Best Adobe Poems
I lived my best in season of the sun,
those yellow, mellow days when cares are flung
to June’s warm breeze, and childhood is begun,
a field to wander in, and all is young!
I lived my zenith in the summer heat.
Ah, zephyr of sublime and untried heights!
Blue sky, July, and taste of kisses sweet
still haunt my mind in cool midsummer nights.
In August came dry winds, and I was torn
from my adobe of early gleeful days.
My children both at summer’s end were born,
and now a grandchild in new sunlight plays.
When dusk, unhurried, comes, I live my best.
In Virgo’s sun may I be laid to rest.
For Brian Strand's ANY 2012 POEM any theme/
any form max of 18 lines Poetry Contest
and now for PD's Any Form Under 15 Lines Poetry Contest
The Mission in Milton Creek, I’ve acquisitioned
Converted into the town’s culinary mecca
Aptly designed and scenically positioned
Inspired from ancient recipes revived Azteca
An enchanting bistro tastes of old Mexicana
To lift spirits, share and warm the hearts
Paintings by Frida Kahlo the valiant Chicana
Every Sunday, an Institute of Culinary Arts
Christened ~ Saint Milt's in his memory
On the adobe walls his poems will be hung
Milt will live on here with love and glory
Mariachi folksong praises shall be sung
Welcome to St. Milt's Culinary Mission
So strange this land, old and yet young.
Where is this place of tall green trees,
and grey-haired men in unknown tongue?
they must have traveled summer's breeze.
Adobe brick quonset "chalets"
mud-soaked roadways in all the blocks.
WACs and wives and waifs everyday
midst hollyhocks and four o'clocks.
Los Alamos*, this place must be.
A land of Oz 'neath bluest sky.
Where science dealt humanity
a fatal blow, then watched it die.
A perfect paradox is this.
How splendid to contrast the two--
a lovely place/a devil's kiss,
and wisdom sprinkled like the dew.
I left quite soon but still recall
the secrets hidden on each page.
The lilac mountains looming tall,
their perfume of fission and sage.
August 5, 2022
"Terra Incognita"
for This or That, Vol. 13, poetry contest
by Edward Ibeth
*Los Alamos Laboratories, New Mexico, are where the atomic bombs were
created then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in WWII.
In the stray lavender of twilight
as cactis' spindled obelisks
brush spreading lapis sky
a honeyed sun
holds tight
to desert crags
for a last glimpse
of fulgid sage
and adobe rainbow dwellings
sprawled in the valley.
I await the candle moon's
flickering smile
shining in gully water
and darts of starlight
glowing in my arid dreams.
Upon a wall out in the west,
A print hung nailed to adobe.
A beaten Indian warrior hangs his head
On his horse on a cliff so sadly.
His braid disheveled, a tear I think,
A memory upon an impressionable child.
I can still feel with my little girl's heart,
When I recall "The End of the Trail."
Now that little girl is nearing that end,
Her battles not the same, but done.
With the hope she’ll meet that Indian again,
With his head high, his war now won.
Mi Mexico lindo:
Burnt orange and ochre --
color de cafe --
pineapple, lime, red pajaritos...
land of mananas, grace in mantillas...
balanced canastas, ojos expresivos.
Sunshine and heat, fiesta y corrida,
salt and tortilla, pride and tequila.
Frijol and machismo and chile con queso.
Adobe, caliche, sweet agua fria...
Mexico, te amo mucho, y su gente amable!
Old tin roof, plastered adobe walls that were melting
Two big Cottonwood trees, junk cars in the back
Cracked concrete floor, covered with oil and grease
Mexican kids running in and out, playing and screaming
Couple of water jugs, covered with gunny sack
In all of this was some sort of peace
Joes Montes was the owner, we just called him Joe
Joe spoke good broken English, had a little accent
Talked a lot with his hands, pointing at this and that
Did not advertise, everyone knew Old Joe
Been there for years, did not pay any rent
Always wore a greasy cap, never wore a hat
Farmers up and down the valley swore by Joe
When a tractor was down, they knew who to call
Jump in his old truck and he was there
Been known to use bailing wire, he would make them go
Cotton pickers to a hale bailer, he worked on them all
Never charged much, was always fair
Adobe wall have melted, Joe has passed away
In that old shop where a lot of memories were made
No telling how many tractors Joe made run
Tractors now have computers, not in Joe's day
The Cottonwood trees make no more shade
Joe was a tractor fixing son of a gun
one night i dreamt i was surfing in cyberspace &
many images flickered in Adobe Flash
with every movement made, every keystroke &
slide of the mouse to & fro,
i hadn’t a clue (in real time), but i knew
that there were centillions of digital footsteps
being made with every moment
leaving their print upon the world within the screen
(still outside my own physical self)---
while my own history could partially be brought up
manually on my PC, i knew that
every phone call, every movie watched & every second
spent on the web,
had been recorded somewhere,
being held for an indeterminate amount of time &
unlike those nutjobs who say they had a
“near death experience” &
their lives flashed before their eyes,
i myself was fairly certain that
i would never come in complete contact with
this shadow of online presence.
this, however, did not bother me,
because whether my life was dragging down deep in
the gutter or
flying up in the air by the seat of its pants,
i was grounded in the cooling light of backlit LED pixels,
which would be with me until my dying day
(or until i became one with them in the future).
and there was no conversation with my PC,
because it was not a capable artificial intelligence
(as of yet) & therefore it had to abide my own human
error
(alas, PC, i pity thee) &
unlike the fictional “lord” of those religious idiots out there
walking in the sand,
it did not “speak to me” when i was down on my knees
squinting to myself with hands clasped
(um, for i wasn’t),
conversating inside my own head
hoping for answers to questions
to magically arise from my own fragmented,
severely delusional &
quite obviously
bat*****
mad
psyche.
no, there was no made up excuse
for which this human had to look to
in order to alleviate responsibility for those things
that are the most absolutely horrible
which all of us humans have done to each other,
the world around us &
to ourselves,
but rather
only quality time spent
between myself & my computer,
which had evolved from a less impressive model to its
current state,
but which would be outdated in a few years &
get scrapped for a better one,
until its own superiority
surpassed my own &
i needed to become one with it---
then, there would be no
digital footprints at all,
for they’d all be
within.
Ethel Hurst
1889 – 1918
I saw the town rise up
Like a single blade of grass after a spring rain.
I played a multitude of hop-scotch games
With my best friend Hannah on Penn Street.
And sipped a hundred ice cream sodas in the Mercantile at sunset.
My mother took me to Jacob’s Grocery every Monday
And it was I who picked the plump oranges
From the big rickety crate.
On Saturdays we worked the fields at Strong’s Ranch,
Harvesting the pampas in the walnut fields.
And on Halloween I was the girl in the moon-face costume for five straight years.
When Christmas brought its luminous lights to the town,
Mother dressed me in red with a bell on my bonnet.
And father sang the carols with a guitar and a tambourine.
I graduated from the big high school in 1907
And in celebration,
Rode my bicycle to Bassett
Still in my starched graduation petticoats.
Jesse Forbes,
He being five years younger than I,
Was the love of my brief stay on this earth.
But when he ventured to steal a kiss that day in Black Canyon,
I used my calloused hand to convey my stern disagreement.
But what wild regrets I’ve entertained since Jesse drowned that day.
In the wild currents by Pio Pico’s crumbling Adobe,
His body bobbing like a sea bird
In the punishing plume of that old deep river.
Beyond the muddy banks and the wild flowers,
Jesse Forbes left this life with a surprised frozen grin.
Why Jesse? Why?
You never knew the truth, my love.
You never really understood what I meant
When I said nothing.
I said No to you when I said nothing that day in Black Canyon,
But I really meant Yes.
The influenza incinerated my heart and soul
With a 106 temperature in the winter of 1918.
Twenty nine years I dare say
Is nothing in terms of eternal life!
I had so much more to do!
I had so much more to dream about!
I walked and talked on the streets of my town,
And on the funeral-dark avenues of my innocent days.
And I planned and I schemed
And all for nothing!.
Indeed, I felt the pulse of fleeting time
And the never-ending,
Ever-turning circle of endless days.
But now I rest here in Clark Cemetery… a virgin corpse
Flirting shamelessly with the bow-tie worms,
Still wild with regrets.
And forever haunted in reverse
By the same recurring memory
Of Jesse Forbes holding a rose.
Under the old oak tree in Black Canyon..
“Blizzard”
Thundering down the valleys
Tearing across the plains
Ten thousand steel horses
Their nostrils spitting steam
Bodies tense with anger
The bastard Boreas
Coming to claim his script
A monstrous armada
Assembled in the Dakotas
Let loose its cannons
In the Nebraska hills
Raining yellow dust
From hell in the early
Morning light.
Huge nightmarish clouds
Filled the sky
Mother cows braying
Horses stomping
Jack rabbits scurrying
Black birds fleeing
Weather man says
Storm on the rise
Laden with dynamite
Screaming and howling
Whipping and pounding
Bashing and thrashing
The ten thousand came
Their hatred brewing
Their ears laid back
The demons raged
The man ran inside
His adobe home
The door refused to close
The shutters shook
The tar papered roof
Began to tear
A mother feared
The trees bent
The angry winds raged
Tearing them apart
Limb by limb
A blinding “Blizzard”
The brown dirt turned white
As mountainous drifts grew
The insanity of it all
Off to school
Nineteen children went
In old Chevy bus
Card boarded windows
Lost in a ditch
That bastard Boreas
Claimed his script
A monument now sits
Frozen in time
It was 1931
Towner, Colorado
Inspired by
Towner Bus Tragedy “Lost in a Blizzard” (March 26, 1931)
Many moons ago,
a languishing lamentation flow
carved a grievous path
in the red soil
Defying moral gravity,
downtrodden fallow weeps
flowed upward to the heavens
With river Nile ease
Native American Exodus
wasn’t done willingly
Oh, how the Five Nations
were saber led forcibly!
Time traveling eyes
need not ask why
Oh, why does the Crow cry?
Ask rather,
why did the crimson-winged Eagle
tell a bald-faced lie?
Many blood moons ago,
there was an Abib scarlet woe flow
Rapid gushes
making a slow, sorrowful path
Towards barren adobe Reservations
Defying logic gravity,
nether voices
offered an uprooted exchange
Trade Choctaw fertile land
(whereupon Creek footfall doth Seminole stand)
for Chickasaw burial sand
Miry ground
to baleful irrigation
live sadly on
Trail of Tears Exodus
was a lamentation overflow undertaking
Oh, how the Five Nations
were talon misled horridly!
Perpetual Cherokee tears
for the living dead is levee heartbreaking
Posterity passenger eyes
need not ask why
Oh, why does the Crow cry?
Ask rather,
why did the granite-hearted Eagle
let so many weary souls die?
Beware the “Reader” Phishing Scam
By Elton Camp
I had considered myself practically immune to phishing scams, but I found out differently last night. While I was doing some online searches, just as I often do, when my virus scan noted that a trojan type virus had made its way onto my computer, but that it had been removed. Thankful for the virus protection, I continued to work. After a few minutes, a familiar looking red logo with the word “Reader” suddenly appeared, asking to install the latest update. “That’s Adobe Reader,” I foolishly assumed and clicked for the update from the useful and trusted provider.
To my dismay, the bogus “Reader” and two other programs began to insinuate themselves and there was no clickable option to decline them. I soon learned a concept new to me called “bundling.” Unwelcome pop-ups began to appear, offering “financial” advice and opportunities. Far worse, key words in my hundreds of poems and articles posted online were instantly converted into blue hyperlinks that led to a highly questionable source. Readers of my online material were also about to undergo attack if they clicked any of the hyperlinks!
I quickly went to Control Panel and uninstalled the three bogus programs. The hyperlinks vanished and no more pop-ups appeared. After several more minutes, my usually excellent virus scanner apparently caught on to what had taken place and informed me of the “bundling” and gave an option to delete the material.
I had let the word “Reader” and the knock-off logo of Adobe Reader deceive me. Don’t let this happen to you!
We know only those faces,
We have seen in history.
Yet countless strange faces are there
Who fought for the country.
We can never repudiate
Selfless sacrifices of those men,
So I am paying tribute to all those
Martyrs and soldiers through my pen.
Indulged in your duties,
Far away from your family and loving ones.
You fight for our
Dreams, hopes and liberty,
Strutting boldly amidst the raging guns.
Whether it is scorching rays of Sun
Or it is blood freezing cold,
You fight relentlessly
Standing so strong and bold.
You are the true sons of the nation.
For the sake of our lives,
Irrigating this land with your blood
Is your only passion.
Time will never obliterate the fact…
You stand for us like an adobe.
With lion like courage and firmness of temper,
You have made our tricolor
Shimmer throughout the globe.
Death can’t cease you to live
As you live even after dying.
I salute your martyrdom,
For you never got older.
Fighting to keep us free,
It is the stiffest thing
To be you- A SOLDIER......
Building Materials
It takes so long to understand
How the fractures of the past
Reach the home of the future
With such a stealthy hand
All the foundations
That you braced and propped
All the restorations
Made in cement and bricks
The plasterwork
Which seemed so seamless
Begins to show the cracks
While the girders and supports
Begin to resemble
A prison
Your own hands have wrought
Time you felt would give you time
Built that time, but it has slipped away
Behind the stalwart barriers
You designed to keep the time
At bay
You didn’t think to hide yourself away
But nobody knows you now
Anyway
No one can see you
Through the cage
And from the panoramic view of your eyes
You toss your crumpled warnings
To anyone who is searching for suggestions
On building materials
“Only fools turn their back on their heart”
“Only fools turn their back on love”
“Only fools paper over the agony
and believe in someone else”
“Only fools choose something other than love
“for building materials”
“Love’s a split between
yourself and someone else
“Martyrdom is not an expression
of a truly loving heart”
“It’s a sacrifice unasked for
from the loves in your life”
“It’s a solitary sacrifice”
This message I throw from my high walled
Window
High from the tower
I built my own
Not by choice these props and girders
These adobe bricks of sand and straw
I never knew
What these bricks
Were for
Old tumble-down adobe dwellings
That seem to glow…
In the night…In the light
Of the desert moon
And the glitter in the eyes
Of the creatures of the night
Shine bright in the light
Of the desert moon
Wind through the sage
Whispers stories of the age
Of the Apache, Shoshone,
of the Lakota Sioux
Of ashes spread
Of the ancient dead
By the light
Of the high desert moon
if one sharpens the ear
One might still just hear
From a flute…
A haunted, enchanting tune
Bourne upon the breeze
Though the Cottonwood trees
In the light
…Of the high desert moon…