Best Bestrode Poems
Before the Roman legions carved a road
This stallion coursed across the chalk ridge brow
Unharnessed, free or by a king bestrode
Like wave traversing grassland free of plough
It still pursues its quest yet even now
Note: This is the oldest of the many white horses carved into chalk hillsides across southern England. It has been dated to The Bronze or Iron ages. (Pre-Roman occupation)
Of the first five Presidents of the USA,
four were Virginians. What does that say?
It says that the South, superb, serene,
bestrode the land, a virgin queen.
When the gauge of a nation's financial health
was tobacco and cotton, America's wealth
was centred on those vast plantations,
the envy of all other nations.
But - threat or opportunity - we find
that change is never far behind
our moments of repose or pleasure.
The South had, in unstinted measure,
a climate made for agriculture -
but Fate is a voracious vulture,
breeds the beef, then picks the carcass clean.
In Massachusetts, new machines
were making clothing cheaper, faster.
King Cotton make way for new masters?
Unthinkable? Well, think again!
The North had lots of one thing (rain)
which meant fast rivers. Water's free,
and drives the new machinery,
like Slater's Mill. And what is more,
the North has coal, and iron ore!
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine -
the South looks with genteel disdain
on dour gray states with ugly mines
and foundries, north of Mason's line,
but once that giant finds his feet,
the South is dead, defeated, beat;
gone with the wind that blew through Tara.
No more tomorrows, Miss O'Hara.
It's not for slavery or even states' rights
that thirteen States resolved to fight.
The South waged war, not to preserve
Its unique vigor, valor, verve,
or its "peculiar institutions":
it fought the Industrial Revolution.
His voice was loved,his colour not
Only the former him fame brought
Summa cum laude in study and sport
His origins drew him up socially short
Jim Crow laws were the sinister wedge
Which left him at his country's edge
His nation's shame burned deeply within
Denying forgiveness for his darkness of skin
He longed for the time when men would be equal
His involvement with communism delivered the sequel
At a time when McCarthy sought to unmask the red
So many suffered paroxysms of dread.
In 1929 after his London show he set out for home late
It was then there occurred a miracle of fate
Singing rang out sweet and crystal clear
Voices of Welsh miners singing songs to them dear
Amazed by their power in their penniless plight
He became their brother in arms that very night
Colour was not what bound him to them
But the poverty to which politics the lower classes condemn
So there was born a rich and mutual harmony
Between a star and a proud but poor army
They both knew the the sting of imposed misfortune
Refusing to give up their independence of tune
He bestrode the world like a black Colossus
Until he was pulled down by destructive bosses
Who would brook no challenge to their status
But his example lives on to fully elate us
This man ,Paul Robeson,a tower among men
Met persecution with stout acumen
He stands out as our beacon of light
For all the victims who fought the good fight.
An Eroded Heart
When you see me the smile shall not vanish from my face
But peep into my heart it is laden with tears of an eroded heart
Burdened with the sorrows of the self and of others around me
A soul that knows nothing but survives on the language of love
Much love have I received when I held the hands of pain and suffering
Much shattered have I been by the masks of ego that bestrode by my side
Destiny's unkindness of distancing family ties since early childhood
Were lessons for humanitarian reprieve in lives of others around me
Oft insulted and abused but forgiving next morn with my famous sunny smile
January 28, 2016
The
style
giant
who bestrode-
florid art nouveau
and a linear art deco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Lalique
You pace the forest with comfortable decadence, seizing a power you have but do not know.
Lying in the sun, the beast comes to take you on, up to the next plateau.
You’re a pinch-kissed cowardly lion, dangling from the hands of destiny’s time.
You seek honesty from the mouth of a friend, a judge whose sentence never fits a crime.
Blood stains a yellow road where love is flooded & washed to sea.
You know, I know there are sharpened rubies in Hell, waiting for me.
You are stuck in formation, congealed with decadence, hoping the sun does not go down.
Before your friends ramble and tease, your cool feet will rust in the ground.
There is oil that keeps you moving. It gives the honor which makes wrong right.
Now your tinny eyes are frozen, transfixed on the pinch of a needle’s bite.
Your friends are coming now to give a heart which they bestrode.
It is there love never blossoms, in the roots that they have sowed.
You are dancing when not decadent, yet ignorant in vain,
And your friends drip with despair so that they’re feeding from your brain.
Remember - vended produce fills you up – knowledge bestowed.
Although it may never help you, take an apple for the road.
God has cast a lively ember on the straw of this attire.
So let your friends come dote upon the contents of the fire.
Sleep soundly in your decadence, with red to match your shoes.
While lost inside the daydream, play a game that you only lose.
Look for the good witch, beckoning as every intent steals,
And spend your last days muttering to yourself, clicking your heels.
Into the dawn you will discover nothing as you go
In search of homely comfort beyond, over the rainbow.
Awake among the poppies, we can find you in dream
Where the turning of an hourglass exhumes your private seam.
A hero in a dart places himself upon your wall,
As we can only watch it from this tiny crystal ball.
Up close, true friends are crying and scolding in their attack,
But I can see few good witches smiling in the back.
HOMECALL
Echezona, she calls me home
Remember the grounds upon which you suckled
Remember the voice that weaved your dreams
Remember the warmth that spun your wake
I am the mirror of your future
And I am the shadow of your past
Echezona, she calls me home
I know that back upon which I bestrode
I revere the arms that shook with the melancholy of the uncertain
And yes! I know the voice that hummed the melody of my dreams
I sniff the fragrance of your smell
It is smoke and camwood and ash
It is also the sweat of decades of tilling
Echezona, she calls me home
She calls me to the root where my cord is buried
See I set out on a homeward bound journey
I carry my vagrant feet, weary with years of turbulence
I drag myself to that place
Where the flames of my fathers lie smouldering
I return; I walk the paths I learnt to live
Echezona, she calls me home
See, the rain of fortune falls right here
Upon that roof your searching eyes failed to meet
Your strength lies beneath those skies
Upon that soil you fought your first fight
The laughter of the sun is generous
It brightens the threshold that housed your naked years
Echezona, she calls me home
Forget not the songs of your warrior ancestors
Forget not the dance of victory that thumped the soil you thread
I am drawn to this homestead; this land of many tears and laughter
I return to dance the dance of the great
I return, a sojourner bearing songs that sprout upon my soil
To hang beneath such skies as these,
Sheet blue glass, marbled with white,
Clouds threading wisps on a day to seize
This glory before the fall of night.
I stared aloft with blood infused
With springtime’s amphetamine jolts,
With dandelion seeds and daffodil juice
And the sparks from lightening bolts.
And in this cool, stately reverie
As greenfly crawled upon the rose,
The world it shrank microscopically
To elements of poetry and prose.
A poem of love, the soft whispering words
Dripped from the murmur of my lips
And drowned the sound of bees and birds,
Becalmed the sails of the sailing ships.
To listen as a vacuum ruled the earth,
To the rhyme wrought in this magic hour,
A poem of love, a colossus of worth
Bestrode the day with its’ power…
Don't let my hope die down
although i know it was mine
to begin with
And the moon is praying
yet some see Elijah bestrode back in town
but I'm an old sinner
too old for my years
not knowing who would emerge
from the gloomy vale
I rode away
to see the harbour's light dim
but still I think of outside
where all the pain was
Lilac Bliss
Passion clouds.
Kindred spirits beyond azure sky,
God's compassionate vows: peace, love…joy.
Turbulent winds impervious hope
Bestrode life melody, freedom.
Crescent aquamarine moonlight elation
Awestruck, family prayers calm desire.
Northern light hot kiss, lilac bliss… haven.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 7, 2010
Forgive me, Linda-Marie. I couldn’t help myself. When I saw your Poetry in Motion
challenge, even though I wasn’t tagged, I wrote a poem. I missed playing “Poetry in Motion”
on Poetry.com. And as before, it was great fun!!! I hope you do not mind.
Smiles, Dane Ann