Best Anthracite Poems
Raven eyed the moon glowered
in an anthracite sky
bleeding onto an India-ink stage
where Valkyrie’s pluck
dead heroes to Valhalla.
Wolf winds howl the ravished sight.
Rent storm with fang and claw.
Purge the all too monochrome plight
with the Bloody born.
Harken the twisted neck of owl
observer of raven eyed moon.
Mourn the passing of the faint of heart
for they've met their foreshadowed doom.
The still water of the northern swamp
shone like anthracite coal
lending a rainbow hue to the reflections
of maiden hair fern
and skunk cabbage.
Strangely, maples rooted wearily beneath
in the hidden depths of blue-blackness.
Sunlight sparks like fireflies.
The leaden air caskets the first layer
of rampant growth,
misting moss,
masking mushrooms
where slick green frogs hide.
The heat bakes the bank but the swamp
seethes in delight.
Twilight downs the sun as dreams appear on the screen of sleep
Slips into the subconscious realm and trips a few fuses in slumber
Adapts and clears clutter and narrates and alters the story in kind
Strips and clips a mind full of sentience like an ad-blocking app
When dreams slip into a magical edition it proofreads my soul
In magic Morpheus tenders to soft renditions and rehearses
A new dawn for sanity’s sake and rearranges bedlam in silence
Ties new meaning to fake news and spins alignments afresh
Compounds and rearranges while the curtain slowly descends
A dress rehearsal in night gown patiently waits for the curtain
A sacred orange globe dances with ripples dissected by clouds
Ultramarine parades on the fading horizon of tangerine canvas
As the gatekeeper confers with clairvoyants and hobbling goblins
The mermaids charter the voyage with sea gulls and dolphin as they
Tie holy knots onto the tapestry of fabrication and spirited truths
Sometimes my aspirations and recollections call for clean slates
When charcoal rules anthracite waves draped in sombre veils
Or polychrome splashes beg to hold on to the palette forever
Sleep brushes over karma and vagaries and tames with a stroke
Of restful fortune in infinite renditions of what the future might hold
A life line appears on the horizon anchoring a courageous flare
Regardless of whether my journey explores a secret underworld
Or ships critique onto the blatantly obvious faults in the vessel
Poseidon pumps up the raft as tears and regrets rock the boat
Blows caution to the wind and advises to hold on for dear life
Neptune challenges his counterpart and weighs for good measure
Yet Atlantis refuses to sink and Nirvana sweeps the ocean’s floor
Phoenix gathers soaked ashes while jetsam jumps into the current
When the night parades its blessing the sun resets a new dawn
The moon watches over assorted memories baggage and hope
19th April 2020
Is dance a metaphor for sex?
You’d think so if you knew my ex
(at least the barflies all believe
she’s hoarding something up her sleeve).
But what makes people want to dance?
An aural frenzy? True romance?
Would Hamlet, Shylock or Macbeth
ever dance themselves to death?
Strasbourg is the kind of town
that’s unassuming, buttoned down.
These people don’t let down their hair:
rarely reckless, somewhat square.
The year before a reign began
(that’s Charles the Fifth – the Habsburg man):
to celebrate Saint Vitus’ Day
a Strasbourg woman’s new ballet
was launched in Rue des Hallebardes
(a strange event in all regards).
Right outside her Strasbourg home,
a stone’s throw from Strassburgerdom,
one Frau Follea hit the street
(and man, that chick could move her feet!)
We don’t know what her motive was:
perhaps she did it ‘just because’.
Did she deserve the looney bin?
No - other folks were joining in!
With twisting torsos, poor and posh,
the city streets were soon awash.
Without the need for record player,
the followers of Frau Follea
bopped and boogied through the night,
as hot as Rhineland anthracite.
Did scruples sting at morning mist?
Did conscience prick them to desist?
Did people halt their hellish dance?
Not one mosher! Not a chance!
On they conga’d, rocked and rolled,
oblivious to heat or cold.
More Alsace dusks, forever amber,
reverberated to their samba.
The local grapes are full and juicy:
the people step a mean watusi.
There’s such a thing as civic pride,
but this lot cha-cha’d till they died!
Housewife, beggar, baker, barber
were parties to the danse macabre.
Was their motive pleasure? Fear?
Penance? Sydenham’s Chorea?
The reason for the quick-quick-slow
I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.
In the sadness, we just won’t let go off the
darkness in our souls.
They glow in the night, like anthracite
coal.
It’s best to let go of this most dour power.
And live in total joy and full sunshine shower!
2/3/2022
Twas a lovely day in May.
A red-haired Grandmother, with her daughter and
grandchild strolled the soft, still grass.
Under a large pine tree, she unwrapped a beautiful pot of flowers.
In the center~ a flag waved softly in the gentle, Midwest winds.
They proceeded to a marble headstone with a gentle walk.
Not one of them had the need to talk.
Kneeling at the headstone~ she placed her head upon it.
Telling her husband, his family was all here for a visit.
Assuring him that they missed and loved him.
She then spoke....angelically:
" Brian, thank you for keeping our country so wonderfully free!
But alas at breakfast now, it's only me!
Brian, my Airman and eagle of my soul.
I miss your dark eyes that sparkled like anthracite coal."
She kissed the headstone as if herway to say,
She would be back soon~another day!
May 30, 2020
7:30am PST
Poem# 1,306
Fruits noirs
Sans qu’on y prenne garde,
Le ciel se tisse du grillage
Sombre des branches.
Elles s’étendent chaque année,
Et chaque année,
Grignotent un peu plus d’espace,
Au point de parfaire une voûte
Et d’arriver à se rejoindre,
En confisquant le peu de lumière,
Stagnante, sous les dernières
Feuilles de novembre,
La sève lentement rétractée.
Une pluie insistante, et froide,
Corrode la symphonie des ocres
En une bouillie sombre et gluante…
Les buissons moroses abritent
Aussi des fruits noirs,
A la densité lourde.
Ils pèsent de leur deuil,
Leur poids d’approche hivernale,
Et font oublier les envolées légères,
Des passereaux insouciants,
Qui se poursuivaient
Dans l’azur cristallin.
Ce sont des corbeaux ;
Et leur noir luisant,
Semble une menace anthracite,
Barrant quelque part,
De branche et branche
La lumière et la joie .
-
Without being beware,
The sky is woven with wire mesh
Of dark branches.
They extend every year
And every year
Eat away a little more space,
To the point of making a perfect arch
And arriving to join
Confiscating the little light
Stagnant under the last
Leaves of November
Sap slowly retracted.
An insistent rain and cold
Corrodes the symphony of ochres
In a dark and slimy mush ...
The gloomy bushes shelter
Also black fruits,
A with heavy density.
They weigh their mourning
The weight of winter approach
And make you forget the light flights,
Of careless sparrows,
Chasing each other
In the blue skies
They are crows;
And shiny black
Seems a anthracite threat
Barring somewhere
From branch to branch
Light and spirit of joy.
NEANDERTHAL
In times gone by, now recondite,
Neanderthal, erect, upright,
spoke softly, tones so lily-white,
and tried to put the world aright.
He taught us how the flame ignites
that wearing furs will warm the nights,
just why the rolling wheel excites,
and how the beveled flint stone bites.
Before the days of dynamite
he fought his foes with spit and spite,
and swung big sticks with all his might,
and rendered death with stones in flight.
Engaged in never-ending fight
(arenas were a global sight)
he forced his forces to unite
to sate his oily appetite.
To quell rude thoughts that may incite
he ruled the realm with fly-by-nights
and culled the winds of words in flight,
and darkened minds to anthracite.
With fairy tales of evil sprites
and how the fist of freedom smites,
he washed the world with flames alight
to vanquish hoards of parasites.
Each dawn the damage brought delight,
the foe was bent, a bit contrite…
yet battled on with no respite
until the dusk and evening light.
Encamped beside the firelight
Neanderthal, that shiny Knight,
awaited morn while sitting tight
assured the end would be alright.
Yes, conquest seemed his sacred right…
Forevermore?… well, no, not quite…
Neanderthal's extinct tonight
and lies beside the Trilobite…
MORAL
The Oreo is round, not bright:
while rolling near the candlelight
at first the searing seemed so slight,
the molten cream an oversight…
NOTE:
This screed has nothing to do with the noble Neanderthal (whose brain size exceeded our own).
It has nothing to do with 'times gone by' (though who knows what future beings may see and think).
It has nothing to do with anything…
and even less to do with something…
unless of course, you think it does….
Why people somewhere so kind and gentle
and somewhere not?
Why people in Saint-Petersburg ,
Moskow, Astana, Bishkek
Look so impolite, inhospitable and unfriendly?
Ask about it the happy inhabitants
or better look himself for what
is the best product of free society
this kind of people who lived in Basel, Antwerp, Quebec
with Oslo or those
who fast transformed for better sort of governing -
Turkian, Philippinians and Ukrainians possible also.
The people of free society and reason
or those who going out from ruling prison
appreciated choice and initiation
and marvelously transformed own identity
as those who better controlled themselves and government,
they hoped for only for freedom and own diligence
and make wonders gradiently
under the hand of free market invisible and patiently.
And what do you say about authoritarian and enslaved nation,
there are all people depended from will of corrupt guidelanes ,
where freedom, honesty and choices in total deficit?
Poor citisens there mentally downgraded
early or later hardened and stoned their souls to anthracite
for surviving in merciless and no free circumstances.
That was a clearly answer
for such sorts of questions -
why people somewhere so kind and gentle
and somewhere not?
The heather caresses leather
As across these hills I tread
The boggy ground it squelches
Moving like a water bed
Don’t stop or soon the eyeholes
With bog water they will fill
Put pace in step and move on
A little further up the hill
The summit from cloud appears
A very welcome sight
With sunlight raising vapour
From the cloud wet anthracite
Soon legs can be relieved from load
And eyes take in the view
Retracing path my feet have trod
Past Bracken, Broom and Yew
Then down the hill with faster gait
My eager legs they ply
To take me home to cottage white
Near the fields of Athenry
Scream a blaze in passing fashion
tear the velveteen tapestry
of Luna’s anthracite passion
rake nails of rainbow majesty
on the depth of night’s travesty
reveal, revel, shine in the dark
leave lingering trace of lunacy
for night, oh night, has not the lark.
Contest: Hutain This One
Poet: Debbie Guzzi
“If a tree falls.....?” No, there is no sound
Without an ear to hear.
If light shines on....? No, there is no sight
Without an eye I fear.
Footsteps are not heard upon a stair.
Nothing that can be heard is heard there.
There - is as still as night before dawn,
Like waves with no shore to break upon.
Images do not appear where we peer.
Nothing that can be seen is seen there.
There - is as pitch as anthracite,
Like flint with no steel to strike.
Just as a candle lit upon a spirit boat
We flow through our dark world afloat
Thinking the world bright, but the light
Shines only within, all else is midnight.
There - everywhere - is dark and muted,
The senses are but energy transmuted
By neural lobes, without which life is stark;
An amoeba oozing silently through the dark.
Copyright 2021 Paul Thomson
Five Shades of Anthracite
Triads of black white and grey in the middle colour in above and out within
Five silhouettes a passion play mix shadows dancing in the moonlit night
work art and framework on the vertical horizon of ecliptic thought’s array
Alchemy casts precious golden sculptures in the feeling fondness wisdom’s
mind tending to its business slow and fast evolving rainbow’s kairos white
Five shades blend into one reasoned action intuited perception truth reality
embodiment beholding earth wind fire water aired in carbon gilded nuances on
the journey’s crested prism’s holograms when three plus two engraves infinity
They overtone refinement’s overture into the pentagon from anthracite to gold
by way of any tinted tingle unadulterated quintessential and concerted meaning
13th September 2016
at the cusp between
slumber and wakefulness
I reach a subconscious of wonder
it seems that my house was built
too close to the ocean
foundations and perimeter walls
supported by reason and books
now washed away by the water
each of them taking me away
from myself as floods rise higher
I try to save them
grab one or two by their spines
throw them onto safe higher ground
but of course for every little treasure
many more are being dragged away
from the coastline into the unknown
unsure whether tides might return
their value and meaning of life
most people nearby
seem oblivious or apathetic
although a few exhale a concierto
of heart piercing but low volume moans
some appear not too care
others are even unaware of
my and their plight
and maybe they are better off for it
waves are crushing pebbles and sea shells
currents and riptides cause quite some peril
a wild wind mutes extraneous noise
even the gulls must have sought shelter
and yet their teasing mocking beguiling
remains in my soul
a light house at breaking point
sends flashes of distress and notification
that one cannot change the colour
of one’s life boat when
black is the predominant canvass
and anthracite refuses to brighten the image
as the apocalypse unfolds
on circuitous mind paths
I feel somewhat detached from the scene
it is my own darkness
and sadness of being
my innermost theme
but I cannot help
to be an outside observer
with distance and judgement
just the same
loops of helplessness compete
with resilient resolve
and I am not aware yet
of the scale of the storm
I only know that
this too shall pass
and the sunshine is merely
hidden behind storm clouds
Calling anthracite
a diamond makes it no
more a gem than a dog
wearing a mask is a cat