Best Ancestral Poems
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As I've wandered through ancestral words,
through mountains crossed, and a river of pain ...
the voices stirred, have long been silenced, but the echoes still remain,
with a sound, that drifts within the wind, that is sadder than the rain
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9/21/15
For Contest: "Four Lines"
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Sometimes when I am up and down at night, I wake up to the dreaded alarm, grouchy and mean.
I can stay the whole day that way;
Until I remember to walk around my property, chanting loudly.
Loud chanting wakes up my soul, releasing all the pent up rage I have ever felt.
The chant has to be spontaneous, something that rises from the bowels of my soul,
Without thought, or consciousness. I feel it is an ancestral chant, because it is.
“Oh, ray, yay, oh, ho, rah-hah, lay, lay, oh, ray, yay, oh, ho, rah-hah, yay!”
As I chant, the voice gets louder.
And my heart gets happier.
“Oh, ray, ray, oh, ho, lay, lay, yay, HAY! OH, RAY, RAY, OH HO, YAY YAY YAY!”
My being is gleeful now; my heart is zinging. All feels great in the world.
“OH RAY RAY YO YO LAH LAY HAY! HAY! OH, RAY, RAY, YO YO LAY LAY LAY!”
Luckily my neighbors live a block or so away, so the only ones
Pretending to hear are my dog and cat.
And my husband of course, who always questions me about it.
By the time he asks me, “What is that chant?”
I don’t care.
I’m on fire for life.
My day is going to be lovely.
I’m dressed now, ready to go to work and play.
Dirt road lined with walls of stone,
run right up to the small home,
rust red siding coming in view,
in my head it’s still cedar, blue.
Sugar maples line a big field,
in march syrup we will steal,
vast open space on a hill,
where once cows did eat their fill.
Ancient giants in the trees,
some with knots, sign of disease,
one split trunk, a lightning strike,
still alive, since before Ike.
Waving grass across the slope,
sometimes deer, but mostly no,
groudhogs search, wanting to eat,
hayed yearly, sold off for feed.
On the house, a massive deck,
a new one, the last one wrecked,
view to the north, in good sun,
sees distant Mount Washington.
Inside is the fireplace,
built way back in olden days,
massive field-stones found nearby,
shunt the black smoke to the sky.
A big table grandpa built,
difty years, we use it still,
kitchen that is way too small,
oven dominates it all.
All built back in the sixties,
grandpa sick of the city,
back when the land was still cheap,
when the tourists weren’t so deep.
Though I guess I’m one of them,
and so will be my children,
when I’m gone, their kids will roam
our ancestral vacation home.
As she meditated the room brightened.
Streaks of energy came in and lightened.
She did not flinch, used to such things.
The whirls of essence danced in her rings.
She shut off her eyes and concentrated.
Hoping her front latch was firmly gated.
She understood the value of the spirit guides.
Who were now showing their power deep inside.
Her ancestral guides were filling the room
They came with a swish, one came with a swoon.
The room began to change, her face as well.
She was no longer herself an enthusiastic tell.
The flame of the candle began showing off
She heard her mother in the next room cough
She smiled for she had not seen her for a long time
Spinning in happiness, her spirit animal a mime.
I know you are here, she told her deer.
Her most favorite power animal, now so very near.
Not to worry my lady, the fawn said silently.
Your meditation is the best today it will ever be.
Comfort wrapped in a blanket of security
Never fearing the chance of brutality
Only a freedom granted to those with fair skin
Greeted by the warmth of idiocy
Building a racist system of legacy
With followers who exhibit stupidity
But useful in killing democracy
To continue their self fulfilling prophecy
Of forced superiority
A politicians smile brings a darkness
Poisonous to those a different colour
Those who possessed something they wanted
Our blackness they were desperate to harness
Unsatisfied with the taking of our culture
They turn to the method of torture
Their envy the motive of our generational suffering
Hate breeds hate
Pain breeds pain
Our blood pumped from a heart full of trauma
Our skin sewn by the needles of struggle
Which is what they wanted
A life born through the memory of inferiority
A rot festering in the trees of our ancestry
Branches bending to the will of ancestral trauma
Bodies after bodies after bodies
Burned in the name of erasure
Blood clings to remember
The blood stays as rebellion
The world hides us in silence
The blood screams violence
Demands accountability
Pools of red refuse to be ignored
Stains a ground a witness to it all
Entrusting the soil to keep the bodies warm
An exhibition to the pain black people have endured
A call for a new world
For the oppressors downfall
My remote ancestral house I left a long time ago,
keeps on flashing with longing on my memory canvas.
So, one summer on the faded trail of beckoning nostalgia
I trace the track of time to reach the decayed past.
The picturesque porch is now enmeshed by wild ferns,
I walk through slithering creepers to the unbolted door,
enter the dark dusty room abandoned for ages,
but still holding the wooden staircase in its place.
I climb up the creaking stairs to the master bedroom,
pierced by streaks of sun beam through the cleaved roof.
On the defaced wall hangs a framed photo of my father
with the last rosette my mother placed on his birthday.
I open the half-hinged window on the bushy backyard,
once a garden vibrant with spectrum of exotic flowers,
their colors, buried now under the debris of fallen leaves,
return with the melody of my youth, the breeze whispers.
July 16, 2020
Contest : Decaying House
Sponsor : Constance La France
COME, LETS BEAT THE ANCESTRAL DRUM
Sitting here flowing
through the meters of time
like a smooth spring stream
meandering through forest greens,
I peruse the many folds
of the caverns of this fluid mind of mine;
searching for words that would rhyme
to tell the stories of illustrious dreams.
Life can sometimes be void,
emotionless and quite stoic; but
such cannot be the condition or position
of the darker hued poet.
We too, have stories of old to be told too;
the eager minded needing to know.
So rise you mighty Griots; and
weave the tales of our great kings and queens.
Let us hail the coming of ages
of our beginnings here; landing
packed like sardines in a can---
we have still survived;
And now here we stand rooted in this land;
no longer shrouded by the veil of fear.
Body and Soul, we‘re still here;
a new day has dawned and we’ve arrived.
Come children, beat the ancestral drum:
Ba Dom! Ba Dom! Ba Dom! Dom! Dum!
Its Jubilee time! Liberation time! Beat the drum:
Ba Dom! Dom! Dom! De Dum! Dom Dum!
The freedom bell has rung:
Ba dom dom dom!
Soft scents of frangipani invade my nostrils in the twilight air,
pellucid thoughts from deep within made me aware of my senses.
I look over yonder and notice lovely ripples in the lake.
Luscious blueberries catch my attention and my mouth waters,
next I hear the beautiful sound of mockingbirds singing .
I felt like my feet were standing in a place of history and strength,
as I embarked on ancestral trails of my people's past.
At once pride and appreciation began to infuse my entire being.
I look up and notice a hint of vermilion in the beautiful sky,
And a menagerie of birds from the distant past soared above me.
Contest: 10 words 10 lines challenge
Sponsor: Silent One
Words used are:
1.Menagerie
2.Vermilion
3.Infuse
4.Mockingbirds
5.Twilight
6.Frangipani
7.Luscious
8.Pellucid
9.Ancestral
10.Ripples
Nature is a work of pureness
Through the fiery chaos a green side is born
The water of purity every body of it
Purer than the last
The deer running through the woods
The bears catching fish
The fish that are swimming
A timeless beauty of nature
Did my ancestors see this?
Did they feel as I fell?
Of course they did
Bu they saw more
My escape to nature was not their escape
It was their life
What I see is death
What I see is the destruction of humanity
The wolves are being slaughtered!!!
Out of pure stupidity
Creatures are being eliminated for stupidity
You fools!!!
Can you see you malice
We need harmony
All you are promoting is chaos & discord
Ancestors look into my eyes and into my soul
Guide me to live in harmony
When I see true nature I have tears forming
When I am in nature
I can feel the presence
Of my Native American ancestors
Apache, Aztec, Navajo & Ute
Ancestral Spirits
ancestral seeds grow
as family tree ripens...
bearing fruits of love
Haiku on My Family Contest
Sponsor: Marvin Celestial
5/10/2016
Distant drums voice sacred song
as didgeridoo drone rings
its messages to my awaiting ears;
ancient ceremonies flood
the canyon in tones of
ancestral wisdom.
Every rock or boulder resonates,
crickets sing along and
each cell of my being is elevated;
I feel the energies of
times long passed;
those speakers of the truth,
as shamanic echoes
transport me to past centuries.
I've hear it said that our cells have memory,
that two-thirds of our brains are not used;
but what if we are simply energy?
I resonate with the past
and visions come.
Callused hands, stooped back
Temples gray with passing years
Eyes smile as brow sweats
Adam and Eve is where my tree starts
with Noah's son Japheth leaving his mark
spreading his DNA seed all over Europe
his lineage from long ago quickly passing the buck,
Ireland, Wales and Germany my family sprang
with Ireland the dominant one in our veins
coming to America because of the potato famine
a blessing in disguise for a new beginning,
Arriving in Ellis Island they passed the test
settling in Brooklyn where they made their nest
becoming printers, policemen and plumbers they tried their best
no longer poor but middle class like the rest,
Eventually they moved a little further out
tired of city life they wanted a new route
moving to the suburbs in Queens and Valley Stream
wanting nothing more than the American dream,
Handing down traditions like drinking hot tea
saying "gesundheit!" when somebody sneezes
with sayings like "a little hard work never killed anyone!"
and having faith in God and having a little fun.
6-1-17
ON TENDING THE GREAT ANCESTRAL FIRES
Here lies the residue
Of an old fire
Long gone
Dry—Ashes
Left to the whelms
Of raindrops to dampen
Into a useless mush—
Or for the wind to blow
Aimlessly to nowhere;
Wet and immobile
Or blowing dry in the wind,
Useless are cold ashes.
Here, scattered among the warm ashes,
Lay hot remnants of a once great fire
Gone untended—abandoned as.
Often, tenders of great fires are released
From their duties by the thirst of death;
Others are just scared away.
Be whichever it may, great fires
Cocoon themselves in charcoal hued embers.
Charcoal hued embers—steamers of raindrops
And lovers of re-birthing winds of ignition.
Come chilled children;
Movements are like unsettled ashes
Of social interchange; revolution,
Like volcanic embers of transformation.
Come cocooned children;
Let us gather and stoke volcanic embers
That we may metamorphose in the presence
Of the Great Fire spirit of our ancestors—
Least we devolve into the staled mush of ashes.
I returned to our farmstead last autumn
on the driveway where I kicked marbles
and plucked brambles catching my gaze-
Now overgrown at sixty-two
horse wagons filled the blank spaces
of my remembered landscape...
I walked like a ghost looking for dear home,
but found this lofty edifice
ridiculing, mocking me from its skylight--
The dogwood trees Grandma nurtured
now impetuously ravaged and gnarled,
casting shadows on translucent mirrors--
past her dream of a lush orchard,
that my eyes lingered through a heap
for treasures, hoping to discover
a piece of yesterday's laughter,
among the junk of ancestral, broken wood.
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Emile Pinet's Contest: New Poems Only
4/16/2018