Best Flocking Poems
written on time’s page
with finite syllables of dust
he spelled my heritage
from earth to sky
along an umbilical line of faith
we fluttered from the lips of fingers
fully form for purpose
written on an invisible calculus
that bring monarchs where birth mark lingers
and salmons somersaulting sluice and streams
turtles, penguins, and herons white wings
netted in design with nested tabula rasa mind
I have an argument
against the beginning begotten from a bang
before atom or element
I have an argument against force and natural laws
at work without mass or embodiment
for embryonic gravity or forces weak or strong
I have an argument
that the singularity could not become more than fragment
of energy again if a single atom explode
its forces flocking away from fusion
for energy fission to explode
a theory
flimsy as spiders web
dethroning my majesty gulped
in primeval slime unlinked history from love
minimizing the particular time of our becoming on ships
that met the stagnant eyes of swampy thoughts … shuddering
in vain
the whip cracks louder than pain -
and on our black blistered backs … crumbling
soils in desertification threw some syllables skywards for mercy
starvation winds with sickle clouds of rain
they lie again ... leaving us without inheritance
for all our labors, lost, and grievance
what bang can buck the strain
and bring us broken souls to glory again?
This February will not usher spring,
wisteria like grapes hung on their roods;
more pewter shadows does the season bring.
Now I've misplaced all the beatitudes
to lambent grasses flocking on the mount
as spring green creepers tendril up the posts,
the lilac blossoms teeming like a fount
of amulets to stay the latent ghosts
that haunt as far as April with their rime.
As Puxatawny Phil goes under ground
I've six more weeks of gelid hush to mime
the turgid verses of this numbing round.
I rummage blessings as the winter girds,
yet somehow can't remember any words.
In the firmament of trees
October's eye
looks down in cruel azure
on summer's absinthe leaves,
flocking like survivors
to a mortal haven.
Autumn's blood magma
creeps through leaves
bequeathing fire
and brittle amber.
Fertile frost breeds
in arctic prisms,
whispering feral eddas
as withering violets
echo bitter truth.
I find sanctuary in this sonnet
when as verdant hills rhymes do fall and rise
with aspens quaking in the windless skies.
One such will have blue birds flocking on it.
The trees shall be my muse and bid me write
while I in white gazebo am ensconced
with flowers vased, each color a nuance
in my lyrics, a-blush at first then white.
As I meander through a cloudless dream
the shades ever change in the wake of love.
Each line will fit my lyrics like a glove
while blue birds harmonize in morning's gleam.
Eyes of love are each an estuary
in the sonnet of this sanctuary.
Spring slips those neo-leaves on protuberance-limbs.
Youth is adorned with buds and flowering whims.
Poppies drench an infant’s eyes and awaken sleep.
Spiked trellis dreams sow garden-beard whims.
Blackbirds scatter like dandelion seeds in the wind.
How cleverly they remember your namesake whims.
First walking stick, unbridled from bark, boggled the mind.
Pet rocks, pop rocks and chia pets - purchased on whim.
The scent of lilac, honeysuckle and a thunderstorm,
Fresh dirt, the taste of mud pie, every childhood whim.
Butterflies flocking, shepherded by an animated sun.
Symmetry of wings, color wash flutters whimsically.
Now the visionary dives into a wide berth of gospel hymns.
Her desire’s to raise up the Springtime, praising at whim.
2/13/2022
Heddy, the eight-year-old hummingbird queen.
Often hiding out, rarely fully seen
Loves her hummingbirds more than the human race.
Her messy golden amber curls, rarely in place.
Her hazel eyes, giant orbs, that see more than they should.
She protects her hummingbirds as only a good mother would.
She is their go-to-place, their refuge from the ugliness in the world.
They love this angel, with her wild hair never fully curled.
Heddy, the eight-year-old hummingbird queen
Readily feels a human person's mean.
Has lips of the lightest pink, full of purity.
Being among hummingbirds, is her security.
She gives them wonderment, she gives them hope.
She is their rock, their heroine, their uphill slope.
Hummingbirds are flocking in now from forest and sea.
Being with her is where they all want to be!
wings could drive you crazy
under the overpass, the crows
gather one by one, flapping
it is a perfect day, stuck underneath
where cars borrow the bird’s view
without a whisper or toll, torrent
of landings to complete the murder
the row, on an inner ledge, legible
perhaps eligible to a mate, could be
a male society or female offering
we who pass so quickly, only stopping
for a light or traffic jamming, see
what flies in the dark, in the face
we are the ones out of place
the fury of the flock, frenetics
relics, energetic, spot on sketchy
do they see some of the same old
cars? do they care or turn a blind eye
i haven’t forgotten but what does it matter?
it does because a poetic fuse ensues
and must in the end die out, forgotten
except by the rear end reader
who will extend the imagery for a blink
or think a deja vu when flocking with crows
in trees, on lines, under the overpass
While doing my daily internet loop
I read some poems at Poetry Soup
Some souls were bared
Emotions shared
By a wonderfully talented group
So many unknowns are gathered together
Brandishing their talents without a tether
Notable skills
From gifted quills
Flocking together like birds of a feather
Whether mundane or totally bizarre
Through words they express just who they are
Some young, some old
Some shy, some bold
Each as marvelous as a shooting star
To the nameless owners of this great site
Thank you for giving our poetry flight
No longer adrift
Because of your gift
You are the beacon that brings us to light
The mark of a world elite not seen in Casablanca
but gives a serene-feel for any stone to become a lover.
Sweet Paris- Europe’s geographic butterfly
so captivating and orgasmic, better than any screensaver.
Land and water, city mates in wonderful and nice Venice
prosperity and suitors flocking in like an angry river.
Standard of living, magnified with rare lenses in silent Geneva
proves that if you cannot be the heart, be the liver.
America crossing borders, settling in Sidney
exploits of the human mind, nowhere near over.
Oh Africa! Buckle up and don’t say never
Asia is your excellent teacher, learn and wait not forever.
I shall delete my existence says the dead man
No more do I breathe
No more shall I rant
Although often I recant
I shall delete all my poems says the loud hen
No more am I here
I shall disappear
Like a child with tuque over head
I shall rescind my tantrums says the dead man
No more death for me
For it was plainly to sobering to be
Back to pen, oh so hypocritical of me
I shall come back using other names says the Hen
No more logical than the other dead man
I am the judge of the poetic world
The laws must be according to childish wee me
We the little men who bicker and whine
We are united, our immature prettiness shines
The poetic soldier who mocks old ladies
Does he not know tiss he who is insanely crazy?
The crow will squawk his cranky banter
The songbird will fly to a more harmonic tree
The Hen will cluck and twitter and rant
All the McVillians with feathers it seems
Flocking together, oh the birdbrains do scream!
A dark room with a small wooden desk, no lamp
A thick pad of paper and a typewriter, never used
Like a museum exhibit, though they aren’t allowed to gather dust
And dead flies and moths, a pack of playing cards
I never learnt to play, but still they’ve turned yellow with age
The shelves full of books, thumbed and read a million times
The pages fall out sometimes onto the slanted shelf, broken
The cascade of over-used books falling into each other
A literary car crash
The carpet burnt by years of clumsiness, dark and worn
The ceiling stained by years of nicotine, the cigarette smoker
Looking on at a world frozen, the books are the only living things
Read a million times and thumbed to death, the dirty pages blending into each other
The faces and the timeless, frozen authors and poets, trapped here forever
In the corner, a lonely television set, never used and not even plugged in
The lonesome keyboard, beaten a million times, my voice recorded
The German tongue, screamed above piano murder, the manslaughter of my violin
A cultural car crash
The curtains, white to ivory to ashen, unopened in an age
Time to let the world come in through the never-before-seen window
I sit upon the bed and watch the silhouettes gather, their vagabond army
Creeping over everything with their tired and dirty little hands
The books I’ve read to death, the literary suicide, gathering in a spot of light
Like flocking birds fleeing for the winter, their matted feathers and scabbed legs
They can’t fly anywhere, trapped here, my favourite victims, dead within the covers,
Like broken pigeons trapped within damning cages. I close the door and leave
The untouched car crash
Is it autumn, when silence has come to a lonely lakeshore?
Throngs of reveling summer tourists are flocking here no more.
Is it autumn, the water's sitting still in the swimming pool?
The rowdy children have gone, unhappily, back to their school.
Is it autumn, when the blooming gladiolus have been lost?
Tonight, the garden's bounty will be bitten by our first frost.
Is it autumn, do golden cornstalks hang heavy with their yield?
The farmer has a scarecrow propped, out standing in his field.
Is it autumn, the pumpkins have no orange spattered 'round them?
Their deep green color is fading now, up near the browning stem.
Is it autumn, the farmer has left his apple orchards bare?
The spiced aroma of baking pies goes drifting on the air.
Is it autumn, when the gathering geese ready to fly south?
Two neighbors saw them yesterday, I have heard, by word of mouth.
Is it autumn, with dying leaves turning shades of rust and red?
The maple tree's timbers brave the wind as they begin to shed.
Is it autumn, with ever shrinking sunsets and chilly nights?
There comes a whiff of warm woodsmoke as the first fire alights.
Is it finally the day when autumn will at last arrive?
Twelve months ago was a long, long time to wait to feel alive!
Date - 8/26/2022
(15 syllables per line)
the beauty of subtleties
there are one thousand shades of grey
each separate and distinct
across this desert month.
low gravid clouds puffed,
like the breasts of flocking doves
touch the earth transforming
to pearlescent, pale white gauze
caught in reaching branches.
steely water on the bay,
life sheltered far below,
rolls smooth as oil swells
dappled with foam.
ancient almost-dust leaves
kick up on my boot toe
as I scuffle through the wood
between beach and silver birch.
an owls lonely cry echoes
as it brushes by overhead
softsilent perhaps hunting
field mice or rabbits
November is gentle
in its iron frosts. calm, still,
as though waiting
a canvas barely sketched upon.
Light
Drizzles
From the stars
On mascara clouds
Of night, blown by a sudden wind:
From the city's pavement the skies cosmetic drowns in light
From the heart's cradle another Icarus long for flight
And cannot shed the weight of dreams
In the porous light
Leaking time
Leaking
Life
Night
Brings back
Love's cadence
Moonscape memories
Flocking upon the soul's hunger
I am eaten by dreams from the web of carnal desires
Will you again hold my hand and make your breast beat like waves
In the conch shell lip of my ear
This milk is curdled
Now on time
I weep
Still
Gone
Then hopes
Where dreams dare
Remain like feathers
From a broken wing. Life like ice
In tropic seas forever melts ... the only truth is space
When big rocks turned into tiny trees
Flocking gulls balanced atop laser beams.
Ginormous people, accompanied by humongous animals, toted big axes behind them.
All of this happened way back when . . .
Way, way back when kids were just plain kids.
4.21.2017