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Best Poems Written by Rick Richardson

Below are the all-time best Rick Richardson poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Pirates Cove

Water wives live sheltered lives
Amongst the coves where pirates rove

Daily catch is makers match
Where red hot stoves hide fresh baked loaves

Water men are thick and thin
So often strove where shipmates hove

Water child is often wild
The treasure trove where pirates roved

19Mar14

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Dead Poets

Their words. 
Like the softest cannon fire. 
Shrapnel finding every mark. 
In blood and brain and bone
and heart. 
Leaving us to bleed
for more. 
Till fire, now silenced
turns to dark. 

3/30/14

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Ci

Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Haloed sundogs clinging to white mares’ tails
Storied concentric glories way up high 
I’ll leave a soft rainbow colored contrail

Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Flying towards the sun’s healing golden crown
Come and sing when you see me sailing by
Let go the darkness and let light resound

Sailing feathered clouds across the blue sky
Shards of memories and rose colored ice
My love my love my love let go the sigh
Please remember me to the by and by

3March14

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Upon the Stones

Upon the stones the lichen grows
For those asleep in earth below
And those awake who tears do weep
To green the grass with sorrow’s seep
To honor love their hearts bestow

The lichen sleeps beneath the snow
Through cold and ice of winter woe
Awaits the warmth and summer’s creep
Upon the stones the lichen grows

In shadow rain or summer glow
It hears the words of belle or beau
It fears not time or grounds man’s sweep
The lichen guards eternal sleep
For here in each and every row
Upon the stones the lichen grows

 7Mar14

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Wall

Was built a wall of loneliness
The blocks were made of hopelessness
No door, no gate, no openings
A moat within the inner ring
The sides sloped down to emptiness

Was kept away the happiness
With salty tears so copious
The songbirds cried and took to wing
Was built a wall of loneliness

The sky lay down in weariness
Grey clouds did tire of dreariness
So steep the walls no vine could cling
So cold the wall kept out the spring
All hearts cried out in brokiness
Was built a wall of loneliness.

26Mar14

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Song

Led down from the tower
Head high and hands bound
Blindfold declined against the wall
Black square pinned to his heart
His eyes afire and shining
And he sang...

He sang of Caruso, Townes Van Zandt
Pavarotti, Bocelli, Mercury,
Carreras, he sang of Antoine, 
Of Sinatra, Lennon, Morrison, Redding
He sang and songbirds paused in flight
He sang like them all

He sang a song of himself
Of leaves of grass, of second comings
Of Byron, and Bharti, and Cummings
He sang of Neruda, and Plath, Tagore
Dickinson, Kamala Das and Naidu
Oh, he sang of them all

He sang of art and beauty
Of Mona Lisa and starry nights
Girls in green dresses and pearls
He sang of Van Gogh, of Picasso
Of Rembrandt, da Vinci 
He sang of Michelangelo

He sang of sadness, pain
He sang of My Lai, Sand Creek
Of Guernica and Krystallnacht
He cried and sang of Wounded Knee
Of Katyn Forest, Sabra and Shatila
Oh, he wept as he sang

He sang of history and wonders
He sang of Olduvai and pyramids
Machu Picchu, Tikal, and Angkor Wat
He sang of a great wall, the Taj Mahal 
Stonehenge, Easter Isle, Mesa Verde
His song took us to them all

He sang of courage
A song of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg
Of the Alamo, Normandy, Stalingrad
Of Lincoln, Guevara and Dr. King
He sang of Bolivar, Bhutto, Ghandi
He shamed us with their song

He sang his song...
As women sighed and peasants cried 
He  sang until the rifles fired, he died
Songbirds fell from the sky 
Soldiers broke their guns on stones
And marched into the deep blue sea.

4/12/14

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A Dog In My Garden

His dog died,
and that’s all there was to it.
Except it wasn’t.
Those words in between,
the missing of a friend,
the times relived;  companion
dog that did him in.  Joyful.
Bit his heart and made him write
such words so right, 
that I went home 
and kissed my dog
and played with her in the garden.
And we both lay down in the dirt,
and will again tonight, and every night.
Until she sleeps.  And I with Daisy.
All because his dog died.

 18Mar14


On Pablo Neruda's "A Dog Has Died", Poetry Magazine, February 1999.

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U Scorpii

Black sand morning sky~
   Scorpion strikes from the south
   Orion hides now

13Mar14

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Desert Life

Desert pool shimmers/
   Drinking water from cupped hands
   Cool sweetness of life


5Mar14

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Unrequited Rain

It's not the rain
that makes my eyes wet. 
It hasn't rained in forty days. 
Nights are long and quiet. 
The silence cuts to bone. 

It wasn't rain that quenched the fire. 
It hasn't rained in forty nights. 
The well is dry... so am I. 
Nights I sit in silence
while it rains. 

r ~ 4/19/14


copyright 2014.  Rick Richardson