"whistlers" poems - Hello Poetry

There is something magical in the whirring of a midday laundromat. A cessation of pride, maybe. People all dressed in sweatpants the air full of detergent smell and the sound of coins clicking against great tumblers as they go round and round and round and round... The people smile back, no use pretending superiority here. Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles. The children are well behaved, their hands full of potato chips given by their parents as a pittance for their patience. The patient patrons ponder on, their empty hands crumpling receipts. This, with the crunching of chips and the distant whistle over the percussion of clicking coins clattering in a dryer compose an unintentional opera, an ode to humility. Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris. Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, Where the hot air wreaks its violence and men make their ways in spite.

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Oct 6, 2014

Oct 6, 2014 at 5:00 PM UTC

j-c-lucas

Ode to Humility (laundromat)

There is something magical in the whirring of a midday laundromat. A cessation of pride, maybe. People all dressed in sweatpants the air full of detergent smell and the sound of coins clicking against great tumblers as they go round and round and round and round... The people smile back, no use pretending superiority here. Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles. The children are well behaved, their hands full of potato chips given by their parents as a pittance for their patience. The patient patrons ponder on, their empty hands crumpling receipts. This, with the crunching of chips and the distant whistle over the percussion of clicking coins clattering in a dryer compose an unintentional opera, an ode to humility. Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris. Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, Where the hot air wreaks its violence and men make their ways in spite.

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Hello ceiling caving in worldwind heart Internally Eternally falling the bad boys r whistling through my door "phooo" the bankers screaming through the phone pictures of naked girls on the screen dancing old coffee spilt on my bedstand strangers strangers that live in me peeling the paint reminding me there is a big break around the corner coming to rescue me with giant winged teeth swirling around my head around the corner & the piles of unpaid envelopes don't mean a thing don't let those whistlers in my view from the window Brick walls Plastic flowers

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Mar 31, 2011

Mar 31, 2011 at 8:18 PM UTC

kate-crash

brick walls, plastic flowers

Hello ceiling caving in worldwind heart Internally Eternally falling the bad boys r whistling through my door "phooo" the bankers screaming through the phone pictures of naked girls on the screen dancing old coffee spilt on my bedstand strangers strangers that live in me peeling the paint reminding me there is a big break around the corner coming to rescue me with giant winged teeth swirling around my head around the corner & the piles of unpaid envelopes don't mean a thing don't let those whistlers in my view from the window Brick walls Plastic flowers

25

Silent, still, whistlers Careening between silk leaves Explode into symphony

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Feb 28, 2014

Feb 28, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC

upasana-roy

Psithurism

Silent, still, whistlers Careening between silk leaves Explode into symphony

3

The poem requires a mind that finds meaning, even divination, in language. Non-fiction, up to academic standards, demands evidence. Nothing less will do. Most of us read fiction and this needs a taste for action, motivation. Lately, as have you, I have thought about our war and its purpose, motivation. But I have also closely listened to the wood thrush, analyzed its song like a tune by T.S. Monk or J.S. Bach concerto. One belongs to the loved ones who ostracize us, too. A robin looks, hops, pecks, is never calm. It is the flute-like tones, yes, but mostly the patient, meditative clarity of the thrush that enchants. One wants to be that bird. How will we attain calm clarity for the species **** sapiens? Through the discipline of asking questions. Mimics, woodpeckers, sing-songers, hawks, chippers and trillers, whistlers, name-sayers, loons, owls and a dove, high pitchers, wood warblers and a word-warbling wren. Unusual vocalizations. What did the wood thrush sing teaching its young thrush meanings? Too much emotion is the commonest of mortals’ sins. Peace has many faces, the wood thrush in the canopy is one. A word of praise here, an encouraging word there. A wraith, a ghost against an impatient man, verbose, unsure of the path, always longing. Nothing satisfies like the thrush's song.

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Aug 10, 2015

Aug 10, 2015 at 7:44 AM UTC

robert-ronnow

Birding by Ear

The poem requires a mind that finds meaning, even divination, in language. Non-fiction, up to academic standards, demands evidence. Nothing less will do. Most of us read fiction and this needs a taste for action, motivation. Lately, as have you, I have thought about our war and its purpose, motivation. But I have also closely listened to the wood thrush, analyzed its song like a tune by T.S. Monk or J.S. Bach concerto. One belongs to the loved ones who ostracize us, too. A robin looks, hops, pecks, is never calm. It is the flute-like tones, yes, but mostly the patient, meditative clarity of the thrush that enchants. One wants to be that bird. How will we attain calm clarity for the species **** sapiens? Through the discipline of asking questions. Mimics, woodpeckers, sing-songers, hawks, chippers and trillers, whistlers, name-sayers, loons, owls and a dove, high pitchers, wood warblers and a word-warbling wren. Unusual vocalizations. What did the wood thrush sing teaching its young thrush meanings? Too much emotion is the commonest of mortals’ sins. Peace has many faces, the wood thrush in the canopy is one. A word of praise here, an encouraging word there. A wraith, a ghost against an impatient man, verbose, unsure of the path, always longing. Nothing satisfies like the thrush's song.

35

Be like the wind You are the wind You don't bend or break No procedures are in place for you Run up against it, flow around Not out of strength But out of the hush Out of the whistle Out of sound The wind is nothing The wind is everything More than anything that could ever be built Because the wind will always be Around In every lung and every city Whipping through the whistlers town

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Aug 29, 2017

Aug 29, 2017 at 11:31 AM UTC

colmistoirm

My New Obsession

Be like the wind You are the wind You don't bend or break No procedures are in place for you Run up against it, flow around Not out of strength But out of the hush Out of the whistle Out of sound The wind is nothing The wind is everything More than anything that could ever be built Because the wind will always be Around In every lung and every city Whipping through the whistlers town

16

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE MIND "Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child." R.L.S. Come Louis and play with my food transforming my porridge with a sprinkle of imagination so that dusted with sugar it becomes a land buried under snow and now with milk a land invaded by a white sea the mind flooded with thought wave upon wave of seeing the food itself taking second place to whatever Thought can get its teeth into when seasoned with such dreams. And on nights in Nice or in La Solitude in Hyères writing in the dark with your left hand to spite the sciatica fight the haemorrhaging the partial blindness of Egyptian ophthalmia. "New Songs of Innocence" or "Whistles for Small Whistlers* finally becomes "A Child's Garden of Verses." Robert Louis Stevenson creating in the night lighthouses of the mind.

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Aug 29, 2019

Aug 29, 2019 at 11:27 AM UTC

donall-dempsey

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE MIND

LIGHTHOUSES OF THE MIND "Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child." R.L.S. Come Louis and play with my food transforming my porridge with a sprinkle of imagination so that dusted with sugar it becomes a land buried under snow and now with milk a land invaded by a white sea the mind flooded with thought wave upon wave of seeing the food itself taking second place to whatever Thought can get its teeth into when seasoned with such dreams. And on nights in Nice or in La Solitude in Hyères writing in the dark with your left hand to spite the sciatica fight the haemorrhaging the partial blindness of Egyptian ophthalmia. "New Songs of Innocence" or "Whistles for Small Whistlers* finally becomes "A Child's Garden of Verses." Robert Louis Stevenson creating in the night lighthouses of the mind.

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