Best Bastions Poems
Come with me to Fontanella
where the bastions rise up high.
There the view is overwhelming;
nature’s beauty meets the eye.
Come with me to Fontanella,
the tea garden that’s unique
in the city of Medina.
Taste bud pleasure we will seek.
Come with me to Fontanella
when you’re dying for a cake.
You’ll be spoilt by the selection
of the goodies that they bake.
Come with me to Fontanella,
I go mad on nuts and dates.
You would drool for cassatella.
All we’ll leave is empty plates!
Come with me to Fontanella
Be it sun or be it rain.
An experience to remember;
you’ll return time and again!
------------------------------------
Crows gather around the mysterious, abandoned castle,
Its bastions and towers drowning within a mournful silence.
Ghostly shadows loom within the dungeons and the murder holes,
Screams of perished souls are locked within the castle walls.
Long it has stood there upon a mountain of tempestuous winds,
Withholding a secret from haunting years passed.
Stones big, dark and looming, an ancient evil lurks inside,
Creeping through each room, an eeriness unexplained.
Each corridor discloses a tale of bloodshed on that dreaded night,
when the devil sent his descendants to run havoc amongst the mortals.
The bitter queen who summoned them did not live to confess the tragedy,
She took her life, witnessing all before her slaughtered including the adulterous king.
As a child, I had heard countless legends of the forbidden castle,
Of the torture chambers and the merciless beheading of the accused innocent.
Many have warned, “Beware…stay away…” and now I stand before the entrance,
The devilish crows watching knowingly, as if they foresee my fate.
“Beware the snares in the dark, for Death grins, awaiting your coming…”
A special collaberation with The Silent One
Thanks for the opportunity! :)
As the sun awakens the forest,
I ascend the faded trail.
A doe and her fawn spring,
startled by the stranger,
traipsing through their paradise.
These overlooked alpine slopes
soak in tranquility,
and newly conceived sunshine.
Enchanted and purified I drink
from untouched springs of refreshment.
Give the valleys to the cities.
Grant the plains to the farmers.
Leave the mountains to her unsettled visitors.
Where civilization grows,
ugliness breeds in desperate streets.
Pollution collects beside her gutters.
Man turns on himself in greed.
In the places people gather,
desecration and hatred are common,
and he is cut off from himself.
His cities are bastions of confusion,
concrete coffins awaiting the fill.
Save me from our urban abominations.
clove cinnamon for simon&dunkin tuna for garfunkel.
wobbly looped spindles, hums tunes "holy mackerel".
silent whispers alluring hoarding ajar.
more candid topics, endorsed by chet choppock.
overtime blenders whip hot fudge tapioca.
from the larva, emerges paul harvey.
orator greetings predestines"good day, utopia.
good healing from dr. oz & charles ozgood,
understood.
bytes penetrating sequin hoods of vast neighborhoods.
well steaked positions, instills glorified bastions.
no wasteful questions, bout times were in.
unconsumed media leaves abundance to chance (t)hen.
signs of our times, perhaps, we should thank (T)hen.
The swell and surge of surf
whispers tinnitus conched
on titanium sunken tankers
that rock restlessly on far reef,
as children play unheeded
building imagined bastions,
nursery rhymes drown
turning back cnut tides.
Inevitably,
sand shifts in an hourglass
that plumb the memory's depth
with rosy pictures in ruby flourescence
like monochrome holiday snaps
stored in old bashed biscuit tins
that mother would open on grey
overcast November soaked Sundays.
All oceans are drowned
by the sea's past dregs,as cerulean and cobalt waves
steer towards safe harbors,
tantalized by tinto tinted sunrises
like a rocking pendulum
that plays a metronome symphony,
playing lullabies, rhythms sound
when der holle rache sings
and the nocturnal queen echoes as the dawn breaks.
Translucently, ephemeral light
glistens on children's limbs,water singing as they play,
momentarily soaked in perfection
as delicate beams dance over their fragile bones.
Now amber-crafted moments, Capri's crimson breasts
waves, nestles close to succour infant swells.
Yet magenta lips pout in rock pools,
the breaking and wombing
of waters now birth new journeys
that drive towards a vortex rush.
Defiant boats chase, turning tides in lucent rays,
navigate between lava laced volcanic outcrops
into distant remembered horizons.
Beyond bright garish flashes of neon lights,
blaring music and drunken barroom fights,
it's my wish to find tranquility and solitude
within a realm where the moon is red-hued.
I'd gladly wander a crimson moonlit path,
far away from this world's uncivilized wrath.
Where warblers sing lullabies to me at night
while I watch a hungry owl take wing in flight.
Myriads of stars will be shimmering in the sky,
and in complete contentment I will peacefully lie.
As a red moon rising hovers far above my head,
I'll be sheltered without need of worry or dread.
In a quiet sanctuary of tall evergreen trees
I'd welcome the evening's cool flowing breeze.
With a blanket spread on meadowed grounds,
I'd revel with joy at Nature's awesome sounds,
like the trills of doves giving their mating call
and the muffled rumble of a distant waterfall.
There are no bastions here, nor fortified fences.
In this meditative place I can liberate my senses.
I'll be one with my surroundings, totally at ease,
as if I'm floating on calm waves of unruffled seas.
Far from cacophony that offends an idyllic repose,
beneath a sanguine moon, where no one else goes.
pain is a mover,
and a shaker,
stirs one to action
to escape its evil claws
It has its own schedule-
and mocks your attempts
to deal with it
and it never takes a pause
Its tendrils spread throughout-
as certain bastions of misery-
scattered all about-
the fortress of agony
you can try to ignore it,
but never successfully,
or fight it with med's
but you will be forced to see
such efforts are so useless,
It was what was meant to be
you can't reason with it,
just endure it until
it's had its merry fill
of sadistic persecution,
don't let it break your will
alone I battle
fear of death
at times
creeps into my thoughts....
Poetry and Freedom
A poet is still free to write about what they choose.
Come now, what do we have to lose?
Poetry~ one of the last bastions to be free.
With political correctness on the raging warpath!
After all words with mendacious audacity.
To steal words from group-think and rob us of poetic individuality!
December 9, 2019
F Fight to win a just and equal deal
R Rights demand today, and do not kneel!
E Equal in demand for means to live
E Equal in demand that leaders give
L Liberty to seek and speak the truth
E Energy to fight all the uncouth
B Bastions of belief that change will come
A Adamance for all to gain not some
N Nation first, and not a party’s greed
O Onslaught in the streets of those in need
N Narrative of choice is Freedom’s voice
T Time, a witness of the people’s pain
O Objects of the ones who pocket gain
D Duty sold for bribes of highest price
A Actor-leaders play with lives like dice
Y Young and old! Bring back the Golden Age
Eileen Manassian
There is a body stronger than the flesh alone
it is the body of your love, that temple built of desire's stone
quarried from the chaos of your erotic emotions, shaped by destiny's moan,
where neurotic nerves, psychotic passions, fanatical faith and romantic rose chrome
are imported from the four corners of your heart, brought to the mount of your soul zone
upon here, obedience and freedom, submission and domination chalk and chisel to the bone,
the flame of Shekinah seduces spirit within and without your psychic cyclone
as age becomes an aggregate of obsession's ascensions and avalanches in cycles for you to atone,
Egyptian magicians and Phoenician mariners could only dream of your pulsing fortune,
what do magic rites and the mines of Ophir have to entice with compared to your throne
Hiram, the builder of holy royal bastions would seek the secrets of your star storm home -
J.A.B.
The ground gaped garishly, gored with ghastly gouges of glowing, gravelly gobs ...
Finally unfettered from a frigid firmament, flames flung fiery, flaring fingers
ferociously forward ...
The blazing bastions bent on burning the backwood bluffs bare with bitter brutality ...
Unholy hoards of heated horror hailing the heavens with heinous, heckling howls of
hellish hostility.
Spontaneous and unannounced
They eschew the simmer
Only to emerge with the rage of a boil
These tempestuous thoughts
Dance brazen atop amber blue flames
They luxuriate inside the walls of my mind
Finding blossom in my impuissant fury
A tiresome firefight of blank rounds
I drop my knees to the Earth
As to increase my glare to the Heavens
This constant debate over rule of my ethos
Hangs with unforgiving weight
Like an empty medallion
Tearing at my aching fleshy nape
Will it ever End?
Beginning now
To see resplendence
Trees whisper to me from their towers
An aria of peace
Mellifluous echoes ring bright like harps in the wind
The emerald leaflets dazzle like sanguine doves after battle
I jolt back to my feet
Sparked by the vivid hues of a lifetime
The same ones the Reaper tries to collect
I believe I can now reach the cottony peaks above
As they sail along the foamy waves
Of richly azure sky
That I can see so clearly now
This pendulum of thoughts
Swings perpetual
In and out of halcyon days
With blithe disregard for my Eden
But yet I wait
I wait for an infinitude
Then I wait for another moment still
I wait like an old man waiting for the train to bring back his wife from the After
Staring down the tracks as they fade into the dark
Dark as a raven's feathers
Not daunting
But certainly full of the unknown
Finally
These thoughts of mine
Exhale like a mist
One that sprinkles fierce
Like fresh water
Striking off the wings of a hummingbird
Who flies indomitable through walls of sullen rain
I do my best to catch the bursts of Essence
And capture them on scrolls
Where they can live soundly
Forever roaring
Sometimes quietly I ponder
Maybe these thoughts escape
Reticent bastions deep within the fog
To be my Guardians
Steadfast and unfazed
If only to catch me one more time
Catch me from seeing only one color
Blank
Catch me from hearing only one sound
Harsh
Catch me from smelling only one scent
Nothing
Catch me from tasting only one flavor
Hate
Catch me from feeling only one feeling
Dead
Yes it is the thoughts that catch me
They do it without reason
They do it without question
They do it because they are me
I catch myself everyday
And I will continue to do so
As long as my thoughts can breathe.
January 21, 2016
Looking down upon the deed I find
The questions circling in my mind
Was there some choice I overlooked?
Some option hid or worse forsook?
My brothers now behind me stand,
and we proclaim a merry band!
Yet it’s the blood-soaked ground behind
That seems to fill my heavy mind.
We sought to change the status quo
Human nature was our foe
But you fought back as best you could
And never questioned if you should
I know through which eyes you saw
Hid behind bastions of law
We tried through politics first of course
Yet through trickery no recourse
You knew how the game was played
And for overconfidence you stayed
Demanding stays and motions served
Ignoring laments you claimed absurd
And so we tried to explain your quirk
To people indentured forced to work
To pay off debts taken in desperate need
Unable to know all was your deed
With numbers, charts and program code
To show them you had made their load
But too complex it failed to stick
Their worker’s minds were still too thick
And worse, far worse we found
You’d made your problem common ground
You funneled debt into bad loans
And hid your lies in people’s homes
Thus making the cost of your demise
The loss of a nation’s people most prized
The middle class, their homes in hock
The value fake, their lives in shock
If you went down you had made sure
Their fortunes would follow, a poison cure
And so you forced a government
To break it’s sacred sacrament
And here we are, smoke all around
And blood, sticky blood, upon the ground
And although inside I hold a sob
I cannot quit this awful job
I lift my gun, a heavy weight
To free our children from our fate
What was created to expose,
now a fortress meant to hide
Bastions of higher learning,
masking havens safe for lies
Where discourse once was treasured,
the ivy droops and sighs
With comfort their true measure,
the dilettantes all cry
Plato is disgusted,
John Locke is more than riled
As a millennium of learning
is mocked in false denial
Students weak and wounded,
from those lessons never learned
Their tomorrow’s but a doomsday,
their futures sure to burn
Those words were there to save them,
both the hated and revered
All truth in dialectics
—left abandoned by their fear
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2016)
Desert Of Overcast Blues
I walked in a desert of overcast blues
sandy undertow wicked and laced with red rust.
Old , worn-out and sad are my feeble trekking shoes
yet onward with flowing tide travel I must.
Treading bastions of false hope and scary tales
heaped with desperate tales I did so want to hear.
Oceans of sweet soothing lies bigger than blue whales
and me unable to stop running from my fear.
Where scolding shadows cry out my deepest regrets
red dust pulling me down into a darkened pit.
There hellish madhouse laughs and wins all futile bets
cutting into my lost soul with every hard hit.
Longing for days, when mere boulders stood in my path.
Begging relief from night's cuts of demonic wrath.
Robert J. Lindley, 5-03-2016
Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
Total # Syllables: 168
Total # Lines: 18 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 124
Sonnet, 12 on 12....