Best Counterpane Poems
I skip one stone across the pond,
an oblate onyx dotting i's
in footles of a vagabond
who tiptoes after tiger eyes.
Perhaps the ripples left behind
are teary runes of gray moonstone
by starry sapphires once declined
for poesies of chalcedone.
In unison do pines recite
around the swaying cellophane
with spruce in verses malachite
on tawny-needled counterpane.
Soon aloe waters recompose
an epilogue of silent prose.
11/5/17
Image #1
Gentle sounds of rainy days,
Cool dampness on a counterpane
The memory of my childhood years, beneath a quilt of poetry
Stirs longing for that healing grace, that comes again upon the page...
A mother's touch with vapor-rub
Some toasted bread, a tender face
A playground out beyond the dew..
The dampened swing, my misty view..
A shadow was my childhood friend, and sick-bed days a game
Imagination flew so high, my carpet ride to magic lands
My tattered book of childhood poems, still takes me by the hand
.................................................
My first introduction to poetry...Robert Louis Stevenson's Childhood Garden of Verses
(A sick-bed keepsake that kept me company)
Courageous are those in smallest rooms
Who stare at darkness and wildly plan
How a meal for six can be made tomorrow
From what might not nourish one slender man
Courageous are the women who lie so still
The very bones of their bodies ache
Rather than let their anxious men
Know that they too lie awake
Courageous are the men who work all day
To climb the walls, to make a gain
To keep them fed, against the rain
A brittle wind for counterpane
Yet praise their lives with some content
And fill with love what anguish spent
Submitted for Constance's mini contest...."Courage"
The Land Of Counterpane
Written by: Robert Louis Steveson
"When I was sick and lay a- bed
I had two pillows at my head
All my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day"...Quoted..Robert Louis Stevenson
When I Was Sick
By Sara Kendrick
If I have missed reading you lines
Or failed to comment all the time
I have been blowing nose
And coughing crud and my breathing doesn't flow...
I sound like the evening whistle
When it is about out of steam
A wheeze so loud it messes up my dreams
Maybe in a day or two
I will be able to get back to you
Little boy ill and in bed every day
couldn't join friends or go out and play.
Little lead soldiers marched on his bed,
many adventures whirled in his head.
The land of counterpane lay on the bed
his landscape sewn with needle and thread.
That quilt all wrinkled, crumpled, and more
are hills and seas and fierce fields of war.
Pirates, sailors and soldiers galore
Imagining brought them all to his door.
Stories and poems, a boy's mind rehearses
"Treasure Island, Kidnapped," and
"A Child's Garden of Verses."
Give thanks that the man remebered the joy,
of the visions he had when he was a boy.
So many books from those dreams in his head,
he willingly shares when I am sick in my bed.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Stories all of 100
years old
Bribery And
Blackmail
They have to be
retold
Definitions of words
have surely changed
as Kilts And Reefers
are now explained.
Two Kinds Of Success
stories
That Work Both Ways
Stealing From Cities
and the Faithful
Toby way
No Poison In The
Wallpaper
is History Rewritten
With A Humble Helper
and Powerful
Competition
Like a Scene In A
Play
The Counterpane Got
Smutty
He Raised The Bid
today
was a story so funny
Striking A Light was
crazy amazing
but Obeying The
Order became
disgracing
Drunk Pennies
Justice
is a true story
indeed
Like A Woodpecker’s
Justice
and Another Pair Of
Sleeves
Wakening In The
Forest
while Lost In The
Fog
and a Costly
Breakfast
for you and your dog
We learn of
Unreasonable Anger
and How Best To
Prepare
The story of Tree
Planters
and Village Gossip
between pairs
Stories of over a
hundred years
Let us watch them
all right here
With many bringing
you to tears
Taking you back
through the years
By:
Doris Anne Beaulieu
At:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Viewwithme2
With the gentle sound of rainy days
I do recall the games I played,
while home from school, and when fevers brewed
when I was sick, and clouds ensued
to turn my stay in bed for days
Hands soothed my brow, and beads of dew
grew pearls of moisture, in rainbow hues
The window dripped, and I was sick,
but I didn't seem to mind a bit!
Sometimes I still can see it all...
the tiny dolls, and toys were strewn
upon the bed, around the room
where I was mending from the flu
Dampness on a counterpane,
thermometers and sounds of rain
will take me there......back home again...
The memory of childhood, lie
beneath a quilt of prose
stirs longing for that healing grace,
that comes again upon the page...
A mother's touch with vapor-rub
Some toasted bread, a tender face
A playground out beyond the dew..
The lonely swing, a misty view..
A shadow was my childhood friend,
those afternoons of sick-bed games
Imagination flew so high, a carpet ride to magic lands
I could look beyond the counterpane
Watch the sun come after rain
A tattered book of childhood poems, still holds me by the hand
.................................................
My first introduction to poetry...Robert Louis Stevenson's Childhood Garden of
Verses "The Land Of Counterpane"
(A sick-bed keepsake that kept me company)
For the contest: "Prose vs Poetry" sponsored by Jerry T Curtis
The breeze broke free from cloud bonds above
And wove the meadow into a confusion of green
While the nearby stream talked in time trickling whispers,
And beneath her old stone moss misted bridge, wishes waited
In shadowed seclusion with half remembered prayers
That someone had once spoken there, and they both bathed
In always, unaware that it only lasted from second to second,
And yet their sum total was eternity, waiting ever patiently alone.
The sun tried to peep into their world, yet only stretched
It’s shadows that bit longer, and so it contented itself with
Scattering diamonds upon a liquid counterpane, as up above,
Sky tattered rainbows wandered through avenues
Of sun and cloud and rain, priceless colours of oblivion
Blended quietly into themselves, creating newborn hues of a day
That had started in a confusion of grey, yet was ending
In a glorious sweeping pageant of scintillating joy.
There were lovers strolling slowly along the riverbank
Casting silhouetted smiles and crystal glances at each other,
Hand in hand through twilight’s gleaming embers they came,
Two souls embroidered to each other, hoping that their threads of love
were unbreakable, and wishing for tomorrow to stay away a while longer,
So they could listen to the whispers of seclusion together, until their star
Could poke through the cloud draped sky, and touch both their heads
In silver soft silence, as they held on to their promises so tightly…
I wheel to my corner
ostracised by your ebbing warmth
unyielding to my probing hand
in the eeriness of NEP's darkdom
Memories tumble down my quavering spine
images splahed on your rigid back
of moisture ladden dawn and thrilling nights
under the watery spell of your moan-istrations
Now,I watch the defiant contours of
your sensuous body
miles across the counterpane
protesting the pains of penuried existence
Look into my mind.
I am the master of fantasy;
King of the isle of imagination,
Lord of the land of counterpane
Whereon I arrange the pieces of my life.
You are long gone, speaking no more, yet haunt me,
As some phantom lingers in his house of death,
Blindly walking rooms and corridors seeking,
Seeking lost life and love, and imagining,
Imagining that moment when you
Contact me again, the spell of
Silence broken. And my
Foolish mind builds
Castles of hope.
No one has that voluble to alter my thought
Towards the confines of the mortal world
When the futile began to repent for being guilt
Despite they vitiate their counterpane to proud
I've now siezed all the majestic course
To pageant and impart all the morals
Homage is what I'll do to be gratifying pride
And defeat all that dense over their depressions
Under the boughs, the blossom shower drifted
downwards with the rain;
time stood still, yet hour upon hour shifted
the earth's moist counterpane.
Taking the air, a breath of musing sang
a hymnal melody;
and God's decision, his own choosing, rang
the change for you and me.
Holding the moment, framed in glory, took
each other by surprise;
flickers of grandeur in a story book
reflected in her eyes.
Loneliest lives, duplicity stung, were freed
by kismet arbitrate;
and a silent love song sweetly sung, decreed
by the holiest seal of fate.
Alas! A pandemic on earth;
Spread over the earth like a counterpane
And feasts with no respect for personality.
Has the end come?
What manner of pandemic is this
That humiliated the world powers
And buried the head of idolised humans?
Has the end come?
Alas! A pandemic on earth.
The rich live in fear;
The proud ones became wingless.
Has the end come?
What shall I do to protect myself against thee?
Shall I turn hand washing to ritual?
Shall I humble myself before the creator?
Has the end come?
Alas! A pandemic on earth
Whose effect will soon become history
And trigger man to prepare his life's account.
Has the end come?
When a person is alone
We tend to hide in a shadow
As a group, we bring out the light
And things do not seem shallow
Be strong and fierce
Let your voice be heard and persevere
Counterpane the garden
And make your words clear
I'll lay down here and rest my head,
in this arc of stones I'll make my bed.
On the moss covered floor of the forest deep,
I'll close my eyes and fall asleep.
The stars shall be my counterpane,
and shelter me from gentle rain.
Moonbeams gild my tired eyes,
and breezes sooth me with their sighs.
No more for me the travails of life,
for nature shall become my wife.
Here, in the forest where wild things roar,
my heart will rest and ache no more.