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island poet May 2018
“Moby ****,”  Herman Melville

<•>

~for the lost at sea~

after a year of saltwater absence and abstinence,
return to the island caught between two land forks
surrounded by river-heading flows
bound for the ocean great joining

the Atlantic welcomes the fresh water fools,
bringing with them hopefully, but hopeless gifts of obeisances,
peace-offerings endeavoring to keep their infinite souls

sea accepts them then drowns the
warm newcomers in the unaccustomed
deep cold salinity, which
sometimes erodes
sometimes preserving
their former freshwater cold originality

I’m called to depart my beach shoreline  unarmed,
no kayak, sunfish or glass bottomed boat needed,
walk on water and my toes, ten eyes to see the bottom,
no depth perception limitation,
reading the floor’s topography,
millions of minion’s stories infinite,
many Munch screaming

god’s foot, heavy upon my shoulders,
a daytime travel guide, hired for me,
not a friendly travel companion,  nope,
God a pusher showing off a drug called deep water salvation,
designated for the masses, can handle large parties

my in-camera brain  eyes,
record everything for playback -
the lost and unburied, bone crossword puzzles

walk shore to ship, on soles to souls,
is this my new-summer nature welcome back greeting?

puzzled at the awesomeness of vastness,
conclude this clarification for me of the occluded-deep,
is a stern reminder of my insignificant existence,
my requirement to walk humbly, spare my sin of vanity, and
forgive my trespasses upon the lives of others

perhaps then the infinite of my soul perchance restored,
older visions clarified and future poems
will write themselves
and sea to it my predecessors
be better remembered

Memorial Day 2018
Nigel Morgan Nov 2012
My first memory of a loom was as a seven year old. I had been taken to visit this school my parents had so often spoken about and for which I had been carefully prepared. I had endured Mrs Martin's violin lessons every Saturday morning and could play after a fashion. She used to call me Tishee after a racehorse who used to stand with its legs crossed. But I could sing . . and I belonged to a family dynasty of choristers. So after a bout of auditions, to which both my mother and father accompanied me, I found myself entering the headmaster's house. And there in an immaculate room with a floor to ceiling window I saw my first Scandinavian furniture and what I now know to be a vertical rug and tapestry loom.
 
I had never seen anything so mysterious and beautiful. I realise now as I examine this memory it was not just this loom and the partially completed textile on its frame but the effect of the room it occupied and its aspect, the way the garden beyond the vast window invited itself into the interior space.
 
Biddy, as we boys called the headmaster's wife, was the most interesting woman I had ever met. I realise now how much she became my first model of womanhood. A graceful figure, bobbed hair, always simply dressed in a vivid coloured shirt of blue or red and a grey skirt, always walking purposefully, and when she spoke to you she acknowledged you as a real person, wholly, never as just a boy, but someone she gave her whole self to address. As I grew older she entered my dreams and even now her voice, that I came later to know as Varsity and Beneden bred, I can hear now. And she was a weaver.
 
Every afternoon she shut the door of her workroom with its large window and was not available, even to her beautiful children.
 
It was a year before I dared to talk to her about her loom. I remember her surprise. How lovely you should ask she said. Come after Evensong and I'll introduce you. And I went . .
 
It was May and she was wearing a grey smock that fell over slacks. She smelt like a forest in high summer, resinous. She wore sandals and a gentle smile. You may touch she said, and so I did, and as I did she quietly named the parts - the beater, the leashes, the warp, the reed. It was though I already knew these things but in another time and place. I was just renewing my acquaintance.
 
So, little by little, I would find myself sitting in the corner of Biddy's garden studio in the long summer afternoon's when my disappointing prowess on the cricket field allowed me freedom. I sat and watched and wondered. I imagined a day when I would have a room and a loom and wife like Biddy with whom I could talk about all those things I so wanted to share but had no one to share them with. This was before adoration became confused with ***, such a wonderful time in a boy's life.
 
As I sit at my loom in my studio high above a city street and my hands touch the yarn, pull the beater against the fell of this sample for my first  rug, place my stockinged foot on the outside treadle, I can almost sense the scent of Biddy Allen, feel her graceful presence, hear her Oxford voice and spirited laugh. For me she will always be a defining presence of the feminine and her long fingers on her loom conjure the essence of the making of beautiful things.
st64 Nov 2013
r EVOL ution
uncoils slowly by the fire
pondering of profound-flickering in the reverse-sparks
within the pupils of shifting-light


1.
love(r) dips deep within a hardy fire-maker from another sky
body recycled and soul carried on
mind unlike any other
it’s simply a matter of Time.. holding that rusty-key of long ago
entrusted to a cavorite-place behind silent-wells whose treadle-functions heaven forgot


2.
yet what counts highest sits on a ledge of paradox
as happiness falls short upon the threshold of *fornever and never
after

there are tumult-fears to overcome
and it needs time, once again
as hearty does beseech temporal-cogs to ensure one full revolution

thanks are not enough for things that words fail to express
no specific thing to pin-point
of the immense power the discharged-missile holds
who is ever the same person in the marching of months?


3.
exponential growth is combustion understated and surreal-excitement catches
to find traction in the whistling wind.. only a quarter-whisper away
it has instead.. been phenomenally unreal

.. can't explain it
.. won't deny it


4.
the full idea has near-outgrown its twin-seal flanks
that choices came shaking.. aghast and                                
dripping its magenta-fury in heavy-drips upon the sand
                                                            ­                                            half-spilling lava-filled cups of ire            
near the camp-side        
grabbed it by the lapels        


shaking – I love you so
now, why can’t you say it?
why won’t you declare it?
what holds your yellow-*** back so?


5.
there's a power-burst in the trajectory-whirligig here..
can’t be stopped, won’t be stopped

burnt offering rises up in a scathing-hiss

  and exudes such a sweet-cleansing                                                  ­                                           

   of               ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                                           

semi-cinnamon and subtle ginger                                                    




a­nd.. love is but a word whose letters
lie
in the sand






S T – 11 nov 2013
so, yeah.. that’s about the size of it.. lol



sub:  none

none of loss
in moult of moments
let go
to see the new
Helen Mar 2013
Dearest Tommy
I think of you every night
I lay awake listening to the thunder
and the lightening, and the rain
on the old tin roof
(which is leaking again by the way)
but during the day
I can't hear it, I'm so busy staying sane
Just want you to know, even though
it's only been 2 months I'm thinking
of you, again

My Heart, Melissa
I'm thinking of you out in the desert
there are 50 million stars
and several stray bullet tracers
but they can never mar the beauty
of the night sky, from where I lie
thinking of you and maybe...
our babe? Don't leave my hanging
sweetheart, give me a hint
to make my darkest day

I LOVE U!

Dear Tommy
The mailman came again today
with no news from you, I can't pretend
that it didn't light a fuse beneath my temper
but I understand you are busy and it is September
Autumn months where life lies fallow
I'm not trying to be shallow
I'm just trying to plug up the leaks
there is no babe, I'm sorry (I'm not)
but it's cold and life is bleak
without you

Darling Melissa
I'm hearing you cry out to me
I'm getting your letters but you're
not seeing me? How can that be?
I want you to know that each grain
of sand that I pour out of my boots at night
I count as minutes spent away from you
and I'm seeing you beyond sight
when I close my eyes under stars
that don't shine for you in your universe
and I'm sorry for that
but under each shining light, I pretend
that your looking up at the same star
and you are whispering what we rehearsed...
No matter where you are, you are my star.
Remember?

Love your Tommy

Dear Tom
The leak was fixed last week by Steven Treadle
remember him from High School
He played football for a little while
and then he decided college football wasn't for him
so he decided on a trade and now he's a roofer
He wanted to be a soldier but his injury prevented him
He's doing well, here in Suburbia...

and with me...
I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry, so sorry
but he's here for me...
I'm so sorry
but Tommy

I Loved you
and the idea of you and me
but Tommy
I need someone by me...

Sorry

the last response Melissa received
was not a letter
from Tommy
but an Official
Sorry*
from the Military
but it was never
as sorry
as Melissa felt
that Tommy
may have
(or may have not)
received her last
Sorry
or the Hell
it may have spelt
Caroline Grace Oct 2011
This one here's me aged three
at a trestle table for little ones,
snapped with a box Brownie
at the Miss Rosebud parade.

Fresh as a daisy in crepe paper petals
under an eternal sun.
There's my brother dressed as a magpie...
just out of shot.

I remember that dress.
Yards of love sewn into a snowdrift
of crisp petals tumbling into my lap
under the Singer where I sat shuffling

impatiently to the machine's rhythmic rattle,
mesmerized by my mother's puffed-up feet
on the treadle,
my brother's whining cry...
just out of shot.


copyright © Caroline Grace 2011
We Are Stories Nov 2016
every time i wake up, i stare at the floor boards
waiting in silence until my thoughts **** me slowly
i take the stake, shove it through my brain
stop and think how much the devil has shown me
late at night, terror fright, taking flight, fighting might
shifting eye, little lie, guess i'll make this my plight!

demonic devil, do you use the deadly treadle
tapping toes too, to blue jam with your dreaded treble!
scratching claws now on chalk board black tops with your kettle!
shifting serpent spitting death you are black rose pedals!
kiss me quickly with bliss, i know the taste will settle!
watch my eyes close under sunlight, too late to level-

so, i let your poison seep deep into my concrete, abstract, and spirituality
hoping that the hoax has only one hold on my hellish individuality,
and that one omen of open obliteration making available my obliquity
stops before the second-strike sinks in my skin and makes me sing my dead man soliloquy-
how hopeful!
how hopeful to think that one mess is enough to get me by from the rest,
that enough is enough for me when i mess up,
and i will always be going good, going right, not running left.
sadly
i get mistaken by my madness for a smile and a pasture behind the veil that’s masked it!
while the laughter in my catacomb cerebellum crystallizes my coffin with convoluted clasps and cocoons me in my casket!
swallow the final wishes to walk away without wondering what would have went down without wanting to ask this
last question to push you powerfully over the edge without paying attention to the proper time, not seeing it’s all plastic!
because we’ve passed the only moment to turn our backs without the consequences of living in our bloodied baskets!
we kissed the serpent’s lips and ****** the spit off his silky-smooth tongue, mixing salt with fresh, leaving everything brackish!
cut off the arms and tongue before the venom attaches,
but still i swallow it whole and expect to outlast it-
Paula M DiMattio Mar 2016
Afternoon Visit
A privilege to behold
Her story unfolds

A quilt drapes the bed
A sampler hangs over it
A labor of love

Her voice soft and low
From her heart's memory
She recalls her youth

By the candlelight
Her mother passed on to her
A lifelong career

A hand runs over it
Beautiful flawless stitches
Admiring her work

She listens closely
Each detail is memorized
To retell later

Endless needle ******
Hours spent diligently
Lessons everyday

Cotton wool velvet
Solids prints floral fabrics
Neatly on a shelf

Once powered by foot
Now idle covered in fine dust
A Singer treadle

Unfinished dress coat
Embracing a mannequin
Never to be worn

In a chair she sits
Her hands methodically stitch
Unseen material

She turns her head slightly
As she dismisses her guest
Good night Mom is heard

PMD 2~1~2016
Ken Pepiton Jun 18
wondering at wonderful things, wonder
being my word,
meaning something to me as sure as
meaning anything to you, or them, the others,

those, there, beyond us, makers of stars
from matter in time, using power
by any name, called to make ready
a place for me.

Centered self-centering, spinning energy and
nought into creamy nougat
sweet and salty

but, E itself, power filled hosts of forces,

ha, some men trust in horses, now measurements,
horsepower, taken in from out,
observe the fact, fine act, great quest
made- p-ting snowball earth phase,

preparation of this place,
for us, not us alone, but us involved,
folded into the batter before the baking.

Co-ignition.
Sudden, at scale,
Massive, at scale as well. Immaterially.

Light first. Nay,
think, others thought this through

I flatter myself that I have discovered---

waste O2.

-- in the span of mind time, autotrophic
timespace where does e come from

phototroph
chemotroph

whence comes stuff, heterotrophs

chemoautotrophs, absolutely
in-credible, how does any mind wonder?

-----------

Stamp my little boy foot and swear,
I shall prove death has no sting.

I shall think
of our sun, source
of life
in our bubble
of being.

It is imagined, by professional learners of such,
that the inter-stellar medium
holds cloud like structures,
in my day we called them nebulae, today
we may surmise, I suppose, promise
together surreal, point to miser's misery,

Midas, Phrygian king, washed clean of his curse.
Baptism at work, in the story of reasons for war.

Was the death to be immediate, or must we wait.
What knowledge bred this means, these letters,
letting us learn the memories,

first stories of broken curses that were first wishes.
We wish we were as wealth, as bling,
the thing, the will to be loved for my own good,
the beast that lay beside the door, waiting,

allusive link to ancient knowledge, used knowns,
knowns used to build the nations whose weapons

must be fed.

And not by bread alone, by my leave,
I learned, the story used to make money
the core reason for war's use of pride,
to make glorious loyalty honorable,
by the time the military mind
matures to use the values,
those to hope for glory,
those minimize truth,
key freedoms known
held under loyal lock down.

Sense.
Common sense, some is not
evenly spread across the gap.

You may never have heard a search,
with helicopters, the after silence,

then, the peace, pure re-
lief as well, laugh let out, you know,
we are invisible,

so we dance where we touch.
Friction ridges caress our valleys,
with swirly rippling Erotes, giggling.

Tuning to a single line of reason,
reasoning I know nothing, as I ought,
I thought, per
haps, gathered happenings, overtime
thinking why in full Kerrigan angst at WHY!
Dunning-Krueger.
Rhetorical quest punctuation, bang. Pre-
tend to pay attention, at the exclamation,
"For crying out loud, don't you know
ANYTHING?"
Rhetorical all caps loudness, registers, in
tentional, attended to,
appropriately,
ignored, as the current opinion
forms followers,
swirls of fast and slow linking interstellar medium

in our wake, as we take life in passing so near,
one mind
one time, see I knew it was me and not you,
who pulled the loose thread to open the sack,
and spill the beans.

Now it's Tuesday,
on time and wisdom, I was thinking,

the noble question B. Franklin proposed

as the noblest in the world:
What good can I do in it?

What good to know do I know?

Well, well, as an interjection, cast
in the word use we are making sense
from
for an instant, now and then,

Yes,
this idea that we exist as related
by lines that link us as fibers in yarn,

conscious use of science, learning
the winding of the bobbin,
and the rhythm of the treadle,

the perfect pinch and firm gentle tug

catch a whisp of wool pulled from distaff
to spindle

and singing all the while, to the muse

---------------
A thread spinner, not a weaver
of novel patterned knots and crosses,
novel, none the less, some olden
but, well, twisted fiber strands,
formed with certain genetic magic
from soil and water and time… I am.
Sure to leave my moment seeming so.

To leave my being so, to let me be,
not the bearer of tales, but the twister.

Some times, well, once, I imagined
spinning ghost turds into threads,

-- the bogus science, bovine male excre-
mental mind boggled constipastory explo-

it. Done, punish me or pay me, I care less.

------------
Not the only version of this knack,
have I,
I've not the rhyming step step slide version,
nor the read out loud oral interpretation version,

permitting
*per- (5)

Proto-Indo-European root meaning
"to traffic in, to sell,"
an extended sense
from root *per- (1) "forward, through"
via the notion
of "to hand over" or "distribute."

It forms all or part of:
appraise;
appreciate; depreciate;
interpret;
praise;
precious; price; & *******
by way of
pornē "*******,"
originally "bought, purchased"
from traffickers in abandoned words,

idled by devious psychsyncing punishing
similar spinning propensities in fluid pre thread
mind windings, ready to retell, as if we all think

we understand the Goldilocks paradox.

Pull your version of the moral in the story,
who do you think Goldilocks symbolized,

deep in the thinking of your child mind?
What color are you, while you imagine
three bears? How forgiving are you
to your invaders?

High Jack,
have you any wool,
we spun the lord's and madam's

and found none for the widow's
children down the lane?

Are ye daft, Poet, mad as lead'll
make ye? Have ye taken to spacing
unkerned letters and lines with old

lead type weights to use gravity assist,

cam, see, loop de loop, and spin and spin,

threads to weave cover,
threads to weave rough leggings,
slow, so slow would be the learning

without notions popping up from nowhere,
as that man called the fool on the hill,
continues to redeem idled words,
and silently sing perhaps praise.

Worthship, measure of effort to enjoy,
get it.

It is the economy,
take joy as yours where you make it.
Peace, too.
---------
and thus not really any of my busy-ness
that I am to mind as my own, strictly
speaking translatable speils as wisdom,

Sophos, herself. per se,
they say she is the spirit in the works,
omakes ur will to make something from our
selves, our advantage as language users,
with letters translated chchchanges
into all understood
by using
simple child morals used
during emperical propagation.

To know wisdom and instruction;
to perceive the words
of understanding;

To receive the instruction
of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

To give subtilty
to the simple,
to the young man knowledge and discretion.

--- await the call, simple kind of man, listen
did you never read the rules for ready writer
status among the unemployable gifted sifters
of dust amidst the wonders of life in haps past

dare I hook a poem here,
after that very likely the, bluebird of happiness,
flew by me singing, twice, today, per haps

you stumbled into my realm,
I blew my mind in 69, and I am without guile,
no need, no greedy habit crying feed
feed feed the need to grow the talent, eh, weight
and see, fact check me, how heavy
was a talent in pure money
at the moment, back when
the metaphor this fits in as a piece,

was used to test the discerning disciple,

was it Diego? Si, yo crero per
haps, the meaning of things, and the matter
with words, is perceptual, per is a polimental,

many ways perhaps evolve comprehension,
little senses we have in common, luck factors,
time and place chances we be the readers ready

to bring justice and equity
to the beguiled and nonguiled,
while converting the guilty to con-
scientious objection to past proofs re-
proving the efficiency of meandering mind
streams
fluid fiber memory imagined in the Eighties,
here,
my old haunts, hang around,
we meet Suzi Creamcheese, she say, Uready,

we say, may be,
and so it is, with wisdom, James,
and so it is, indeed, first peaceable,
gentle, easy to treat kindly, no warring
spirit meetings of the convinced required,

wisdom works at a word taken for granted,
idling at stop signs where you looked both ways
and listened, as a child, and you escaped death,

time and again, what nearly killed you, did not,
and your life has not been dull, but worth it,
did it, with a happy ever, after all's said and done,

but, that won't happen here today.
Old war reasons asked the mystery to seem too easy to believe...sso I volunteered to lead the search for the old way men made haps gentle enough to ride.

— The End —