"warbler" poems
fischers rap
on a hot tin roof
bristol creek pools
over rock and seed
english wolfhound (and the barkbuster)
stroll pine lane
vibrant colors
of a cool spring
in cob yellow and
forest green
field mice squander
in cotton wind
goats and ferret
hold seven hour trim
raven and ****
meddle and forage (on a splendid fiaker goulash!)
crickets and frogs
hidden
in swollen grey logs
creepers fill the
cut stone walls
coy wolf high
on a frayed white rope
eagles perched
at trudy’s bend
catamounts laze
on a snow base cedar
(pared arbutus bent
through a failed ground rock)
brush spider spins
a timely web
brown bears fumble
at the spirit jamboree
quizzical squirrels
crack their nuts
as pillow clouds float
over telegraph trail
12 point dances
on talus and scree
hen hawks float
in a big hard sun
clydesdale and coach
trot copper smith road
(glancing down
on finch and the warbler
whistling through
colander row)
lavender fills
the peat soil box
mountain cats
guard the heavenly gates
black eyed ridge
is wide and open
the country squire hails
this fruitful land
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 12:18 AM UTC
I rode the wings of night on rising air
That carried me from Africa's wild shore;
To fields of meadowsweet and maidenhair
To sing of heaven's dome and ocean's floor.
Spring greets my song with hawthorn flower and briar.
Rewards my voice with nectar-tinted sun;
The thrum of earth's renewal is my lyre
As thaws begin and waters speed to run.
I sing for memories of sultry days
For zebras racing over arid plains.
I sing of England's tepid Summer haze;
Slow-strolling shire horses with plaited manes.
From heaven's heights I sing, for life's divine,
The purest voice, the lightest heart is mine.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
Written on 22nd June 2003. I did some research about where the Willow Warbler goes on its "migration holidays" before writing this sonnet.
Sep 6, 2009
Sep 6, 2009 at 3:14 PM UTC
With closed eyes squeezed tight
I wrung both my hands
And thought I had found myself
Cast adrift alone in far off lands
I slowly opened one eye a slot
And quickly realised I’d rather have not
I had wandered deep into a forest glade
Following the sound a warbler had made
And when I looked down I was amazed
To see bluebells dancing between grassy blades
Each bell seemed to call a certain sound
Ringing sweetly to me from all around
A bright gleaming light shot through the trees
And all about me the birds and bees
I began to feel a joy not known before
And allowed it to seep through every pore
I looked far beyond the bluebell haze
And thought I’d slipped into ecstatic daze
For there in front of holly trees
Stood a creature not known for centuries
It’s beauty and strength were felt at length
With eyes so bright I stepped back in fright
It’s mane was glorious its nature raw
And between its ears its magnificence I saw
For purity and grace come not often to face
With some thing so wild only a maiden can chase
I reached out my hand to offer it peace
And was surprised when it walked to me with such ease
It knelt down beside me and lay in the grass
I lingered a moment and time seemed to pass
We were lost in our day dream for ever some say
Just me and my legendary horse for the day
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 7:13 AM UTC
BECAUSE I have called to you
as the flame flamingo calls,
or the want of a spotted hawk
is called-
because in the dusk
the warblers shoot the running
waters of short songs to the
homecoming warblers-
because
the cry here is wing to wing
and song to song-
I am waiting,
waiting with the flame flamingo,
the spotted hawk, the running water
warbler-
waiting for you.
3.4k
Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ’tis May.
3.1k
of beautiful things
willowy warbler's
wax'n wings
silvery strumming
singing sands
languid lagoons
in luxurious lands
carvings of creosote
cacti create
fulcrum of flame
thru frivolous
fate
volcanic vestibule
vestments and
vestiges
historical hypothesis
harmonious
heritage
melanin melange
mellifuous
mild
woodduck waters
wheeling and
wild
crystal caverns
creating
light
nocturnal nymphs
announcing the
night
sumptuous sunsets
scintillation's
scream
dramatic dawn
drawn
from
a
dream
SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/2/2015
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 6:23 PM UTC
Asked to write a poem of yellow, what could I possibly have to add that would celebrate this word found within the sun, the moon, at times, the stripes of a bumblebee, a butterfly, a yellow jacket's sting, the brilliant splash on a painted bunting, the goldfinch, canary, a yellow breasted warbler, baby chicks, a rubber duck, a baby duck, too, a dandelion in spring, a sunflower, a rose of sorts, a lily, daffodils in a field of wheat, rubber boots upon your feet on a rainy day, a slicker, too, a school bus, a number two pencil, a taxi when you're running late, a tangy lemon, a banana, sometimes a grapefruit, butter on a pancake, egg yolk for your western omlet, lemon drops, cheese, macicheese, and a cheese pizza, too, yellow hair on a farm boy, a piece of straw in his father's mouth, his yellow-haired beautiful sis, her yellow polka-dotted dress, a yellow kitten, a dog in a sad movie like old yeller.
So nice, the color yellow, on a sunny day in May.
r ~ 5/3/14
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 3:07 PM UTC
Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.
But they are gone,— the holy ones,
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.
My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.
They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
They treated nature as they would.
They colored the horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.
I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.
Hearken to yon pine warbler
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?
Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.
Go, lonely man, it saith,
They loved thee from their birth,
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.
Ye drew one mother's milk,
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.
Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent ***** loudest chants
The master's requiem.
2.4k
"If I was a bird, I'd be an owl."
If I was a bird, I'd be a-
"Don't say pigeon! I hate pigeons."
Pigeons? What is so horrid about them?
I thought and feared for my potential existence.
What if I was a pigeon?
What if my feathers were grey?
What if my belly was fat with breadcrumbs
and street scrap?
What if low coos did escape my throat
in efforts to keep warm and draw love?
What if children did push me to fly away?
What if I did choose to sit on trees,
and **** on statues of prominent people.
If I was a bird I'd be a warbler- no, a worrier.
One that plucks its feathers,
be it grey or rainbow-colored.
One that grows weak when flying in the cold,
but makes it south, all in all.
One that doesn't have a beautiful singing voice,
but chirps aways all in its lonesome.
If I was a bird, I'd peck at windows,
only to fly away
when someone comes to open it.
Because I know when I'm not welcome.
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 4:18 PM UTC
Packets of peace cordoned off by fences and barbed
wire, hooded lush in manicured fields.
Endless stream of labour crossing over water pikes:
hear, no see - river in the bush.
Emerges curved a mirror on a pole: three directions,
The three birds, tinier than my forefinger, eating grain.
Lisping away in the wood the warbler and the shrike.
Wild flower, pops out red from a corner
of the cultivated green: and I am...
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 11:37 PM UTC
The forest hides so many things,
the leprechauns,
the fairies wings,
among the life that nature brings,
listen to the warbler sing.
And all along the forest trails,
raindrops pour
as nature sways,
each thing on its own sweet way,
passing with the grace of day.
Capture it inside your mind,
trap it well within your core.
The forest lives
and breaths with time,
always leaves you wanting more.
Lost upon the forest floor.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 3:07 PM UTC
*Beneath yew tree's shade
mouldering they sleep
ashes of yesterday
Chronicles of time
ravage golden yesterdays
ne'er more to live again
O swelling anthem of praise
chorus of robin, warbler,
and oriole,
mocking my broken heart
triumphantly sing!
Smile on! Thou blazing sun
and scorn dreamless beds
of innocent furry friends
ashes of yesterday*
~
~Hilda~
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 6:33 PM UTC
Whoever swoops into my heart next
please don't make a nest
and then fly away when you're ready to be on your own.
Don't use me as a shelter
to keep you from the drowning rain
and expect me to feed you
when nothing else is living.
It’s hard holding a home sturdy
sufficiently well for my aching soul.
The branches are already trembling
the weeping wind echoing
lost, diminished cries
of the ones who took off.
I know I push you away
when you get too close,
but this is where you fight to hold on longer.
I keep losing the ones I love
because they have not loved me
enough to stay.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 12:49 AM UTC
Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.
But they are gone,— the holy ones,
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.
My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.
They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
They treated nature as they would.
They colored the horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearkened for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.
I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.
Hearken to yon pine warbler
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?
Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.
Go, lonely man, it saith,
They loved thee from their birth,
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
There are no such hearts on earth.
Ye drew one mother's milk,
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.
Ye cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent ***** loudest chants
The master's requiem.
1.6k
There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass,
But were an apt confessional for one
Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
That Life is but a tale of morning grass
Wither’d at eve. From scenes of art which chase
That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities,
Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
Untouch’d, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
If from a golden perch of aspen spray
(October’s workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!
1.5k
Winter bows his grisly head
when the trees bend low
Branches bear the heartless weight
of the ice and snow
Ponds turn into frosted glass
and diamond streams to jewels
Rivers turn to mirrored roads
and lakes to sapphire pools
Echoed cries of banished fowl
plead for hopeful spring
Not until the March wind blows
will the warbler sing
Winter's night of cold and dark
slowly turns to day
when the glaze and snowy drifts
gently melt away
New spring lifts her waking head
when the sun grows neigh
Buds and blooms unfurl with joy
reaching for the sky
Dec 17, 2021
Dec 17, 2021 at 1:58 AM UTC
A warbler whistles
Crystals and flowers in her hair
Love the morning sun
May 28, 2022
May 28, 2022 at 1:40 AM UTC
There's the flower blossoming
And there's my sweetheart
All my life I wished more luck
Never anticipated such fortune
With the sweetest bite on her lips
Is the **** taking me places?
Or is she proficient at this?
Too much light through my eyes
I close my eyes and see light red
The heat you carry for me
Transfer the magic, teach me
Softness, lightness and fragrance
All together, more than a zinnia
In a lavender garden, ecstatic glow
With warm feathers, ready to fly
A yellow warbler, the soft cheeks
In the deepest of my soul, it rolls
The image of an unseen beauty
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 11:35 AM UTC
There in the fringe of trees between
the upper field and the edge of the one
below it that runs above the valley
one time I heard in the early
days of summer the clear ringing
six notes that I knew were the opening
of the Fingal's Cave Overture
I heard them again and again that year
and the next summer and the year
afterward those six descending
notes the same for all the changing
in my own life since the last time
I had heard them fall past me from
the bright air in the morning of a bird
and I believed that what I had heard
would always be there if I came again
to be overtaken by that season
in that place after the winter
and I would wonder again whether
Mendelssohn really had heard them somewhere
far to the north that many years ago
looking up from his youth to listen to
those six notes of an ancestor
spilling over from a presence neither
water nor human that led to the cave
in his mind the fluted cliffs and the wave
going out and the falling water
he thought those notes could be the music for
Mendelssohn is gone and Fingal is gone
all but his name for a cave and for one
piece of music and the black-capped warbler
as we called that bird that I remember
singing there those notes descending
from the age of the ice dripping
I have not heard again this year can it
be gone then will I not hear it
from now on will the overture begin
for a time and all those who listen
feel that falling in them but as always
without knowing what they recognize
1.3k
the ultimate.
all and nothing simultaneously.
your pupils dilate when you see
her lovely figure on the inside of your skull.
she tantalizes your mind in the night.
with the little nibbles of her peace,
that serenade your transcendent taste buds.
those insomniacs who died a little within
wear it upon their skin as an
upside down flag and wait for her
calming breath on the back
of their goose pimpled necks.
when you breathe your final plea for her,
she comes to collect
that which she owns.
that's why we wear her
at funerals as a reminder
of the soul magpie
and the warbler who sings us
melodious songs of infinite tranquility.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
Waking in darkness to brainstorming moments
Warm under covers on this freezing morn,
Recalling the instants of yesterday’s sequences,
How they developed and how they were born……
*“Moving with grace in a form fitting garment,
Curves in the shadow light tauntingly near,
Beautiful lines in a moment of weakness
Titillate senses erotically clear.”
“Watching the mouth of the bigoted warbler,
Watching him spout his idolatry spiels,
Rhetoric of mind bending, **** licking garbage
Image of self is the place that he kneels.”
“Urgency now with insurances deadline
Making provision for payments now due,
Juggle the baksheesh for paying the piper
Or the cruelty of bankers will cauterise you!”
“Laughter arouses the happiest moments
Merriment opens the faces so well,
Emotively gracious the giving of laughter
Contagiously, wonderfully ringing the bell.”
"Uncomfortably caught in the midst of an untruth
Unconscionably really, can’t call it a lie,
Got caught in momentum of tale in the telling
Upsetting me now to the point where I cry.”
"Can’t recall why, but I know there’s a matter,
Ripping my britches to try to recall….
Something importantly, now to be dealt with
Frustratingly lost in the fog of it all.”
"Harmonies rise like a mist in the temple
Delicate cadences rise and they fall,
I wonder why God allows this unbeliever
To sing with the Angels in his Holy hall?”
“Running my fingertips over her curvature
Feeling the ***** line plummet to fall
Knowing the thrill of elicit collusion
Anticipate promise of wanting it all.”*
Sudden alarm in the midst of a waking
Urgency calls at the dawn of the day,
Heaving my soul into frost waiting fingers
Leaving my dreams in the warmth where they lay.
Marshalg
“Pukehana Paradise”
Auckland NZ.
22 June 2013
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
*Glimmering morning reflections,
Psychedelic memories along the crystal.
Listening to the melody of a Mourning Warbler;
Echoes from her song
Shatters the callous glass.
Pieces falling like snowflakes
Cutting away the misery.*
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 8:04 PM UTC
Each moment give lesson certain determines to us,
Often it echoes on frequent level in my mind,
And tranquil measureless moans accumulated still o'er guess,
And embolden too the state of perplexity bind.
Standing aloof solitary, from the worldly affairs
Mainly I feel behaving tutelary this nature,
To thrive in life as section indicates,
And react perennial affectionate voice of warbler.
Setting sometime in lap of productive reach,
Enrich with corn-seed, paddy and sugar-cane,
I assume numerous hidden hymnal consideration preach,
Sacrifice for betterment glide making other sustain.
Swinging swiftly at the hilly terrible groves
Shrub and thistly atmosphere, provoking gorgon fear;
Ne'er contradict genuine a horrible warning relieves
Give support always deserving deafen destructive cheer.
Or sipping brine, before nymphomaniac watching zeal,
Dumb caution centralize, beware alluring notion create
Nip stiff witty desire render stigmatize deal:
Ye propel next to Him in power approximate.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 7:42 AM UTC