The Grey Goshawk
There is a flutter in the trees,
And now a sudden, dread unease
Stills all the bushland melodies
Amid the gums;
Stills now the song of wren and thrush,
Robin and honeyeater hush.
Now, with a swoop, a whistling rush,
Grey goshawk comes.
I am the threat: the dread king.
Grim Azrael, is on the wing,
And every little living thing
Dares scarce a breath.
And now a parrot, shrill with fear,
Flies dodging there and doubling here
Thro' inlaced limbs, in mad career
From lusting death.
Grey ghost, grey death, I work my will
O'er forest dense, o'er wood hill,
And on some tree-top rend my kill
With reddened beak.
There is no have in the tree,
There is no habor safe from me;
In many a singing sanctuary
My meat I seek.
Beware! The swift grey ghost is out!
Be still! Grey death lurks near about!
Crouch close! Shrink low! ... But have no doubt
I've marked my kill.
Grim nemesis. I never fail;
Gaint hunger is my spur, my flail.
I feast. And now away I sail
O'er the far hill.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Grey World
Grey nights in the wind,
And the grey-faced dead.
Grey hairs in my head,
And grey eyes in my mind.
Grey mists in the morn,
And grey waves that rave,
Grey mould on my grave,
And grey eyes forlorn.
Grey clouds in the sky,
And the grey world asleep,
Grey ghosts that sigh,
And grey eyes that weep.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Grey, Grey Sky
Someday I will ride the great bird
Into the sky, into the grey
And will take a bright secret of mine
Into the grey, grey sky.
And the light will come, piercing my eyes
Out of the sky, out of the grey
Come blinding and searing these eyes
Out of the grey, grey sky.
And I will find comfort in this
In the wide sky, in the wide grey
In the painful dark brightness of light
Light of the grey, grey sky.
My secret will fly away home
Into the sky, into the grey
And the great bird will follow it there
Into the grey, grey sky.
And I will be riding that bird
Bird of the sky, bird of the grey
And I will come home once again
Home to the grey, grey sky.
But for now I am weighted, earthbound
One of the mud, one of the ground
And I write this sad song to sad sound
Girl of the pavement sighs.
poem by Grace Hutton
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On Hearing A Grey Shrike Thrush Singing In The Rain
The grey thrush sing on branch of mountain gray
At twilight of a most Unspring like day
On October evening made damp by drizzling rain
And grey bird sing his same song o'er again.
And freshening wind has breath of winter sting
Seems more like Winter now than middle Spring
And wind driven rain fall from the darkening sky
And still the grey thrush pipes his notes of joy.
I wonder why he sing so merrily
On low down branch of noble gray gum tree
Could it be that he can tell from inner eye
That tomorrow's weather will be warm and dry?
Or could he sing that in some nearby tree
His wife on nest shelter new family?
And he tell his neighbours this my territory
And I'm now a dad 'oh lucky happy me'.
And why he sing should it matter anyway
His song at close of wet October day?
The weather dreary for the time of year
But grey thrush's notes sweet music to my ears.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Grey Thrush at the Door
'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!' Low at first and flattering,
Full of soft seductiveness on a wheedling note.
Who comes in mercy now, crumbs of comfort scattering
For a grey bird pleading from a cold, cold throat?
Just a thread of tallow-fat, just a scrap of meat!
Grey thrush is at the door. 'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!'
Grey bird, friendly bird, merry bird in summer time,
For summer is a merry time, full of tuneful mirth.
Sunny days are singing days. But winter is a glummer time
With lean days of scant fare; frost has locked the earth.
Song goes as sun goes, and harshly drives the sleet.
Where comes the almoner? 'Swe-e-et! Swe-e-et!'
'Sweet! Sweet!' Now it grows imperious:
A short call, a loud call, impatience in its tone.
Why am I left lingering? See, my plight is serious.
A poor bird all forlorn, starving and alone.
Grey Thrush is a-hungering, begging scraps to eat.
It's far beyond my breakfast time! 'Sweet! Sweet!'
Now a footstep on the floor. Now a sudden fluttering,
And Grey Thrush is waiting there beside the open door.
Kookaburra cocks an eye; greedily he's muttering;
But grey bird is first to swoop upon the proffered store,
A scrap of song in gratitude, then up, and off, away.
And the mendicant has vanished till another frosty day.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Grey
Grey road stretched through grey rain.
Grey rain fell though grey mist.
Grey mist enveloped all,
all the eye could see,
all the land,
all the sky
and me.
Grey covered all,
all the way down to the sea.
Glimpsed through grey the swell of the ocean,
riding the waves a wind surfer surfing,
chopping, fighting the crests with swift motion
skirting the spray, sail unfurling.
Stopping, I stared at that sight in the mist,
oh how he came dancing over the sea,
right through the rain a state of sheer bliss,
the wondrous frolic rippling throughout me
making me tingle right down deep inside.
That misty image ripped all grey apart
a glorious vision of freedom untied,
returning tremendous joy to my heart
filling me up, bringing tears to my eyes,
emerging from grey a great love of life.
poem by Diana Rosser
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On Hearing A Grey Shrike Thrush
The grey shrike thrush on branch of mountain gray
At twilight of a most Unspring like day
On October eve made damp by drizzling rain
And grey bird sing his same song o'er again
And freshening wind has breath of winter sting
Seems more like Winter now than middle Spring
And wind driven rain fall from the darkening sky
And still the gray thrush pipes his notes of joy.
I wonder why he sing so merrily
On low down branch of noble gray gum tree
Could it be that he can tell from inner eye
That tomorrow's weather will be warm and dry? .
Or could he sing that in some nearby tree
His wife on nest shelter new family
And he tell his neighbours this my territory
And I'm now a dad 'oh lucky happy me'? .
And why he sing should it matter anyway
His song at close of wet October day
The weather dreary for the time of year
But grey thrush's notes sweet music to the ear.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Connaughtman Returning
There's a grey fog over Dublin of the curses,
It blinds my eyes, mavrone, and stops my breath;
And I travel slow that once could run the swiftest,
And I fear ere I meet Mauryeen I'll meet Death.
There's a grey fog over Dublin of the curses,
And a grey fog dogs my footsteps as they go,
And it's long and sore to tread, the road to Connaught.
Is it fault of brogues or feet I fare so slow?
There's a grey fog over Dublin of the curses,
But the Connaught wind will blow it from my way,
And a Connaught girl will kiss it from my memory,
If the Death that walks beside me will delay.
(There's a grey fog over Dublin of the curses,
And no wind comes to break its stillness deep;
And a Connaughtman lies on the road to Connaught,
And Mauryeen will not kiss him from his sleep-Ululu!)
poem by Nora Jane Hopper Chesson
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Grey Wolves Grey
The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
And they march to-night and they march to-day
Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.
Nor song nor sound their track reveals,
Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;
But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun
On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;
And they strain by night and they drag by day
To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.
As the horses toil at the ends of trains,
And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.
And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,
And he rolls the logs a bed to lay
For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,
But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.
He is marching on with a purpose grand,
For brother Slav in another land;
Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—
But he knows the cry from the far-away,
And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.
And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,
While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—
With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,
And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—
She shields her cubs by night and day
Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.
And I march with Ivan where’er he be,
With the foreign blood that is strong in me,
And the love and the hate that is fantasy,
Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.
With the blood that is strange to us to-day
As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
Grey wolves,
Grey wolves—
The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Ten Grey hairs and a silver one
I discovered my first grey hair
when I was Seventeen years old
It had to do with broken up my first relationship
I discovered my second grey hair
when I was Twenty years old
It had to do with the quarrels at home
I discovered my third grey hair
when I was Twenty-one years old
It had to do with searching for work
I discovered my fourth grey hair
when I was Twenty-three years old
It had to do with loosing my job
I discovered my fifth grey hair
when I was Twenty-five years old
It had to do with giving up my unborn child
I discovered my sixth grey hair
When I was Twenty-eight years old
It had to do with opening my pub
I discovered my seventh grey hair
When I was thirty years old
It had to do with giving birth to my daughter
I discovered my eight grey hair
When I was thirty –two years old
It had to do with the first day at the kinder garden school
I discovered my ninth grey hair
When I was thirty-four years old
It had to do with to find out that some thing was missing
I discovered my tenth grey hair
When I was thirty-five years old
It had to do with the fights between my sisters and mum
My one Silver hair I discovered lately
Has to do with you
Because I miss you so hard …
poem by Pascale Ost
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0108 today I read a poem
just now, today
and for a moment, thus
forever,
the heaviness of devil-darkened thought,
death in some disguise yet to be called out,
threatened grey ruin to the day
which is not mine
as that same devil, named, will not be mine -
so pushed aside my dinner plate
and read a poem
and rejoined the world of now
of sunshine, families, all
the heart loves
and mind turns grey
and into devil's grey, and death and life
stepped gratitude.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Crossing The Road of The Uneasy
'When you sleep and know it not
The grey dog creeps among you.
In your sleep, you twist, your soul hurts you.
The grey dog is chewing your entrails.
Then call on Jesus
The grey dog caught me at the cross-roads
As I went down the road of sleep
And crossed the road of the uneasy.
The grey dog leapt at my entrails.
Jesus, call him off.
Lo! the Great One answers. Track him down!
Kill him in his unclean house.
Down the road of the uneasy
You track the grey dog home
To his house in the heart of a traitor,
A thief, a murderer of dreams.
And you kill him there with one stroke,
Crying: Jesus, is this well done?
That your sleep be not as a cemetery
Where dogs creep unclean.'
poem by Tony Chabaputa
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Tavern
I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.
There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the hill.
There sound will sleep the traveller,
And dream his journey's end,
But I will rouse at midnight
The falling fire to tend.
Aye, 'tis a curious fancy—
But all the good I know
Was taught me out of two grey eyes
A long time ago.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Head South
A surf rock man from the land of plenty
Surf rock mess with no surf but pine trees
Struck by being ashamed of your old space
Just wanting that meaning
You bleached your hair
And you pawned your skis
And then you sold out for the
Shade of the palm tree scene
And said, of what a drag!
Oh what a backwards scheme,
Cuz here things go from grey
To grey and back to grey again
And they get green and go to grey
And back to grey again
So he said, head south! [x12]
Struck by being ashamed of your old space
Just wanting that (meat? )
You bleached your hair
And you pawned your skis
And then you sold out for the
Shape of the palm tree scene
Surrounded, cut off jeans
And cut off jeans and cut off
Jeans are what you mean
When you say, head south! [x12]
song performed by by Modest Mouse
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grey Dog of Despair
Death? I don't know what it is.
But this I know - that death
Is twice as deep with despair.
I am frightened of the Grey Dog whose eyes
Are two red holes; whose body is a sheet
Which chokes; whose tooth
Will gnaw a living hell from cold
And tumble thoughts to ruin in his throat.
I am frightened of the Grey Dog whose tongue
Will burn the blood to dry; whose claws
Will cut the wounds which close;
Whose growl
Is a terrible token of no light, no love, no longing -
Only a mingling of mad misery and despair.
poem by Tan Pratonix
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The Wolves
When the church-village slumbers
And the last songs are sung,
When the grey mist arising,
Is o'er the marshes hung,
'Tis then the woods forsaking,
Their way cross country taking,
Nine howling wolves come hungering for food.
Behind the first,--the grey one,--
Trot seven more of black,
Close on their hoary leader;
As rearguard of the pack
The red wolf limps, all bloody,
His paws with gore still ruddy
As after his companions grim he pants.
When through the village lurking
Nought gives them check or fright,
No watch dog dares to bellow,
The peasant ghastly white,
His breath can scarce be taking,
His limbs withhold from shaking--
While prayers of terror freeze upon his lips!
About the church they circle
And softly slink away
To prowl about the priest's farm,
Then of a sudden they
Are round the drink shop turning,
Fain some bad word be learning--
From peasants drinking noisily within.
With fully thirteen bullets
Thy weapon must be armed,
And with a wad of goat's hair;
Then thou wilt fight unharmed.
Fire calmly,--and before all
Will the leader, the grey, fall,
The rest will surely follow one by one.
When the cock wakes the village
From out its morning dream,
Thou wilt behold the corpses--
Nine she-wolves by the stream!
On the right lies the grey one,
To left in frost the lame one--
All bloody,--God pardon us sinners!
poem by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
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The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top
The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top
Blood - blood and torn grass -
Had marked the rise of his agony -
This lone hunter.
The grey-green woods impassive
Had watched the threshing of his limbs.
A canoe with flashing paddle,
A girl with soft searching eyes,
A call: 'John!'
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Come, arise, hunter!
Can you not hear?
The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top.
poem by Stephen Crane
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Ballad of Autumn
DOWN harvest headlands the fairy host
Of the poppy banners have flashed and fled,
The lilies have faded like ghost and ghost,
The ripe rose rots in the garden bed.
The grain is garnered, the blooms are shed,
Convolvulus springs on the snowdrop’s bier,
In her stranded gold is the silver thread
Of the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
Like an arrant knave from a bootless boast,
The fire-wind back to his North has sped
To harry the manes of a haunted coast
On a far sea-rim where the stars are dead.
Wistful the welkin with wordless dread,
Mournful the uplands, all ashen sere—
Sad for the snow on a beauteous head—
For the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
Time trysts with Death at the finger-post,
Where the broken issues of life are wed—
Intone no dirges, fill up the toast
To the troops that trip it with silent tread,
Merry we’ll make it tho’ skies be lead,
And March-wind’s moan be a minstrel drear—
A truce to trouble!—we’ll drink instead
To the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
South Esk sings on where the furze-fires spread,
But we’ll mourn no more as of old, my dear,
When gorse flames golden and briars flush red
With the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
poem by Marie E J Pitt
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Grey Grey Morning
GREY GREY MORNING
Grey grey morning
Purim again
Where to begin?
A poem is not just any words-
A poem needs a music of its own-
A beauty-
Lines that are memorable.
A poet cannot just be
What one happens to see and feel
At the moment
A poem must have lines which others will remember.
Grey grey morning
Purim again
Another poem about a poem
Is there one line here worth remembering?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Into The Twilight
OUT-WORN heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight,
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
Your mother Eire is aways young,
Dew ever shining and twilight grey;
Though hope fall from you and love decay,
Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.
Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of sun and moon and hollow and wood
And river and stream work out their will;
And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Death, Inevitable Death
Death, inevitable Death.
So now You come to show Your world,
Hence the blackened cloak – unfurled.
And peering down upon my form
– Bereft of pity – Your eyes of storm.
Death, inexorable Death.
‘When? ’ The only question out of Thee.
My dream retorts 'But ne’er for me! ’
But now awake, I bid you so –
My giving tears cry ‘Where to go? ’
Death, adamant Death.
You cast Your spell and guide me 'way,
For life and I have had our day.
And what of me? I prey You, tell!
Be glorious in Heaven or gnarled in Hell?
Death, ineluctable Death.
Oh wiry ghoul, I'm here to follow –
I leave my body grey and shallow.
‘Come! ’ You bid in thund’ring tones,
‘Beg farewell to shattered bones.’
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
Death
Death death
Death death death
Death death death death
Death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death
Death death death death
Death death death
Death death
Death
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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