Best Encampment Poems
Men, I know this is Christmas Night.
However, remember we have a war to fight.
His Majesty’s forces have had us occupied.
Our freedom and well-being is something they have denied.
They are just across the river from our encampment.
They are engaged in frolic and holiday merriment.
We can catch these redcoats by complete surprise.
They do not expect us to move until sunrise.
Of our plans, they must be very unaware.
Get everything into the boats and cross the Delaware.
If all goes well, victory will be on our side.
Tonight is when we must turn the battle’s tide.
Take me again…
Take me… for I am nothing without you
Tease my desires with your fingers a’ wander
Upon quivering flesh, shivering needs cry
All of this is yours, deeply offered, rhythmically played
Bite me… little marks to revisit at dawn
My chest, my thighs, my soul pleads
Drinking of this passion, thirsting for more
Peering up at you, wings flutter within my heart
Use me… as I lay here, hands lifting
Slow circles encompass warm breaths
Moaning eclipses bring edged light from outer visions
Cupped of fevered frenzy and firm decisions
Ride me… I am your stallion, unsaddled, unbridled
Grip my mane, tear at my shoulders, guide me to that valley
Where whispering willows sway in mahogany waves
Finding the depths of your heightened encampment
Scream me… my name on your lips excites
When the comet appears and streaks the sky
Flashing sparks meld between us shimmering, erupting
in a cosmic flow, lava escapes in hot pulsating streams
Take me again… for I am nothing without you
Good night Soupers
So, what is the best theme for
a poem? No guarded secret, all themes --
Freely to Roam! And what, the prescribed
destination or direction? Wherever the poet,
himself, deems worthy of fond or pertinent
affection –
Poetic Theme (extended metaphor)
So, what is the best theme for
a poem? No guarded secret, all themes –
Freely to Roam! And what the prescribed
destination or direction? Only those fond
and pertinent, giving affectionate-justification as
reason for procrastination – to linger in a moment's
subtle discovery – the courses followed only those
which the poet deems entrancingly divine – he seeks
heartfelt permanent encampment – or just an
amicable pause, in a neighboring field, fertile for
blooming enchantment; with his companion pen, to chronicle
canorous visuals, fervently inspired – or simply folksy,
lyrical rides; for the poet, alone, decides where his poetry lives
or temporarily abides –
(his muse, never far off – nearby, perhaps reflecting in the shade of a flowering
fruit tree: heaped in petals, not trying to hide – more enjoying the velvety feel of an
apple before the outer peel, though colorful, would be far too bitter for his present
aromatic meal) – muse and poet, composing through a single eye. Writing as one:
sharing new sights – sounds with scent – their mind dutifully toward poetry
bent – shades of detail, mellifluously transcending common scheme and rhyme –
incanting verse worthy of a brief performance, or immortal, blessed shrine –
It's all fair, such dulcet affair! All subjects! All seasons! – preferring spring, in which to self-lavish and spiritually entwine. Therefore, his paths are fanciful, never truthful as definitive
would define; often choosing glitter over harsh realty, yet can be a prophet and oracle if a troubling-time -- though never, a ruling class mime; – in this sense, he is a likable charlatan, a chimerical rebel...irreconcilable passion his soulful crime, therefore not ever exhibited, an atoning-word or act of sorrowful contrition – so loved by God, who gags at his counterpart, the lying politician.
I am the
Scot's thistle
The emblem of my
proud country it has
been our valiant
pride for so
many years
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The thistle has been the national emblem of Scotland
since the reign of Alexander III (1249 - 1286) and was
used on silver coins issued by James III in 1470.
According to the legend, an invading Norse army was
attempting to sneak up at night upon a Scots army
encampment. During this operation one barefoot Norseman
had the misfortune to step upon a Scots Thistle,
causing him to cry out in pain, thus alerting Scots
to the presence of the Norse invaders.
My entry into Deborah Guzzi's " Oh, what a Shape I'm in! " contest.
Not easy doing the above, i nearly went cross eyed.
This poem was written after I took a tour of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Wyoming, the site of Custer's Last Stand.
It was the year eighteen sixty-eight.
The U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty.
The Black Hills were to be closed to white settlements,
Preserved for the Lakota Indians
Forever, so long as the buffalo roamed.
'Forever' lasted less than eight years.
The eastern railroads needed meat for their track crews,
So professional hunters followed the rails westward.
Men like 'Buffalo Bill' made their living
Killing the buffalo for meat, hides, and sport.
It was the year eighteen seventy-two.
America celebrated its centennial.
Gold was discovered in the Black Hills,
And people in their thousands rushed to the west
Seeking fortunes and living space.
Most of them were immigrants to America
Fleeing depression and prejudice,
And ready to ignore the letter of the treaty law.
Towns quickly sprung up along the immigrant trails.
Towns like Deadwood - an illegal encampment
In the midst of Indian land.
People like Calamity Jane - an illegal immigrant.
Wild Bill Hickok - another illegal.
In the year eighteen seventy-six
The U.S. government sent the army to remove the Indians
From 'their land'.
Almost half of Custer's troops were immigrants themselves
From seventeen different countries
And two marked down as 'unknown'.
You already know the basic story.
The Lakota won the battle
But lost the war and their sacred Black Hills.
General Custer became a legend,
The Indian culture was 'civilized,
And U.S. history moved on.
History is full of ironies.
Custer, a hero for the North side
Winning battles against slavery in the Civil War,
Won greater fame by dying in a war to enslave the Lakota.
What's the lesson we should learn from all this?
Each of us standing here today is an 'illegal immigrant'.
We need to remember.
To young lives full of sight promise,
I give glowing, gold dream spheres
And the belief that hope is honest
Because I am their sweet poetry years.
Youthful times of enchantment
bear longings rather than fears
in my stargaze encampment,
settled in my charmed poetry years.
I gift creativity, crafted unique,
to build teenage based frontiers.
I blend wonder with mystique
to bolster my awesome poetry years.
I have many charms to employ
upon young emotional pioneers
in hopes they retain all joy
found inside my selfless poetry years.
All who ever became an adult, full grown,
once handed me their trusting, young tears
to mix with faith’s infinite, soothing tone
while they camped here, in my poetry years.
Here, growth depth lifts a perspective tone
on all life hits that could lay a teenager prone.
I am the time aiding adolescence
and adulthood with coalescence.
July 16 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on Isaiah 46-50
Key Verse – Isaiah 47:4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
LORD GOD, YOU ARE MY HOLY REDEEMER
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst sinful burden
Thank You for pulling me out against downfalls of pride so sudden
Away from troubles of transgressions’ warden
To bring me to Your salvation-garden.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst corrupt pollution
Thank You for taking me out against yokes of pleasures’ destruction
Away from wickedness’ perversion
To drive me to Your holiness-function.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst obstinate stubbornness
Thank You for releasing me out against treacherous deceitfulness
Away from affliction of falsity’s illness
To propel me to Your Word-truthfulness.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst infirmity’s fatality
Thank You for plucking me out against crises of no prosperity
Away from false teachings’ uncertainty
To lead me to Your direction-stability.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst vain judgment
Thank You for rescuing me out against despicable entanglement
Away from dark prisons’ encampment
To guide me to Your comfort-settlement.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst continual wastage
Thank You for preserving me out against secularism’s spoilage
Away from carnality’s hostage
To carry me to Your fellowship-advantage.
Lord God, You are my holy Redeemer midst iniquities’ reign
Thank You for freeing me out against selfishness’ strain
Away from rebelliousness of smiting sprain
To usher me to walk along obedience-terrain.
July 16, 2023
We are wanderers
who happened at the intersection of reality and dreams
seeking others to share comfort with
from life's drudgery of encampments and caves
Now everyone lives in a box with a door
surrounded by a box held by posts
contained by concrete pavement shaped like boxes
giving direction to destinations
where we arrive like ants given tasks to complete
receiving payment for so we may own a box in which to sleep
after staring into a lighted box that drains our souls
so we can be sold objects that come in boxes
as we huddle in our masses complaining
about what our desire and anger created
Rather dissolve away at the top of a mountain
scribbling my name on the wall of a cave
near my encampment under a round sky
then to be buried by society in a cemetery filled with boxes
4/17/17
My normal route diverted,
I walked north instead of south
And passed a man who looked like he
Existed hand to mouth.
He’d made a small encampment
Underneath a walking bridge,
Though of course he lacked a bathroom
Or a closet or a fridge.
But I had to give him credit
For I couldn’t help but look
As he knelt before a bookshelf
Picking out the perfect book.
There were maybe twenty volumes,
Neatly standing side by side,
Clearly adding to the ambiance
Of where he does reside.
We can make our living quarters
Cozy, if we are in luck,
But to do so when you’re homeless
Takes a little bit of pluck.
MOUNTAINSIDE
Always, there would be darkness hovering through-
out the bushes and trees, massive sky and earthen ground
he tiptoed upon in shoeless stealth, machine gun slung
over one shoulder and, strapped across the other,
a leather pouch holding coded messages he delivered
encampment to encampment, their locations razor-sharp
in his 11 year old brain, in a body tall enough to be
mistaken for older. Tall enough to be made a Partisan —
a courier, and down the road, likely qualifying as
a full-blown saboteur targeting Germans and the war
machinery they were transporting through Yugoslavia’s
Mosor mountain villages.
(German soldiers, who, if they’d caught him, a Jew,
& partisan, to boot, would surely have beaten him
to death extracting every bit of information they could.)
Upon each return to his farmhouse refuge, the
communications he’d been charged with having been
delivered hours before and miles away,
the fear he’d braved began melting away. And,
in the moments it took him to hang up his courier bag
and machine gun, he felt ready for the evening meal
of pit-roasted mutton and stone-ground bread
washed down with goat’s milk. Then, a foot soak
(weekly, a full-body scrub), followed by deep sleep,
in a basement below a trap door — a peasant woman’s
woven blankets softening the wooden floor boards
and his heart. And when that heart rejoiced with freedom
in ’45, at 13 years old, is truly when he understood why
he detested the taste of lamb, no matter how gourmet
the preparation offered the boy he once was —
the boy who’d put meat back on his bones in Brooklyn,
and the gastronome he’s become — a content 82 year old
grateful for his hero Tito and the fact that he’s managed
to keep his Hitler-torn past safely locked away
in a tight-lipped box, he rarely chooses to open.
I was just four when I discovered that some grown-ups cry.
That’s because I saw my mommy dragging my daddy down the stairs,
Her eyes so full of tears that they fairly poured down her flimsy nightgown.
Daddy wasn’t crying. Daddy was dead.
When I was six, I had cause to cry on my own account.
Mommy had been dating a man, she said if they married I would be a flower girl.
One night she came into my room crying a little and said she was sorry, they eloped.
I cried quietly. I’m not sure it was all for me.
At eleven, a whole new kind of tears entered my life.
Asleep in my room late at night, I awoke to my mom screaming and sobbing.
My three-year-old sister slept next to me so I just listened as my stepfather beat her.
I cried so hard. I thought I would never stop.
Age 20 and happy to be in college away from the pain.
Divorced, mom found a new love in vodka, and he controlled her more than her ex.
I brought my love home to meet her, and she asked him how he could like a fat, lazy slob like me?
I knew I shouldn’t cry. It didn’t stop me.
In my life have been many opportunities to cry.
Being told I would die when my daughter was a baby and I thirty-two,
The death of my mother, my youngest daughter’s fiancé dying of cystic fibrosis.
With each tear I fade a little. I’m almost gone.
So now in my 50s, I find out my oldest daughter is sick.
Stage four lymphoma, and she didn’t cry through chemo, hair loss,
Almost dying four times in treatment, emergency surgery, pulmonary embolism.
It’s okay. I cried enough for both of us.
She is twenty-six, and sometimes I can hear her crying.
Her lymphoma is back, creeping into her spine like an armed terrorist,
And while it is a small encampment that hasn’t grown, our fear, sadness, and helplessness increases daily.
I hear her cry. I make sure she can’t hear me.
I am approaching sixty; sometimes I feel one hundred.
I wonder if God has allotted us a finite number of tears for our lifetime,
If those tears are stored in the chambers of our heart and we need to conserve some for what tomorrow holds.
Let her last tear be her last tear. But give me one last tear — sparkling and light — dancing down my cheek in gratitude as I fade to clear.
fbruary 2, 2019
The Bohemian Grove
There is a place in San Francisco called the Bohemian Grove. It’s a boy’s club you might say. But when is the last time you saw boys offer sacrifices to Lucifer and burn bodies at the stake in honor of their loyalty to him? And when is the last time you saw a bunch of boys planning out who will run for president and for governors and then throw the elections later in their favor? This is subversion of the powers of government. This is undermining the true process of our democracy. I wonder what the American people think about people who do such vile and lewd things? I say to hell with their owl and their altar to Satan. And to hell with all the parties that they throw in honor of their king of hell. When will the children of God take a stand against this immorality? When will we wise up like their wise old owl? The Bohemian Grove is a self-serving cesspool of the vomitus of Satan. The Lord will destroy this encampment and with his mighty right righteous hand bring it to a crumbling halt!
Many of the past presidents sat around tables at this so-called club and drew cards as to who would be the next president. They would get drunk on their own power and on the power of the dragon from the bowels of hell. They had orgies and got so drunk that only the Creator knew of the lowliness of their immorality. Each person that was sacrificed upon this property had their bones buried there. Each person upon this property that was offered as a sex slave unto Lucifer’s minions was ushered to heaven as their lives were taken from them. The Lord’s compassion runs very deep for those who are oppressed and tortured for the antics of the dragon and his minions. Our God rules from a Mercy Seat and as he sits upon his Mercy Seat he delves out the most amazing mercy to those who truly need it.
The Bohemian Grove Boy’s club is really no club at all. It is the organized crime center of Satan! It’s just that simple!
Gwendolen Rix
2-15-15
She was a wily cigar chompin' gambler with the moniker of Poker Alice,
Renowned throughout the west for her skill in many a gamblin' palace!
Poker Alice had a good head for countin' and with her very cunnin' guile,
(Plus her beauty), she mesmerized her opponents, amassin' quite a pile!
Poker Alice worked in saloons across the west as a faro and poker dealer.
She worked in Creede, Colorado for Bob Ford, that notorious stealer!
Because of her pious rearin' as a girl, she refused to work on Sundays,
But she was back smokin' a two-dollar stogie and dealin' cards on Mondays!
She drifted to Deadwood, South Dakota, where her notoriety was well known,
And married a house painter named Tubbs who was a deft gambler on his own!
Later she established a brothel near Fort Mead Army Post with her ill-gotten gain.
The place was small and she needed funds to fix the 'house' on Pleasure Lane!
To expand and recruit 'soiled doves' from Kansas City she applied for a loan.
The banker scratched his skull sayin', "I dunno! That's a risk into the unknown!"
She convinced him notin' that The Grand Old Army had an encampment near,
And for the soldiers' bent for visitin' hog ranches, he had nothin' at all to fear!
Things didn't go well since she plumb forgot The Methodist Preachers' Convention,
Convened each and every year and she hadn't figured on that intervention!
Poker Alice's fame and notoriety followed her well beyond her wanin' years.
She died after a gall bladder operation with her 'house' payments in arrears!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 4 in Don Johnson's " Your Old Ballad Or Rhyme - Best Of All Time" Contest
July 2011
A. W. Nutter
The lump grew larger in my throat
As I stared down the darkened path
The safety of home seemed remote
Was I going to feel the elders wrath
Two steps away from hell on earth
Tempted to flee into the unknown
Echoing screams haunted my birth
Emitting from the altar of stone
Wandering alone is a sinful violation
Never should have left the encampment
A blood sacrifice needed for atonement
To purge the sin from the congregation
Running steadily through the woods
Had the priests noticed my absence
Pulled from the path by men in hoods
Paralyzed by their sudden appearance
Clothing torn away by their rough hands
Secured to the stone, they ring the bell
Sheep following the religious commands
Mindless fanatics, under the priests spell
Eyes of the flock looking on in disgust
Sentence passed, I'll be disemboweled
The knife begins its downward thrust
As I cry out for mercy from the crowd
Blood sprays across my supine form
As the priests head falls to the ground
The executioner now dead and deformed
My legs and arms were quickly unbound
Harm this boy you will feel my blade
An innocent child, you'll leave him alone
Your King declares blood payment made
Removing my sins, saving me from the stone
I sneak around my enemy’s encampment
Like a fox surveying a coop
Upon my heart lies a heavy weight called revenge
Pressing ever the more upon my chest
Festered with boils of vindication
To burst forth and spew retaliation owed
My mind in embedded in that darkened hole
Which only unreasonable righteous light may shine
For my lacerated heart is scared for life
No suture may ever begin healing mine
Unto my enemy I ensue my right
The ten-fold pain must begin
Hatred mingled with bitter persimmons
I have forgotten the taste of sweet peace
Having hidden away any thoughts for forgiveness
My soul knows of no rest these horrid days
Enslave to my best desires for the darkness I wish to inflict
I have swept dirt under the rug far too long
Passive aggressive, I stand no more
I spring upon my enemy as toad to a fly
My moment of vengeance, the moment of truth
But I hesitate in mid-flight
I can not do this
This is not the right
For my road to Heaven must pass through my enemy
And I whom profess the Christ must become the peacemaker called child of God
Thus peace is not everything sweet and tender
Nor does pain cease to be remembered
For the loving of people is not viewed as a peaceable kingdom
Like a hunter and the hunted stayed apart
But to love my enemy and wish him well
The true peacemaker works towards all things good
To make the enemy a benefactor
Is the view Christ had from Calvary’s cross
Shalom, my enemy