Best Culvert Poems
Two riding on a single
Man! How fast that bike will go
Down the hill around the curve
Blow wind blow
At the very bottom piled up
In a culvert drain
In great agony and pain
Totally distained
Crumpled metal, torn clothes
Bleeding and blood stains
Harsh words from parents
Tears as soap and water cleaned
All the cuts and bruises
And clothes that had to be changed
What an ending to Christmas
The joy of Santa's gift
Lying dented and scuffed bent
Beside the porch needing to be fixed
The shield riders heading over the Dunlaven bridge,
They ride as swift as the wind,
already their weapons were ready,
they did glint, not, in the deepening shadow.
Ride to your fate Valkyrie,
shield maidens of the red,
shield riders of the city,
bring glory to your mighty Alahsar.
Four hundred and fifty Valkyrie,
they stream forth from golden gates,
turning to the left and right,
three hundred onto Badicha.
three hundred to Dunlaven bridge,
the final stroke from Alahsar,
death is streaming forth,
hateful screams fill the air.
One hundred and fifty shield riders,
they leave the four hundred and fifty,
heading for the Raven bridge,
Speed is now of the essence.
The hundred and fifty, they head to the right,
onto the plain of Badicha,
Alahsar's forces, taken by surprise there,
To glory or death.
Shield riders, three hundred,
they stream across Dunlaven bridge,
so close this bridge to the walls of Alahsar,
Go, fiery warriors.
Across the river, they stream,
the waters coming through a large culvert in the wall,
cool, refreshing waters, from the great white mountain,
ride on Valkyrie.
In the final stage,
the battle rages on,
dark forces never seem to reduce,
They die and yet their numbers seem to be the same.
What sorcery is this?
Bodies so tightly packed,
hardly room to move sword or spear, or axe,
the strength soon to lessen more.
The ground is being given once more,
stride by stride ground seems to be given,
the struggle for life is truly on,
the posture seems to be more of defencive.
Is this a lure for the enemy?
could it be that strength is truly depleting?
only time shall tell,
the posture changes from moment to moment.
One hundred and fifty shield riders,
they smash into the flank of the enemy,
swords and spears striking home,
HALT!
the retreat stops,
a final push,
the Arlagh's are halted,
"Walk In The Light!"
the dark man cries as the dice is rolled.
"Walk In The Light!"
the battle cry is taken up.
Now, my lords and ladies,
it is time for our tale to take a rest,
I must lubricate my throat,
we shall return to Alahsar soon.
We shall then see the outcome of the battle,
the bloody rain of Badicha's plain,
raise your horns to Alahsar's glory,
the song of Alahsar, the glory of a dream.
To Be Continued.
We have lost our sense of humor.
We chase the alligator
down Front Street,
past Mollies Convenience Store
and the County Clerk- Recorder Office.
He’s taken us under
a red sky grand,
hardly noticed.
Were it not for the children
riding on his back,
we would let him go.
They sit on him,
smooth as a new wallet,
shoes, purse.
Where in our imagination,
we ask ourselves,
have we seen this kind of thing before?
Yes, where?
Following the tip of his tail
as he heads for the culvert
we move as one,
an army
uncertain of its purpose.
We see but grey where once was green
As bulldozers now scrape,
Turning a joyful rural scene
Into joyless landscape.
The area was green-belt land
With forest and pasture
But as our numbers still expand
We will invade nature.
And so that farmland must give way
To high profit housing.
Farming that land has had its day.
Let the plunder begin.
First rip up each ancient hedgerow,
Take living loam away.
Make space for luxury homes to go.
The wildlife then must stray.
Nests and burrows can play no part
As man now owns this space.
The construction work now can start
And big profits then chase.
Soon building projects in full swing.
The stream that filled the pond
Diverted to concrete piping
In culvert underground.
Aquatic habitats destroyed.
Frogs, toads and newts homeless.
Many wildlife species now void.
But man could not care less.
My park to me was not see-saws nor swings
instead, a treasure chest of stranger things.
A marble grave, 1891, well kept
where 'Tiny', estate owner's dog now slept.
The long gone Manor House front Portico
and where the star struck teenage lovers go
holds carvings, some initials, from the past
though in one case someone had left their last.
Script ' E Potts joined navy 1943'
Did such detail writ mean 'remember me'?
So many times I've gazed upon his name
that plea cut deep in stone it's power retains.
His call over the years still engraved there
since boyhood I have offered up a prayer.
The culvert is a concrete tour de force
too tempting for adventurers, of course.
Amphitheatre for screaming, scary,
in heavy rain, tomb for the unwary.
Mill races, lock gates, tunnels, falls and weirs
all testing grounds for our deep darkest fears.
There was no challenge our band could resist
we cocked a snook, and nature raised a fist.
Returning home, triumphant, green with moss,
in trouble, but we didn't give a toss.
The moment was our game and joy the prize,
such treasure blind to all but children's eyes.
Seek us out, the park was where you found us,
Green fields of innocence, it's magic bound us.
Feb 14th 2016
For contest 'The Park', sponsored by Craig Cornish.
The drain of education buckle my belt of understanding to slight I saw twinkle of light from the dark corner of the sky, the branch of imagination hook's me to river Nile I can't stop loving you. The river Nile pen is my diary where I use to keep you recorded.
The height of the benchmark I have been making to stand by you, to pick you up when you are sad, to take to gardens of orchards, and the barbecues night fence from the intruders from infiltrating into our affairs.
The roses in my hand is holistically for you, the envelope of love cloud my imagination from penetrate to any person, except to your magical love.
clap of thought waves of tides smile of flowers by the bank of the sea imaging you in our cloud in bed, tongues sliding side to side licking, and itching the pinching, wishing to swallow the day and chew the night for supper.
The feeling of sweetness tasted in my elbows the axe of love inking
That's stain jolted me into your flower default the mistake I never made to miss you while on mission to the blanket of shoving trembling fingers, building slippery sound from groomed and aimed to the target.
Rolling from education to medications fast to dedication systematic minding my own business under the shape of Cookies biscuit,
To banquet love; I bullied by bullet to testimonial kilo hertz. It mirrors to mirage to lukewarm, to vindicate capsule to culvert sound of cricket by the side of
rivers, Gubah.
Had visitors over on the weekend
The subject turned to life's scary moments
At ten years old had a daredevil heart
Dragged this story out of retirement
Trembled like I was living it over again
With my good buddies Ken and Bob
Crawled into a narrow culvert on our bellies
Amazing how my heart still throbs
Your truly was first, then Ken, then Bob
Travelled twenty feet, then no choice
The way ahead was totally impassable
Screamed BACK UP with fear in my voice!
Ever experienced real claustrophobia?
There was no escape, no detour
Heart started beating like a damn trip hammer
Soiled my new knickers, for sure
Ever tried crawling backwards on your belly
A panicky feeling in your tummy
Bad enough, crawling backwards I mean
But embarrassing, I called for my mummy!
© Jack Ellison 2013
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The Cinematic Film Treatment as Poetic Element
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Sagitanis Goes 'Bow Wow'
Nightingale Sagitanis is a homeless woman suffering chronic and debilitating bouts of near-terminal existential ennui and muscatel intoxication until, in the midst of a heat spell caused by bovine methane in the suburbs of Happy Valley, South Dakota (as her heartbeat thankfully approached zero) she hears a whimpering and feels a warm furry body tentatively crawling up her leg on the crack whore mattress she calls home in a concrete culvert pipe under the streets at the Splitdorf Retirement Community, and fights off the alarm of impending invasion, but quickly concluding that this couldn't be land crabs or police drone robots or Chupacabra or a bacterial infection or the dream of marital child bearing bliss that often haunted her lonely nights or delirium tremens or a pack of Blast bubble gum (her favorite) born on the backs of soldier ants driven from their homes by a lawn sprinkler malfunction or an errant cable guy on a peeping Tom mission or the icy fingers of doom which she secretly hoped for in a Freudian nihilistic reaction to a cruel foster mother who forced her to read the entire literature of time lapse orchid pornographer Marshal McLuhan or a full body orifice search by Homeland Security or vanguard elements of the yearly gray squirrel migration, no none of these, rather, as she felt the charming tickle of not one but three cold wet noses and the slap slap slapity of 3 vigorously wagging tails and the lap lap lapity of three enthusiastic tongues did she realize that she had been adopted by a triumvirate of abandoned Labrador retrievers, left bewildered in a mall parking lot by a family of PhD garden dwarfs which she quickly named, Larry , Moe and Curly, the dogs, not the dwarfs, who then provided enough love, slack and protection for Nightingale to attend canine night school and learn the ways of the wolf and the coyote and the dingo and rip the throat out of her oppressors.
From "Theater of Utter Charm"
Available on Amazon
(dedicated to mother India)
The garbage collection van hasn't arrive.
Two hefty black plastic bags, last night's flea blown rubbish,
Waiting to be discarded, I wait.
It's almost ten, the garbage collectors arn't coming, I presume.
Town-garbage-bin is half a mile far, I don't enjoy going there.
Honey, the house stinks - the familiar voice reverbarates.
They arn't coming, the garbage-men, I conclude.
Picking up the junks, I walk out
Into the greased January morning.
Crossing the sewer-culvert, carrying waste,
I move cautiously across a chessboard of human wastes
On the railway track.
Suddenly, flames of rain burn the air, drains become alive.
Uncaringly, a mother-cow sits on a heap of plastic bags, (not a blade of grass around) chewing plastic, I see tears in its eyes.
I may be wrong, how could a cow cry, doubtful thinking.
A car storms pass me, slurry of mud hits me square.
I become garbage.
We stink together.
Don't worry, you are ready for your eternal home,
I hear god saying, raindrops keep burning,
With wet tongues.
You really haven’t lived life fully
Until you’ve raced down a mountain
In the rain
On a muddy, slippery trail
In a Bobcat side-by-side utility vehicle
With a twenty foot long section of twelve inch culvert
Teetering precariously on the vehicle
Trying to hold it under one arm
While attempting to steer with the other
So as to keep the Man
With the quarter million dollar excavator
From sitting around
Waiting on you
At an hourly rate
Higher than you ever dreamed of making.
A thousand years ago
on a sorrel hill,
arms became wings.
We dream of the room,
the belt's snake sting
given for wrongs we have done.
Now we rise in dreams
to things never expected,
pluck the opalescent shell
of locust
from rain soaked oak.
There is no original sin.
We take the punishment
as our last: arms, legs,
torsos growing by the day--
summer's cool culvert
darkening our tongues,
fleshing a nakedness,
a first breast
appaloosaed in sun.
The sky was black, as the rain poured down.
For three solid weeks, that's been the pattern in our town.
No mere sprinkle, and no heavy mist,
But near-torrential rains. We're all sick of this!
I watched one brook, as it went racing past,
Sweeping bottles and debris away so fast,
In a mad charge toward the town's main road.
We were all praying that the culvert would handle it, and not overflow.
Then I observed something that I found really cool;
Downstream of the culvert, was a small whirlpool.
A styrofoam cup had made it just that far,
And alongside it bobbed a small plastic jar.
Every time I thought they could continue floating downstream,
They were jerked back into the eddy, by forces unseen,
And they would keep circling forever without any doubt,
Unless some outside force showed them the way out.
My life, I've discovered, is a lot like that.
I want to break some habit--but I get sucked right back!
But I know my deliverance will come some day,
As I allow God's Word to change my ways.
Jesus came to set mankind free,
By paying sin's price on Calvary's tree.
Yet we have personal habits that keep us going around.
And, unless we breakout of these eddys,it will hold us down,
Causing us to be less in life than what God had planned,
But we're powerless to exit the swirl using the efforts of man.
Because He loves us, Jesus stands ever-ready
To nudge us out of any habit-driven eddy.
His hand will put us back in the flow,
And bobbing down life's stream we will happily go!
The smell of a dead cat
Swelling in the culvert
Is stinking rich!
A toxic dose
It lodges in the nose
You pay the bill!
Should the president come
Let him calm
But take him there!
So after Lunch
You have your chance
Listen with your book!
If he says nothing
That is something
Forgive the cat!
The west wind brought in a
precipitous rise in temperature
serious steel grey sky rain clouds
and our second February thaw.
Almost all the snow vanished overnight
leaving brown fields and skeleton maple
trees with sap buckets full of rain.
I sip the cold water finding just a
hint of sweetness and rub the
soft fur between the dogs' ears.
Then we continue down the
concession line but the creeks
overflowed the culvert and
the road's under a foot of water
so we turn back to our warm
house and the smell of wood
smoke and coffee.
Hopelessness, make no room for it in your heart or your mind, if you dare.
It will take away your glad, your happy, and your today,
Worse, all opportunities that could have created joy, but cannot now.
I see it in a five-year-old’s face, and it breaks my heart.
It originates in a home served as frame of mind for the day.
Everyone there is a victim, picked on by society, hated, joyless, sad to be alive.
It filters down to the child at an early age, when he realizes smiles are for others.
Happiness is not in his vocabulary.
The curtains are closed, it is bleak.
Everyone is against him,
After all, his own people are, right?
When he gets older, he is chased by
Nightmares of living on the streets, under a bridge, in a culvert
While rain and mud stream down, making him shiver.
That is the best he can hope for,
Sorry that he inconvenienced his family by being born.
Hopelessness.
She sends us sad, angry, drama-filled, ready to explode five-year-olds.
They had no idea other children’s lives were different, until they arrived at the enemy’s house, school.
Five years of abject splendid angry hopelessness.
The formative years were so uninformative,
But so ready to help the child face his life of hurt.
Hopelessness, a teacher and a class’s worst enemy, and difficult to tackle.