Best Bards Poems
Homer,Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, Eliot
Soyinka, Okigbo, Osundare
Now me, recycling human ideas
Albert Gannon Farquar-Lock, he sowed
his peppered praise; his Shakespeare
wandering love of words, and hey!...
distant, country, with me the pupil fifteen
and a day, he my teacher:
keen to learn my pen, his way;
and through the nightly, writing of his sprite,
I learned to conjure light, by write;
his furrowed brow, or tense fleshy smile,
could take my pen, through field or styal,
we hushed the stars and wrote of mars and
other poultry Gods, like Hemingway, Carver,
Doyle and Faulkner's saints; then briskly,
followed the words, I'd borrowed from Bukowski,
Capote and unfaithful Hughes;
Plath,Mckweon and O'keefe all helped master
the stealthy thief, "time"; to write such simple prose;
the skin off every poet's nose;
and now with his memory, his college tie, his blue-
tweed jacket, and his catholic sigh, my skill (little),
and joy of speech, he hushed the stars, for me to reach.
TRIBUTE TO AFRICAN WRITERS FOR THEIR STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPRESSION
CELEBRATE AFRICAN BARDS
A mirror in ink
Placed before my future
To save me from the sink
Of this chameleon picture
Anthills of the Savannah:
With pen, they told me the past;
Without their trail I wonder
How to narrow a confusion this vast
Through their crystal pages,
My antiquity—inept— illumines;
For their battles, no wages
But mansions in exiles and prisons
But unrest, pains, misery and yokes:
For speaking with a different tongue,
The rulers – yellow and black blokes—
Incarcerated and suffered them long
The struggle seems never to set.
It surely has an end; they believe.
Freedom is a song in threat;
After clobbering, in peace they’ll live
Though they hail from the dregs,
On their pen was Africa’s jungle justice born.
Now they are grey, they are like eggs
To be kept; songs to sing to my son.
I celebrate our African bards
Whose inks defeated bullying barrels;
And with all noble regards,
I salute their courage that unlock freedom cells.
Slept and slumbered under the quinine stains we wept,
On a poignant bard’s weary nib we slept.
Yearned we to spill on to paper,
Him caged sore thoughts for later.
Weeping words we lay folded,
On table, heart moulded.
Sorrowed dirge lament,We repent,..................dissent
When two bards do meet...
Their closed minds they discreetly disclose
Tho their versions differ- in a good rapport treat;
But see to that, no ones vanity loose.
As verses from both sides do flow
They argue not- yet wont agree
Tho each one their own best, hence never do bow
As they climb each other on Mount flattery.
Is it through the hard ordeals of life's edge?
That they possess ego of egoistical sublime;
Or with the acquaintance of heavy knowledge
They take intellectual stride with the time.
There lies a truth that: to both do teach
That; Acceptance is worth the regard than anything to preach.
Thanks bards fallen
For the inspiration given
For the eyes are now opened
For in lines on paper inked,
Lessons were learned,insight was earned.
Thanks bards fallen
For in lines down written
Truth was spoken
Dreams were born.
Thanks bards fallen
For the many hearts mused.
In your lines and rhymes,
Emotions and feelings lucidly expressed,
Vividly felt.
Many a bard
Fly sky high
For because you flew.
And gates to a world new,
You opened.
Poetry turns from the common man,
Turns on its arrogant heel,
Stalking away toward the cloistered academe.
Nothing is duller or deader than
Poets unable to feel
Love—or compassion, or dream the lofty dream.
Thus poetry turns from you, from me,
And talks to itself, indulgently,
And nobody hears. Quite understandably.
Outside the storm is raging, heaping piles of drifting snow.
Inside I'm snuggled in my easy chair, the fireplace all aglow!
I've retrieved an old tome of poetry from my library shelf,
To spend an afternoon with noted bards to entertain myself.
I'll never tire of the lovely lyrics leaping from its pages,
Composed by inspirational poets down through the ages.
Those gifted folks awaken latent emotions in my languid soul,
Creating soul-stirring verse about life that they so fluently extol!
I delight in the lines championing ordinary folks by Edgar Guest,
And the ballads of Robert Service on his daring Yukon quest!
The works of The Hoosier Poet J. Whitcomb Riley I hold dear.
It's as if he wrote about my Hoosier boyhood of yesteryear!
The fire casts gloomy shadows about as I read Poe's elegies,
But my mood brightens reading Kilmer's beautiful poem, "Trees!"
McCrae's, "In Flanders Fields", as a lad I learned by rote.
I chuckle at the whimsical poetry that Lewis Carroll wrote!
I treasure my time with the bards and their poems in the book.
It occupies a very special place in my library nook.
Well, I'll put it aside since the cat has hopped upon my lap.
Dear old Simba and I will settle in for a cozy winter's nap!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (© All Rights Reserved)
We're poetic wraiths,
Poets' souls in motion, bards,
Brainiacs, our muse,
Singing around our planet,
Nature, Love's dreams, far beyond.....
What does it mean to be a bard of rhyme,
when locusts swarm to eat my life away,
destroyed before I reach my chosen time,
to enjoy every single focused day?
What does it mean to be a bard of song,
when life's sweet notes are played and out of tune,
when the world shouts at me, “You don't belong!”
and casts me out, beneath a frigid moon?
Ay! what it means to be a bard is choice:
when nothing else for me in life is meant,
then hope and faith must find their lifting voice,
wherewith against my fate I circumvent.
More than songs that rhyme, meaning's what bards make:
so, I make all the love that this world can take!
life it seems
is not without its irony
for the screaming bards
of Mu Mu Land
.. on lounging chairs
.. on deep-piled rugs
.. just laying round
.. reciting verse
.. my bards were still
.. and known to all
.. in whispered words
.. as mild as mauve
and when they showed me to the door
I could sense within
creativeness
the un-ravelling of their pain
A bard born to a muse is full of song,
for he imbibes on the milk of her breasts,
a suckling babe that's inspired 'ere too long,
to pen refrains, lines, and this sonnet no less.
When inspired, songs of bravery are plentiful;
and words of chivalry gallop on page
like gallant knights to damsels most beautiful:
to him, Poesy never knew a greater age!
But bards worth their weight in gold soon realize,
that one must learn how to be their own muse,
for the muse can choose to not exercise
her power (and what choice have we if she refuse?).
Like the primes, the muse leaves and disappears,
as the bard's years increase past life's hemispheres.
Bards and society
Poets are gentle people who like to form a group for writers
with an eccentric title, “a thousand poets against war.”
Poetry is only useful for dictators and those who like to demonstrate how literal they are.
Dictators find them valuable if they extoll the regime
If not, you are exiled or jailed.
Poets are subjected to flattery, the lucky one gets a medal before they die
of consumption.
I was thinking of this when lost in a city, with many statues of generals riding an iron horse.
And a bust of the sensible poet in the entrance of a downtrodden hotel.
The fall of the castles, the siege on the Lords,
The day that the enemy’s melodies soared.
A victory waited ‘till the voices were lent.
Notes beat knives, songs beat the kingdom to its end.
The peasants smiled, but they wished to weep.
They could sow but they could never reap.
The bards saw the pain on their calloused hands,
And decided they deserved to take over the lands.
Thousands of drums began the war.
Violins made rumbles in the core.
The vocals struck the ears with their calls.
The trumpets meant there’s triumph after all.
The fall of the castles, the dawn of an era,
The power of rhythm, the Lords were in terror.
The trials with notation and the style of song,
Caused people to live the way they should’ve all along.
In the Land of the Dragons
my grandfather sleeps -
a place of legends, castles and keeps.
In a magical land of gentle green hills
where new-born lambs frolic still.
Under a carpet of flowers
and the Holy Spirit’s dove
a paradise on earth
mirroring the heavens above.
In the Land of the Daffodils
my grandfather rests
at the old church of St Arthens
by the river Gwynon, that flows under the bridge.
At my grandmother’s side
my grandfather sleeps
together again, united in peace.
In the land of the bards,
where giants once roamed
back in the place,
the place, that is home.