"wheeling" poems
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea;
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.
Always before about my dooryard,
Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.
If I could hear the green piles groaning
Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs,
If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,
Feel once again the shanty straining
Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,—
I should be happy,—that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!
I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.
31.5k
Up, O ye lovers, and away! 'Tis time to leave the world for aye.
Hark, loud and clear from heaven the from of parting calls-let none delay!
The cameleer hat risen amain, made ready all the camel-train,
And quittance now desires to gain: why sleep ye, travellers, I pray?
Behind us and before there swells the din of parting and of bells;
To shoreless space each moment sails a disembodied spirit away.
From yonder starry lights, and through those curtain-awnings darkly blue,
Mysterious figures float in view, all strange and secret things display.
From this orb, wheeling round its pole, a wondrous slumber o'er thee stole:
O weary life that weighest naught, O sleep that on my soul dost weigh!
O heart, toward they heart's love wend, and O friend, fly toward the Friend,
Be wakeful, watchman, to the end: drowse seemingly no watchman may.
10.8k
Even after you move,
your muscles still turn
the steering wheeling
to your old house
and you tell your brain
that the movements are wrong
but still you do it,
in case you drive back
to what used to be
and find
that it is still yours
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
.
Each morning I rise unto hours,
Wheeling in sun, with wee wild flowers.
An hearty wish, on hills by the sea
Each day I skip about live stones,
In winds I run, deep dancing my bones.
I am made of each, cairn on hillocky
Each sweep of air a breathy kiss,
On skyline by the sea, one mighty bliss.
Dancing my bones, in winds I run
Each hour a new turning of page,
Each heap on hill, of these I am made.
Wild wee flowers, wheeling in the sun
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:52 AM UTC
I see a ****** of crows
parting the sky with
a ********** V
it hawks and blecks
down as if to say
good afternoon
to the child wheeling
across federal
on her
pink bicycle—
a travel
that rots and witches
the sweet, grey air
sailing into clouds
of pounding tide—
jewels
colorless
and divorced
drifting
across the
blue-domed
pearl of
missing you
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 5:58 PM UTC
A touch is enough for a rush to send me reeling.
I've been wheeling and dealing my way through chaos only to have found Myself knee-deep in it.
I'm dying to get out,
Lying to try to save myself,
And fighting to get to you.
A touch is enough of a rush to send me to Heaven,
Enough of a rush to render me utterly speechless.
Nov 3, 2010
Nov 3, 2010 at 5:49 PM UTC
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
5.4k
A sigh is a barebacked rider, soundless along a sandy coast,
A candle tipped with starlight, wheeling in a cosmos of smoke,
A firefly floating on the ruins of the wind like a winged gyroscope,
A skull in the stomach whose teeth are my own and breathes
With Babel’s thousand tongues telling fragrant untruths.
Feb 6, 2022
Feb 6, 2022 at 8:44 PM UTC
When first I saw you,
you were lying on a green bank laughing at the sky
as you watched the clouds scud by
and you saw all kinds of shapes in those clouds
and gasped in awe as the myriad of birds
soared and wheeled through the clouds.
Your laugh skipped across the distance between us
like magical notes from a faery harp.
The sunlight lit up your golden hair
making diamonds out of the shafts of sunlight
as you turned your head to and fro
making the sunbeams dance to your tune.
And about your head was a halo of white lilies …
When next I saw you
you were hand in hand with your love
walking into the sunlight from the grey stone church.
Your brocade of white entwined with golden thread
sparkled like a million gems.
Your face was bright and alive with smiling eyes
and your golden hair fell down around your face
catching the sunbeams.
And ringing out their joy, the church bells pealed for you.
And in your hand was a bouquet of white lilies …
I saw you again
on that same green bank laughing with joy
as your golden child frolicked in the warm summer sun,
her childish laugh mingling with your own in angelic harmony.
You grasped her up and, wheeling her skyward,
faces upturned, letting the sunbeams play around you
and then, holding her close, you sank to your knees
cradling the babe, letting the love flow out and around you both.
And in the child’s small hand was grasped a single white lily …
The next time I saw you
you were quietly sitting in the late summer sun
comfortable in your chair watching the golden sun flame red
as it sank below the distant horizon.
Your golden hair now not so vibrant
and your face etched with the many years of your long life
yet when you smiled at the glory of the setting sun, the sparkle of your eyes
was not dimmed at all.
And around your feet grew a field of white lilies …
The last time I saw you
I gave you my hand and, with fingers entwined,
we walked away from the sombre crowd whose tears flowed like pearls
as the stark white coffin was lowered into the ground.
And looking into your face I saw you again
as you were that first time,
your golden hair that fell as rivulets
around your now pale, sad face.
I took that face in my hands and gently kissed your lips,
no more than a whisper, like a gentle spring breeze teasing the blossoms.
Still hand in hand, we looked back at the sad scene and then turned and walked into the light.
And all about your grave lay white lilies.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM UTC
I did not restrain myself. I let go entirely and went.
To the pleasures that were half real
and half wheeling in my brain,
I went into the lit night.
And I drank of potent wines, such as
the valiant of voluptuousness drink.
4.8k
O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.
O what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.
O what are they doing with all that gear,
What are they doing this morning, morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear,
Or perhaps a warning.
O why have they left the road down there,
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in their orders, dear,
Why are you kneeling?
O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
Haven't they reined their horses, horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
None of these forces.
O is it the parson they want, with white hair,
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.
O it must be the farmer that lives so near.
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
And now they are running.
O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.
O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.
4.2k
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, ****** like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.
The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty of you,
letting you see how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.
Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?
Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man's face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. "Name of father-none." I hold
you and name you ******* in my arms.
And now that's that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking off you. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.
4k
I took my ****** sister Marigold to the cinema,
she had asked specifically and eventually
(she doesn't speak a lot on account of her awful stammer
and amazing cleft palate which has won prizes)
so I knew that this was something she really wanted,
and I teased for her bad taste
when she told me that she wanted to see
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Charlie
and the Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Chocolate Factory".
It was a Saturday evening and the local picture house
was showing a re-run of the classic starring Gene Wilder
as the enigmatically stylish ***** Wonka,
and not that steaming great pictorial **** served up by Tim Burton
and I knew that town would be busy with oiks
so as a treat I dressed her up better than usual,
and even gave her a hosedown to get rid of the poopy pong.
She had stopped crying by the time the feature started
and I think the Ooompa Loompa costume grew on her
but that maybe the orange paint was a bit of a bad idea
as people had stared as it was Day-Glo and she stood out
like a bulldog's ******* but I stand by my decision
to dye her hair green, it had taken thought and planning;
it was meant to add to her excitement of the day,
so I meant well, even if I was ineffectual in the end.
I sat her on my lap in the picture house
but still paid for two seats but I do get one ticket half price
though because of her disabilities, so it wasn't all bad,
every cloud and all that, you know what I mean?
She tends to get a little down every now and then
but a £1 cinema ticket partly makes up for being born legless.
I knew from past experience that the cinema staff
prefer me to carry my stunted sis rather than wheeling her in
(I do recall that the time I taped her to her skateboard
proved somewhat a disaster - but really, the fat usher
had a torch and should have watched her step
or otherwise she wouldn't have bust her neck).
The Ooompa Loompa costume allowed Marigold
to amuse herself during the screening
(as there were no leggings to the costume).
She barely noticed when the fat little hero
got blown up on screen except to dribble "chocolate"
from her own little chocolate factory.
It was, all in all, quite an eventful outing
and one I might consider repeating but
probably in a different cinema next time,
mainly because we got banned for life
when the manager saw the condition of the seat.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 8:06 AM UTC
I see a pattern Everywhere:
Circles and globes (three dimensional circles);
Shiny rings of fire.
Countless manifestations of this same shape.
Star-spangled galaxies wheeling through the sky:
That half-globe dome.
Earth, in circular orbit (more or less) around the Sun,
Escorted by the Moon.
Days give way to seasons,
Repeating every year.
Groundhog Days becoming
Groundhog Creations
Perhaps.
The list seems endless:
Hopkins’ dapples,
Planets, craters, cyclones, anti-cyclones, sea currents,
***** apples, oranges, nuts, potatoes,
Teardrops, heads, faces, eyes, mouths,
Holes!
Coins, bin lids, and plates;
Sunflowers, daisies, pansies,
Rings of mushrooms,
Circling birds of prey,
A cat curled in a circle,
Like a foetus.
Life as we know it
Is a circle
And a cycle too.
Birth, Death, Blossom, Wilt.
Reincarnation?
Renewal?
Clock-faced Time itself.
Eternity might be a circle,
Infinity the same.
Maybe even God,
Some way.
Perhaps we still are building God,
For Him or Her to travel back through time
Like Doctor Who
To Create The Big Bang,
And form this expanding Universe,
Thus taking us full circle.
Or maybe the Universe will fold back in upon itself,
Producing yet one more Big Bang,
In an endless cycle,
Of Big Bangs,
Amongst this ever circling
Multiverse.
Paul Butters
© PB, 14th February, 2011 at 14.00, in Humberside.
Mar 29, 2011
Mar 29, 2011 at 4:14 AM UTC
inside an early morning
the sky flipped around
cart wheeling above
lightning bolt flashes
big thunder boomers
some clouds fostered
the rain which leaps
onto the earth just as
Zeus flushes the toilet
and the entire world
stops to listen for
him to zip.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 5:13 PM UTC
procuring lexical polymorphism
synthesizing atypical signifier
playing blue album
awaiting tomorrow's celebrations
adding complex plugins
altering element content
watching office mascot
wheeling hue-named albums
undulating forest growth
pricing those yankees
finding layman's chaos
enjoying another victory
reviewing markup concepts
ditching error messages
enjoying relative obscurity
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 1:17 PM UTC
75. 85. 90.
windows down.
open road.
scene
stark night, moonlight contrast.
stars: the watchers: no passing cars to block
the path to oblivion.
/fly/
arms spread wide, wind whipping
ripsrustlesslipsslidesslices
unfurled fingers cutting
ribbons in the fabric of the atmosphere.
acrid scents of city pollution fuse
with mown grass and night dew and waking trees:
a cocktail served through the nose over the breeze--
fresh air in a dead man's lungs.
here is life lived on high
giddy wheeling 85 and 90
not a soul in sight
enveloped in the music
dazzled by the starlight
drunk on speed
delighted
dizzy to
die.
this is release
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
Clem, the rodeo clown
wears a bold painted smile,
a bright plaid shirt and bib overalls
with cuffs too short for his legs.
Between the rides and roping -
Clem banters with the emcee,
wheeling off groaners and
scrambling in and out of his barrel-
playing the air-headed bumpkin.
But Clem is nobody's fool;
when that gate opens, his real work begins.
Bull and rider explode from the chute
and the game is on.
The cowboy weaves and writhes to stay on top
for that eight golden seconds
that will earn him his pay
against a half ton of feral energy
stomping and lurching to fling him to the earth.
With eyes as keen as a hungry hawk,
Clem tracks every buck and lurch
for any peril sign - and then it happens:
the rider is hurled airborne,
landing inches from the driving hooves.
Clem seizes the cowboy with
a linebacker's grip
and swings him safely over the fence
as wranglers speed the bull from the ring.
The show goes on and Clem
has plenty more jokes for the crowd
who knows he's never a barrel of laughs
when a rider's life is on the line.
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 8:14 AM UTC
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, ****** like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.
The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty
of you, letting you learn how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.
Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?
Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man's face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. "Name of father-none." I hold
you and name you ******* in my arms.
And now that's that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking you off. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.
3.1k
Passing through huddled and ugly walls
By doorways where women
Looked from their hunger-deep eyes,
Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,
Out from the huddled and ugly walls,
I came sudden, at the city's edge,
On a blue burst of lake,
Long lake waves breaking under the sun
On a spray-flung curve of shore;
And a fluttering storm of gulls,
Masses of great gray wings
And flying white bellies
Veering and wheeling free in the open
2.9k
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
We used to be so uncompromised,
Our words didn't have some double meaning,
Something deeming,
That we were more than we were willing to admit.
I could look you in the eyes without that feeling,
Without my thoughts wheeling,
Away from the possibility of having to commit.
You and I were not some cliched affair,
But now we are something I thought I could not bare,
And I fear,
I fear that we have been compromised,
By those double meanings,
Those feelings,
Deeming,
That we are more than we are willing to admit.
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
Hey Danny, I droped it twice but this one is just as nice
On the fly a small hummingbird on flittering wings just dusting the room
With dann dust and goodwill.
A quiver filled with curative pin point healing
She is wheeling and dealing
Danielle I presume is the full story.
Acufeel good. Feelgood ancient curative
Sent from the far east.
Miniature
Magic whipping about in sea blue scrubs
All good news .
Never gave me the bluesy tude.
Cool runnings miss danny.
Nuff respect.
A short poem for a big spirit. In. Small spirit
Country.
Seek and ye shall find I am inclined to believe
She has a good vibe.
Cool runnings hummingbird.
See you at the water cooler
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 5:56 PM UTC
Where is death today?
Busily hiding the bodies,
Or hunched beside a car loosening wheel bolts,
Placing a dark hand over a traffic light,
Squeezing the shotgun trigger,
Or strapped in a wheelchair
Disguised as a patient and wheeling rapidly around the hospital wards,
Removing the soap.
Or maybe cycling down the motorway
The large black cloak neatly bundled into the waistband
Right trouser leg tucked into a black sock
A bone poking out the toe
The Reaper strapped to the bicycle crossbar
Blade hanging to the rear
But not obscuring the red reflector
Wearing Kevlar gloves when handling the scythe
And Vis a Vest neatly tied with a bow
At the very least a reflective armband.
Or possibly fixing a puncture on his way to my home...Bad form then
On arrival should I greet with “Come in, you look perished! ”
Discuss the weather as a distraction
I could offer new socks
Like every interview this might not go well.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 7:50 PM UTC
My percussion teacher, fresh out of surgery:
Going down the line of kids at attention -
Checking the attention - my percussion teacher
In a wheelchair gliding down the line -
Fresh out of surgery - sliding down the line
Of kids at attention with heads bowed.
My percussion teacher with the aching back;
My percussion teacher, fresh out of surgery
(With the pill keeper on her keychain)
Wheeling down the line of insecure children -
Checking the attention - my percussion teacher
Calling "Chin up, chest out, back straight,"
(Fresh out of back surgery) going down the line,
"Don't lock your knees, be proud."
My percussion teacher weeks after surgery
With the back pain and the brave face,
At a Christmas parade
My percussion teacher gliding beside the drums
Chair whirring between beats, my teacher
Whispering, "roll step, back straight, chin up,
Be proud."
My teacher in her home at New Year's,
Recovered and childish, months after surgery
"Look, I'm taller now? Wanna see my scar?"
Yes I want to see it, yes of course - that scar,
That pride twisting pink across your chest, yes.
Yes, because your chin is up,
And your back is straight.
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 10:01 PM UTC