Best Canticle Poems
Fall softly, wee one, here ... fall softly
to your repose, drift the dark like a
feather! You are perfection, defined,
utterly and sublimely unique, your
Nascency like no other! Oh, countless
of your kind - yes, only the stars
themselves can avail your plenitude,
yet so exquisitely 'sui generis'! Fiery,
Brilliant, prismatic, birthed in perfectly
chiseled features ... dancing, soaring,
fanciful, true! You wink at me, flirting
coyly, (as others, but you're mine!) ...
I draw closer with every flutter, clouds
parting just enough for the moon to
peek through, as if they know how
beautiful you are, and how shameful
That such as you should die unseen
in the night ... alone. But alas, it is
my love for you that seals your fate,
and this long, dark, immaculate dance -
Your life's embers and intent - comes
gently to rest in my palm, and there,
in the warmth of my glove, you die ...
silently, tenderly, beautifully perfect ...
Snowflake.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Strand Choice T, Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Embers And Snowflakes" Poetry Contest, Anthony Slausen, Judge & Sponsor.
I hardly noticed the first tiny crack,
through the deluge of tears I cried.
Perhaps too numb to feel the sting of pain
or the fissure exposing my wounded heart,
but in sorrow, I chose to ignore it
in the futile hope that it would heal itself.
Adversity seldom vanishes of its own accord.
The cause of my anxiety increased tenfold
as larger pieces of me fractured and snapped.
My fragility was as bare as my soul,
both unprotected and vulnerable.
Wounds no bandage could cover or conceal.
My exterior had become a brittle shell,
falling around me in sharp edged shards.
The obvious camouflaged the obscure.
I had to be brave if I was going to heal.
I wanted no Humpty Dumpty Canticle
sung by pitying voices on my behalf.
The wall I once climbed no longer held me up
but I had learned to restrain my weakness
and the need to lean upon it as a crutch.
I motioned for the King's men to mount
and continue along on their journey.
If I was to be rescued, I swore to do it myself.
Carefully, I gathered each shattered fragment,
every crushed dream that had been broken.
I nurtured my wounds until my lamenting heart
stopped bleeding as we hobbled our way home
to be made whole once more.
January 6, 2023
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 24
Sponsored by Mark Toney
Canticle of Two Stars
I hear the two stars singing
In daylight valleys of never ending tears
And through deep deserts of rushing storms
At midnight;
Companions on my journey,
Duets,
In perfect harmony,
Daystar at the dawn -
A light unto my feet – a morning song -
North Star for the midnight
Standing watch in darkness
So quietly humming in solitude;
Celestial melodies
Intertwined
In radiant symphonies of light –
A morning paean
To rise up in daylight
And a lullaby
To guide my steps
Into dreams
Beneath broad wings
Protection from discord -
Fiery beacons over mountaintops
Chanting life at dawn and dusk -
The rhythm of two heartbeats
Heard across the galaxies -
A rhapsody.
Yes,
I hear the two stars singing.
This intricacy, this forest
fanfare of green life, flower
and fungi, the creatures
that crawl its damp understory
of bush and fern, and above,
the wing born marvel
of those masters of the air -
cause the mind to pause
with wonder as when under
the high ceiling of a cathedral.
Here too is something made
to hold what seems holy,
an ideal blest by a notion
of some unspoiled thing.
And here too are hymns
composed out of an innate
desire to praise by being true,
bug, bird or towering tree
all sharing in the presence
of that unfathomable mystery.
Warm, blue, Islands in The Stream
Immersed in your sweet bosom
I drift, slow, to your cool depths
Shimmering coral towers ...
Surround me like Heaven's spires
I reach for ropes of sunlight ...
And swallow my last ... wet ... breath.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Sevenbits" Poetry Contest, Nette Onclaud, Judge & Sponsor. ( Islands in The Stream = Caribbean Isles )
~ 10th Place ~ in the "An October Premiere Contest" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
ARE YE GOING TO MARRY THAT WITCH OF A DAME - Counterfeiting the CANTICLE by T. Wignesan
(With self-lacerating apologies and scathing penance to that great troubador medieval English poet who longed for his lovely lass during expunging pilgrimages to Scarborough Fair. T. Wignesan)
Are ye going to marry that b**ch of a dame
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Remember what she did to make you so lame
For she's bound to ditch ye if you hardly rhyme
Tell her to stop painting her leathery face
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Without no mud nor slime on lewd grimace
She's bound to ditch ye if you're stumped for a rhyme
Have her stripped in yon dark desert lithium mine
Peanuts quail venison on lime
Remember how good she's at the roller-coaster grind
She's bound to ditch ye if you feminine rhyme
Have her read to ye Gulliver's Travels in bed
Peanuts quail venison on lime
And ride all Yahoos till their butt-ends turn red
Then she's bound to stitch vowels in your rhyme
Have her show ye all her unkempt drawers
Peanuts quail venison on lime
In between her sonorous sighs and rough coughs in tatters
Then she'll witch her wiles for the guile of a dime
© T. Wignesan - Paris, May 8, 2019
Here's a toast to the ones you leave behind.
To the ones who time carries you past,
spending a while with comrades
until the rivers drag you away.
To the ones who sail their own courses through life,
a far, far cry from your own.
And yet, that cry is always heard,
in the end,
for companionship ever beckons.
The lanterns on their prows
shine a light for you, always;
whenever they're near their fellow in need.
To the ones you never fail
and who never fail you;
to the ones whose separation
marks the end of an era.
Yes;
a toast to the ones you leave behind.
A canticle I think I'll be,
A rimed thought, hoary and ancient,
Stinking as the dust heaped up empyreal on the hills of
The Judean sands;
And as dulled and dimmed as an archaic coin tarnish'd.
This is what I think I might be.
I'd as lief be this as any other you might care to name.
Valid is this, my remote and removed claim,
And it all began hereon.
O, that was an age ago, that remote and bygone time,
Rimed with hoar-frost and the whitishness of ancientness,
When as blood-soaked, cruciferous hills remote and circumvallatory or else
Perhaps circumferential to the great, walled city, itself circumvallatory;
When all this began.
When this particular beguine to which we've all been dancing lo this many score of years began.
It was as a woman bedecked in black on a Sunday morning newly kissed by the auriferous dawn,
(A goldener dawn than even that on which she met the man whose coffin she was now appointed to follow in a moribund processional, a macabre and solemn, ceremonial dance of death,)
Going down to the fixed graveyard.
That day was as the day on which I first deigned to join this,
And adopting unto myself the sobriquet, shibboleth "A canticle I think I be"
(For I was not permitted to use the full appellation I wished to apply to myself,
Owing to some stupid and recondite rule regarding and regulating the use and due conservation of characters: Yet not those as those of the mainstays of literature, no! I mean to say the characters that are synonymous with words and spaces and punctuation and the like,)
And here the tale ends, though 'twas not Moschean nor Noahide as
I perhaps meant it to be.
Oh, well: All's well that ends well.
(For was this not an idiotic tale, yet a harrowing one, whose lightest word would harrow up the young blood of any and all who saw it, read it, perused it?)
Canticle to the Wind
This is the place I build my world.
A funny little god, fussing about the raw material
and without a clue about completion.
Beside the insistent calm, questions.
Beside answering, wonderment.
It is well; answers will not do.
It is out of nothing comes wisdom.
Don't look. See.
It is heartbeat; it is footstep; it is triumph;
it is vanity just before collapse; it is waiting.
Then...then it may speak beyond the voice of God
who can share with us one impossible reality:
exit and out
~
La Fête foraine de Scarborough
For the anonymous medieval poet
and Simon & Garfunkel - in admiration
************
Allez-vous à Scarborough fête foraine ?
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Parlez de moi à une fille d'antan
Elle fut jadis mon amie intime
Dites-lui de me coudre un Cambric chemise
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Sans bordure ni de la finesse
Et sûr elle restera mon amie intime
Dites : faites-le dans une ruelle de sycomore
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Et le recueillir dans un panier des fleurs
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites : lavez-le dans ce puit sec
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Où l'eau ne monte pas ni pluie tombe raide
Ainsi elle restera mon amie intime
Dites : trouvez-lui un acre de terre
Persil, sauge, romarin et thym
Entre les flots et sur le rivage sableux
Ainsi soit-elle mon amie intime
Scarborough Fair
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
For once she was a true love of mine
Have her make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor fine needle work
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to weave it in a sycamore wood lane
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
And gather it all with a basket of flowers
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her wash it in yonder dry well
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
where water ne'er sprung nor drop of rain fell
And then she'll be a true love of mine
Have her find me an acre of land
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Between the sea foam and over the sand
And then she'll be a true love of mine
© Translation : T. Wignesan - Paris, April 12, 2019
Every atom and molecule
of me was made by you
in the cauldron of your womb
and these five senses of mine
are as much yours to mirror
back your majesty.
For you I assemble the morning
with its chilly wind coming across
the bay, the bloom weighted branches
of magnolia bending over my way
and scenting this last month of winter
with a promise of spring.
And here, just over the water,
great scoops of cloud
sitting like sun licked ice cream atop
of the city skyline, soft serve
for this sensory breakfast
that I offer you
lifted on the laughter of children
on their way to school,
all this a blossoming
of abundant life held in a morning
gifted me, beauty born
of such unimaginable savagery.
This beautiful day of December is yours
we all get together to love and rejoice
We'll always remember the day you were born
The angels of heaven are here to adore
mmmmm mmmmmmm mmmmmm
This canticle hymn is about your brave choice
to enter this world like a child with no toys
The stable is lit with the flame of your love
on this beautiful day of December
on this beautiful day of December
Canticle for Usquebaugh
Have you not heard the fragrant voice of Aberlour,
Soft spoken and gentle to the tongue, quiet oak
And the distant tones of bourbon, orange, and
Candied peel?
Lazy hills, with tumbling streams and silent
Broadwaters, green meadows and the glint of
Golden, shaking barley, distant to the horizon,
Harbinger of joy.
Have you not heard its seductive tones, eloquent
Words of desire and promise, singing to you,
Praising your virtues, painting a portrait of
Greatness and worth?
Aberlour.
Why am I so fulfilled with love's grandeur?
Tis a question, without a clear answer!
Far too sane, to hunt for the perfect man.
Nay, disgustingly to brag,I once did.
Indeed,the treasure of treasures, the one!
That thou mayest neither touch nor to bed.
Because it is true as the rising moon.
Thou shalt not have him, not now, not yet soon.
In a castle, is our gentle domain.
His name.......a canticle for the stars!
3/22/2021
~4~
"Inside thy mind hides thine canticle,"
Says the gifted for the chiromanticle.
He read my palms with sturdy eyes,
And said "Boy, there's another in thy mind."
"A voice" he said that "sings you to sleep,
And makes you feel that you must weep.
For the other in you wants you to feel,
Neither joy nor love, of which from you he steals."
"What do I do to save myself," I said,
"He clearly wants me dead."
To which he answered as each 'o his eyes rolled:
"Tell him to close his incessent and yammering pie-hole."