Best Hatted Poems
Beach Blanket Bingo (The Fab Five)
B etty Lou, beautiful Katherine, and
E leanor, Nellie Sue and Bethany
A ll playing Bingo, on blankets in sand,
C hatted away, happy girls by the sea,
H eaven-sent sun beaming high in the sky.
B ethany said, “Girls, suck tummies in.
L ook. Over there is a really cute guy!
A lso, we really should show him some skin!”
N ellie Sue said, “And he has four friends too!”
K atherine quickly adjusted her hair.
E leanor said, “Girls, you know what to do.”
T hey took off their beach wraps and made those men stare!
B ob and his friends asked to join the game.
I n minutes each lady was paired with a guy.
N o worries. Just good times. Always the same.
G olden girls shine like the sun in the sky.
O ld ladies, still young at heart, the fab five!
by Andrea Dietrich
Inspired by Linda-Marie's
"Beach Blanket Bingo" Contest
Don’t know how it started, or how it ends
I’m older now then I will be then; when
I was scribing with quill, candle and scroll
A mind of dubiety, road full of holes
A wanderlust dream, of apples true taste
A destined arrival, from earth to space
Learning my place around the bend
My limbs sinking in the chair akin
To the rustic oak desk, branded by toil
My hands numbing, gears lacking oil
Watching raindrops kiss the window
A top hatted, hunched mans figure descends
He says with a grin, I’ll show you how
To properly command your pen
I pinch myself over and over again
Thinking I’ll wake next moments blink
I said sir, let me sip that ink you drink
Dine from the flowery plate you ascend
With glib he said, the drink is to think
Outside of a realm we transcend
The ink is verve that the heart kindly lends
To our inspired souls speaking
To minds boundless pen
I blink and he vanished
A note left to me holds words I brandish
“Calm eagles yield more then the busiest wren.”
Days’ End
Emeralds twinkling with evening diamonds,
Twilight planes flying through cotton ball clouds,
Wending weary workers traveling home,
A sole spectator sun-hatted watches.
The roar of rolling roads, a siren sound,
Like ants they crawl through streets to empty town.
The smell of smoke o’er charcoal lit fences
Tips of skyscrapers blazing through late smog.
The city is stretching while joggers run,
Baseball boys carry their bats from the park,
The dusk is creeping neath the western sun,
The sole spectator sighs, be-hats, recalls.
Sleepy children with books curl on the floor
It’s the end of the day in my City.
Often times I dream of days gone past -
Although, I've not lived then -
Neither saddle or horse shoe cast:
Where was he when I first envisioned the outline of his long, hatted figure?
Atop a horse named, "Fourth of July" -
Montana perhaps or Wyoming is where he lingered...for a time.
Long since dormant, there remains only tattered
images of a dusty saddle horn, bent buckles, a frayed lasso hidden under
some felled and hollowed out oak, that still rustles with callused sounding
boots of cowboys retiring, still wet with the days cattle drive, sore and
worn out talks of how they could have been with the perfumed, bustled
women of their otherwise, ordinary youth.
5/7/2014
- Readers, I hope you forgive me.
I’m retracting some words I once said:
I'd planned to write just five of these tales
But I've added a sixth tale instead..
Night
The preacher was searching for Duchess
Also known as 'The Tabard Inn Cat'.
Scared by the storm she'd run out of the inn
And knocked over his drink where he sat.
That event brought an end to his chess game:
The first he had played in a while.
His worthy opponent who sipped water had said
That his comforting words made her smile.
The preacher had stood from the table.
Looking scared and somewhat distraught.
He felt for some reason there was trouble ahead
And proclaimed that the cat should be caught.
He'd opened the door of The Tabard
And was met by the sound of the rain.
A sailor pushed past him and into the bar
As the preacher limped off down the lane.
Later That Night
The last person to see him still breathing
Was sadly not sober at all.
A 'top-hatted' man who was heading for home
Thought he saw someone scaling a wall.
He swore that he saw something smiling
And eyes that stared back and looked weird.
It was all very dark and his mind wasn't right
Then the shadows he saw disappeared.
The Morning After
The preacher was found dead the next morning
He had fallen it seemed from a height.
Whispers and rumours were swirling around
Like the wind from that wet stormy night:
- "He had feelings for a woman who's taken.."
- "Their love was just dead on the shelf!"
- "He was burdened by guilt with his faith and all that"
- "That cat was the devil itself!"
Later That Week
A sermon revealed at his service
(That the whole town had turned out to see)
That the preacher was an animal lover
And had suffered with PTSD.
You see he was once a brave soldier
But lost hate when he lost his right leg.
He left to preach love and bring all things together:
..He was truly an all-round good egg.
In Dickensian time
Upon sunset hour
Overshadowing Thames
Is London Tower
Blackened cobble streets
Shimmer in the rain
Big Ben at Westminster
Chimes an eight bells refrain
At Euston Station
A passenger alights
On Platform 3
And enters the caff
for a nice cup of tea
At the local tavern
Behind steamy windows
The opportunists sit
Gleaning local gossip
Ever watchful to ensnare
Any hapless stranger
come wandering there
Covent Garden
still well lit
As lamplighters
carry out their remit
Striding with ladders
about old London town
With a cheery wave
and a purposeful frown
Patrolling policemen
in forbidding places
Echoing footfalls
as boots make paces
A courting couple shelters
under the arches
Oblivious to passerby's
and dray cart horses
A hackney driver cracks his whip
As high stepping hooves
on cobbles clip
From Westminster
stove pipe hatted M.P.s from
parliament sitting
enter a members club
to continue their
political discourses
unremitting
Mudlark urchins ankle deep
in moonshine glow
watch chugging steam boats
along the Thames flow
Billingsgate Market's
straw boated and
stripe aproned men
are found sluicing
with brooms in hand
the blood drenched ground
Along the West End thoroughfares
Come wealthy patrons
in open carriages with lantern flares
wearing evening attire
Bejewelled ladies in fanciful frocks
And around bare shoulders
Stoles of mink and silver fox
They ascend the red carpeted stairs
And look towards the royal box
A pretty young street seller
of violets and roses
with straw basket on hip
proffers up the scented poses
A peasouper fog blankets from
Thames to chimney tops
As a trader hooks his shutters down
Outside his haberdashery shop
Across London Bridge the East End rabble
Trail homeward to Hackney, Bethnal Green
and Whitechapel
From an open pub door
streams a music hall tune
played on an accordion
in a crowded tap room
Wending amongst the walkers
in the Strand
run beggarly children
with outstretched hand.
And......
Charles Dickens
walks the streets
at night
taking note
of every sight.
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.
Whenever I get in my car
It seems I don’t get very far
Before I spot the thing I dread
A man with a hat upon his head
He is a little older guy
And he won’t let me pass him by
He always drives a block long car
Ten miles an hour is almost par
I think he drives by touch and feel
He barely can see o’er the wheel
No matter how I weave and swerve
He cuts me off at every curve
That hat with white hair underneath
Can really make me grit my teeth
He never gets in any hurry
And drives along without a worry
He’s unaware that in his wake
That fifty cars may have to brake
He doesn’t really care you see
Because he is in front of me
When my time on earth is done
And I must make that final run
As I head to heaven, I just know
There’ll be an old guy drivin’ slow
And when I reach that pearly gate
There’ll be a line that has to wait
In front will be a hatted bloke
The one that caused my fatal stroke
My mind went for a walk, in the middle of the night,
To a place full of colourful lights.
I was having a beer with Nelson Mandela,
And we talked about our own civil rights.
He put down his drink and quietly said,
“It always seems impossible until it’s done”.
And then he just vanished, replaced by a tin hatted soldier,
Blood covered from World War 1.
He looked numb and dead, behind bleary eyes,
And didn’t really want to talk at all.
I think he wanted to weep, for the people in his mind,
When he let go a short mournful squall.
And then Jackson Pollock walked in, with a smile and a grin,
With a new paint of his crazy Blue Polls.
He shook hands with the soldier and gave him his painting,
Saying this is for all the lost souls.
My mind went for a walk, in the middle of the night,
Where everything seemed so extreme.
Can’t wait for tonight, when again, civil rights can be done,
In another profound, definitively chaotic dream.
This is for Brian Davey's "My cousin chaos" contest.
UNFINISHED IN CONNEMARA
Small drizzle - or sea spray?
Wets the face - not enough to teardrop.
Above a cold damp brow,
Beads edging down the black wool -
Not heavy enough to run, nor wet enough to drip.
Tiny Atlantic turbulence in my hatted ear :
Flurrying, blustering squalls.
Buffets of whetted wind
Bring back Connemara
When she was there.
As in a seashell.
............................................................
Note.........Connemara is a bleak but beautiful remote part of Ireland - always rainy and windy
Enea Gets the Red Hat
Finally, he's getting somewhere.
Fifty years of age and almost crippled,
prematurely aged, but at last,
sweet recognition rains down
on the poet. Kneeling before Calixtus,
he accepts the Cardinal's hat.
Fancy that.
With every triumph, we're swept nearer Hell.
Each anthem that we sing's a kind of knell.
No matter what we get, or grab, or gain,
we're human, and our lot is death and pain.
Both Frederick and Ladislas
had to do a lot of lobbying
(Calixtus was a Borgia, after all:
and family is family.) Por fin,
esta elevado. Behold the scene.
Frederick with his back to us
and Ladislas holding on to him
(shouldn't that be the other way round?)
deserve their pride of place.
The seething swell of humans
swirls around the little altar,
but can't budge it.
The clear-cut marble doesn't give.
What is the painter telling us?
Men move, and flow, and live, and go,
but soon or later, their
energy is spent?
The Church is permanent?
Regard the four main players,
the upper crust of Mankind's many layers,
yet each one a loser clone.
Calixtus took the throne
already old, and singing one stale tune
(and that, corrupt!)
He didn't use a long spoon
when he supped.
There's Frederick, the Emperor,
a joke. Bullied by his minions,
unhappy, hapless, broke.
And Ladislas, a king without a kingdom,
a cock without a crest,
he's Frederick's long-term guest
(another kind of jest).
A prisoner -- or let's say, at home,
he and Frederick make a palindrome:
august additions to this Pleasure Dome.
Enea: worn out, homesick, ill.
Surviving now on sheer will.
Is that Nature's tonsure, or Man's?
He's kept alive by feverish plans
to mount a Great Crusade --
but we all know it won't be made.
Two rigid windows and an altarpiece.
The Trinity? (The painting is the Holy Ghost.)
Or are those plain, framed panes
the Empire and the Papacy?
You think we're reading too much in?
We point you to one subtle artist's touch.
The youth, right-centre, in the azure cloak,
who's smirking at some "only-I-know" joke:
head cocked, as if he's watching all, askance:
he finds the dainty, double-dealing dance
amusing. Isn't he Rafael?
Hatted like some crimson Cardinal,
he's watching how they rise up, how they fall.
He's waiting, calmly, to inherit all.
Cut out of black paper
Japanese
Thrown before a sky
Of night milk
Janitress of a
Lower house
One toothed,
Point hatted,
Flying in front of a
Victorian curtain
Two thirds storm,
One third dark.
construction site
a
parade
of
orange hatted
gnomes
Ashe is a punny name for a
Bandit and Aristocratic girl
I've never seen white blankets of winter stupor,but her hair is as white as snow
Gold-accents and speck of southern rich
The anxiety of teasing dynamite like grill sizzles hiss during a hot summer's day
Bold eyes with depth of color
independent heart-seeked brushed
All within a tempered-sodden lip
And the companioned bowler-hatted butler who like
any other gray canine attracts mechanical affection
Had I but ears to hear and see-I'd say
The submsissive click,click,click of a rebellious gunslinger
Blap of stray unerring pellets
Bombardment of red-candle top- adrenalined
ring,ring,ring
An opera of menace
And the animated vocal squall
-'Bob,do something!'
This Bumptious Poet ©
Once again dear reader,
aye strive to regale ye
with in apropos prate,
(nee inane) vain
null gibberish in order to suss stain
mine infamous reputation
with the singular word pain
in thee...online
literary milieu, where this main
stream (babbling virtual
brook call lean)
tin hatted man,
qua zee moat tow "FAKE" King
po' whit laureate selective keen
a boot (sally ling forth)
hemming and hawing,
while feigning bing
a suave hill Billy blue jean
wearing brand Levi Strauss,
(a posthumous plug)
for a savvy German
businessman hood deed glean
prospective market for
denim made easy to clean
material donned by lumpen
proletariat aye assert
would be my status
if born circa
late eighteen hundreds by
a moo their and father,
both named (Elisha) Eli
for short slaving away to feed,
and clothe this then little guy,
who whiz fain to appreciate my
(dirt poor station in life well nigh
larded with love,
and non verbal re: ply
thee above fictitious
i.e. "FAKE" parents rye
zing far and above
penury and did try
their level best
to hammer out
round the clock rockin
round the clock
nsync with the paradigm
of Abraham Maslow,
albeit modified ad hoc
accepting with humility,
poverty how to jock
key providing basic brood
of offspring and subtly mock
king bourgeoisie, re: (unpretentiously
unflattering discrete actions), while rock
king to thee western civilization
trappings of schlock,
ah and oh...no doubt
precious time, aye
did fritter and flout
away distracting sorely tendered,
kindled, and cherished attention
thus metaphorically affecting thee
with equivalent, where
yar entire body riddled with gout.