Best Cress Poems
Just as days long ago, when decorum resolved,
before composure, and poise,.. were corsages, unknown
Where propriety mattered, and was favored as gold,
high society, has gathered to flavor their tea
There's a trellis, embraced by a rose climbing vine
Places are set, for dining in jade
beneath shadows that stretch under arthritic old trees
While slivers of sunshine, squeeze through the branches
of silver leafed limbs, in magnolia bloomed shade
Tea will be served, by large knuckled hands
at several round tables dressed with Swiss lace designs
Wearing lavender silk is our proper Grand Dame'
who fits her surroundings, as vintage as wine
Voices are lilting like the birds in the trees
Laughter and chatter, mingle with soft, summer breezes
A bouquet of old friends, around a few scattered tables.
Silver coifed hairdos, to make celebration
Crepe myrtle and wrinkles, beneath ashes and maples
Water cress munchies, and triangle creations
Sweet honey-suckle, tucked over the porches.…
Rose petal blossoms, are painted on china
Bridge cards, tumble by Blue Willow dishes
Biscuits from England, crumble sublimely
Large bosoms bouncing, and big floppy hats
Gossip dished up with lemon-sliced frowns
Up in the tree is the neighbor's calico cat
who catches a glance, and a chance to crawl down
Are they ladies of leisure, from a time that is lost?
Or a painting I've seen on the wall from the past?
______________________________
Inspired By the Garden Party Contest
Sponsored By Cyndi McMillan 6/6/14
groundsel
forget-me not
my pretty spurge
mere fools parsley
sowing thistles
a
dead nettle
leaving such
bitter cress
a scentless mayweed
in a field of pansy
O scarlet pimpernel
a dan-de-iion
black
as nightshade
a common poppy
speedwell
my wild radish my fat hen
penny crest
in a sheperd's
purse
Traveling cosmos in a star-crossed house at rest
She watched for dreams, catching only the best.
How the house was motorized is anyone’s guess
She traveled around the stars, our friend Ma Cress.
Mystically she was in tune with another world.
Her hopes and dreams were not unfurled.
But we were in awe of Ma Cress for sure.
Her dream state was decidedly totally pure.
PATRIAE INFELICI FIDELIS
(Dedicated to my Sister Patricia in South Africa)
“Faithful to my unhappy country”
etched to my ancestor's cress
a millennium years or so ago
in a sorrowful ravaged
war-tourned Engel-land.
How their hearts must have cried
for peace to reign
over their country
and their town of Stopford
now known as Stockport
in Cheshire county
for the dirge to change it's tune
The pity is, that still today
that motto rings out true
though the country
now is a different one
faithful I will stay
to this the land of my birth
this confused and unhappy
South Africa
Were
I
Jazzed
At every kerfuffle-
I shan't have the time to peer at the sky
Rubble around me and six inches deep
My only recourse ahh! triple mud pie!
Economy crumblin' Wall Streets a mess
No one will notice I've pickled the cress!
Breads in the oven yea! spiked with hashish
Just one bite congress
might pass some relief!
Tornadoes are twistin' earth shakes below
If memory serves me i'll conjure up snow
For more than five lifetimes, patience we've been
While line by line constitution has waned
Grab your water pistols- fill your balloons
Let's have a party
Make lawmakers swoon!
james marshall goff
08/31/13
© All Rights Reserved
When time is still, I'll think fondly of you
Quiet renders of love's probable cause
This love now colored in a vibrant hue
A lingering fragrance that brings this pause
To think of you in a long cotton dress
Walking in fields where eyes invite desire
and hand held laughter skips across its cress,
to challange the world with a passion's fire
As our love sustains our illusion to dream
We'll fill each tender moment we find right
and watch shadows dance in candled theme
To create new memories we'll hold tight
I'll share no reason for these thoughts passing,
or make sense of love being everlasting
contest I Think of You
2/15/15
Ain't no wonder we're baffled about eatin' - ever'thing is taboo.
We're deluged by self-appointed gurus toutin' their points uv view.
Can't they desist and find somethin' more productive to do?
They can eat their tofu and water cress- I prefer a hearty stew!
The experts can't determine which is best, reg'lar coffee er decaf,
So I slurp my mornin' joe, settlin' fer a mug uv half n' half.
Fast foods ain't recommended but I'd fight fer Burger King Whoppers!
Ain't nobody tellin' me what I can er can't chomp on with my choppers!
Some folks say aigs is good fer you - some say they're not.
I eat 'em boiled, fried and scrambled - it don't mean diddley squat!
Another profound debate persists and causes me to muse,
Is whether it's wholesome er not to partake uv a snort of booze!
Seems these fellers jes' confound our lives and like to obfuscate,
Leavin' the rest uv us bewildered as they continue their debate.
My cholesteral, glucose and platelets wuz perfect in my last exam.
I've survived nigh four-score years eatin' pizza, cake and spam!
I guess its politically correct to engage in the latest dietary fad,
But in brief, here's the case uv my dear old Mom and Dad.
They et what they wanted and survived four-score years and more,
Never mindin' the cholesterol, fats and carbs that docs now abhor!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Pasadena Big Band, On With The Dance
Nostalgic swing, singing the blues
So put on your dancing shoes
Get out of your chair
Dance like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Imagining we are stars in a speakeasy movie
Dancing the Charleston, we're ever so groovy
"CUT", shouts the film director, "next scene"
The music stops, it's the end of the dream
Tea Dance with the Pasadena Big Band
The waitress serves on a silver cake stand
Cup cakes, petit fours and cress sandwiches
Just like in the black and white movies
FLIGHTS OF FANCY PHRASIS 2
Lady’s mantle with butcher’s broom
dwarf cornel cotton grass so thin,
yellow travellers joy,with buttercup
on sunspurged ,petty whin.
Creeping jenny over silverweed
groundsel& cudweed,balm,rockrose
and agromony with thistle prickly green.
Good King Henry,goose fat red and a full
fat hen,in moschatel with mistletoe
and eyebright mustard so white.Thyme
&teasel so tamarisk in water-peppered bogbean;
grape hyacinth with forget-me-not in a
sea of lavender blue-green.Honesty
cuckoo flower,flax fumitory & fleabane;
musk marsh marigold&daffodil
in scentless mayweed.Yarrow ramson scabious
feverless,&plantain true with pepperwort,
cress seabeat burr buttered blue.
From Flights of Fancy 2003
Listen to me recite this part phrasis on youtube under my pen name ichthys chiro
A Vegetable Story
Broccoli, Spinach, yummy fresh Garden Peas,
Cabbages, Winter Greens, Cauliflower Trees.
Runner Beans and broad, Mange Tout so Francais,
Curly Kale, Crunchy Sprouts on a cold windy day.
Onions, Parsnips, Carrots and tall Welsh Leek,
King Edwards, Purple Turnip, ready next week.
Corn cut off the cob with sweet Barley Rice,
Mash up that Swede for a treat savour nice.
Tips of Asparagus are one acquired taste,
Into the soup, don’t let them go to waste.
Vegetable Squash with Butternut and Pumpkin,
Tearing Sour dough bread, ready for dunking.
Please don’t choke on a strange looking Arti’
Exclusively reserved for a Vegan style party.
Try some boiled Beet and a large slice of Yam,
Fennel is soporific, a bit like I am.
Parsley and Cress make a simple garnish,
Spring Onion and Celery, very Saladish.
Going to the wood, picking wild Mushroom,
Beware some are poison, Stomach-ache of doom.
Lots of choice for a Veggie style life,
No need for meat, no need of a knife.
Don’t want to preach, so my voice is on mute,
That’s all from the Veg, lets start on the Fruit.
MY BIRTHDAY PARTY
Once,
I invited some special friends
to my tea party,
I made cheese, cress and tomato sandwiches,
blueberry yogurt and a pot of jasmine tea.
I spread a white linen table cloth I’d embroidered with flowers one evening when
I was alone,
I placed a blue vase covered with purple flowers and bluebirds
on the table,
. . . prepared some words for a poem to read to my friends,
I waited by my window all evening, then waited some more,
. . . but nobody came,
I died a little more that night.
Tom McFerran.
mountain spring
a deer nibbles placidly
on water cress
Not too much said ‘bout a
Drainage Ditch
‘cept spring you have frogs
and come Indian Summer
they morphose to toads.
Rains drying up does it.
Makes those ditches no
better than the land they’re
banked on. Plain parched.
Headless cattails. Water
spiders long played out.
Cress gone to seed, tastes
like pepper. Like watching
the end of the world –
worse since who or what
gives a damn for ditches?
‘cept critters and farmers.
Farmers and critters. Slow.
Farmers carve those ditches
and critters sow plants
and stitch the banks. Why?
Water. Nothing more than
water. Fertile water.
Leaves and dries those frogs
to toads. Come late fall
those frogs morphose a
second time.
‘cept I haven’t figured out
what to. But I know the
rains snowing up does it.
- mcackerson
There once was an alchemist gifted with the mortar and pestle,
Who could combine magic with herbs and wax in a glass vessel.
She used charms and floral elixirs to make enchanted scented candles,
Which melted under flames whose brewed fumes burnt wood of sandal.
One day a princess from the Fertile Crescent came to her store to buy,
Some hand-rolled incense for all her people who live in lands ever so dry.
For her people were distraught by the shame of the sands,
In their odorous markets entrenched by world traders' demands.
She had asked an apothecary from a market in her village,
For a way to freshen the lands that foreign trader's had pillaged.
The apothecary said, "My dear, you must visit an alchemist outside the city,
Who makes candles so fine they would impress a fine-robed gorgeous gypsy."
So the princess set out to find she who makes candles craftily,
With a peculiar and profound method of magical alchemy.
When the princess found the alchemist she asked for a wax candle scent,
That would impress all those who smelled it and hide the market's ferment.
So the alchemist made her a bunch of candles with nine herbs held in several glass quarts,
Cockspur, lamb's cress, plantain, mayweed, nettle, crab-apple, thyme, fennel, and mugwort.
So the princess placed these glass candles she brought,
Around her market and asked each sniffer what they thought.
One man claimed he smelt roses while a woman smelt lavender,
And a child smelt honey while an elder smelt chocolate and coriander.
Confused about the mixed reactions, the princess returned to the alchemist,
And asked why many people claimed to smell different scents, including piss.
The alchemist replied "I sold you some candles meant to impress,
All those who smell them, smelled something different I guess?
For the candles I made you emit that which you might tell,
Of the most pleasant of scents that one can ever smell."
Cold water lapping
Quiet barking and a quick
Splash out near the bay
Songbird in brisk rain
Perched under a broken branch
Nest in tree hollow
Floating atop it
Our paddles swept through the lake
A budding blossom
Blushing and a chill
Moon wane and dragonfly hiss
Step on Winter cress
Red fox hunts in reeds
Swimming after a small mouse
Sky is clear and bright