Best Bulletins Poems
Word has reached
A distant planet out their
Semaj, this ancient Celt
In ancestral despair
His droid Etto
Has bulletins relayed
The last human on earth
In final death display
Civilisation as he knew it
Has gasped its last breath
For the butterfly winged angels
Has left earth in death
For once again their desire
To gain the orb of life
Has left the world as he knows it
In death dying decaying strife
For weeks he travels
To a world he once knew
In ancestral pilgrimage
Answers he pursues
He arrives through earths atmosphere
Human eyes will never see
He lands near Loch Torridon
Kingdom of the King Kane family
Whats left of his village
Bodies drained of their life
Children and the elderly
Man and his wife
For the very last time
He views his ancestral surround
For on these peat laden glens
Black Roses abound
Alba, his country
In death dying decay
As he speeds through its glens
Black Roses display
He reaches the lowlands
And its riches of soil
But nothing else grows
Black Roses spoil
Moments later
There is the sound of a sonic boom
Black clouds above separate
Lights appear through the gloom
Categories:
bulletins, fantasy, placesdeath, world, death,
Form:
Rhyme
Silhouettes fade as summer draws near
Yearning for their presence in this barren room
Rippling sounds of one's laughter cause me to tear
Awakens this reverie like scent perfume
The vastness I never thought existed
Past the hallways where we've spent our youth
Smiles of the little ones thus recollected
Pictures from the bulletins show love and truth
Just as my heart, the red apple sits quietly
Treasuring the bond of our love so pure
The hugs, fights, celebration and anxieties
Carves the path to grow and mature
Oh darlings, it pains me to say goodbye
So please keep this chalk to remember me by.
Categories:
bulletins, children, class, farewell, graduation,
Form:
Sonnet
A State Of Majors and Algebra
From a bridge I lift eyes weary from equation forms
Majors and Algebra instruct
From on high the state loves us
Instinctively feed us what we must know
Keep us in place for hours
Guns on every head…to get ahead
Conclusions always drawn on time
Lines of math carried like conversations to their ends
Fractions fix themselves in front of us
Captured by majors on their heels
Algebra comes undone
Undressed for our consumption
Work, like dreams, goes on forever
Tonight it waits for majors and algebra to merge
Ranks remove me to seclusion
Books fall with rain into retreat
Lives are bulletins with holes
When government controls
Shocked to life with streams of data
Or shot to death in line with reason
Options can be unkind
No one inspects the dark
Perhaps it is not there
No one suspects me
In this my figures lie in wait
To see what moves prove
A state of majors and algebra
Or my escape
Categories:
bulletins, abuse, hope, judgement, math,
Form:
Blank verse
I was a mere lad of fourteen way back in June of nineteen forty-four.
I recall so well the Sixth of June when brave men stormed Normandy's Shore!
They were called 'news bulletins' in those days that flashed news on the air!
The course of battle was looking bleak and it was surely a day of prayer!
I was weeding rows of vegetables in the truck garden on my father's farm,
And, even as a young Hoosier boy I was filled with growing fear and alarm,
As I pictured gallant men spilling their blood on Omaha's crimson sand,
And struggling through the surf for the precarious safety of no man's land!
It was an agonizing day for the families of those involved in that awful strife,
Knowing a dreaded telegram could arrive anytime reporting the loss of life.
I proffered a prayer for those soldiers and my brother in the South Pacific,
Knowing tougher times were bound to come in this conflict so horrific!
With each stroke of my hoe upon that Hoosier soil I could only ponder,
Why courageous young Americans had to die on alien shores o'er yonder.
But later as I learned more about life, to me it became so very clear,
That they died for our precious freedoms that we ever hold so dear!
Upon the plain above Omaha Beach lie nine thousand men we mourn,
Who await Gabriel's clarion bugle call on that triumphant morn!
Lonely marble markers are etched with the names of heroes known,
But, alas, too many others read, "Known But To God Alone."
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 2 in Joann Grisetti's "Memories Of June" Contest - June 2012
Categories:
bulletins, nostalgia, war, men, prayer,
Form:
Rhyme
Memories shift through generations; pictures yellow, fray across the currents of time, worn and torn. Hushed stories talk about a life taken away too early, bone fragments in the mud, saltwater graves and grappling vines overgrowing some jungle island with a strange sounding name.
The hard sands of beaches are caught by the riptides of another time when soldiers scrambled down a ramp coming to a certain end. Families wait for word, huddled together in tight clusters listening to radio bulletins. Names are said with reverence as their ghosts gather in the shrouded mist, just on the edge always waiting, waiting to come home.
Families still search for their remains, something of who they were: a shard of metal ripped from the ancient skeletal remains of a plane that crashed; leather jackets that crumble to ash, numbers on an engine marking the place. They are the missing, waiting to be found, to come home for the last time.
Services are conducted, speeches are given by the few who remember, rifles raised in salute, flags folded with precision, placed in trembling hands. The anguished cry of taps signals the missing have come home; no matter how long it takes to find a son, a brother, a father they never knew or an uncle pictured in some grainy black and whites. It’s the journey’s end for the missing.
Categories:
bulletins, memorial day, world war
Form:
Narrative
Not much to do today
caught up on some
deferred reading
went to the store to pick up
a few things
took a walk down 3rd Ave
to get some sun
Basima and Azhar
play in the okra field
chasing each other screaming
and laughing
jaddah watches
from her soft garden chair
over a steamy afternoon
in ancient Miranshah
Did some journal writing
heated some
falafel and basmati
for dinner
downloaded some old
Ahmad Jamal tunes
had some chips and hummus
and iced chamomile tea
a methodical buzzing
overhead
in the high blue sky
then two clicks
a sudden
earsplitting whistle
and sharp chunks
of scorched metal
rip through
the garden
tranquility bursting
into a horror
of choking fire
and thick dark smoke
children freeze
forced to see the bloody corpse
of jaddah
splayed in her chair
blackened mutilated
and smoldering
Read a bit
of the newspaper
made some early
bill payments
closed the light
and laid
down
thinking tomorrow
I must buy some milk
Latif a child
up on the roof
thrown
to the ground
from the force
of the explosion
comes crashing
down
cracking
his skull bleeding
crying
and shrieking
along with Basima
and Azhar children
of circumstance
of breaking news
bulletins
never broadcast
of broken lives
and unspoken deaths
whose numbers
and names have
rarely been recorded
or revealed
living ghosts
left to shudder
mystified
and bereft
more invisible
victims
of the sacred
CIA slaughter
machine
with scant
publicity or mention
in the Constitutional
press – and for the sake
of the integrity
of the program
and the safety
of the nation
and without
any prior knowledge
to deny or decide
every American
is complicit
every American
is taking aim
and
pushing
the button
for those
good kills
striking at homes
in shattered
sand-filled lands
riddled with panic
and hate and God
day after day
and night
after
night
Categories:
bulletins, political, violence, integrity,
Form:
Verse
Wake my news, take my message away
Communication became a red flag
Bulletins became a blind eye
Abduction, tourism, grief, and murder became my footsteps
Each time I had to open my eyes
Ignorance and intelligence became enemies
The report, reporting, and reporters became advertisements
I try to scratch the surface looking for peace and harmony
Looking for followers of value
Preaching words of wisdom
Sending words to the wise
Letting us become one
Ceasefire to the bloodshed
Demolish torture, discomfort, and misery
Let’s, shake hands with the trigger person, prosecutor, and competitor
For assassination controls the pain we struggle to crucify
The message I try to speak only becomes a silence notification
Expression lost in fake news
For, when we become all for one, and one for all
Is when my message, becomes our message
to new footsteps
Footsteps bringing communication off the red flag
Bulletins start becoming a shine to our eyes
Abduction, terrorism, grief, and murder take a leave
Each time we open our eyes
Making it our message
Not just mine
Categories:
bulletins, change, community, inspiration,
Form:
Free verse
« Fools are my theme and satire is my song. »
George Gordon, Lord Byron
I
Donald Trump is an ignorant man,
Put in power by a populist gang,
Property dealer of some renown
Rode with post-truth into town.
‘A living libel on mankind’,
On money likes to keep his mind,
Cabinet filled with billionaires
Huddled rich in hunt for chances
Use their office to make advances,
Increase billions by four or five,
To make them feel their still alive
II
O, Ye great bulletins of Bonaparté,
Paton’s D-Day address to the Armé,
Abe on « a nation born in liberté »,
Churchill to the House in 1940 !
And now D. Trump, 45th president,
Tweets on Twitter setting a precedent,
Policy thought conveyed with such thrift -
Surely a sign of a nation adrift.
But look on the bright side : what a relief !
When Trump talks at length, it’s my belief,
Anacoluthia attack him in shoals,
Grammar left full of great gaping holes,
Collapses in dire, illiterate heaps.
Something to be said for infantile tweets,
Though geo-strategy run off so quick
Speaks of a nation decidedly sick.
Trump’s got a thing ‘bout alternative facts,
Alternative lies masquerading as acts
He thinks are truer than truly true facts ;
So obsessed by media mendacity,
Loses track of simple veracity,
Disorder like this makes for confusion,
Trump KO’ed by semantic contusion,
Is he speaking the truth or spouting lies ?
Makes him a fool in everyman’s eyes.
Categories:
bulletins, humorous, political, satire,
Form:
Political Verse
How many more news bulletins
must there be
before we finally awake
And see this second Exodus
Unfolding before our eyes
How many more bodies on the beaches
must there be
before someone stands up
and in the name of humanity
welcomes these weary souls
How many more tears of sorrow
Must there be
Before we wipe their eyes with love
And offer this disparate throng
Safe refuge from the storms
and a place to call home
How many more politicians
Must there be
Before one of them dispels
Their normalcy of rhetoric
And realises that they must not
Consider the cost of saving so many
When lives can still be saved
Categories:
bulletins, conflict, confusion,
Form:
Free verse
To aerate, babble and procrastinate
decluttering man cave rubbish
welcoming this temperate
(Billy me) idle March thirtieth
tooth house sand nineteen
eventually to accomplish
sorting thru lifetime
worth miscellaneous
papered material former
rainforest, I banish
to the shredder repurposing
once upon a time
stately majestic humongous
dignified cub billed bearish,
yet stern silent taskmasters
razed forest mongers left blemish -
fueling the roaring engines
of western civilization
paper products service
material world feeding bookish
appetite, sans (ironic
knotty twist) printed
hot off the press bulletins,
bestsellers inform boyish
wordsmith, how vast
treeless tracts hasten
global abomination, chopping
degradation, lamentation... brownish
blotches encompass inert naked,
torchered, and zapped
originally pristine realms
overrun by sawyers brutish
Paul Bunyanesque (sporting
as good) fellas carved
cleared, and cropped enormous
swaths back when bullish
intruders displaced indigenous
peoples crowing manifest destiny
as mantra to appease expansionist
predilection frenzied cultish
zero sum game to annex
unbroken wilderness promulgating
feverish gold rush to demolish
wantonly scorching Earth,
whereby present day burgeoning
population irrevocably establish
ruination ushering ominous augury
permeating mine mortal mutterings.
Categories:
bulletins, betrayal, dark, environment, grave,
Form:
Free verse
because we did not
choose death
it chose us
how the dead die
how the lies, lie
how the wind howls
under a clear Nevada sky
how the colors fade
to black, black,
black
twisting us up
fireballs and
acid pools
burning souls
of sorrow
sorrow skin kites
fly away
black as death
clouds
blood black leaves
newspaper
headlines
for angry
men
again?
Sandy Hook
once more
weeps in the angry wind
thorns on the cross
bulletins of death
as one more devil
does his best
to rip the souls
of men
bloodflower bombs
under the night sky
can’t die?
counting weapons?
really?
who cares how many?
once again, we weep
we grieve and grieve
our words and wounds
in the news
one more long death song
repeating rifles
bullet waves
under amber grain
within the well of sorrow
hidden in the headlines
our overwhelming pain
one more death
is much too much
white stones
death
on hillsides of green
broken bodies
stacked wheat
on red cement
gruesome as a Nazi
death camp
so much rotten fruit
and firewood
under a peaceful
Nevada sky
while the dark
dance of death
cuts away our inner child
foolish me
I thought all the demons had died
now I wonder
where are our angels?
have we killed them with our pride?
John is gone
Martin’s died
Jesus is long forgotten
and
all the wolves
are inside
us
Categories:
bulletins, violence,
Form:
Free verse
Cobblestones of pantry and a wide toothed grin. Visitors from afar pay no heed and paramount is the settling and uprooting of cultures old. Might as well be blood in that feather quill who prints octagonal lines on a parchment. The otters are arriving on their many boats. Their hats adjusted. Times of affluential fashion and norms carried in a wide brimmed basket hat. Always with a bow. The many eyes and ears of tree lined shores listen to the arrival. And as the booming stick pounds on the floor of this jungle the rush of brown skin dashes to the floor. Garden not a wilderness. Dangerous it is to attempt to train a beast. Attempt not to understand a culture. And harvest only what us necessary upon landing. Beginnings are not a temple they are akin to a whisk. Whir whirring and causing carnage, chaos and death. The cavern then utilised for storage. Those that had dwelt side by side now shuddered in the new comers presence. Myths are a faith and a comfort when the camps of the intruders are land lepers. Lesions. Talua the wise woman of dragmo speaks. Ordering all precious items be hidden in the sacred cavern. Enshrouded by canopy. Therefore unreachable. There it would be guarded by the blues. There it would come to no immediate harm. Yet, if one day the total environments were threatened with loss then the blues shall rise and with their many gifts call upon the sky carriages to assist the lands. Thus ensuring no single specie would be eradicated. So now to look upon the dawn. Imagining life as a fish or a prawn. Diving to depths but with no passports. Clapping and dancing with the bullfrog parade on bulletins. Tickets are not trains but trampolines to flies. Under a mountain pass moves a mammoth. Giggling bears in vaulted chapels. Undergrowth has reclaimed this place. And planets due are akin to pouring cream on strawberries on a very hot day. Weaving wavering weaponry weapons weeping wept webs weekly waking winking walking waves. *** potency. *** pickled ice cubes. Xx a pickle ice skating *** myriads of time paths in a juice. *** balmy bacons *** I think not a morning I wish fir a harmonic interlude of a dancing flower at midnight in a noodle broth. *** brethren. Brotherhoods. Breathe. *** zoological. X
Categories:
bulletins, beach,
Form:
There are things that you will hear only once or twice, and if you are wise, you will treasure them for a lifetime. And again, there are things you will hear time and time again, and if you are wise, you will value and never take them lightly. In my case, both things attached themselves and stuck to me like glue.
For example, at our church, I filled in for our head usher one Sunday. Standing at the main entry, greeting and handing out bulletins to attendees as they walked in, one gentleman said to me, "You are no Al Berry". I smiled in agreement with him and must have said to myself, "You sure got that right". I had learned long ago that Al was so well-loved, because Al always loved so well. Hearing a statement like that is rare, because knowing a person like Al is also rare.
On one occasion that I will never forget, I greeted Al at the entry and said, "It's good to see you, Al". His reply to me was so real and genuine and spoke volumes to my heart. I don't know if I had ever heard it the way Al said it. You see, Al has fought many battles with illness, and sometimes he was very near 'death's door'. Moreover, like the morning dew, Al has always been faithful, always bouncing back. Like apples of gold in pictures of silver*, Al spoke fitting words in reply when he said, "It's good to be seen".
745am070320PS*Proverbs 25:11
Update 92020: Al passed away a few days ago. Though I will not see Al again
in person, he shall ever be within my mind.
Categories:
bulletins, friend,
Form:
Narrative
If only love happened round the world
That would be a pretty slow news day
Actually CNN would have to shut down
No “JUST IN” bulletins, per se
Weather reports predict nothing but sunshine
Temperatures high in the 80s
People goin' round wearing dirty big grins
Things all coming up daisies
Wake up, wake up, my real good friends
Time to rise and start your day
Don't try watching the morning news
CNN has shut down they say
No point in broadcasting only good news
Boring and humdrum for sure
Imagine watching nothing but jubilation
It would sure bore one to the core
Wake up, wake up, my good friend Jack
Seems you were having too good a time
You had a great big smile on your kisser
If only real life was so sublime
© Jack Ellison 2013
Categories:
bulletins, friendship, love,
Form:
Quatrain
Here looking inwards while sitting in wards.
Never bored watching bulletins and staring out the window at the billboards with eyes that's been pulled before and my thoughts still talk forth.
Still taunted and real torn. My brain is torn. My clothes are worn and I'm worn out like the clothes I've worn since I've been in mourn.
If my secrets airborne are my thoughts seabourn and if so are they off a shipboard. Well formed traumas bounce like a springboard.
I got to reform from this clipboard message. I'm switchboard pressing like crowns with real thorns because I'm crazy with the devils big horns eating grilled corn with allies in this place where bloods borne
Was I still born from a rebirth but stillborn.
This stillwater ain't sating my thirst I will burn up until dawn because the sealed doors stay locked and we're locked in like ill thoughts. During storms and full moons my milk pours on the brick floor surface I'm sick and tick bourne and allergic. Staring in the mirror watch the devil rip his horns and dig out big thorns man I'm thirsty and been scorned. A little walk is all what I'd kill for. The risk warns you till morn so spill your guts and tell more to the billboard.
Categories:
bulletins, abuse, allusion, conflict, fate,
Form:
Rhyme