"turret" poems
The napalan man in a violet cape
descended the stair with a lopsided gait
a wretched procession, subscribers in cue
rattling off as they stream from the pew
sounds and smells from a shadowy place
a catholic priest to gin up base
lanterns strung from bolted doors
cobbled streets and wooden floors
stepping stones and iron bell
fortified by the citadel
hallowed halls and sepulcher
dragon cane for the horse drawn tour
castle turret, archer holes
centaur scribed in chamber bowls
garden columns in courtyard view
the blood ballet and hullabaloo
ancient tombs on warrior grounds
gods and saints who made their rounds
goliath still with battered scythe
knelt in prayer and mummified
battle fires and crowds that roar
gallows, caves, abysmal war
gargoyles flock the terraced slope
pearly gates to bring on hope
serpents, snakes and burning ash
lava bombs and trident clash
mariners drift in absentee
as neptune rises from the Tyrrhenian Sea
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
I do not attempt to justify my existence-
I get whimsy over the things that I find.
It must be the flickering of my bedside light,
my dreams of dancing under the pale moonlight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
You tell me about the frivolity of human life
I'd be inclined to agree,
if it weren't for the fact that
you went under the knife
and chose to remain oblivious
rather than putting up a fight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
See, I once had dreams of becoming a lover
Of life, of chance, and of a higher being
In the belief that I'd find a purpose
greater than the gnawing emptiness that
resides in me
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
But some days I drown myself
in the words of Kerouac
or a bottle of Jack-
Either way I'd find myself paralyzed,
sick and left to my own devices
I have burnt down the turret of my life
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
How do I accept my feeling of insignificance?
Lost in a place of doubt and indecision,
I am without relevance.
The childlike quality of my dreams
is no longer enough to sustain me.
My sanity, my sanity-
What am I without my sanity?
Find me; find me
(I seem to have lost my mind)
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 9:57 AM UTC
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
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Body so cold
But my heart is so warm,
This landscape, my landscape
Pushes my wings to keep beating.
If I feel now I would not be sad,
For I wish only to land up
the manicured lawns of Aristocrats.
I would have earned my sleep.
Raw is how I feel,
the brooks, the hollows, the trees
all seep into my mind and bones.
Utter joy and contempt, a mixture.
I should have flown away more often,
My nest in the turret was always a haven,
and natures prison,
I would have earned my hope.
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 11:29 AM UTC
I'm on a bus,
I'm in a tunnel,
As the choppers fly low
Over the belly of damnation,
Looking down at
The fractured city
From the 44th floor,
I'm a gun turret,
Hit or miss
The light pours out of me,
Now I'm a solar panel,
A Christmas tree,
Powered up
And manufactured,
The sum of my parts
Somehow worth more
Than what it means
To be human.
Oct 11, 2021
Oct 11, 2021 at 9:16 AM UTC
We rode the endless plains
in supercharged
armored people carriers,
rolling like thunder
wasting not time,
which seemed to stand still
during the firefights.
We baked like sardines
in our metal box.
Some days,
we faced the wind
from the turret,
others away from it,
from the smell of burning flesh,
those dead pakoled-foxes.
We rode the endless plains
in supercharged
armored people carriers,
rolling like thunder
wasting not time,
which seemed to stand still
during the firefights.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
They whisper, and then a silence;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Biship of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever, and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
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Tanagra! think not I forget
Thy beautifully-storey'd streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blythe and liberal shepherd boy,
Whose sunny ***** swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes.
I promise to bring back with me
What thou with transport wilt receive,
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won!
A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son.
There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.
Sweetly where cavern'd Dirce flows
Do white-arm'd maidens chaunt my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly, Attick tongues
Lisp your Corinna's early songs;
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred ******* at home.
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother's knee,
And gaze into her face, and want
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven; be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphick bays.
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Takin a spliff
after me ****
me got ta go runnin
for LoL is loadin
but me *** couldn't holdin
**** ***** THEY TOOK A TURRET
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
Thine temple is an edifice, holy, ever-reaching the overhanging of cliff's, step by step I walketh; a journey I only canst travel. Thou hast guided me on the long road's, wherein soul's get lost and caught in the world's tempting channel. O' blest refinement, God hath freed me from confinement; as the angel yea the angel he sent to me was thee;
Sanctified I am, inside of thine wing's. In commitment shalt I bring, in song's I shalt ablaze in glory with thee wherein the mind's of two shalt cling. O' mine hymn, O' mine diamond .
On a turret I shalt keepeth watch, when the round ball we loveth smoke's up thus, and drop's; beyond fear and falsehood talk's, we shalt walk in a grove,
henceforth the evil staying below, ourn cheeks, colored into snow that fall's starlit, warm-bits. Ourn finger's warm, ourn toe's kick to hot spit by the kissing over-satisfaction. Ourn coroner's laced inside with baguettes, daily deeds like seeds groweth from fountains with nets, nets to catch ourn amour' like open door's we shalt enter. Ourn heart's at the center exploding into a universal call to all other cherub's, seraph's, archangel's, stomping the scarab's. As eternity draweth us as the lost city of gold.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley-filipino rose dedicated
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
the bubbles disappear further above me
as the last evidence of sunlight dims
i think i tried to call for you but
my mouth filled with salt water and
the taste of reckless abandonment
in desperation i stopped living in reality
my memories but a playback of just moments ago
we had been strolling through gardens
the concrete paths carved with coded symbols
i suppose i had been smiling but
the image is fading fast
but you;
i have never recalled the slightest curl
of your perfect lips ever since the day i found you
you had been with her in the corners of a tower
and her lust-filled moans pierced my soul
but it was your intoxicated smile that burned me
a smile you'd never give me
the moon hung low in the abyss of the sky
casting guilty shadows on the light stone floor
and as i turned i knew you'd chase me
but with no trace of sincerity
i'd told you not to bother and you didn't try again
honestly, i was disappointed but
it's for the best
so as the earth rumbled and creaked and groaned
the paintings on the wall shifted and crashed
i had opened the windows to watch the sea
flood the endless prairies
turbulent storms whirled into revolutionary winds
but i'd kept my windows open
so as the waves closed over the last church turret
and the gardens submerged under
i felt the remnants of my essence smoke and burn
like the photographs had last night
and that was how our love became a myth
just like the way our city did
- - -
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 10:07 AM UTC
the crack in the door
held the spectral light
a mosaic ghost
inside a misty turret
and the room is pregnant with your song
your words carrying me over golden
rooftops and
michelangelo skies.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 9:40 PM UTC
The light comes up
On a sandcastle house
Soft and shivering
A childs’ voice creaks
Through earth-drawn walls
As ancient as the wind that shakes them
Purple and orange sky
Stretches out over the sea
Songs of yesterday
Carried over the glimmering surface
Tomorrow stretches
Upward and outward
Through the stained-glass windows
Pressed into the soft earth
The beach rings
With bells that have yet to be struck
Ripples in the sand
Washed away by the foaming surf
Lapping at the door
Of the sandcastle house
From the highest turret
Struck with both the light of the sun
And the moon
The wind swirls in circles
Holding together the walls
Of a castle made of sand
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 5:41 PM UTC
Ten thousand nights have laid themselves down before me
and I have played the princess in the tower oh so well.
The perfect aryan child tucked up behind veils of delusional dream,
to sleep to wander into places where damsels save themselves.
And in such splendor the masks do fall like autumn leaves,
crisp and changed - each fallen and forgotten under foot.
But hair grew much too fast beneath garments as mole hills became mountains
and irony of ironies I caught my goldie locks in a leaf covered bear trap-
ensnared in biting pain I did wait for my knight and trusty steed -
but my prince was the villain; a scenario I was unprepared for
lost in delusion while he mawled my once ivory skin,
till it bled; my blood irreparably tarnished by his seed.
And the nights kept falling one by one,
slowly to their knees or else dying a savage death by blade or flame -
and for my part I have lived them.
Unprepared for such madness, armed only with fairytales
I have fought a battle I never could win.
And the people came. I let them in, wove threads of trust, only
to taste the milk of human kindness and choke on its bitterness.
And so I shrank from the world like the tortoise to its shell
and I climbed my tower, bolted the door - I cut my hair short.
So I sit by a tiny window with animal-kind to kiss my scars.
People grab at me but I am out of reach and there I shall stay
some day the Prince shall come and from now on I will trust only in Him.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
My soul screams for solace,
My body burns for rapture.
My walls are too high.
I pose atop the turret,
Unreachable.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 11:32 PM UTC
Jerry Singing at his Lathe
Slim and mustached
Jerry sang his heart out
in overalls at his lathe –
the Mario Lanza of Kent-Moore Tools.
Curled metal gathered at his feet
as he cut hard steel into usable parts.
He glanced at the prints,
reset the turret to take a second pass
and belted out another chorus.
Jerry retro-dreamed of New York,
of lessons, certificates, Juilliard
and arias finished with outstretched arms –
visions derailed but unforgotten.
Global madness sent him to France.
With a pack and an M1 in place of scores.
Jerry helped set Paris free
yet never left a song on its stages.
Kent-Moore paid him well
and masked by din of colliding metal
Jerry sang and sang and sang all day
for rivet guns and turret lathes.
His voice would melt your heart.
July, 2006
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
The totality of a stare, their for changing life's bitter holds
My theory that we all are seekers is an ex-stressor of unwitting changes
voiceless changing clanging colds
Now a life this life has execrated all of your dreams
You and I cure the ice to satisfy the demons the night but it grows warmer I warn thee
Devious power and burning nights.. who is of the dead?
Devious powers all is quite right.. I am inside your head
Uncalled for searing this justice holy tower you're turret nare an arrow sent
And when the future holds against our bonds untold a world with forms reached out only to allow an ever changing destiny..
Then I shall cry out a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Fleece of the stripeless tiger nears telling all of us of the powers of doom
and your life is speaking slashing shshsh turn to dust soon you'll be through
If again you make this plea don't try to be the same as the one who turned to me
For within you are gone and in your mind we are all keepers but this is not wrong
I am turned putrid and this procures the storm
unworthy yet with this answer land will fall soon and shed this life for demons and right hurt eyes skin lips and all
Devious powers burning in the nights of the undead
You called out the scarring the twist of the unsent
Then I shall cry out a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Played by the fame then went a force of Satans wings ornate of diamonds and led
When the theory of theories is finally told the solving and the puzzle is an ultimate theory untold
Drafting and waning your demeanor a field of wrought with a killing and blight
Into a dark horizon one hand awakens as certainty puts up a fight
Then I shall cry out doubting you'd ever listen to me
Then I'd cry for us as the devout for the theories untold is ever our destiny
Then I shall cry out for a theory for them a theory untold
Devious fires powers of the night Don't question the order do as your told
Jul 14, 2020
Jul 14, 2020 at 12:03 AM UTC
848
Just as He spoke it from his Hands
This Edifice remain—
A Turret more, a Turret less
Dishonor his Design—
According as his skill prefer
It perish, or endure—
Content, soe’er, it ornament
His absent character.
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Roses are red.
Portals are blue.
How can I explain the feelings of love for you?
I gave you a turret, Shiny and new.
You gave it right back, because it shot bullets into you.
I gave you a Cube Companion, weighted and fine.
You threw it down a hole, because it threatened to stab you all the time.
I gave you a combustible lemon, nice and ripe.
You burned my house down in the middle of the night.
I gave you real confetti, Colorful and full of taste.
You threw it away, because it was just taking up space.
I gave you a portal of orange and blue
You saw that I loved you and now you do too
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 6:26 PM UTC
The house on Hillside Ave is massive. It’s three stories tall, with a turret at the top and a set of stone lions at the front steps to greet welcomers and ward off intruders. It used to house 5 people, but now only 4, and even Christmas and Thanksgiving don’t always live there every year.
Before, the gardens the lined the house were beautiful, lining the foundation with more colors than in a Crayola box. At the roots of the flowers was a base of fresh cut grass, offering soft spots to sit and look at the clouds on slow summer days.
That was when Nana was still alive, and when Nana took care of it all. After days spent outside in the sun she’d come in and carefully wash the green of the plants off all her fingers and drink cold lemonade on the porch.
My father tried to take over the gardening, but it’s not the same. He doesn't wash his hands as carefully and doesn't drink lemonade, instead a cold beer from the cooler downstairs. Now the flower beds are a little sadder, the colors not as bright and dark patches of emptiness are seen amongst the once thriving flora. The flowers aren’t quite as happy when he tends to them. His hands just aren’t as green.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 2:16 AM UTC
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 9:40 AM UTC
Come in! Come in! Enter into the viral abyss of the ages.
Give thanks to the astrological signs in the name of the ancient wisdom of the oak tree.
Smouldering coals convey their warm and glowing connectedness in a medieval village, whilst the screeching owl swoops into the lofty turret of the olde English churchyard.
Will you pay homage to the proclaimed majesty of Anglican monarchy? Dare you submit your soul to the authority of King Henry VIII in the guise of what is deemed to be Catholicism? Listen: Thatch your roof my naïve friend of putrid beauty – the real plague is already upon us. Can’t you feel the tangible octaves of the harpsichord?
The rhythm of midnight will never deplete in her resounding cries throughout the universe.
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
Your impish, oily, freckled faces
were bright that night on Milton Road.
Where you made the cats claw doors
in a careless wailing stupor,
Of fear. Yes, the men in camper vans
rode in like the silvery knights, just
like the silver-fish that eat the floor-
the ones that chew and reproduce,
The parasites. The one's where society
has no qualms, decisions, answers;
and they sit in their bleak evenings: a
little turret, waiting for anything,
To break down barriers. Like the doors,
Large holes in walls are not enough.
Not large enough to house a bird,
with sticks and bones instead of tongues,
but, in their nests their children pinned,
Down are my legs and long arms kept. Where
road and rocks they turned to flint, as the
morning siren soared. But by my sides, my arms
stood still.
Nor did the
Neighbours wail.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 6:07 AM UTC
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling’s dull decay;
’Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o’er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.
Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others’ woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, ’tis where the ice appears.
Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
’Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath—
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.
Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o’er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.
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To write a poem to benefit the web
Seems strange, to type these words away from me.
No pen, no tiny turret in Zagreb
At any time I'm free to up and flee.
Such freedom tests my discipline, my will
My short attention nurtured by my tribe
Has robbed me, (so I say), of my "Melville",
My Inner cummings, to which I subscribe.
Such excuses further pull me down
Away from higher orbits of My Craft
Please, my mirror, I am not a clown
Nor a hack who's steeped in Lingual graft.
Can I accept the onward March of Time,
Dispense excuses, get on with the sublime?
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 6:13 PM UTC