Best Brumley Poems
Spring stirs her eager young
Giving life, renewed to those
Who stand about and doze
She whispers hope of things begun
Beneath winter's cold repose.
Summer, smiling golden rays
With ample breasts of rain
Feeds and soothes the pain
Of changing white to green to gray
While dressing her wards again.
Fall, donning multicolored hues
Weeps, her leaves cascading
As her life is brilliantly fading
She takes with her the morning dew
Leaving frost in the trading.
Winter, wearing crystal shards
Bares her nudity to all
Standing gracefully tall
She lays a white robe upon my yard
While singing her wanton call.
And I..., I sit patiently by
Watching through shielding glass
Four sisters marching past
Thanking God who dwells on high
For His daughters' stark contrasts.
Timothy I. Brumley
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Categories:
brumley, nature, seasons,
Form:
Personification
From my window lofty high
I sit and watch the passersby
Safely from within the womb
Of this quiet and private room
That's my asylum in the sky
And, I imagine...
From the safety of my perch
Above the elm, the oak, and birch
Alone, I slowly drift through life
Exempt from conflict, chance, or strife
Away from any harmful search
And, I imagine...
From my pinnacle of peace
Much like the eagle, lark, and geese
I wrap myself in solitude
Safely from the multitudes
And their evils that never cease
And, I imagine...
I imagine a world doing good
With folks behaving like they should
A world glowing with brotherly love
That's flowing down from God above
With all faiths lovingly understood
But then...
From this prison lofty high
I'm left alone to wonder why
Why the world became so cold
And, why compassion can't unfold
Out there perhaps a soul could try
But here alone,
...I can only imagine.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, introspection, life, parody, people,
Form:
Rhyme
All the evergreens are greener
And the pines are darker skinned
Only leaves that bear the burn marks
Are the witnesses of wind.
On the grass the dew is frozen
In a spiders web of white
And the cold that bites my fingers
Makes me wonder as I write.
How did winter come so swiftly
How did summer die so fast
Where’s the grave, where was the battle
Are they all buried in the past?
Now I feel the winter nibble
On my fingers with its frost
And the wind that it has summoned
Mourns for seasons that are lost.
Was it but one dusk, one daybreak
Was it only in a blink?
For the summer was my feather
Now the winter is my ink.
How did shadows shift so quickly
How did colours change so much
As reflections in the water
That simply vanish with a touch?
Now the daffodils are rising
Yet the jasmine blooms are gone
Now the evergreens are greener
And the frost adorns the dawn.
Yes, how strange it is to wonder
So I wonder as I write
What if winter should then also
Simply vanish in the night?
I dedicate this poem (and I'm not being sarcastic or exaggerating)
to my mentor and my friend Timothy Brumley, who taught me
the art of rhythm, showed me the advantage of counting my syllables,
raised my goal from acceptable to perfection,
and helped me to turn my nursery rhymes into poetry.
(and no Tim don’t protest, they really were nursery rhymes)
Categories:
brumley, nature, seasons, me, winter,
Form:
Rhyme
I knelt to pray the other day
To give the Lord my sins away
But held within a secret sin
A sin that caused me pain to say
A secret sin I held within
As I began to pray....
And, trying there my soul to bare
I slowly came to be aware
That painful sin I held within
Had kept the Lord away somewhere
And it was then my secret sin
Became much easier to share.
And so once more I did implore
My loving Lord my peace restored
And gave that sin I held within
As I had always done before
And that is when my secret sin
Became that painful sin,
... no more.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, faith, forgiveness, inspirationalsin,
Form:
Rhyme
There once was a woman named Linda
Who would keep a clean hacienda
Till four children she bore
And then bore she one more...
She now has a different agenda!
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, family, funny, mother
Form:
Limerick
Multicolored leaves
Dancing in the northern winds.....
Wave farewell to fall.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, nature, seasons
Form:
Haiku
A shaman prays, the Spirit hears
While a Seventh Calvary regiment waits
Unarmed, a tribe endures a Union's hate
Their animosities, and their fears
As the blue coats begin to circle...
Their wrath begins to circle.
That shaman saw but a single Spirit
That was split between different beliefs
He could accept the white Spirit Chief
But the white men would not hear it
They would not blend their God
With the red heathen God.
Anger explodes behind powdered shot
Spraying death from muzzled shame
Cruelly winning their ill gotten fame
Painted heroes claim a tainted spot
History claims the Ghost Dance...
As death claims the last dance.
A Dakota creek runs darkly red
Forever silencing the Ghost Dance
A chanting shaman dies in his trance
One hundred fifty Sioux lay dead
Now, only blue coats remain...
Only the blue remain.
A creek ran red with Union shame
When a shaman called the Spirit Great
And that Spirit did not hesitate
He fell on Wounded Knee and came
To take His people home...
His people swiftly home.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, history, inspirational, native americandeath,
Form:
Narrative
I'm a ship alive with voice
Adrift on the oceans of time
Sailing through a storm of choice
On waves of verse that need no rhyme.
Never far from harbor or shore
Driven by passionate gales
I have only words for oars
And, only faith for sails.
My manifest is etched on scrolls
My cargo sealed by blood rites
I'm searching the seas for lost souls
Shipwrecked from storms in the night.
I bring relief to those in need
And precious hope to the dying
I search for starving souls to feed
Bringing life and joy undying.
I cure the sick and brokenhearted
While saving lives for King and crown
I'm the greatest ship ever recorded
I am the holy word of God,
....unbound!
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, hope, inspirational
Form:
Personification
This morning I hiked a wooded trail
And while quietly strolling along,
I was pleased to hear a lonely quail
A singing his mournful song.
And then again this afternoon
While drawing water from the well
A loon began it's soothing croon
That echoed 'cross the dell.
And in the evening as I dined
While resting in the swing
A mockingbird was very kind
To perch close by and sing.
Then later, as I knelt to pray
In telling God, "I love You"
That, I wished to hear Him say
Just once, He loved me too.
Then Father spoke! "Don't you know?
My son of course I love you too!
I sent couriers today to tell you so
Did my three messengers not find you?"
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, animals, faith, inspirational, naturelove,
Form:
Narrative
I am the ghost of heartaches past
I'm love's dark contrast
That empty seat
Beside you when you eat
The tear stains on your pillow case
I'm that new wrinkle on your face.
I am the gremlin of "What if?"
If you catch my drift
Who's biggest theme
Is to haunt all your dreams
I'm that loud echo in your life
That constant nagging extra strife.
I am that cold spot in your bed
I'm words left unsaid
I'm anger won
I'm promises undone
I'm that thing left to chance
I'm Lady Loneliness.....
Would you care to dance?
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, inspirational, introspection, loss, lost
Form:
Personification
You'll know when you have destroyed a culture,
When you have slain their last poet....
And forgotten his words!
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, introspection, loss, philosophy, social
Form:
Kimo
Evil is a spiritual maggot,
That devours the heart and mind...
Leaving the soul to rot.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, introspection, philosophy, religion
Form:
Kimo
They sound quite brilliant,
The rantings of a madman...
To those with like minds!
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, confusion, introspection
Form:
Senryu
Floating, and skimming through the wind
I climb higher and higher to the clouds!
Diving and rising again, I rise above.
Silence! The wind my constant friend
Numbs my beak and whispers out loud
While I climb to that special place I love.
Hoovering, waiting for the rising drafts
I look down through white mountains
Mottled green like algaed ponds in snow
Appear below. Riding old familiar paths
Of current diving and rising like a fountain
I blast skyward, just a little more to go!
Just one final current to catch, I wait
Spiraling at Heaven's door it comes
And I ride effortlessly past His throne!
Tranquility engulfs me as the world abates
Clarity of mind ever present as I become
One with God!....I am Lark, and I'm home!
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, animals, faith, hope, imagination,
Form:
Rhyme
Castaway in the isles of obscurity
I pen my diary in blood
Encased within poetic bottles
And cast them on the temporal winds
Into the sea of humanity.
It is an act of desperation
That perchance in time
There on some distant shore
Some passerby might find them
And in finding them read them
And by reading them discover me.
And so I sire my own little castaways
Bearing witness of their author
A message in a bottle
In search of that coincidental jury
Who having reviewed the evidence
Might find me guilty of life.
Timothy I. Brumley
Categories:
brumley, hope, poems, writing,
Form:
Free verse