Market Day
`
squashed cabbage leaves,
crushed petals, broken stems
strewn along grey slush
wind whisks cobbled street,
gravel crunches under
hooves and booted feet
rain-drooped marquees
whisper freshest gossip;
clock tower tolls on the hour
`
poem by Frederick Kesner
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Temporary Purity
The once white snow is dirty grey.
Churned into slush by passing feet,
pedestrians pass to and fro.
Along this busy shopping street
At 5am it had been white.
Before the world was wide awake
Fresh snow had fallen through the night
like frosting on a birthday cake.
I could not sleep and watched it fall.
My windows overlook the street
Well before anyone at all
had left the marks of booted feet
But life goes on despite the snow,
as all the blurry footprints show.
Monday,09 November 2009
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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Ben Boyd's Tower
Ben Boyd's Tower is watching—
Watching o’er the sea;
Ben Boyd’s Tower is waiting
For her and me.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But we know that we shall meet
By Ben Boyd’s Tower.
Moonlight peoples Boyd Tower,
Mystic are its walls;
Lightly dance the lovers
In its haunted halls.
Ben Boyd’s Tower is watching—
Watching o’er the foam;
Ben Boyd’s Tower is waiting
Till the “Wanderer” comes home.
O! he lay above us—
High above the surf—
Finger-nails and toe-caps
Digging in the turf.
We do not know the day,
We do not know the hour,
But Two and Two shall meet again
By Ben Boyd’s Tower.
There’s an ancient dame in Eden—
Basket on her arm—
And she goes down the Main Street
From the old, old farm.
Hood drawn on her forehead—
Withered dame and grey—
She never looks on Boyd Tower
Out across the Bay.
Bright eyes in the ballroom,
Coquetting with two,
Just for love of mischief,
As a girl will do.
A quarrel in the bar-room—
All within the hour—
And four men rode from Boyd Town
To Ben Boyd’s Tower.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Ponnaga
Placenta night gathered
Thickness as mucous
On that unlighted lane
There on that rain-soaked lane
I chanced upon them scattered
And gleaming bright white
In the pools of light the car threw up
On the rain-drenched tar-
Five petals with long stems
Under a tree that still sent
A shower whenever the leaves willed
I pulled my car aside
And rushed to meet them
To gather a forgotten childhood for once
One two three…
The petals coated with damp mud
And the yellowishgreen stems
Hidden by the dark tar
Queerly exuding a forty year old perfume
Gathered once upon a time
In course of an unblemished childhood
How immaculate naive hands
Wove plaits with the stems
Coated in unadulterated dirt!
They looked forlorn through the night
And by morning withered
The mud still clinging…
12 Nov 2010
21.40hrs
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,—of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,—he asks,—in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,—
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The Fairy Clock
Silver clock! O silver clock! tell to me the time o' day!
Is there yet a little hour left for us to work and play?
Tell me when the sun will set--tiny globe of silver-grey.
It has been so glad a world since the coming of the morn,
Oft I wondered when I met any souls who seemed forlorn--
And I scarce gave heed to those who were old or travel worn.
Mayhap I have loved too well the merry fleeting things;
Run too lightly with the wind--chased too many shining wings;
Thought too seldom of the night, and the silence that it brings.
Well I fear me I have been but an idler in the sun--
All unfinished are the tasks long and long ago begun--
In the dark perchance they weep, who have left their work undone.
And I know each black-frocked friar preacheth sermons that, alas!
Fain would halt the dancing feet of those careless ones who pass
Down a sweet and primrose path, through the ribbons of the grass.
Silver-clock! O Silver-clock! It was only yesterday
Dandelions flecked the field, starry bright, and gold and gay;
You are but the ghost of one--little globe of silver-grey!
Tell me--tell me of the hour--for there is so much to do!
Is it early? Is it late? Fairy clock! 0 tell me true,
As I blow you down the wind, out upon a road of blue.
poem by Virna Sheard
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George Edmunds' Song
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around he here;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
How like the hopes of childhood's day,
Thick clust'ring on the bough!
How like those hopes in their decay-
How faded are they now!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
Wither'd leaves, wither'd leaves, that fly before the gale:
Withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale,
Of love once true, and friends once kind,
And happy moments fled:
Dispersed by every breath of wind,
Forgotten, changed, or dead!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
poem by Charles Dickens
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Time After Time
Ask the girl of the hour by the water tower's watch
If your friends took a fall, are you obligated to follow
Time after time after time
when the bull's on his hooves, when you gather friends by the tower
If you try to refuse, will they judge your worth by the hour?
If your tired and you're tried you can find me in my room
You can stay if you want and the third time you can't lose
Ask the girl of the hour, by the water tower's watch
We can fight if you want but who will turn out the light
song performed by by REM
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Old Town Types No.2 - Red Matt
He gleaned all the gossip and he gathered all the news,
Mad Matt, the carrier, delivering the grub;
He knew the trooper's tattle and he knew the parson's views,
The gossip at the station-yard, the gossip at the pub.
That high-pitched voice of his, the loudest voice in town,
That shrewd blue eye of his, with humor all a-gleam -
Old Red Matt, with his cabbage-tree hat,
His trolley, and his two-horse team.
Driving down the main street a-clatter with his load,
The great red beard of him blowing out behind:
'Hear about that accident's mornin' up the road?
Hear about the gold rush at Joe Scott's find?
Warmish sort o' day we got; thirsty weather this.
Got a bag o' spuds for you - Dang! Fergot the cream!'
Says old Red Matt with his cabbage-tree hat,
And his trolley, and his two-horse team.
Mad Matt, the carrier, standing at the bar:
'Well here's a go, boys. Got to get along
Seven pints I've had today and still to travel far.
Drink fast and drive fast, yeh can't go wrong.
Fill 'em up again, boss, ans hove it on the slate.
Half-a-ton aboard today - just tipped the beam,'
Says old red Matt with the cabbage-tree hat,
And his trolley, and his two-horse team.
Sudden were his wild ways, sudden, too, his end.
Jumped to grab a bolting team with kiddie sin the trap;
And they picked up Mad Matt, everybody's friend,
Silent now and broken; and they said, 'Brave chap.
Wild an' all,' they said of him, 'always was a white man.'
And they laid him, with a blessing, where his old mates dream,
Saying, 'So long, Matt, with your cabbage-tree hat,
And your trolley, and your two-horse team.'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Rainbow
The rain came down in swirls that day,
The rain came down in sheets,
We sat in the back of the S.U.V.
As the rain, it turned to sleet.
‘I think it’ll show by Bleddows Hill
When the storm decides to pass’,
I said to Ben as the clock struck ten
From the tower of Gormenghast!
I set the G.P.S. to range,
And checked the lat. and long.,
I’d bought a second-hand S.D.A.*
To track it, right or wrong,
The rain kept up its steady beat
The clouds were dull and grey,
For never a beam of moon or sun
Had shown, for many a day!
‘You’d better go wait in the Jeep, ’ I said,
‘And turn your mobile on,
Be ready to move at the speed of light
At the first bright glimpse of the sun,
For no-one’s uncovered the pot of gold
That lies at the end of the bow,
It’s led them a merry dance, ’ I said,
‘But now, at last, we’ll know! ’
So Ben sat up in the Jeep, he did,
But wet, and drenched to the bone,
I got the feeling he’d rather be
Asleep, in bed, at home!
We sat for over an hour out there,
In wait, for the sun to shine,
While I took notes from the G.P.S.
As it helped to pass the time.
Then out from a gap in a darkening cloud
A beam shone out, from the sun,
The air was suddenly light and clear
And the rain was almost gone,
A coloured bow shot over the hill
And into the air, at last,
It curved toward the village to point
At the tower of Gormenghast!
I spat the figures to Ben on the phone
And the Jeep leapt over the hill,
I kept the bow on the G.P.S.,
And tracked its movement well;
‘It only moves if I follow it,
It stays if I hold it still…’
We thought that science had tamed the way
That a rainbow rose, and fell!
Ben chased the bow to the village street
To the tower of Gormenghast,
Where the S.D.A. had pinned it down
With the G.P.S. at last,
And he dug and dug, ‘til an earthen pot
Lay there with the note it spilled,
Inscribed: ‘This is the poor man’s end;
The rich bit’s over the hill! ’
(11 August 2011)
poem by David Lewis Paget
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In A Cold Wind
In a cold wind
in a night wind,
under a yellow street-light,
its paleness and the dark night.
Leaves blown past,
down the wind, cast
onto the silent roadway,
or in heaps, on the footway.
The houses that rise
into grey skies,
windows with drawn curtains,
facing onto pale gardens.
Slow in the sky,
the clouds moving by;
on the ground, the shadows blurred,
the whistling wind heard.
And the wind that blows
comes not, nor goes.
In this night, its sound
wraps all around.
Not here alone,
its long low drone,
along endless fences and hedges,
insidiously edges.
Now is the hour,
now is the closing of the flower,
an end to approaching and retreating,
to losing and defeating,
in a cold wind,
in a night wind,
on a corner of a cold street,
where all directions meet.
poem by Rory Hudson
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Four little giraffes
Four little giraffes
Stare at a broken hinge
A broken hinge in the door
They sat and pondered
How were they going to fix that hinge?
That broken hinge which was in the door
They were no bob the builder
But surely they could fix it just as well
They hammered and they wrenched
All day and all night long
And with hooves wiping sweat off from brows
And purple tongues slurping up some water by the gallon
Soon that broken hinge was no longer a broken hinge
Yes indeed
They surely weren’t bob the builder
But they sure were one thing
Great hooves for feet, purple tongued hard workers
poem by Storm Pedersen
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Autumn And Rain
The rain drops make a weave like a spider web
To keep hanged the whole sadness in the air.
On cobbled streets, people hear the sounds' ebb
Silver clouds are choleric dreams in sun's glare.
Some pieces of a shattered happiness may be seen,
The lightning still coils like a huge snake on the sky.
Beckoning the visible stubborn sunbeams for green,
The whisper of the fickle gale becomes a battle cry.
Rain stops placidly amid the noise of broken dreams.
The nature's fears and wills disappear in ignorance.
New blossoming buds are waited on tree maternal limbs,
But autumn’s milk of green is only sweet remembrance.
The rainbow appears as a belt of multicolor weaves,
The streams of old life begin again to flow in delight.
The noisy wind still dances on the shivering leaves.
The lake reflections may steal the crude sun's light.
poem by Marieta Maglas
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All Will Be Well
Whisper to the wind,
Hey, wind, please stay calm.
Give a gentle breeze,
And do us no harm.
Blow away the rain,
So that there is none.
Then all will be well,
When the day is done.
Whisper to the rain,
Hey, rain, that feeds all.
When you need to cry,
Let it gently fall.
Wash away the dust,
Freshen up the soil.
Then all will be well,
And the day won’t spoil.
Whisper to the sun,
Hey, sun, shine on me.
Let me know your warmth,
All your heat is free.
Brighten up the hours,
Setting in the west.
Then all will be well,
Our day truly blessed.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Autumn Goodbye
As the rich red leaves blow down the street
I slowly look down at my feet
The leaves are gone
Apart from one
I pick it up
Winter has arrived, and autumn has had to go
Goodbye colourful leaves, hello frostie snow
The conkers have gone, autumn memories fade
The weather gets worse, all the traffics delayed
The air gets colder, and the nights draw in
The noisy winter wind makes such a din
As the rich red leaves blow down the street
I slowly look down at my feet
The leaves are gone
Every last one
Autumns moved on, winters begun.
poem by Franchesca Onken
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Halloween
This is the hour when the poet grieves,
Picking his way through the rain-sodden leaves,
Betrayed by a promise he no longer believes
As he throws in his lot with murderers and thieves.
This is the hour when the mother cries,
When the baby whimpers and the wild wind sighs,
When lights go out and your happiness dies
As lovers all whisper their final goodbyes.
This is the hour you will want to forget,
When your body trembles with the skeleton's threat,
When your mouth turns dry though your tears are wet,
And the Grim Reaper comes to settle your debt.
poem by John Thorkild Ellison
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The Rain Is Like A Man
the rain this early morning
has an accompanying wind
i look at them by the window
my inner world divided by a thick glass
the trees are swaying and some leaves
begin to fall like some kind of a dance
the rain like a man carries the wind
on his arms and the wind leans down
i catch a glimpse of how they passionately kiss
it is sad and lonely and then the rain stops
the morning sun comes and the leaves
are at the feet of the trees kind of wet with tears.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Song of the Little White Girl
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter?
Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter?
Because it is just a white baby you see,
And it's the black ones you like, cabbage tree?
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you're a strange fellow
With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow.
Wouldn't you like to have curls, dear, like me?
What! No one to make them? O poor cabbage tree!
Never mind, cabbage tree, when I am taller,
And if you grow, please, a little bit smaller,
I shall be able by that time, bay be,
To make you the loveliest curls, cabbage tree.
poem by Katherine Mansfield
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My Canadian Chronicles 16
The tower stood majestic
against the evening sky.
The idea was to go up to the top
and take some photos of the views
that stretched over Calgary.
The plan was OK;
however, the tower had a platform
with a glass floor you could stand on
and look over 500 feet down at the street below.
Everyone said take a picture over there.
Like the fool I am I looked down
and grabbed the nearest post with white knuckles
as I stepped out on the glass.
I moved slowly forwards,
completely mortified.
Looking down I snapped the photo
of my feet on the glass and the street below.
I got off quicker than I got on,
my knees knocking, heart thumping.
It was so disconcerting
just standing on glass and looking down.
It took me a half an hour to gather my composure.
Now ask me if I would do it again
after the initial shock has left my mind.
The answer would be a resounding,
YES!
12 June 2009
poem by David Harris
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Each morning I pass on my way to work
Each morning I pass on my way to work
A clock in a tower
And I look towards it with anxious eyes
To make sure of the hour.
But the sun gets up at the back of the tower
With a flare and a blaze
Hiding the time and the tower from my sight
In a blissful haze.
'I am the marker of time' says the sun.
Taken unawares,
I believe for the nonce he is lord of the day
And am rid of my cares.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Thaw
Blow through me wind
As you blow through apple blossoms….
Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by….
Joyously I reunite… sway and gather to myself….
Sedately I walk by the dancing feet of children—
Not knowing I too dance over the cobbled spring.
O, but they laugh back at me,
(Eyes like daisies smiling wide open),
And we both look askance at the snowed-in people
Thinking me one of them.
poem by Lola Ridge
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