"virginian" poems
You brave heroic minds,
Worthy your country's name,
That honour still pursue,
Go, and subdue,
Whilst loit'ring hinds
Lurke here at home with shame.
Britons, you stay too long,
Quickly aboard bestow you;
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretched sail,
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
Your course securely steer,
West and by South forth keep;
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals,
When Eolus scowls,
You need nor fear,
So absolute the deep.
And cheerfully at sea,
Success you still entice
To get the pearl and gold;
And ours to hold
Virginia,
Earth's only Paradise.
Where Nature hath in store
Fowl, venison, and fish;
And the fruitfull'st soil,
Without your toil,
Three harvests more,
All greater than your wish.
And the ambitious vine
Crowns with his purple mass
The cedar reaching high
To kiss the sky,
The cypress, pine,
And useful sassafras.
To whom the golden age
Still Nature's laws doth give,
No other cares attend
But them to defend
From winter's rage,
That long there doth not live.
When as the luscious smell
Of that delicious land,
Above the sea that flows,
The clear wind throws,
Your hearts to swell,
Approaching the dear strand.
In kenning of the shore,
(Thanks to God first given)
O you, the happiest men,
Be frolic then!
Let canons roar,
Frighting the wide heaven!
And in regions far
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came,
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our North.
And as there plenty grows
Of laurel everywhere,
Apollo's sacred tree,
You may it see
A poet's brows
To crown, that may sing there.
Thy voyages attend
Industrious Hakluit,
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame,
And much commend
To after-times thy wit.
8k
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late
And how can man die better
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”
Soft murmurs along the front line crackle like a broken prairie plough,
The maples and oaks snapping with
Every burst of the cannon.
Crested breaths choked out by
The ferocious blasts of this entrenched
Jungle.
Shrieks punctuate the deathly silence,
And sobers the divisions thirst for war.
I, a dead soul among the living.
The soft wind at night is the nefarious fingers of death,
Soaking the earth and ****** boughs
Of the old oaks with the veins
Of golden purity.
(I am standing on an eagles skull.)
I can hear the Rebel yell beyond the tree line,
BLASTING the barreling notion of liberty,
Stacked within our Union souls.
A Bundren coffin takes form in the mist beyond the wasteland.
My kin lay wait at home,
Shall I return one day and parade through pastures
And creeks until the days grow old
and so shall I.
With kin side by side.
My vacant mind floats off to distant lands along the
timbered forests of the Free North.
Orations from my Grandfather resonate like wind chimes
Rattling among the inner confines of my sanity,
Strewn images flash like the lines of Virginian regulars,
A sparse reminder of my ever so soon fate
In the Wilderness.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 5:32 PM UTC
My Fingers Touch...
(an offshoot of an older poem...)
It happens any minute of any day...the empty feeling...the sadness, the grief visit...all are put on hold...yet, they make me realize all the more, grieving isn't over yet...
i think of the ones gone...but, there are people around me, with pressing needs...faces that get bored, but can't be ignored, needing my say and my care.
Mornings, i work around visible reminders...i touch them, i feel them...they take me back, while dusting old furniture,
window sills, and curtain frills.
My fingers touch the old bookshelf, i see Tortilla Flat, Perry Mason,
The Raven, The Virginian
i find myself in a different era.
My fingers touch old framed pictures and photo albums, and i am slowly unburdened, sighing out unwanted energy.
My fingers touch the old bed, the old seal, the old vases...i am saddened, but comforted, by tangible souvenirs.
My fingers touch my temples, and the old memories, old dreams come back... it's the same face with the smile that never fades,
the same one that still shyly reassures me.
Never saw my father, yet he always smiled at me in my dreams.
perhaps, it was his way of telling me, he wasn't physically with me,
yet, he never left me.
despite his absence, he knows me, us, and we know him well.
i felt him closest when going through a dilemma, or when i was ill.
there was this loving presence,
only i can know...i was sure it was him
i miss the comforting warmth of those moments.
My mother had told us more than enough---their love story, dreams and plans cut short
where I got the shape of my face, my nose, my legs...my fingers
even my allergies,
the funny names he called my siblings and I, his funny tales,
his rocking chair
the events when he died...how he died
where he died...what time he died.
We knew him well
through those stories my late mother told us
through those accounts passed down to us by my late aunts
through my dreams that never have faded.
I realized
he was with us, all the way
silently...invisibly
...we never lost him at all...
Sally
Copyright March 28, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 8:14 PM UTC
Clouds Of Grey Fill The Virginian Sky
Raindrops Pelt Upon The Roof
Thunder Rumbles--A Frightening Sound
A Slight Breeze Is Blowing Through The Trees
Their Green Leaves Nearly Touching The Sky
Yet I Am Content To Stay Inside
And Listen To The Sound Of The Thunderstorm
As It Gradually Passes By
~Marian~
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 4:29 PM UTC
I still feel your breath on my neck sometimes
With that stiff, clinical hand that you placed upon my spine
Examining my face for harsh, worrisome lines
As I walked the chemical tightrope that exists only in mind
Now, still precariously balanced, still unanimously blamed
I'm holding out for your smile in each passing face
Though it's been years since they burned you in cold Virginian flames
I can still see you watching me through the windowpane
My name displaced in your mouth like some placid stone
The weight on your tongue silencing thoughts unknown
As your fingers nimble upon needles, weaving our winter clothes
Once slept in a box where your ashes now are stowed
You held no Catholic reservations, nor illusions implausibly sweet
And left me with no bullets to deliver from stolen grief
But sometimes, in my dreaming, you offer me reprieve
With skin so milky white, loose and starch like a sheet
I watched you behind that curtain, with satin on your back
In the flickering light of candles, where shadows often pass
And criss-cross in patterns, over blue eyes watery and vast
To ignite a glowing smirk, whose teeth do shimmer like glass
Your hair still wispy and short, the color of strawberries faint
Fallen in a gossamer crown, to covet your wrinkled face
You would take to me like a feather, and swath me in your immortal embrace
Speaking divinely of Heaven, and all your ghostly grace
With that kind, melodious laugh I have so terribly missed
Pressing rosebuds to my temple in a matriarchal kiss
A dream we were in, your wings reverently clipped
For a time, if only, I felt within your loving grip
You warned me not to be fooled, to make no mistake
You would have returned to your grave by the time that I should wake
With trembling fingers clinging tightly to your remains
Standing in your old room, the bed forever made
I remembered whispering in your ear, as your conscious mind wore thin
Life support wailing, the color drained from your lips
My fingers searching desperately for the pulse that was buried in your wrist
I told you I would never forget you: my precious, parting gift
Oct 28, 2011
Oct 28, 2011 at 7:39 PM UTC
I can feel the air beginning its chill
Fall is upon us while old man winter waits in the wings for his spotlight
Holy October
A year since I first kissed your cheek with a poem
Kerouac's October
Your nights remind me of my ghost
Ghost of my past love that comes in cigarette smoke
Cigarette smoke I watched on a back porch that wasn't mine
Smoke like memory that floats away in whisps
I spit the regrets out with saliva and turn my attention to better paths
October I will write you a song
More beautiful than a spiritual hymn
And more powerful than a folk ballad
I have dreams of living alone
In an old shack
Surrounded by the peaks of Montana mountains
I sit on a porch playing guitar and watch tall grass blowing in the wind
Everything is as beautiful as I know it can be
There is no pain here
Maybe that is my heaven and I have to wait
If that's the case I don't mind
Maybe that's my idea of freedom
Freedom is a word that always eludes me
Freedom to me is never being held back
Freedom is good company
And sometimes freedom is silence
Oh October evening
I am 20 years old
My bones are young but my heart feels much older
Give me gentle Montana plains
Quiet Virginian forests
The waves hitting Carolina shores
October I hope you love me as I love you
It's been hard for me to love lately
But October you are anything but cruel
You understand
October I'm glad to see you again
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 10:59 PM UTC
who does not speak of what their heart is full of;
there is a certain Virginian
whose heart words lift you into joyous rapture
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
driving blindly down the turnpike
four guys packed in the back three seats
the two lovely ladies up front
driving,
through the complete blackness
the warm ocean that is the Virginian summer night sky
they were high
and drunk
not the driver
but she still drove like a maniac
taking bends in the road
feeling the pull of their momentum
it would have been a pretty way to die
three days earlier
six young men
sit on the shore
of a picturesque canal
which ran parallel to the James
drinking cheap beer out of a cooler
and taking rips from endless shattered bongs
they swam across to the other side
running and jumping among the rocks and trees
just like they were kids again
when the sun set
and the city put on her make up
they were drunk
and they drove home after some time
speeding through the neon lights
of the wrong part of time
twenty years in the future
a man sits in a leather arm chair
nursing a neat bourbon,
he is tired,
he burns with an ice cold longing
for the days
when kids could be kids
driving blindly down turnpikes
drunk and high at the river
bending through the city like fugitives
before the bitterness
before he was so ****** tired
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 2:18 AM UTC
never one for formalities,
faded american jean
like that West Virginian miner
who drank too much,
and never knew his kids
you know the one;
with the ****** engravings,
natural tombstones
saddest epitaphs you've ever read-
but you only understood
recently.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 7:18 PM UTC
Half obscured by powder smoke, the long Grey line comes on.
“Double canister and hard shot, pour it on them boys!”
They dress the line and still they come, inexorably, like fate.
We are in need of some support, but will it come too late?
A high wood fence disrupts their charge, like clotting blood they mass.
As many a dying Virginian boy wishes for his cup to pass.
“For Fredericksburg!” “For Fredericksburg!” Alonzo Cushing cried.
We worked our guns and gave them hell for all our friends who’d died.
Our blood is up and still they come, over the parapet.
We are all determined this is as far as they will get.
A breath of air, a cooling drink, a lover’s soft embrace;
Strange things crowd into your mind when in a hellish place.
A company of New Yorkers, coming on the double quick,
Have piled into the Rebel mass where the fighting was most thick.
Back you go, proud Virginians, back over the low stone wall.
Not so many as started out, no longer proud and tall.
A rebel of some prominence sits, dying, near my gun.
He asks for General Hancock, strange to hear that name upon his tongue.
My friend, Alonzo Cushing, lies beside the caisson where
He bleeds profusely from his wounds. He is too far gone to care.
He will not live to see the Sun rise in the East again,
Or live to hear a nation’s thanks for what he did for them.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 8:00 AM UTC
That stoic, elderly house
that sits beneath the sun
has it’s door hinged open
just waiting for someone
All day in the Virginian countryside
the waves of wind pass by
Yet the door remains open
‘till the sky begins to cry
A table set for two
venetian blinds on the floor
A stool, a record, a painting
All watching through that door
The night falls for the day
and the house falls for sleep
and through the unhinged door
A small songbird must creep
The sun forgets to wake the house
But the songbird pays her fee
To room with the house that night
and sings from the walnut tree
The house door swings shut
afraid to listen and hear
For the house is afraid
Of the musical musketeer
Careful to know each other
But their minds begin to roam
All while, the songbird brings him music
and the house brings her home
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 8:55 AM UTC
I.
He was in the wilderness
a place where no man strays
he had nothing to accomplish
alone there on the fray
Standing oaks reaching tall
with green crowns bearing life
beams of sunlight piercing stillness
red cardinal and his wife
Creepy crawlers in the damp
black and moist their stay
leaves shed carpet years far gone
dry twigs upon it lay
Walking, watching, listening
snake silent moving still
squirrel grey lounging overhead
sadness here is nil
Golden finch laughing chatter
dance in full costume
twisted vines, honeysuckle
shares her bright perfume
II.
Breathe in deeply, rest awhile
Virginian countrymen
dreams of days long time past
days of the Powhatan
Before the European man
washed their tribe in pain
before the Spanish smallpox
before so many slain
They danced the dream of brotherhood
Siouan, Tutelo
adopted by Cayuga
into the northern snow
Monacan nation, native land
wind, water, fire, earth
renape spirit guiding silence
offering rebirth
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 8:49 AM UTC
Your brain buzzes around sunflowers and in West Virginian clouds,
Around strings of old guitars and strings of shrimp flavored ramen,
Around calling me pretty and asking me to dance when we’ve just met,
Around your dog and your home and your friends that you love oh so much,
And it mesmerizes me because
I’ve never loved the way someone talks about themselves as much as when you do.
Oct 7, 2020
Oct 7, 2020 at 7:43 PM UTC