Best Clearings Poems
Creeping creepy creepers, the crawling trellis
jutting out of everywhere
snaking through country and metropolis
twisting turning in floral bliss
but more like snakes that hiss
But in quietude feign death for self-defense!
Weeping willows with an unreal surreal sorrow
weeping tears of dew onto the silted furrow.
Perhaps weeping for bretheren felled
in deforestations and land clearings in
my imaginations of the call to preservation.
Against ethnic cleansing of greenery for selfish building
As per man's construction for mere recreation
Velvety-green tear- stained faces or rather foliage
When dew is stuck on them as nature's trinkets of pearls.
And over there touch-me-nots swaying coyly
like prim and proper maidens
in the fantastic floral gardens.
And what in the world is this case?
Imitation flowery in place of imitation jewellery?
Yeah, thats poinsettia in a vase
Leaves in the disguise of flowers
Its actual flowers relegated to backstage.
And ethereal fairy-slippers await their never coming wearers
and Indian pipes to be admired by Red Indian sightseers.
Oh and here's another spectacle- but sniper tactics this time
Yikes! Let the naive insect world beware!
Whilst the bloodthirsty killers lie in ambush
Those camouflaged jungle guerrillas
or should we say the venus fly-traps!
Or a more harmless one yet mimicking the scary
A snap-dragon flora, its mouth opening and snapping shut.
Then watch that mega-sized jumbo giant flora
The world's largest flower
No stems, no leaves, plant-eater plant, rafflesia.
Is it too much for the faint-hearted ha ha.
And wow now watch that incredible costume, oh my!
A flower masked as some pesky fly!
None other than the remarkable fly orchid.
And yet another, the silent music of the fiddlenecks
Fiddles as if for the light-weight fairies.
And lastly not forgetting ofcourse
the sky-blue unforgettable forget-me-nots
A memorable bouquet but themselves devoid of memory.
Ah nature lover poets if you wish to view
more of flora in a fancy dress masquerade
Go ahead and flip through the pages of
a botanical, floral
horticultural
pictorial journal.
And see for yourself the fantastic flora's charade
or else imagine them dressed as a floral renegade!
I turn to my girl highlighting Mayday is near
A day of spectacle that the whole village views
There's Jesters of folly and Knights without fear
Witnessing lances and jokes, always going askew
To view such we can venture along different ways
We can stroll by the river listening to many sounds
In awe as we walk amidst most wondrous displays
That on any given day beautiful vistas abound
Decisions, decisions, as we contemplate which way
It's such a special day wondering what to wear
Beauty personified will my Olive be on this day
Knights or Royal Princes, all they can do is stare
So tomorrow we've decided to be our chosen route
Two hearts in decision, declaring what's their suit
Mayday morn now greets as I turn next to me
She my guiding light as beautiful as the dawn
Excitement illuminates for into her eyes I see
Onto my back I lie, that feel she's now upon
Into this day we go heading along the river
Crystal clear translucent such serenity in it's flow
Under greened canopies cooled shaded deliver
Wafting leaved dress in delightful fanned throw
We sense the clearings near for scents we sense
Sporadic clusters in capture of welcoming eyes
Mayday games have started, distant heard suspense
Knights on horseback mounted, now in espy
Now we're in amidst encapsulated we now are
She's here to cheer, her Sir James, soon to spar
Balcony she now awaits, white steed he's now astride
Blinkered pairings gallop towards intended foe
To win this Mayday he, to fight for her his bride
Eliminate his enemy, witness his crimson flow
His lance in now connect, thrown metal disperses
Petals of beauty hurled of rainbows selected
Images of we, now thinking marital rehearses
To know on this day, her intended she's elected
Moments of their previous now in recent past
Knowing they're now free in kaleidoscopic stream
Spectrum of feelings now in view full cast
In colourful extremes, fight for your dreams
.
That Bench
He goes there every day; to that bench in the shade;
Where his shoes have formed small clearings in the gravel;
where his wool sport coat has rubbed smooth the paint.
He goes there every day, to that bench in the shade
where the squirrels eat straight from his hand
as little birds frantically snatch up seeds he's sprinkled about.
He goes there every day, to that bench in the shade
but not today…and not again.
08/30/15
Submission for Contest: The Sense of Touch
Sponsored by: Nette Onclaud
This day has not seen the sunlight
It feels the night finds no excuses
For the darkness of this day
I cannot put my mind to bed
Please.... O God,
lift the mist that fogs my eyes
and let tomorrow come upon a bright sunrise!
Let new grasses wave in a new wind.....tomorrow
Let white buds blur our orchard lanes again.
Let clouds rise for a brief flying....tomorrow...
And earth feel the tiny feet of rain.
Streams will wash their pebbles white....tomorrow
Each shaken fern will yield a twinkling shower,
Meadowlarks will spend their songs....tomorrow...
And sun-drenched clearings will be glad with flower
The wide lift of blue sky.....tomorrow....
Will glimmer from beyond each leafing bough...
I will walk out into the woods ..... tomorrow....
tomorrow.....
Thank you, O God,
....I will be able to sleep now.....and dream
of a bright tomorrow...
____________________________________________________________________
down the path of broken promises
up the stream’s misguided dreams
shoulders burdened crushed and rounded
by all accounts tallied and squared off
countless breaths and tears held back
while chilling fears explode unhinged
tossed plans and schemes to wispy clouds
deep in marshlands of futility hope lies
armsful of useless forgotten treasure
fistsful of dust cast out to all four winds
tomorrow’s sunrise stretching
over stray clearings of blue skies
but tonight under the canopy of stars
love no longer will be denied
Read on air by invitation ~ April 9, 2021 'LATE NIGHT POETS'
AP: 2nd place 2021
POTD - March 30, 2021
Submitted on March 28, 2021 for contest PHOENIX RISING sponsored by UNSEEKING SEEKER - RANKED 4TH
When hearts are heavy, and teardrops start
When days have found the sunlight dim
And night can find no good excuse
For the thunder, or the storms, or the weary and grim...
When I cannot put my mind to bed...
I think of tomorrow, and all of the good things, instead...
New grass will wave in a new wind....tomorrow....
White buds will blur our orchard lanes again.
Clouds will rise for a brief flying....tomorrow...
And earth will feel the tiny feet of rain.
Streams will wash their pebbles white...tomorrow
Each shaken fern will yield a twinkling shower,
Meadowlarks will spend their songs....tomorrow...
And sun-drenched clearings will be glad with flower.
The wide lift of blue sky...tomorrow....
Will glimmer from beyond each leafing bough.
I will walk out into the woods...tomorrow....
tomorrow....
Thank you, Lord....I will be able to sleep now.....
--------------------------------------------------------
I plant an image
and it comes up a poem
red, yellow and green.
It has leaves and limbs
and phrases never heard.
I walk around it and touch
it on all sides
realizing the body
is greater than the words.
The body is greater than my thoughts,
and late at night it talks to me.
I remember
an early morning drive
silent and still
skies of gold
new growth reaching for the sun
rising, rising from what was scorched
aspiring to be
old growth nearby
that knows no time
but knows all seasons at once.
I remember
telling a friend of the Great North Woods
of passing the passages that led
to campsites and clearings
passing.
I remember
coming back to her.
I tell her our story
unsure of where it begins
where the middle is,
and yet,
I don’t want it to end.
She clears a table
and comes back to refill my drink.
Neon lights in the window shine,
and she smiles at me-
there are stars in her eyes.
THE TERRAIN OF ABSENCE
I think I've finally understood why distance makes
love tremble like a flame held in strangers' palms ~
it isn't distrust that shakes it, no, but that concrete lack,
a hunger for the body, for air breathed in the same room,
a territory of absence with maps drawn on water,
where your name is a city I can no longer touch.
When you're near, I learn you instinctively, the way skin learns rain:
the way you go quiet before saying something important,
the faint tremor in your voice, like a spider's thread in the wind,
the shadow that crosses your face when you remember something old,
the gestures you make without knowing you're making them ~
I know you through evidence, not guesswork, I hold you in context.
But distance leaves white spaces, clearings without footprints,
and the mind has this cruel habit of filling them
with whatever it finds in its darkest pockets:
with versions, with mistranslated silences, with scenarios
grown overnight like mushrooms in the basement of thought,
and every silence of yours becomes a room without a door.
That's why I believe closeness makes love more certain ~
not because distance would shrink the love itself, as people think,
but because presence gives certainty a body, bones, weight,
a breath that confirms, a hand that signs
everything the soul says and cannot prove over the phone;
truth needs a temperature in order to be believed.
When I can't see you, all I have left is to believe, and faith is beautiful
and dangerous in equal measure, like a glass bridge over fog,
because there, exactly there, in the gap between believing and knowing,
uncertainty builds its nest, that white and greedy bird
that pecks at night along the edges of your face
until what's left is a love built only out of memory.
Maybe that's why long-distance love is a cult without an altar,
a prayer spoken to a window that never answers back;
and yet I wait, the way a field waits for the snow it was promised,
I stitch my days to one another like unopened letters,
and I tell myself that one morning you'll simply walk through the door,
and all the white spaces will fill, all at once, with you.
"Turkey Fowl"
1776: The Eagle, The Dove, or the Turkey?
Great Seal of the United States
What should we choose for a symbol of our new life?
American birth of a nation
Declaration Committee chosen
Midwife of an egg Eagle, Dove, or Turkey
Dr. Benjamin Franklin
Plea a turkey
Truly a noble bird that’s free
Native American sees
A source of sustenance
Incredibly brave fellow
Single-handedly
Who wouldn't flinch in an attacking regiment of Englishmen
Foraging in clearings, field, forest, with nut bearing trees
Listen to the exuberant gobbling males carry
On the ground,
But at the night flying high
Roosting on treetops at the end of the day
Therefore, the national bird of America should be the Turkey
11/5/2015
1776: The Eagle, The Dove, or the Turkey?Choosing between the eagle, the dove, or the turkey for America's national bird. This is one of the final scenes in the musical 1776. Thomas Jefferson (dove), Ben Franklin (turkey) and John Adams (eagle) are waiting for Congress to ratify the Declaration of Independence. They start to discuss which bird would be the best national bird. Now I want to hear YOUR two cents. Which of the three would you choose and why? I'm leaving this wide open---be funny, be serious, be of two minds---whatever occurs to you, it just has to be one of those three.............
Sunset, quiet, except
for happy birthday to neighbor's child,
virgo, and all that means, purity
of morality, inability to scheme,
whatever else the stars dictated.
Woodpecker climbs oak, Connecticut.
Not ten years ago this mountain was
completely forested, untouched
since early arrival of Europeans.
Now my parents' home and others stand
in new clearings. The birds
do not seem to mind. Sing,
and deer occasionally visit, from where?
Out of the pre-historic past.
That I must die
is my every third thought.
On my hands and knees, cold sweat,
my own body murdering me.
I meet death with the philosophy
I lived in life. Acceptance
of the loneliness, the unregarding
beauty. There is that shoreline
along the straits to Puget Sound,
in mist, the generations
of sea birds nesting on the water.
Homey eyes of peasant stew
A cozy-colored mossy mew
Stony cottage, snowcheeks bleu
The forest fins for frosted fruits.
The warmest thought speaks crumbly bread
A partridge purr puffs through my head
That grants the grunkest grue a ‘Get!’
To packrat out the paquerettes.
Don’t see the speech I say with sneer
As something to be had with beer
Don’t bucker bricks of buttered bleers
And sift strunk talk through quandarous weirs.
The clothes and shelter of your mouth
Has cleaned my frame as cold as south
For queeks are quay, oh when you quoth
And yokel twirls are yaws of youth.
Clearings clean, as cream is crisp
With cluffs of clementine in risp
The grout of your cuts, freed of lisps
Your watch turns wandering whelks to whisps.
Sweet as sneezes from a lamb
As cozy as a Christmas ham
To jaunt with you with bread and jam
Is all I am, is all I am…
A blanket for the rawest nerve
A babe beyond the laws of earth
A smile sways the swooping surf
And gifts sweet goods of grinning girths.
Your hair? An electric guitar!
With sprinkles of suburban stars
Might smell of smelting lemon bars
Each strand a sacred seminar.
That hark the realms of Everfar!
And halt the helms of Neverare!
That licks the lich that leavens scars!
Screams “Non septimo, sempris quar!”
I believe you’re Good, I mean you’re blessed
With holy elks that guard your breast
Whose rumps remain on royal chests
And watch for wendigos out West.
A soul of Greyhound bus views darkly
Hushed in cornfields crumps so starkly
With windmills waning wicks so barky
Olive Garden oligarchies.
Clearings clean, as cream is crisp
With cluffs of clementine in risp
The grout of your cuts, freed of lisps
Your watch turns wandering whelks to whisps.
Sweet as sneezes from a lamb
As cozy as a Christmas ham
To jaunt and jibe with you with bread and jam,
Is all I am, is all I am.
No Adjectives
No adjectives graced skies of dawn
No crimson, mauve or bronze
Only blankets of fog akin to gloom
Blocking sunlight, singing runes.
Winds on gusts rose up in westerlies
Breath like brooms sweep skies majestically
Danced as a smile – heaven cheering -
Mischief on wings – imps twirl in clearings
6-14-21
Contest: Adjectives Deleted
Sponsor: Jack Webster
In a domain, now lost in time,
There roamed a minervoo over the land.
With five hairy legs under platelets of rime;
They skidded and skated, they frimmed and they frammed.
But by far the scariest, creature of all,
Was the Trestial, Lambergyl Bruegal.
Standing only one foot, three inches tall;
It burped along gaily with its silly, audacious, rediculous call.
Lambergyl Bruegals are gruff and they're mean,
Bumping along in their elongated, flying machines.
They'll assist you happily if they're in the mood;
But if they're not - you just may be "alligator's food".
Onto the paths of the jungle, laden in zoolies;
They came with their bizarre, gotcha-be doolies.
Onto the clearings beset with fribps;
They came with their rollipops stuck to their lips.
A Lambergyl Bruegal's nothing to mess with;
Some folks say, they are only a myth.
Don't get in their way or hit the wrong chord;
You don't want to annoy one - particularly if they're bored.
Let this be a warning to all those in doubt,
They'll rock your world wildly, and then they will shout.
The Lambergyl Bruegal's both crabby and mean,
Leaving you speechless, oogling his red, Bruegal machine.
I can't tell you no more, cause' I'm not allowed;
Would be like an omchinoogle in its purple-white cloud.
Twood' be like the frzuegal to an oncoming ghinx,
Or perhaps like the mummy to its thribolex sminz.
black mother
the white of day stains your
painted dress
the black of night turns
razor sharp
feet that wear flaming coals
a soul that bleeds
outside and in
where trees bear crimson fruit
as roots full bore
hypocrisies drill so deep
to dig her earth
still plough the surface
clinging vines of apartheid
how much she suffers
raped and ravaged
again and again
strijdom
malan
verwoerd
names that stain
her southern land
g7 dead zones from 48
and cape town clearings
with
sharpeville apologies
still
segregate
now die
and die
and die
awake
by fate arise
friends of earth
minstrels of life
cast a new play
sing for the future
move for the past
turn now
in loves instance
an old face
a new name
an old shadow
seeds to grow
white sister
black brother
white father
black mother
african
Heart
african
soul
=z=
Japanese Scout 1942
Oh yer poncing on Kokoda and you see a little Jap,
Like a Rabbit with the Myxo, he dunno where he's at,
So he plonks at you with bullets, per Arisaka gun,
5 shots an he's on empty, now will come the fun,
Bandy legs come staggering, forward at the trot,
His bayonet fixed to score you, the bayonet fighting slot,
So play fair and bayonet fight with old Tom-Tit,
Parry and a butt slap, till death does do it's bit,
Another for the Pigs to eat,
When all are left to rot,
Of jaw bones there were many,
From the Japanese, a lot,
The first to see the other,
Got first shot, 20 yards away,
Another death another,
And the sadness came to stay,
So you never stopped a watching,
In the jungle clearings green,
Let your guard down, bullets costing
Blood n guts, it was obscene,
On the booze and home again,
Keep them white coat guys away,
no leccy shocks to keep me sane,
Behind the green fence isn’t, aint, ok,
Cos it's not, behind the fence of green,
Where I have bloody been,
2 never, never, never bloody stay….
Don Johnson