parents in a very large amusement park.
This need to keep moving, this need for space, has made it extremely difficult to keep them in our meager glass human death cages. When the Monterey bay aquarium managed to capture a juvenile that didn’t thrash itself to death like the adult sharks they netted before, it bashed its head against the tank’s sturdy walls until the shock of being dragged out of its home and put in the equivalent of a coffin killed it.
But, the volunteer continued cheerfully, we have other kinds of sharks here. We have zebra sharks, which don’t need to swim nonstop. In their natural habitat, they just lie on the ocean floor all day. The kid agrees to go see them
The zebra sharks are not lying on the floor nor do they look like zebras. They swim slowly past him, leopard spots dotting their ridges on their backs, their fins, their long tails. “They’re called zebra sharks because of the zebra like patterns of the juveniles,” the volunteer explains. The ones we have here are adults.When they become adults, they get the spots and those ridges you see. Sometimes people mistake them for leopard sharks, which are a totally different species.”
The kid stares at the zebra sharks for a full ten minutes, looking for a sign of resignation at being called something they weren’t anymore, at collectively being referred to by a childhood nickname they had long outgrown. They did not seem to care.
He gets bored and goes to other exhibits, the split fin flashlight fish blinking on and off in their darkened tank, the touch pool, the medusa jellyfish with their trailing tentacles. But the sharks are what he remembers when he leaves, and they’re what he remember when he returns three months later, six months later, two years later, three, five, ten, this is what stays with him, the sharks in our tanks and the sharks in the ocean.
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 2:20 AM UTC
The man in galoshes with the world on his back,
strolls along the broken track.
Weather beaten,
Fighting the rain.
It's lashing him.
He's tied to the kerb.
Anchored only by the weighty boots on his feet.
He's out there fair weather or foul.
Desperate to keep his public happy,
With a timely siren,
the arrival of an infants birth.
He is the performer up the garden path.
At least the rain's outside again.
So is he poor sod.
The postman, nearly demi-god,
or nearly dead.
He's tramping through the rain and the snow.
He had to let you know,
you know.
The latest news and hot reviews,
a little bit of useless information.
There's nothing better than a letter,
unless it's from the revenue.
Our fair weather friend he has so many uses.
A warrior, he fights wild dogs.
He's churning up the grass,
his only means of escape.
He's wearing an orange hat,
it's curled up at the edges.
He uses it to fight the rain.
The orange hat so luminous,
he's looking rather fruity.
He's forlorn and in pieces,
because he's getting washed away,
He has one every morning in his place,
each and every day.
Stacks and stacks of bits of paper,
Life and death wrapped up in his sack.
(C) Livvi
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 10:43 AM UTC
Two miles from town, I meet an old woodcutter
and we travel the road lined with huge pines.
The smell of wild plum blossoms
drifts across the valley.
My walking stick has brought us home.
In the ancient pond – huge, contented fish.
Long sunbeams penetrate the deep woods.
And in the house – a long bed
all covered with poetry books.
I loosen my belt and robes,
copy phrase after phrase for my poems.
At twilight, I walk to the east wing –
spring quail startle into the air.
Tramping for miles I come upon a farm house
as the great ball of sun sets in the forest.
Sparrows gather near a bamboo thicket,
flutter about in the closing dark.
From across a field comes a farmer
who calls a greeting from afar.
He tells his wife to strain their cloudy wine
and treats me to his garden's feast.
Sitting across table we drink each other's health
our talk rising to the heavens.
Both of us are so tipsy and happy
we forget the rules of this world.
Too confused to ever earn a living
I've learned to let things have their way.
With only three handfuls of rice in my bag
and a few branches by my fireside
I pursue neither right or wrong
and forget worldly fortune and fame.
This damp night under a grassy roof
I stretch out my legs without regrets.
4k
Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.
The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.
Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.
Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-home-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.
He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.
Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.
We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM UTC
There, amongst the northern skies,
Tears driven by ghostly squalls to
Fall on the blackened, bleak rooftops
Of this northern town, forgotten.
Left to a grey Victorian rot
Decaying factory ceilings collapsing on,
Litter strewn floors, newspapers decompose
With triumphs from yester year
Industrial dust stained brickwork
Grimy reminder, of the grim past
Haunted dim gaslight probing the fog
Days, nights only separated by murky light
A ghostly silence, hangs like a grimy fog
Cloaking lost sounds of dull beating on metal,
Boots tramping over cobbled stones,
The sounds of clocking on, clocking off, no more
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.
2k
City
almost done now,
the fun somehow has left these streets,
but weary feet are tramping home, sick to death and weary to the bone.
Rtoseberry avenue
postcode EC1 and then
it's gone.
Clerkenwell green,
scene of many unpleasantries leaves me and on to St John's street and
more city feet.
Old street not paved with gold except for the elite and more weary feet tramping on.
It's the end of another day and the city always had its way with the few and the lucky ones escaped by bus,
not us,
we went hobo on the city street, tramps and dodgy people, feet so sore and where if when we look to see the Shoreditch box park know we are not far or free of Hackney and the night falls dark across me.
I do
I do
Said twice, but in my heart I knew it wasn't so.
I go because I must've been and seen it all before and though I know it's rotten to the core it draws me like a magnet and I am being trawled by some megaline or dragnet.
The streets beat me down and the pirates in this ***** town have stolen me away,
just another bedtime story written underneath the evening stars and just another ending of the day.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
on a dark road
below a black hill
headlamped vision
gritty verge littered
with insect road ****
husk moth bodies
beetle shell mud
defiled ox-eye daisy
dumb weight tramping
the treadmill night
day-shot with the memory
of those lapwing hundreds
wheeling in ascent to fall
on folded wing and again
gyre up to the brink
of abandonment
green silent fields away
as when in advent there
the hills rose up before me
and the thirst for their
awesome green
loth to return
to that vortex drawn
down ice-pocket ruts
my city captive goes
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 8:09 AM UTC
the world is adorned with a million windows
the bleakest night has a thousand eyes
daylight shines into the globes darkest corners
truth will ultimately expose all lies
NASA’s satellites circle
Tropic of Cancer latitudes
cameras pinpoint the disease
metastasizing in the body of Homs
from stratospheric limits
sensitive lenses read the names
magic markers have scrawled
onto white sheets covering the dead
YouTube gets Oscar consideration
for grisly cinematography
a real-time visceral docudrama
of panting fascists gleefully tramping
through the desecrated streets
coolly administering a coup de gras
to a city on its knees, pleading release
from an **** of incessant bloodletting
twitter records desperate tweets
the batting wings of endangered flocks
furiously thumbing into the blogosphere
calls for UN intervention that falls on blind eyes
BBC reportage,
the global gold standard
for journalistic excellence
scoops the stories
of London based FSA partisans
awaiting repatriation to scatter
Bashar’s Kodachrome killers
Has the All Seeing Eye
who has graced us with sight
laughingly curse us with vision?
Does the
One Caring Eye of the Universe
bless us with perception
to haunt us with images?
Has
The One Thats Sees Everything
blinked closed the eye of compassion?
Has the horror of Homs
become too much even for
The Universal Eye of Love?
the opened eyes
of a dead child
reflects our
cold winter
of indifference
demoralizing
dehumanizing
a watching world
Music Selection
Grateful Dead Eyes of the World
Oakland
3/2/12
jbm
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 12:04 PM UTC
Of all the old tales
and folklore alike
vampires , werewolves
and ghouls delight
the one which I fear
even to this day
the witch of the north
Windigo is it's name
The natives hold true
the stories they tell
of the forlorn ghoul
floating through the trees
howling out its warning
to those who will heed
to those who don't
their flesh it will eat
This was the tale told to me
by my good friend Yves
tramping around the northern woods
in the fall of'70
Yves was not a man
to scare easily
he laughed and scoffed
at tales of thing he could not see
My blood it did freeze
on that last October eve
when the wind began to howl
on all hallows eve
the sound seemed to come alive
whipping up the leaves
the only one who showed no fear
was my good friend Yves
We had come up north
to survey the scene
checking into stories
of people missing
the guides we brought
we thought were stout
turned out not to be
all but one,cried aloud
and ran into the trees
Young Gaston and Yves
surveyed the scene
howling wind and screaming
then the wind died
and silence took hold
Oh how they talked so bold
they cursed at the trees
and taunted the leaves
Breaking the silence
was a keening wail
the fury of which
I still can hardly tell
the sound shook my bones
clear to my knees
it looked like it scared
even Gaston and Yves
I thought I saw
a fleeting mist
flowing through the trees
seeping, creeping
with a growl and a yell
the furies of hell
were unleashed around me
swirling about
a vortex of pain
I never seen
Gaston and Yves again
I searched for a sign
early next day
for what had become
of my friends you would say
all that I found
were bits of cloth
and some teeth
all that remained of
Gaston and Yves
Try as I might
the sight will not leave
my hair is now white
as you can plainly see
if you go to the north woods
you better beware
of the dangers and creatures
that do lurk there
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 11:32 PM UTC
tonight, i stand still,
all but well and slain by your
widening grin, with hair casting
ill-sketched shadows across
your cheek, out in the street, under
these humming lamps. under
this enveloping front.
some moment my head reeled
reveries of pretext for. still,
here i blink,
so unprepared. stuffing my
belongings into a tramping
pack late at night. laid out
on the couch arm. nothing knows,
now, i'd rather see you than
anything. careful footprint
placements. we got time, yeah.
still, honey, i'd trade magnitudes
of it up, for just just just a
handful extra seconds
skirting your gaze.
still,
honey, i'm atypically hopeful;
trembling here. i'm lit up
like you couldn't believe. i'm
on fire and kept warm,
throughout this meanwhile;
undertow miles away. grass
shooting up through the
soil in the back
yard.
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 6:17 AM UTC
there is no better time
for one's hooks to be unlucky
than now--
balmy with the lake like glass,
a round, fat sun to sweat under,
full pack on my shoulders,
& some backwater cabin to
rest this humble set of
hot, tired bones
when the fishing's done.
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 14, 2011 at 10:37 AM UTC
Inside me there’s a story
of countries left behind beneath silent sails
running before trade winds and storms
enduring unthinkable hardships
and suffering deaths before they had reached their destination
or left their mothers breast
Inside of me there’s a story
of reaching a strange land
encountering a people steeped in war and hostilities
experiencing winter’s bitter bite in manuka huts
and putting up with it all in the
faint hope that the land would bring a better life
Inside of me there’s a story
of hiking across mountain ranges
rafting down icy rivers
tramping through bush and mud thick with mosquitos
to seek out safe harbours in which to build
towns and clear the way for others
Inside of me there’s a story
which dwells in the history of us all
to enrich our very existence and our being
telling of the strength of our ancestors
who came to this land of Aotearoa
and made her name great
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 6:06 PM UTC
Going to fix up my homes under the sycamore tree
going camping
tent tramping
and all I will see are the whirlygigs that helicopter
propped up in my sleeping bag
watching the canvas sag
like life
it's an awful drag and I am gone
camping.
'Oh my giddy aunt' whose name was Matilda,
once met the Kaiser,
by the side of the Danube.
No proof,
no Youtube but I believed her and Herr Kaiser had a little thing going by the river flowing out to the sea.
Which does not help me under the sycamore tree and the more that I see the less I'm intent on staying in a tent with a roof that is sagging,
I'm dragging my **** outa here
and you guessed it
,no proof
no Youtube
the truth.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 8:19 PM UTC
when the tree bark snags my winter coat
and tall light posts flicker coded pleas “come
home, come home”
a police cruiser surges onto the curb
lumbering tires spit loose gravel and leaves
“JUST DON’T FREEZE”
megaphone boom from a crack
in the door, ka-chunk a boy proves
he belongs to these bricks
with a clever piece of plastic
clutched in fingers of leather gloves
squeaking tight against the
heavy metal door handle, heavy
boots tramping snow from the soles
my head pinned to the earth by a half-globe
of knotted tree branches and scarred trunk
(KJ + DL, fuckGETpussy, rm 122 4 ****
clawing me back for old obscenities
i wish my crossed legs under this cold-smoothed
picnic table could stop knocking to the beat
of the third floor’s 3am rave, knocking to
come home
ka-chunk, you belong to these bricks.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 4:25 PM UTC
There was a stage in my life
When I accepted what was told me
Thoughts etched, the acid leaving indelible patterns
Currents and tides of being
That invited loyalty
Tastes of doubt's power
left me dispossessed – finding new songs,
vainly pressing my own.
Tramping not so slow
warned - unheeding.
Unsensing to the shivering fault
I’m left to wonder
which rocks on the beach
found their smoothness the right way
and which did it all wrong?
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 10:10 PM UTC
I am the ****** and damaged warrior
Mighty presence on an arid plain
Waste-land empty and scorch-scarred parched
Looking to the dazzling dawn
Of another baking, aching, dry day
Of another dying, desert year.
They watched bold marching
Fearful tramping
To each pitiful skirmish
And every blood-hungry moment
Of all the days and nights.
They watched corded muscles
Spasm and seize
With each call to stretch and pull
And drag the weary-worn
To fight again.
Let no man call with shrill-shriek of the owl
Across the night-filled silence
Let no-one ever whisper in the dark, dearth
Across the shadowed chasm
I am alone within a purple shade
Night-cloaked in cunning strange
I am the time-deadened, weary watchman
Locked in a forever-circle of despair
Manacled with lead, banded with steel
Tight twisted and knotted by a skein of silk
Woven tightly by the softest hand
Strengthened by certainty and pure calm
There is no escape to unearth
But death
Is skirting the edge of existence
Picking at the loose threads
Teasing and niggling the fraying filaments
Laddering and snagging
And pulling, pulling out beyond time
The winding-sheet, the sack-cloth shroud
The only closing choice.
© M.L.Emmett
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 10:23 AM UTC
i've never liked to hike before
until i met the trek
from the volcano to the shore.
emerging from the cold grey sea
wet and sleepy
to meet fields of grass
where light plays in the sweet-smelling air, like
the pleasure of cold water
or warm honey.
past the crevices,
tramping through fields of laurel & mantis,
the golden mountains slope to greet me
like a kiss on the fingertips
after a story read and chocolate melted
in a house with tea rose air
until --
hark! a black pit,
the gorge leading
to the Path of Everywhere!
opening and flooding with
the world of color
and putting forth sadness and insight!
gaze upon the silent wonder!
the air up here speaks to the ocean
with a silver voice as a constant decision.
i often sit by the eyelet and breathe in the warm black,
dangling my feet in the thick air,
and it seems to dive through it
would be to find a home in that i could live.
Feb 17, 2012
Feb 17, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
Sorry said the merry man, adjacent on his way,
I've gone and ticked you off while I've been out tramping today
And in my careless frolic I seem to have stole your heart
What brutal lust you blow towards me, gushing like a ****
But I'm not la-da-dee-da-dee, a manly bearded sprite
Jingle though my stirrups do like dormice held too tight
I'm a serious enterprise, a man deeply invested
In stacking stocks and picking prices, if you're interested?
She danced reluctantly to him, unnatured to the rhythm
But with a wink she start'd to slink and jim-jam along with him
The two then picked their sandals up and shuffled down the street
And drank and laughed amerrily at all they chanced to meet
To the bank they wandered, legislating they did go
In government, in finance, in high station to and fro
Each day they yawned and gargled on a fresh new tonic smell
And went on down the street to make a fresh mismanaged hell
Soon agiggling and adultering they fell down in a mess
Holes and tears ashaming his and her once modest dress
There they lay and blocked the road till bobby picked them up
And once they'd laughed their fill of him they bribed the greasy pup
He took them to the city square and let them borrow his hat
They gave out fines and sentences for being thin or fat
They stood on boxes, had ideas for rent for half a pence
And sat gracefully cross-eyed on the splintering picket fence
Then donned a mitre, did a dance, their pageantry displayed,
They became gods, just for a laugh, the vicarage dismayed
When down from heaven lightning bolts, shot with a holy hum
Came buzzing like a hornets' nest and shocked them on the ***
A **** of smoke, a whiff of cheese, the townsfolk breathed release
Gone at last those terrors past, they could return to peace
Then up from high a saintly sigh two angels billowed down
Golden halos greasy and no pants beneath their gown
The townsfolk wept and cried aloud, their stomachs plopped and churned
To see the pair of villains there, so gracefully returned
Blessed be the kingmakers the two of them agreed
Until next weekend, Duw my dear, and until then, God's speed.
Nov 28, 2020
Nov 28, 2020 at 10:00 AM UTC
I remember the grey slithers of rain,
The jocular driver
As I boarded the bus
At Temple Meads,
And the friendly lady who told me
When we had arrived at the city centre.
I remember the little pub on King Street,
With its quiet maritime atmosphere.
I remember tramping
Along Park Street,
Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill,
My arms and hands aching from my bags,
To the little cottage where I had decided to stay
And relax between rehearsals,
Reading, writing, listening to music.
I remember my landlady, tall, timid and beautiful.
Jun 28, 2015
Jun 28, 2015 at 5:19 AM UTC
Snowflake drops on heaven
Dreaming of serene stumbles
Delicate like dew
Freezing the snowflake
A rainbow soft as a tear
A winter's tramping
Feeling the river
In ever expense of ours
Fearing the fearless
Oh dearest alone
Another close folly here
Splendid days ended
These screams of laughter
They fill your heart full of love
We're left to wonder
Walking through your grave
In here lies my lovely foe
I miss you a lot
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Then we learn to crawl through the ramble and sprawl, if we were tadpoles perhaps we might wriggle a bit,
but we're not
We scrabble and screech in order to reach whatever is it that we need and we feed at the fast foods, watching the naked and **** being destroyed and it's us that we see.
If we walk we don't talk with our heads in a phone watching memes on the screen and the bigger the better, easy to letter your life if you like, A equals 5 equals a bee in the hive, but we're making no honey just plenty of green crispy banknotes and it's funny because you can't eat money, but it keeps us alive, us being the bee in the hive.
And through all of this, the tramping, campaigning and cutting, adjusting, abutting it's easy to see why we crawl,
why we sprawl on the sofa and think so far so good.
I wonder if I'd feel as I would if I could grasp every corner of life, fold it into a square, put it somewhere and forget it.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 7:15 AM UTC