Best Fortressed Poems
Let true love find me to be the ever fixed mark of constant gaze
The spectacle of her thrilling eyes, and she to me the dearest prize
A coral when the heart stampedes, or fickle fancy frivolous strays
For love must be a leash of common trust, the pole beyond the skies
So shall we not shiver when seasons change the wind and mist comes
A dark impenetrable fog before the yes, a marsh around the mind
For we by love is added as one, most accurate of all majestic sums
Trust must be the key to vision when love alone stumbles here blind
No arc of sight away in flight, bending ever to a proud inconstant sun
But holding hands we chart our course, finishing better than we begun
For all nature shall around us spin fresh vortexes of an ancient desire
But trust shall preserve us body, soul and skin only for our own fire.
What else shall by our light be drawn, like quivering moths must retire
Into the dust and cinders gasping at our feet, hope their fractured glass
Let true love be constant in this faith, for God's peace cannot expire
Through every storm his ways do hold, so upon him all anchors cast
So what then this buzzing, this jealous sound, is it of frail frying wings
Does some flame the fragile heart deceives, or nestless memory stings
Ah, sentinel not the virgin beauty of my sheets, my fortressed pride
This castle is built of stronger walls, the drawbridge is up, I'm alone inside
They ragged armies may their runted horses rattle until they neigh
Pure hubris, the harried hustlings, trust is a wall faithful and secure
To smooth for any tool to clasp, all tempted grasp will only slide away
And these walls have moats without and within, none crossed before
You alone have I shown where to swim, and how to unlock this gate
To you my center constant holds, only one holy grail keeps my faith
See not my stern behind my bow, point to the haven of your arms
See not my flags fly for you alone, your port the weather ever charms
It's firm the mast that keeps my sail, look from your castle, I come
O sweet the winds that drive me to your shore, what constant tide!
You the true Polaris of my compass stone, my fiddles and my drum
Love not all alone that carries me, but trust that steers me to your side.
Tireless Universe
by Odin Roark
Time defies denial,
Knowing well its empirical presence
Will never be of absence.
Dense as its surrounding matter,
Its aged archives remain
Forever fortressed beneath passage and growth,
Like termite mounds of tunneled journeys,
A labyrinth of cosmic dust
Forever of remnant coatings
Upon endless bell tolling posterity.
Here within the maze of stellar nurseries,
Time’s infinite presence passes through our microcosm
As we attempt to aggrandize selfhood
Beyond its limitations.
Like the beam of a miner’s lamp,
Our import seeks to impact the void,
While this depth of immense profundity
Reveals our illuminative essence
As more akin to a spark of flint
Confronting the revelation of existence.
Perhaps…
Somewhere beyond our consciousness,
Smiles mix with duration’s yawn,
Humoring the metaphysical malady of rest deprivation.
After all,
Like time,
Existence has never slumbered.
Such a tireless universe this.
Candle Whispers
Moths and other creatures
find peril in hovering
especially above seductive candle flame
Yet
We sentient beings
hover not
instead
keep vigil over imagined messages
awaiting the magic
the comfort of vision
As we stare
Buried passions
encouraged by flame
make sacrificial
the walls of insulation
while our fortressed barriers
forfeit protection
dissolving resistance
becoming a river of liquefied defense
We wonder
Is the flame but deception
entrapment
subtle weaponry
seducing the innocent
destroying the gullible
Or
Is it pure light
ignitable by will
extinguishable by nature
its essence of imagination
weaving a ribbon of warmth
among the unlit kindling of love
For just as the cynical enemy
bounces its cold shadows of hurt
restlessly about the wall
waving its determinant position
one's heart beats echoes of defiance
Such are the candle's iconic images
empowering the ether of life
ever simple
ever flexible
even as its waxen folds
melt into mounds of spent energy
awaiting recycled resurrection
Darkness questions
But if we listen
Flame's inner glow whispers its promise to return
On caparisoned, filleted camels do they
Over the great, soft, tawny sands
Ride;
Unfurled flags and tribal standards flown amidst them,
In the very midst of them-
Of they, who astride great tan camels,
Seem rather scandent and saltant.
These are the irregular, well-armed cavalry of the
"Men In Ambush," for such is the literal translation of their
Nation's cognomen;
And on the sands of the undulant, granular, eminent
Near-Judean wilderness do they ride.
Photographing these from atop the vespertine-hued
Summit of a delivery truck from the nearby
Eminent, circumvallatory, hilly
And fortressed city;
From the very roof of an antiquated bread truck
(Though 'twas then very new by the standards of those bygone days)
Whose radiator is soon to vaporously explode
Amid the oppressive, anhydrous desert heat,
Photographs an American, hatted in the whitest
Of Panama hats, who is a correspondent reporting of wars.
The Arab cavalry ride for locales
Damascene, in order to pursue one's kingly wish
To renew the gardens Cordovan and long-vanished.
(Historical train-ride on the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1870 from Omaha to Ogden aboard the Union Pacific Railroad) © 2009 (Jim Sularz)
Morning breaks again, we chug out to Bryan and Carter,
at Fort Bridger, lives Chief Wash-a-kie.
Another steep grade, snow-capped mountains to see,
down below, there’s Bear Valley Lake.
Near journey’s end, some eighty miles to go,
at Evanston’s rail shops, and hotel.
Leaving Wahsatch behind, where there’s the grandest divide,
with fortressed bluffs, and canyon walls.
A chasm’s ahead, Hanging Rock’s slightly bent,
a thrilling ride, rushing past Witches’ Cave.
A lot more to see, from Pulpit Rock to Echo City,
to a tall and majestic tree.
It’s a picnic stop, and a place to celebrate,
marching Legions, that crossed a distant trail.
Proud immigrants, Mormons and Civil War veterans,
it’s here, they spiked a thousand miles of rail!
We’re now barreling down Weber Canyon, shooting past Devil’s Slide,
there’s a paradise, just beyond Devil’s Gate.
Cold frothy torrents from Weber River, splash up in our faces,
and spill west, to the Great Salt Lake.
It’s a long ways off, from the hills and bluffs of Omaha,
to a place called – “God’s promised land.”
And it took dreaming, scheming, guts and sinew,
to carve this road with calloused hands.
From Ogden, we’re heading west to Sacramento,
we’ll forge ahead on CP steam.
And when we get there, we’ll always remember –
Stops Along an American Dream.
“Nothing like it in the World,”
east and west a nation hailed.
All aboard at every stop,
along the first Transcontinental Rail!
(The End)
Fragile: Handle with Care
We write in bright red
On the boxes that carry
Our treasured breakables
Fragile…..
Our human souls
Wrapped in all kinds of protective material
Some of which look sturdy
Able to bear…..
Life's daily wear and tear
Others which seem so frail
Not able to take
Rough handling, shoving, pawing or even a shake
Fragile……
I, for one, wish the world would take note
Of the bright...blood red letters
That with my veins' life fluid on myself I have written
The delicate condition of the state of MY heart…
Fragile….
Oh, reader, you whose lips now smirk
For to your strong fortressed soul
the label doesn't apply
…or so your inner voice implies
But what was that?
The faint tinkling sound of shattering glass
As they bounce you around, trying to make you fit
The right place….
A tiny bullet word pierces the bubble wrap of your dreams
Making contact with the heart of your treasure….
…With the treasure of your heart!
Alas, my friend… It's too late to write the warning:
It's too late to heed the warning:
F r a g i l e….
Fragile…
Handle with care!
Tomorrow came a day too late
Held fast beneath a Tyrant's hand
Who lied in Corporate "Double Speak"
With blooded swords and lightening bolts
In languages forgotten
Long before the thunder died
And mushroom clouds filled up the sky.
Look down to Middle Mountain Keep;
The inner city walls are breached beyond repair
The sounds once heard were always those of commerce
The energy of congress
The joy of profits golden and secure...
But nothing grows here anymore;
Nothing lives here anymore.
Behold a fortressed, fallen dream
Raining greed from bone bleached hands
From barren fields of dying farms
And clouds of death from poisoned lands...
Rejected psalms denied by despots and jesters
Wielding Power like a Scythe...
But taxes on their glory gather manifest
One hundred thousand fold or so last count;
And the Middle bears the weight alone
The weight of fraud...the filth of doubt.
Bound up, no doubt in tasseled ribbon braids of conquest
Surrounded by Ammendments and inalienable rights
Tossed like garbage in their wake...straight in our face.
Reminiscent of Ozmandius - royalty's forgotten names...
Musty, shallow birthright claims of grasping need
Of this part of the world -- or that part of the world;
Might is right and all must march
To whatever tunes they care to play....
And the Middle sings their songs alone.
Too big to fail...too big to go..
A cancer dressed in silk and lace
Worship Corporate blessing on the few
A new religion risen bright and new.
So, pay your blue blood Rites of Passage
Flightless birds, reminiscent of the DoDo,
And grab yesterday's last offered chance...
While you blindly walk on traceless feet
Straight into Sorrow's Lance...
And the Middle bleeds alone.....
“TULIPTUOUS” ( A Poem With Fourteen Lines)
(To my LIVING TULIP)
Everywhere tulips
That’s what i encountered once
At this moment at Mt. Vernon during tulip fest
Awesome, i may say, but this time “Tuliptuous!”
As tulips, tulips everywhere are tulips
Like two lips torridly hied to kiss
Till forever more in this paradise
Where an adventure of beauty aghast
We thank god this nature abounds
Visited by friends, tourists and lovers, elsewhere
Around the world come find never stop/ subside
Here with special mention to a new specie
These “gamet gem tulips” i love surely etched
In mine and yours ,our hearts and minds.
Too many colors these tulips
How they did like paintings in canvas
From buds to fully bloomed like bulbs
Reds, pinks, yellows, blues and purples
O, how i fell in love with tulips
Now, adorned my life in pleasure or in distress
Lucky for me and yet blessed
That day of days more than forty years
Fortressed with love purely happiness and trust
Never he must unfalters, disfuncts or diminish
Maybe, she may,too, but deserves
As mutual we’re born from cupid’s loves
Never unseizingly subdues and ends
Just like tulip lovers,indeed always gracious.
April born or otherwise
When you are in and there, forthwith
Better pick one or buy more bouquets
To offer or gift a love one bequeath
As the're no harms instead it would swarms
Tulips to tulips in hands or in boxes
To each its own…than then to lovers
Many lips…or lips to lips and down to earth
These are the zooming and loving birds
And bees come prey with theirs stings honeys
So sweet make hays till heavens
Ruptured for heaven’s sake or sleeks dwells
No more during falls, summer or winter times
However, the best of time this season of tulips.
-WILLIAM
Orphaned Pebbles
by Odin Roark
Atop so many ebbs and tides
Have I ridden
Beneath the roil and tumble
Have I survived
Now at last
A fling of wave and wind
Rests me among found safety
A pebble blanket
High upon the shores
At the foot of your magnificence
How very long ago it seems
Your mountain spire
A shudder
A quaking shift
My security split open
The severed shards
The razor chips
Cascading into the sea
We were all lost
Flung from your fortressed castle
Destined to drift
And tumble
In watered darkness
But you…
After your fathoms-deep eruption
Did heal
Ocean did soothe
Sunlight did transform
Devastation into vegetation
Your island survived
Your knife-edged spirit
In spite of severed shoulders and face
Became a frozen echo of resilience
Your ancient imagination made beautiful its scarring
Its many cave-like eyes held firm the watch
Your beard of tangled vines continued its reach far below
Across a rotund belly of scree and sand
How peaceful this inlet shore
Where briny caresses have protected
And made available your pebbled orphans
Who returned
So…
Here we are
Waiting patiently the next adventurous child
Looking to select
Gather
Sort
And cherish one of your surviving kin
As the sun dries my polished continuance
I wonder if the journey will find new transport
To window pane
Cigar box
Perhaps an aquarium
Placed among other friends of the deep
Though…
I’m hoping to become
A pocket buddy
That’s the best
Don’t you think?
To be a warm companion
To a boy like the one hovering over me now
He’s leaning down…
There Once Did Live...
by Odin Roark
There once did live
This tree now of charred tenacity
With crumbling faithful statue of strength
Steadfastly stationed atop its roots
The stone statue of Hercules
Father placed so long ago
Now defaced with apple in his mouth
Made buffoon by children
Enjoying hijinks of youth
There once did live
My fortressed escape
With hammered sticks as steps
Giving flight from reality
My stronghold in the sky
This tree that housed so many dreams
Now but a burned out cavity
Remains of remembered life
Entombed by climbing vines
Flowered embracing round its trunk
Reaching up left and right
Forgetting not the limbs
That once shaded its mythical protector
Now with mouth crammed of apple
How cruel
Yet forgivable
The ignorance of youth
An age clinging tight
The few years it has
And how impassioned we become
Upon visiting where once I did fantasize
My own kind of mischief
Hidden by the branches and leaves
Guarded by mythology I knew little of
Yet
Yet today…
How prescient this head of stone
Askew like a court jester pondering me
Seeming able to laugh at himself
As I remove the apple
Coaxing from me as well
A grin of acceptance
how can a speck of dust
comprehend the universe
in all its glory and majesty
I am at times beyond overwhelmed
past the point of feeling my smallness
infinitesimally minute barely even a presence
and yet you have generated
a wonder beyond anything
I could possibly feel outside of
a magnitude of gratitude
for the minuiscule perception of glory
you have taken dust
and congealed a realization
that gives light to life
and touched even the broken
with a glimpse of paradise
of a grace that even in our brokenness
that you could reach deeply
beyond all that an eye can see
and touch the hidden
that we have fortressed
and sheltered and not allowed
violence of nature or men to touch
for only your divine purity
and innocence will we
even allow to enter this room
COPYRIGHT © 2014 C Michael Miller
via Duboff Law Group LLC
Honoured is our kin
fed with a sliver spoon
bred and reared in Elysium.
Swith is he, an ironic typhoean _
(he 'l be)- Our immerse hero..
So will he slump a thousand times
but not like a coward.
I will tirelessly mull over
how long he lives
like a mammoth,
how great he'l emerge like pharaoh..
Tender is his flesh at the crematorium
who shall we laud, for this formidable feast.
Welcome the vulnerable kin,
He who stole our sodden hearts.
Who will eep and give fibs?
He! the "vainglorious conqueror" _
Who will loot and share views?
He!
Who wears the prosperous attire?
He..
who rears the gluttonous martyrs?
He! He! He!
praise him Of great evil and flair.
glorify him Of great evil and fear he spares,
Our sardonic Adonis.
Tied are you to winter's wrappers
Harmattan you say is for Americanas
in the savannahs.. there you belong
you scoundrel!our disowned manhattanite,
we your kindreds heart you
'road model' for we yonder ones.
You undo and sojourn
we still value you
We pray you live longer
We pray you age agelessly
And work tirelessly
like a wall clock
When there is nothing left to seek
You know you have attained your peak
Then, pray to be like these carcasses
who takes nothing to heaven _But
good deeds that trades them paradise
away from hell fortressed from yeh
I praise you hence
Turn a new ...
Get a new lease on life
Viewing eternity with faith’s vision
my spirit zooms to celestial city
exploring fortressed mansion of great love
secured upon gracious peace-filled freedom
constructed by the sovereign Architect.
Along heavenly avenue, I stroll
on golden streets, divinely euphoric
then in saints’ closets, very welcoming
I fellowship with the heroes of faith
reminiscing jubilant engagements.
As my soul longs for that forever bliss
now I yield to the Saviour by His grace
to serve with love, reaching-out joyously…
since in the twinkling of an eye*, we’ll meet
yes, I’ll face Him with body glorified.
*1Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
February 11, 2020
Honorable Mention, "STRAND SELECT T, any form ,any theme" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand; judged on 2/19/2020.
Born in Whittlesea,
Lately fortressed in Granby,
Sir Charles crossed an ocean,
Happening upon Lady Renee, a damsel distressed by devotion.
Forthrightly, yet politely, he comes to her aid,
With courtly dances, duets and serenades,
Awakening this maid from endless reverie,
On loss that caused her injury.
His knightly bearing reassuring and winning,
His humor sudden and cunning.
With such chivalry her life force is rising,
Suddenly she’s a Phoenix, finding it all quite surprising!
Having forsaken her own crusade,
Everyday life became a masquerade,
Recalling unbidden her grail, she asks, no longer constrained,
Was this encounter preordained?
Is it her destiny to help this noble soul mend,
From wounds in recent battle sustained?
So she prays the power descends,
To rescue each other and be joyously contained.
MRT
5-12-10
Porches,
attached decks,
patios,
intimate places for alfresco,
These make a difference
between a fortressed house
and a transparent home,
between an ego castle
and an eco-habitat.
We also spread rhododendron bushes
and hostas,
flowers and ferns
around our stone
and concrete bound foundations.
We want stable defenses
but prefer to camouflage houses
in organic color,
life giving and taking shapes.
These boundary vistas
speak of heart felt reminders
our habitat is rooted
in Earth's wilderness
In vulnerability
hidden from transparency
except with those who share our sacred space
inside
and upon,
within our co-passioned present time,
Presence bonding,
double-binding,
re-membering past wildness
anticipating future re-generative
re-storative
re-habituating
re-acclimating
re-bounding win/lose less
for more win/win paradise
Just barely 2020 visible
and silently audible
and fresco fragranced
and tasted,
felt
and so nearly touched
longing into belonging
on our cooperatively-owned front porch.