"weathervane" poems
Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master?"
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with
constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are
not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they
would carve it in their own likeness?
What of the ******* who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the
forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all
others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed
and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all
feasters law-breakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight,
but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace
their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?
What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no
man's prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's
iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your
garment yet leave it in no man's path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the
strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
7.1k
The first time
I heard them
I swear,
I was to listening
to the most beautiful choir
in four-part harmony,
swaying
or angles wings rubbing,
& perfectly, playing
a common file instrument
angled, such a unique sound
symphonic & splendorous
they are all around
this free concert
an offering of
Mother Nature
chiming at once
uncaged,
& calling on the ladies
in perfect unison
sounding like church
telling one another
of sunlit hours
say the flowers
fending off evil spirits
allowing me to travel
into the dark again
leaping over obstacles,
alerting me to danger,
still in their silence
I am protected
by this harbinger of luck
a most powerful portent,
of coming things
they sit silently in the quiet,
like a copper cricket weathervane,
as the poor man's thermometer
spinning tales effortlessly,
in the wind calmly
watching over us
a shivering in the night
save you, are mine
my Native American totem
or God's Cricket Chorus
foretelling of Sorrow
of coming rains tomorrow
ex-lovers and death
a shrill creaking
stridulating in song
Oh, I fear that day,
your music should go away
please dear uncaged cricket choir
I truly ....
hope you'll stay.
Cherie Nolan© 2016
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
I met a girl whose name is sky's hue
Combined with a thing that has a melody to foretell
And this may sound so vain
But it rhymes her name.
I met a poet who's spinning in a far bustling place
Known as the city that never sleeps
And I feel like a star
That's crawling into the unknown
I found this someone a downreaching one
Though she's miles away, one that I never took a glance at
She'll be an spectacle,
I'll always wait for her written words
Maybe someday, just like color blue
I'd find her my tranquility just like most people do
And listen to the sweet, tinkling melody bell foretells
With the one who directs me all the way just like a weathervane.
Jun 15, 2016
Jun 15, 2016 at 6:16 AM UTC
Pretentious
you stumble, heeding
terra cotta voices and
the sigh of broken chimes.
Disbelieving
you fall,
a sybil breathing rime-
for visions have a price
and you too must taste the salt.
Flounder
my pretty,
for time has bought your emnity
The blossom of your beauty
a weathervane of trust.
Dec 24, 2011
Dec 24, 2011 at 1:47 AM UTC
Rapid Eye Movements
cruise down the Autobahn,
driving dreams of soldiers
slaying the Beast in the East:
seeds hidden in the cuff links
that return home for the victory parade.
The victory parade of the new millennium
is a mirage: desert sand creeps
through the streets of Basra;
spray painted slogans of “Aryan Nation”
are left behind on pock-marked walls.
High level terror alerts
scroll across the Fear o' Dome,
breeding paranoid glances
from commercial-class passengers
while they fly above fenced camps
where centralized secret service agents
watch the unloading of another train.
"Son, do you forget the sacrifices?
Have you lost all your respect?
Okay, it’s possible that the Feds
were influenced by the Purebreds—
a minor repercussion
of maintaining our national security.
It isn’t even about racial purity—
you are all mixed now, anyway.
Whether female, black, jew, or gay,
we must unite together as a nation;
raise its flag with pride,
and fight against a common enemy!
This enemy is trying to disintegrate
the cornerstone of our free society!
Son, can you not see! Not see-notsee-notsea-notsi-notzi-natzi-nazi-natzi-notzi-notsi-notsea-notsee-not see!"
_____
—cold sweat.
I awaken to remnants of nightmarish images
sifting through my mind:
flocks of carnivorous sheep
with invisible shepherds.
The dream had felt real—
solid, like flesh-out reality.
I rush out of bed,
just to make sure.
From my bedroom window,
I see the neighbour’s Iron Eagle weathervane
goose-stepping towards the west.
A lawnmower growls in the background.
Everything appears normal here
on the corner of 4th Reichstag Blvd.
2016 Neu Berlin Remix, July 13th, 2016
(original version was written on March 29th, 2010)
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 6:14 PM UTC
Southeast, and storm, and every weathervane
shivers and moans upon its dripping pin,
ragged on chimneys the cloud whips, the rain
howls at the flues and windows to get in,
the golden rooster claps his golden wings
and from the Baptist Chapel shrieks no more,
the golden arrow in the southeast sings
and hears on the roof the Atlantic Ocean roar.
Waves among wires, sea scudding over poles,
down every alley the magnificence of rain,
dead gutters live once more, the deep manholes
hollow in triumph a passage to the main.
Umbrellas, and in the Gardens one old man
hurries away along a dancing path,
listens to music on a watering-can,
observes among the tulips the sudden wrath,
pale willows thrashing to the needled lake,
and dinghies filled with water; while the sky
smashes the lilacs, swoops to shake and break,
till shattered branches shriek and railings cry.
Speak, Hatteras, your language of the sea:
scour with kelp and spindrift the stale street:
that man in terror may learn once more to be
child of that hour when rock and ocean meet.
2.2k
these faces on the wall that have no eyes,
the young children with blood escaping from their hands
as they pick up a mound of the Earth and throw at genuflected roses.
these battered men in parks searching for light
and my woman is no longer with me.
it’s all vaudeville: this obnoxious working of continuance,
these redundant flutings, these unprecedented fluctuations.
opening the yellow gates to death
as the automobile churns the last of its exhausted snarl.
we are children peering through glass cases
as death laughs at his hopeless clientele,
sad, desolate progenies in working-classes,
in parks, in factories, somewhere along Mendiola,
or just treading the waist-high hellish froths of Dapitan,
there’s always death in the nooks of the quiet
and from where birds stir in sidereal circles, death
with his hands resting on the cage, chases us back to our homes.
death the changing of the gatekeeper.
death the telling machine.
death the dentist.
death my next door neighbor.
death, this boorish broken-winged Maya twitching in front
of my dog’s shadow shot out of the Sun’s shameful recoil.
death, my loud and loutish muse,
death the truant,
death, the copious fog somewhere in Kennon Rd.
death, in my hands through darkness and light,
death through troves of enigma,
death through undisputed clearings,
death the long line of red beads in EDSA,
death the gates of Plaridel,
it’s the moon following you, trailing your measure,
i hold my woman’s used shirt, pick up her photographs
and there’s no tender movement left but the still-seeking lion
prowling the jungles of my heart, seared by lovelorn undoing.
through the bottom of the sky and the unchanging roof-beam,
the weathervane ceases to a sojourn and the wind is trapped
in a place where we cannot utter any word between the gnashing
of our teeth – through the wasted years, through the sleeping in and out
of homes filled with beatings, to cathedrals swollen with tribulations,
and to the vineyards wrung out of wine, my lover, walking through fire,
sound silence.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
Birdhouses and farm bell gone , garden spot now a tangled field of grass and small trees . Farmhouse , empty and dying from top to bottom , flower gardens missing , iron kettle hanging by rusted chain . Clothes line , henhouse and both red barns are at the ready, but sadly , empty as well . Logging chains , bale hooks , pitchfork and weathervane , put away forever most likely along with lifetime memories , good and bad.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 8:50 AM UTC
*A bantam sounds afternoon tidings as the iron weathervane points Northeast ..
Both silhouettes as endearing a sight as my eyes could
ever witness ...
Astral nights , my amour ..Colorful light illustrations brushstroke the East ,
The edge of the Milky Way perplexes , I bask in it's subtle persuasion ..
Wind battled score and five year Pines sound timorous refrains , offering great euphonic consolation* ..
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 7:52 PM UTC
Mud drenched months, so soporific,
I love and find you beatific
Envelope too my heart and brain
In a gauzy shroud and tomb of pain
The south wind plays on this great plain,
Where nightly creaks the weathervane,
With ebbs and flows, my soul sings
As it extends its raven wings
My heart is filled with dreary things
As it does when frosts descend,
Oh shaded seasons, my regal friends!
Your shadows sweetly lingering,
- Unless in darkness, like newly-weds,
Numbing the pain of a hazardous bed.
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 9:18 AM UTC
Manifest your destiny
Make a wish, I'll take your memory
There is no law, I'm just your genie
Planting twisted seeds, to your head from my beak
I gave you mirrors, you made the ripples
I gave you pillows, you shunned the simple
And if you rip the feathers out, and shed your skin like I did
I'd bet you seven rainbows, I'd still get in your head
If you want me, you know where to find me
Crowing by the weathervane, or oozing down the chimney
Old man tree, here's a cigar for your tragedy
If you need me, I'll be in the clear, busy counting
Six for a second, *** for a minute
Six for a minute, *** for an hour
Six for an hour, *** for the weekend
Twenty-four carat-gold stars
My original idea
Became your original sin
Became your aboriginal idea
I laugh at the mess you're in
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 6:00 PM UTC
Sundown in the Paris of the prairies
Wheat kings have all treasures buried
And all you hear are rusty breezes
Pushing the weathervane Jesus
In his Zippo lighter he sees the killer's face
Maybe it's someone in the killers' place
Twenty years for nothing, well, that's nothing new
Besides, no one's interested in something you didn't do
Wheat kings and pretty things
Let's just see what the morning brings
There's a dream he dreams where his high school's dead and stark
It's a museum where we are locked in it after dark
Where the the halls are all lined all yellow, grey and sinister
Hung with pictures of our parent's Prime Ministers
Wheat kings and pretty things
Let's just see what the morning brings
Late breaking story on the CBC
A nation whispers, "We always knew he'd go free"
They add "You can't be fond of living in the past"
'Cause if you are then no way you're going to last"
Wheat kings and pretty things
Let's just see what the morning brings
Wheat kings and pretty things
Let's just see what the morning brings
Gord Downie
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 2:08 PM UTC
these days, i live on the
spaces
between the lines
of whatever story i thought my life
would turn out to be,
wide awake in a faceless house
waiting
while an everbeating heart of rain
spatters on the weathervane
(vain)
spinning lacklusterly,
lackadaisically nowhere
under a grey sky,
unaware
of the slumbering sun above,
or the custom cares of anyone
who has ever been in love...
[droplets on the roof]
though
sometimes,
through a mirrored screen
in the world between
waking and dream,
i get this fluttering feeling
(a certain fleeting)
of knowing
that somewhere between these walls--
(perhaps)
over ceilings,
under floors,
behind cupboards
or closet(d) doors,
waits a weaving
window
looking over the garden
back to my storylife
impatient
for my arrival
(my longsought revival),
and i'm just too
deranged
by the rain
to hear it
chiming my name.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 10:48 AM UTC
Manifest your destiny
Make a wish, I'll take your memory
There is no law, I'm just your genie
Planting twisted seeds, to your head from my beak
I gave you mirrors, you made the ripples
I gave you pillows, you shunned the simple
And if you rip the feathers out, and shed your skin like I did
I'd bet you seven rainbows, I'd still get in your head
If you want me, you know where to find me
Crowing by the weathervane, or oozing down the chimney
Old man tree, here's a cigar for your tragedy
If you need me, I'll be in the clear, busy counting
Six for a second, *** for a minute
Six for a minute, *** for an hour
Six for an hour, *** for the weekend
Twenty-four carat-gold stars
My original idea
Became your original sin
Became your aboriginal idea
I laugh at the mess you're in
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 7:16 PM UTC
Feeling excruciating pressure
~~~~~~Of the brain~~~~~~
Cerebral tissue inside my mind
~~~~Has a purpose of~~~~~
~~~~~A weathervane~~~~~~
<><><><> My true hope <><><><>
^^^That guides me to sustain^^^
Knowing that Christ suffered much
<>More so that I may maintain<>
For the price He paid will carry me
☆☆Into a life with Majesty☆☆
~I will be completely sustained~
₩KR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied"
1 CORINTHIANS 15:19
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 1:14 PM UTC
The weathervane slept high above with a lolling head.
Clouds were holidaying excessively in Spain.
Sun was lost in a haze after chain smoking cooling towers.
A lethargic wind, moseying low with cat-like whiskers,
I hear it complain “I’m tired” in child-like whispers.
My hands are sweat-sore with callouses
And salty enough to summon the call of gulls in numbers;
I find shade, imagining myself as a cartoon Huck Finn.
When I put dry grass between cracked lips and think of dustbowls
In a zoetrope of sun-stroke, I vanish through my buttonholes.
This is now where one would rise, wake or come to.
Nothing I recognise, else the world is enveloped in storms.
I strain my sight, blink repeatedly to force myself awake,
The angels are listening, I hear wheezing, see fingers in my dreams
Gripping tightly to milk thistle stars, bursting at the seams.
Amongst the angels, whispering too! Did the stars imprison you?
Free-spirit like mother, but I slept our childhood through
Sustained by knowledge gleaned from canteen floors—
My eyes feel somehow sharp, heavy, like spears more than eyes;
I thought I saw the weathervane spinning madly, unraveling the skies!
Nobody talks about the weather.
There is a good chance of wrought nerves.
This is a time of stillness and dwelling on doorsteps,
In doorways where death sits among us, resting his eyes,
An end to the ration that was harmless reminiscence
As memories go up in the heat like celluloid;
Now the stars are a steely prison
Heaven’s lustre is lost, missing.
Through the angels I have seen that this is a time of living -
Through our dreams I have seen that this is a time of living -
Outside the confinement of the Holocene.
—I have dreamt of drowning...often. I always seem to wake up out and breath and feel I can taste the salt in my mouth but fear does not play any part in these dreams.
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
"Time flowing in the night"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Have I dreamt my life, or was it a true one?"
Walter Von der Vogelweide
Look for the sleepers on
Their backs, eyes closed,
Their palms upturned to sacrifice
Their dreaming bodies to the night.
Not knowing that even as the
Sun rises wearing a halo of liquid gold,
And as their long dark lashes lazily open,
They are not waking from their dreams.
Outside the hummingbird whirring in
Dizzying aeronautics, and the barn owl
Shutting its fierce yellow eyes
Are dreams too;
All dreams.
The morning routine:
The taste of honey and oats
On the tongue, the orange-yellow
Melon scooped and swallowed hard,
Waking the senses; the bitter coffee,
The slightly burned toast
Dreams,
All dreams.
It was a book delivered to him
By a misty-eyed stranger in rags
Who spoke but a few words barely
Audible and, with a toothless grin,
Hobbled away, though his gait was
Somehow a noble one.
This had happened a few nights ago,
Only the book remained unopened,
He was too tired at the end of the
Day and there was work to do in
The fields and that stubborn tractor
Breaking down each midday.
It was last evening that his curiosity
Got to him and he kicked off his
Work boots and sat with it in the
Reclining chair; he put on his spectacles
And began to read.
He was not a reader much; his time
Reading was mostly spent on the
Good Book, which he found somewhat
Difficult to stay focused on.
But this book was different: he was
Engaged after the first sentence.
There was a stirring in his chest
And he intuited from the incredible
Words that there was something here
That was true.
He read until the moon was high
In the night sky and he turned the
Last page at sometime after midnight,
Falling into an easy sleep in which
He dreamed that he was a Persian
Prince and each night he was told
A story by a beautiful girl. He KNEW
that he was dreaming and he knew
There was such a thing as magic, even
In his mundane world.
Now the sun in a heat haze.
The old chipped weathervane on the
Tin roof of the barn, casting a long
Shadow on the rows of wheat,
Waiting to be harvested.
As he climbed onto the rusty
Tractor he felt a sense of wonder
Present in all these things.
As the old tractor belched and
Caught fire, he had the thought
That if he was still dreaming,
As the book had said, he felt more
Awake than he had ever been in
His life.
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 5:56 PM UTC
"Time flowing in the night"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Have I dreamt my life, or was it a true one?"
Walter Von der Vogelweide
Look for the sleepers on
Their backs, eyes closed,
Their palms upturned to sacrifice
Their dreaming bodies to the night.
Not knowing that even as the
Sun rises wearing a halo of liquid gold,
And as their long dark lashes lazily open,
They are not waking from their dreams.
Outside the hummingbird whirring in
Dizzying aeronautics, and the barn owl
Shutting its fierce yellow eyes
Are dreams too;
All dreams.
The morning routine:
The taste of honey and oats
On the tongue, the orange-yellow
Melon scooped and swallowed hard,
Waking the senses; the bitter coffee,
The slightly burned toast
Dreams,
All dreams.
It was a book delivered to him
By a misty-eyed stranger in rags
Who spoke but a few words barely
Audible and, with a toothless grin,
Hobbled away, though his gait was
Somehow a noble one.
This had happened a few nights ago,
Only the book remained unopened,
He was too tired at the end of the
Day and there was work to do in
The fields and that stubborn tractor
Breaking down each midday.
It was last evening that his curiosity
Got to him and he kicked off his
Work boots and sat with it in the
Reclining chair; he put on his spectacles
And began to read.
He was not a reader much; his time
Reading was mostly spent on the
Good Book, which he found somewhat
Difficult to stay focused on.
But this book was different: he was
Engaged after the first sentence.
There was a stirring in his chest
And he intuited from the incredible
Words that there was something here
That was true.
He read until the moon was high
In the night sky and he turned the
Last page at sometime after midnight,
Falling into an easy sleep in which
He dreamed that he was a Persian
Prince and each night he was told
A story by a beautiful girl. He KNEW
that he was dreaming and he knew
There was such a thing as magic, even
In his mundane world.
Now the sun in a heat haze.
The old chipped weathervane on the
Tin roof of the barn, casting a long
Shadow on the rows of wheat,
Waiting to be harvested.
As he climbed onto the rusty
Tractor he felt a sense of wonder
Present in all these things.
As the old tractor belched and
Caught fire, he had the thought
That if he was still dreaming,
As the book had said, he felt more
Awake than he had ever been in
His life.
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 5:56 PM UTC
anger uncontrollable wildly swings to and fro
a weathervane shifting it's glaring arrow
from me to you to me to you to me to god
this tempest boiling over from my half full mindset
spills forth from my body a black wicked liquid
its leaks from my pores and pours from my eyes
spews from my mouth and is felt in the
tremors of my hands
incensed irate rabid sick and shaking
my mind like a dog should be put down out back
an execution style burial one bullet to my head
just watch for the blood spatter
don't want to infect anyone else
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
you will come back
in every five seconds
in every five minutes
in every five round clock
in every five changing snowdrops
on the pavement
eon of epoch, your tardy shortcomings and
my in-sync horology
still i wait for you,
and sundial
of your promise
you will come back
in every winter
in every summer
in every spring
in every fall
weathervane foreverly prevail
still i wait for you,
with glimmering eyes
and avalanching hopes
you will come back
in every monday
in every wednesday
in every friday
in every sight of sadderdaze
a repertoire of mystical moments
per diem of price
still i will wait for you,
in every sunrise,
in every twilight
Oct 14, 2021
Oct 14, 2021 at 1:28 PM UTC
He met a girl down in a bar,
She had eyes like a hurricane.
Lost within the winds of her smile,
He was spinning like a weathervane.
He said,
"Girl there's guna be rain,
So we had better take cover."
She said,
"Now boy don't be insane,
I'm no sunshine lover."
Now they stand together
Drenched to the bone,
Her lips taste like summer,
An oasis alone in the cold.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
Empty mug
Mute Cellphone
Another Mute Cellphone
Faint Buzz of Old Fan
In this silence...
A hollowed soul tries to decipher
the meaning of doubt
And uncertainties of mind
What are we?
Somewhere along this line
And the three hours distance
Have blurred the real intention
The heart that's never trained to believe
Unable to trust the promises made
Is like the weathervane
Changing directions as the wind wishes
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
Weathervane, weathervane,
whither does the wind blow?
Will you learn to point the way
or will you just go with the flow?
When the fox would rule the henhouse
as the wind twists all around
will the weathercock crow midnight
without making a sound?
Oct 28, 2024
Oct 28, 2024 at 3:54 PM UTC
A generous amount of ferocious wind , a ladle of roaring thunder and a cup or two of 'nerve racking hail ..'
A handful of blue lightning with a pressure cooker full of rain ,
an armful of 'nasty charcoal nimbus' and 'puppy dog- puffy cumulus' stirred into a heaping bowl of 'humid Georgia sunshine ..'
Turn the Old rooster weathervane to the East , hurry up and gather the last pile of leaves ..
Get the turkey chicks in the barn , shut down the smokehouse ..
Tie the scarecrow off , call the family together and head for the storm cellar !
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 5:23 PM UTC