In Death Valley
There came gray stretches of volcanic plains,
Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill
Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw.
Around were heaps of ruins piled between
The Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care;
And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls
One pillar rose up dark against the moon.
There was a nameless Presence everywhere;
In the gray soil there was a purple stain,
And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with blood—
Blood of a vast unknown Calamity.
It was the mark of some ancestral grief—
Grief that began before the ancient Flood.
poem by Edwin Markham
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Golden Years? (A day in the life of seniors)
When you are old and gray and full of sleep-
And the morning light breaks upon the hill-
Your weary bones creak with the havoc of arising-
Breaking the absolute of earlys morns still;
The stillness breaks the world awake-
As our gray fights to overcome infirmity-
Morning eggs stir yellow upon this stove of life-
And saves our sinews from utter calamity;
We move our sleepy bodies ever slowly-
Tired bones but awaiting the noontime sun-
Gray and old we manage our steps in frail paces-
As we do when day has finally begun;
A heaviness envelopes in late afternoon-
Four P.M. announces many a fragile yawn-
Heart beats struggle to flow the blood-
Congested from damage thats been done;
Dinner arrives with plates of health?
Struggling to make our nutrition right-
Preparing our gray bodies for ebons arrival-
Flannel nighties and long johns for the night;
The twilight and dusk permeate now-
As the sun sets over the hill in the west-
The old and the gray yawning eyes heavy lidded-
Prepare for a night of sleep and hopefully restoring rest;
poem by Theodora Onken
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The Blood Rose...
There is a rose laying on the ground,
Blood is running out of the rose.
The rose's colour began to fade until it was a pale gray.
This only took around ten minutes.
The rose was pale, cold and dead.
The rose was found by a young man who was walking by.
He wondered why the rose was cold and gray.
He found another one a few days later.
What he didn't know was that the roses represented the broken hearts of teenage girls.
The roses wer originally blood red, only fading to grey when her heart was broken.
The roses were later known as the Blood Rose.
poem by MaddiiAnne O'Leary
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Cashel of Munster
I’D wed you without herds, without money or rich array,
And I’d wed you on a dewy morn at day-dawn gray;
My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away
In Cashel town, tho’ the bare deal board were our marriage-
bed this day!
O fair maid, remember the green hill-side,
Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide;
Time now has worn me; my locks are turn’d to gray;
They year is scarce and I am poor—but send me not, love,
away!
O deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl;
O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl;
Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will
That noble blood is written on my right side still.
My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white;
No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight;
But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare tho’ I be and lone,
O, I’d take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone!
O my girl, I can see ’tis in trouble you are;
And O my girl, I see ’tis your people’s reproach you bear!
—I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly,
And, O, may no other maiden know such reproach as I!
poem by Sir Samuel Ferguson
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Cashel of Munster, from the Irish
I'D wed you without herds, without money or rich array,
And I'd wed you on a dewy morn at day-dawn gray;
My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away
In Cashel town, tho' the bare deal board were our marriage-bed this
day!
O fair maid, remember the green hill-side,
Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide;
Time now has worn me; my locks are turn'd to gray;
The year is scarce and I am poor--but send me not, love, away!
O deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl;
O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl;
Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will
That noble blood is written on my right side still.
My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white;
No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight;
But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare tho' I be and lone,
O, I'd take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone!
O my girl, I can see 'tis in trouble you are;
And O my girl, I see 'tis your people's reproach you bear!
--I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly,
And, O, may no other maiden know such reproach as I!
poem by Sir Samuel Ferguson
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Hidden Observer
The lone gray wolf sat still once more,
Next to another tree...
As if to tap his frozen paw,
In time, impatiently...
The snow had stopped, the breeze was cool,
He sighed another sigh...
And there he sat, as if a fool,
For something to pass by...
An hour vanished like the sun
That clouds had blocked from sight.
Yet there was nothing to be done,
Waiting in that twilight...
Starvation haunts the carnivores
When snow sets on the ground.
The lone gray wolf can't rest indoors
When there's no food around...
Then drooping ears pricked up at last!
A rustling sound was heard...
The lone gray wolf then ran so fast
To catch the helpless bird!
The ancient battle then ensued,
The hunter and the prey...
This time, the wolf had won the fued
And food was on its way...
The ancient rules must still apply...
For Nature's Laws must serve her...
That's why, beneath the twilight sky,
He's the hidden observer...
The poem is based on the magnificent painting
by Stephen Gayford called 'Hidden Observer'.
The Stephen Gayford poems can be viewed here:
denis-martindale-dot-blogspot-dot-com
poem by Denis Martindale
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A Picture
The Sun burns fiercely down the skies;
The sea is full of flashing eyes;
The waves glide shoreward serpentwise
And fawn with foamy tongues on stark
Gray rocks, each sharp-toothed as a shark,
And hiss in clefts and channels dark.
Blood-purple soon the waters grow,
As though drowned sea-kings fought below
Forgotten fights of long ago.
The gray owl Dusk its wings has spread;
The sun sinks in a blossom-bed
Of poppy-clouds; the day is dead.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Abbey Assaroe
Gray, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Belashanny town,
It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down;
The carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed!
The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead.
A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide,
Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride;
The boortree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow,
And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Assaroe.
It looks beyond the harbour-stream to Gulban mountain blue;
It hears the voice of Erna's fall - Atlantic breakers too;
High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars
Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores;
And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done,
Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun;
While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below;
But gray at every season is Abbey Assaroe.
There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge;
He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge;
He turn'd his back on Sheegus Hill, and view'd with misty sight
The Abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white;
Under a weary weight of years he bow'd upon his staff,
Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph;
For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe,
This man was of the blood of them who founded Assaroe.
From Derry to Bundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs;
Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy Abbot's prayers;
With chanting always in the house which they had builded high
To God and to Saint Bernard - where at last they came to die.
At worst, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of his race
Shall rest among the ruin'd stones of this their saintly place.
The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow
Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Assaroe.
poem by William Allingham
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~ A Prisoner Of Your Love ~ [Double Acrostic]
A prisoner of your love. I stand behind four walls of gray.
- Alone; your memory my only company, each solitary day.
Locked down; twenty four hours around the clock, without you near.
- Living dreams of the past it seems, are all that I hold dear.
Constantly and always there, memories of you flow through the air.
- Constantly reminding me of our love. That we no longer share.
A prisoner of your love. Can I do the time? That's my only fear.
- And now the echo's of my lonely heart are the only sounds I hear.
Trapped; in this cinder block room. Shadows of gloom are here to stay.
- Trapped here without your love, as my blood turns prison gray.
Release may never come to me. This cell's become my home you see.
- Reliving how things used to be, in this gray walled penitentiary.
Alcatraz; is where I dwell. Where these gray walls are my living hell.
- Although one day escape I may. Right now's too soon to tell.
Zenith's, I know our love had reached. I'll love you still as time goes on.
- Zealously i'll wait for thee on ''The Rock''; till my last breath is gone..
*********************************** *************************************************
Author notes:
Written in double Acrostic -
This poem was inspired by a picture of Alcatraz Prison
''The Rock'' as they called it then. Built in 1866, closed
one hundred years later - and a poem written by one the
prisoners:
Untitled -
I awaken to gray
And gray is my morning sun
I live gray
And all days are like one
There are no colors
Only shadows along the way
Sometimes I think, the blood in my body
Must also be prison gray
The Screech-Owl
Hearing the strange night-piercing sound
Of woe that strove to sing,
I followed where it hid, and found
A small soft-throated thing,
A feathered handful of gray grief,
Perched by the year's last leaf.
And heeding not that in the sky
The lamps of peace were lit,
It sent abroad that sobbing cry,
And sad hearts echoed it.
O hush, poor grief, so gray, so wild,
God still is with His child!
poem by Ethelwyn Wetherald
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0004 M i n d
and mind might ask,
why then are brain cells gray? Is it
because the world is just
so wonderful, that they, stunned
and amazed, cannot decide
which colour to praise first?
(Mix all the colours of the paints,
and the result is gray.)
or is it because they feel themselves
so dull in comparison
with the miracle which is creation,
the miracle they (miracles themselves) , faithful, serve?
(Mix all the colours of the spectrum,
and the result is white.)
or is it, because they know
their work lies between ultimates
such as (do they themselves
call them this?) black,
and white? do they know
their work is equity –
to balance all things, so that gray is not gray
as we use gray for worldly metaphor; but
the gray of lakes at peace;
of silver that lives in itself,
needing no sun but its own innerness;
mercury that is moved but longs
to be united in a perfect sphere;
gray of clouds that know
the blessings that they hold;
and, the shining gray of mind -
for which gray hair is living metaphor,
the wisdom which life holds in store for you -
as how many poets, this moment round the world,
are joining new electric paths of thought between
these tiny, great gray worm-like cells which hide, compact,
their vast and inner space which spins out eager words
of metaphor, for that so nameless,
boundless, dazzling spectrum,
the radiant space of self?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Colors of a Fallen World
Purple pages of my heart
Bruised to black by ink pen
Frozen in an icy mist
Cauterize my wounded soul
Gray and bleak my future seems
Correct the wrongs
And wrong the rights
Crimson blood pours
From every orifice
Deceit poisons human existence
Pregnant with immorality
The world swells with pride
Given in to satanic influence
The earth bleeds yellow
Stain the white
With your green lies
And hope the blue
Stays opaque
Heal the bruises
Black to skin
Paint a rainbow promise
And fail to keep it white
Love the world in red
My eyes go blind
With fear of black
Tears of blue soak in
It’s not enough my friend
The world is black
And death is abundant
Sin rules purple
And love fails white
Pink flowers wilt and gray
My purple pages stay black
poem by Jennifer Sollmann
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Phyllis
PHYLLIS, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day,
Few are my years, but my griefs are not few,
Ever to youth should each day be a May-day,
Warm wind and rose-breath and diamonded dew—
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Oh for the sunlight that shines on a May-day!
Only the cloud hangeth over my life.
Love that should bring me youth's happiest heyday
Brings me but seasons of sorrow and strife:
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Sunshine or shadow, or gold day or gray day,
Life must be lived as our destinies rule;
Leisure or labor or work day or play day—
Feasts for the famous and fun for the fool;
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Pan With Us
Pan came out of the woods one day,-- His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they,-- And stood in the sun and looked his fill At wooded valley and wooded hill.
poem by Robert Frost
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I've tried doing so, for it was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray!
quote by Alberto Giacometti
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
poem by Wallace Stevens
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The lake [Lacul]
Heavy piles of clouds advance,
Following an unseen way,
And because of their slow dance
The lake's face is color gray.
Near the water, full of grief,
The sad poplar, lone and bare,
Wailing for its withered leaf
Bends and trembles in the air.
Waves go by and seem to gloat
Move with low, but constant speeds,
And they rock an empty boat,
Which is lost among the reeds.
How I wish this very year
In a starry night of May
On your waters deep and clear
With my love to float away,
Listening with a gentle bow
The waves' stories and their lore...
But the way you're looking now,
My dear lake, I do like more!
poem by George Topîrceanu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
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Get Your Rocks Off
by Bob Dylan
You know, there's two ol' maids layin' in the bed,
One picked herself up an' the other one, she said:
"Get your rocks off!
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off-a me! (Get 'em off!)"
Well, you know, there late one night up on Blueberry Hill,
One man turned to the other man and said, with a blood-curdlin' chill, he said:
"Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off-a me! (Get 'em off!)"
Well, you know, we was layin' down around Mink Muscle Creek,
One man said to the other man, he began to speak, he said:
"Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off-a me! (Get 'em off!)"
Well, you know, we was cruisin' down the highway in a Greyhound bus.
All kinds-a children in the side road, they was hollerin' at us, sayin':
"Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off! (Get 'em off!)
Get your rocks off-a me!
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Bickerings Are Over: A Forecast
rocks upon rocks
and mountains upon mountains
of rocks and heaps of sand upon
heaps of sand, red blood
spilling on this soil, and
bodies scattered along
the parths, and too much
writings of hate on the
walls,
the white horse has been
sent and the light from
the great sun has
penetrated every heart
now in the state of grace
each man shall be contented
and silenced.
the weather is fine and there
is food for all on the table.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Evans
Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
Accompaniment to the black kettle"s
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
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The Place For No Story
The coast hills at Sovranes Creek:
No trees, but dark scant pasture drawn thin
Over rock shaped like flame;
The old ocean at the land's foot, the vast
Gray extension beyond the long white violence;
A herd of cows and the bull
Far distant, hardly apparent up the dark slope;
And the gray air haunted with hawks:
This place is the noblest thing I have ever seen.
No imaginable
Human presence here could do anything
But dilute the lonely self-watchful passion.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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