Best Hays Poems
(Revised with new homophone added in. Thanks for the catch, Becca!)
*Wants upon **uh thyme inn uh would, uh vary gneiss prints named Hairy
met inn the missed, hi awn the bow of uh tree- uh ferry named Tarry.
The ferry felt lo, fore he was week, and he was inn knead of sum meet.
He bald, “Whoa is me. Eye cant even stand hear awn my own too feat!
My pour hart is braking, and I’m inn pane. The last thyme that eye eight
was daze ago. Ewe sea, I’m inn uh hays and due naught feel sow grate.
Eye parish and long fore whine and ham. Even bettor wood bee lam!
Butt eye wood settle four uh peace of bred with sum suite bury jam!”
Prints Hairy new he had sum mince, sum Tick Tax that **whir inn the pear
of gnu read genes he war. He took them out and waived them inn the heir.
*“Lickerish to, eye halve write hear!” Prints Hairy tolled the ferry.
“Its naught much, butt pleas dew eat. Later awn, wheel dyne and make marry.”
Prints Hairy placed the ferry Tarry aun his pail ***wight hoarse.
Then aweigh the roil with the ferry hastened aun his homeward coarse.
Awl day long they road and road. ***Wen the ferry started to grown.
Suddenly, from the hoarse, both the man and ferry whir throne.
Hungrily they paste beneath the setting son and threw the knight.
They pressed awn until mourning. Hairy’s residents came inn cite!
Prints Hairy’s wife had supper ready, and she’d maid uh pi.
From udder happiness, the ferry thought that he mite dye!
She *heeded up they’re food four them. They both had groan sew pail!
She listened as the ferry Tarry tolled his tragic tail . . .
of how heed lost his weigh and, four food, had knot won crumb
until her deer spouse rescued hymn. At last, his prints had come!
Written April 10, 2015, using homophones from various lists.
Note: I did not use letters, for example, U for “you” ; they were not on the lists I found.
Neither was “hee” which I was going to use for “he.”
The main list used was The HOMOPHONES LIST of John F Troutman and Joy A Miller
* these are a few more homophones I found on Wikipedia’s list.
** these homophones appear on Homophones.com, perhaps the most comprehensive one.
*** These homophones, perhaps antiquated, are from Suber & Thorpe British English
"All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."
—George Orwell
A dozen of chickens and a number of horses, a cat and a raven, a few cows and other hoofed ones—all of which are perfectly silent. Poor wolfie. He can't even find a voice to growl. "Your Honor, if I may request for a short recess," I whisper, humiliatingly like a dying dragon. But my timid voice is drowned by a sly-looking pig's pouring of whisky into Dis Honor's gilded cup.
"Have you no respect or have you no eyes?" Squealing, he deafeningly squeals. He reminds me of that scaled wyvern whose head now sits in my living room. It roared deafeningly loud but breathed no fire. "His Honor is having his brief period of refreshment at the moment!"
With eyes too dry to cry and throat too hoarse to howl, the defendant meekly weeps. But only I hear it; the jury listens to only the silence, loud as a baby serpent's inaudible hiss, of two semi-digested pigs in his gut.
Who on earth build houses with flimsy hays or sticks nowadays anyway? And was it my client's fault that the third genius Doctor Porkchop got killed when some stray earthquake crushed his oh-so-unshakable fort built brick by bloody brick? Just whose brilliant proposal is it again to have Napoleon presiding the trial of the so-called Big Bad Wolf? If only he was a dragon—a pig-dragon at least— I would fain put the beauty that is my sword into good use right now.
Countless charges of premeditated murder, culpable animalicide, et cetera. Of course, do sentence us all to another life. I turn to look at the audience right behind me: a mare, a goat, a donkey. A soft motherly neigh followed by an intelligent baa, then by an astute silence.
"Please, Your Honor," Ridiculous. This stupid courtesy reminds me of tiptoeing past a mother Couatl guarding her eggs. "Shall we resume—"
Slams of gavel.
"Objection! Objection! Objection!" Dis Honor oinks vehemently, his mouth reeking of poorly brewed whisky—and I thought Tiamat's droppings were bad. The way he repeats the slamming of his gavel with every disgustingly pronounced objection gives me a headache as if it was my head he keeps hammering on. For the first time, being hit by the Basilisk's tail doesn't sound so bad at all. "Here you call me 'Your Honor Napoleon' in full," Oh, believe me, the honor is fully mine.
Funny Man!
By Linda Hays-Gibbs
Oh funny man you touch the hardest heart
With messages to crumble and start
A snickering or flickering to spark
A laugh a full belly rumbler
A genius of illogical and logical matter
Without him the whole world is astronomically sadder
Oh let our grief someday subside
That we in heaven will find
A bench upfront to see his latest comedic job ( I pray)
The jester (Robin Williams) at heaven's court for God
clouds as fluffy as the whistling bliss
encircling in the sky, eyes fonder and kiss
abaft the hidden pillows of lace
brightness over hays above Thy grace
His skin like the patina of worn out leather,
burnt and cracked from many hours in the sun.
Across the wide plains in the hot Texas weather,
he rode tall in the saddle to get the job done.
North to Kansas City on this last cattle drive;
then back down to Fort Worth he hoped to survive.
Weary and tired from his night spent under the stars,
as he pushes the dogies along the Chisolm Trail;
across the dusty open range, pristine with no scars,
unlike the plains today, fenced and crowded and frail.
On his last cattle drive for the Goodnight Ranch,
heading up north across the Red River branch.
This proud crusty cowboy, way back in the day,
rode with Jack Hays at the Battle of Plum Creek,
when Buffalo Hump’s Comanches went down in dismay,
now just an old timer, tired and grey and weak.
This last cattle drive before his spurs are hung,
this cowboy’s patina, the legend of which songs are sung.
June 29, 2018
The old man lived out by the desert, selling postcards and gasoline,
He sold road-maps and Navajo silver, and True West magazine.
And under his Gabby Hays beard beat the heart of a dashing young man;
With arthritic fingers he cleaned off my windshield…he once was a Dapper Dan.
He said “Take care on the desert, carry plenty water to spare—
And look out for mirages that float like a dream—there’s all kinds of dangers out there.
“And you better watch out for that sweet senorita, the travelers all agree…
They call her the Queen of the Mojave Desert…but she once belonged to me,
Yes, she once belonged to me…”
I thought the old man was demented, from too many years in the sun;
But there in his gas station office I noticed a Winchester gun…
And I saw a faded brown photo—a Mexican beauty was she…
Right next to a newspaper clipping…about a murder in 1953…
Then later that night on the desert, my car overheated and died—
And I saw the Queen of the Mojave Desert…with a bullet hole gaping wide!
So I hoofed it on back to the station, ‘left my automobile behind…
And that grizzled gas station attendant, he told me one final time—
“You’d better look out for that sweet senorita, the travelers all agree,
They call her the Queen of the Mojave Desert…but she once belonged to me,
She was unfaithful to me…back in 1953…she was unfaithful to me...”
"Nowhere to Run"
By Linda Hays-Gibbs
They run to us for help
They are out of their depth
Lost jobs, lost homes, lost safety and no food to eat
Nowhere to hide, all is nasty and bloody feet
From miles of walking to you
Now, Don't know What to do
Friends are enemies Unkind faces are all he sees
Broken all ties
cause of all the lies
Only thing left to lose
Are your lives
Protect your babies your old and infirm
Oh God, we've nowhere to turn
Is there anywhere a Christian haven
Some place of peace would be heaven
Who started it all
We just don't care
When it started to fall
We did all we could dare
Now we must
Get away from here
But where to go
Tell me is there no
Compassion or kindness left to find
Or has it all been left behind
Pope says that love is the answer
I need the question
Just please be my brother
I will be your best one
If you save my children
I will be your closest kindred son
For real freedom,
solace, and peace
free of cost,
Come to go there and
let get lost,
For cheerfulness,
beauty of nature and
a nymph host,
Browse at all, here
we go and let get
lost,
For chill, hill,
sill, rill, snow,
flow, grow, and to
bost, (Boston)
All I have or not!
Search and let get
lost,
For a peak, seek,
strive, strain,
gain, glee and see
at most
Tighten, a brave
adventure ahead to
let get lost,
For delight, height,
mirth, birth,
success and post,
Hardness not enough,
fled and let get
lost,
For its theme,
cream, team, thyme,
rime, and rhyme lot,
A Poet inveigle
reader and trap, to
let get lost,
For breath, sheath,
accede, proceed,
freed, from cell
oast,
Go back from soviet
and let get lost,
For yore days, hays,
says, ways and
country to got,
Break the fetter of
Coventry and let get
lost,
And Wordsworth,
Auden, Emerson,
Blake and Saadi to
Frost,
Shahid, impregnate
hardly this all and
let get lost.
Shahid Hussain
Chouhdry
Eating bowls of dying meat
sucking poison which taste sweet.
Gas filled bodies that retain their juice
a dead little dog that took abuse.
The death song plays for a mutilated boy
insane parents who receive no joy.
Black dogs bark at the funeral fires
death looks down and picks his desires.
The decapitated body of an unknown man
no one cried which was part of the plan.
A shot in the dark took the poor man down
crazy children laugh as they hear the sound.
'Blood in the gutter' whispered the man
slay your neighbor as fast as you can
No one hears this , no one understands
'Blood in the gutter' whispered the man.
A slash of the knife brought grandma down
the young boys laughed at the blood on the ground.
The blood stained clothes of a forgotten child
the man with the knife is running wild.
The meat in the gutter might be your own
for you are left for dead
and to the dogs you were thrown !
© By Larry Hays
Truly those days were fun,
Little children playing each,
With a fine decorated toy gun,
Life was serious yet catchy;
And we were easily convinced
‘ Sit back, I will buy you Akara’,
Was enough to pacify and evinced.
I can still peep through the silhouette,
Of throwing stones at Mango fruit,
And playing with a plate of omelette,
Those hid and seek games in the rain,
Truly those days were fun,
We went on errands without gain,
Whether it was under the sun!
And when a person died in the hays,
Goosebumps, fear sits in the air;
I can’t forget those jannock days,
As fear was harbored, decency was the heiress
An old woman could tell her daughters,
“Do not touch or allow a man touch you,
For when you do, you will be in a family way:”
I wish to go back to those days in decipher,
For the imagination of her dream, is not new.
These days;
Even a seer can’t see what a teen talks,
And behold, they are all on Tiktok,
Staring at things our fathers only but imagined,
And when you tell them to face their books,
Oh God! They are on Facebook,
These days, decency is just but a crime,
And when you see it, we call it archaic;
Mothers that should do their job,
Are their, on the sad side of Instagram,
Influencing in their nude paraphernalia!
Majority of these parents will taste,
Eli’s strength, a sad reality disguising,
And truly this age is punctured;
And it is bleeding in black jars,
Where then should I start the tale from,
Truly the beat has changed;
Leaving us naked in the daylight;
Where is our morality forte?
Even the news of these days,
Does not sit well with the mind...
It is either abduction, manslaughter,
Banditry, and all those odd news,
I’m debilitated and would want,
To go back to those days!
My eyes are witness to this insouciant.
Ebola
By Linda Hays-Gibbs
A horrible deathly disease has spread
With terrible swiftness and silent dread
Our people with frantic astonishment seek
Why does our government seem so weak
Not only do they expose our children to it
They won't give us a Czar that even knew it
A man with no medical expertise
While our borders are open wide to disease
I'm afraid we have no guardians here
Only weak kneed idiots
It seems so clear
We need someone to lead us against ISIS too
Cause nobody knows what to do
But now it's Ebola that sends us screaming
Somebody wake me I hope I'm dreaming
Where Did My Freedoms Go?
By Linda Hays-Gibbs
Where did my freedom go?
It was here not long ago.
I was sure for all those that fought and died,
Someone had surely lied.
I cannot say what I truly feel?
I cannot tell you that you are a heel?
I cannot shout out loud in open forum?
I cannot tell you how backward we've all become?
I cannot say I feel so discriminated!
I cannot shout how the laws against my freedoms have escalated?
I cannot say my freedoms are deflated?
I cannot debate, berate or dictate?
But why? Is this a Communist state? When did the government get to legislate, my conversation, because it doesn't fit into their legislation?
That I never voted for that? I never even saw?
Whatever happened to my freedom? To my freedoms all?
Did we do away with the Constitution? I guess, When it doesn't meet their resolutions?
Who are these people to take away our rights?
Not Democrats in a Democracy? Surely! Not? Not Republicans in a free Republic? But what have I got?
Stealthily I see these are our enemies, sneaking underneath our doors!
These are our enemies so that we need listening to under the floors?
What does it take? To realize it We need to open our eyes for our sake and take a good look and SEE Open our eyes and ears clean out the sleepiness and earwax, rattle our brains not relax or
We shall be saying "Heil Hitler" or some such stupid rhetoric and bent to their will forced to obey and have no say!
Where did my freedoms go, don't you know?Wake up America find your freedoms once more before they have fled for good and a dictator has shut the door and you can find them no more!
So When they shout shut up!
Stand up!
Kick a Dirt Clod
By Linda Hays-Gibbs
The day was sunny and hot as people
danced
and ran around excitedly
I knew the very fly, that rot,
that buzzed around
my head delightedly
I kept my mouth tightly closed though,
in silent confused awe
I didn't really think it would happen,
no not at all
So all my best kept words were still
tightly sealed
In a giant pickle jar under a hill, that my
thoughts had filled, so lazily
I limped off behind the juniper tree
to find my voice...
But I knew right then I didn't
really have much of a choice
And as my tears finally silently slid
I knew I was no longer a silly kid
And all my prayers would go no higher,
but not
Because I didn't call him a liar
And the fear in my gut just would not stray
As I saw God kick a dirt clod and turn away
When the ax in its adventure captured and
Fell the trees in your garden
The birds flew away leaving their eggs in fallen nests
Their young’s in the care of the hungry hawks
Their melodious songs ceased from your ears
The rhythm of their chorus/refrain went into hiding
When fire in its own adventure ran through your pasture
It ravaged the age long value of our culture
It gave the vultures an adventure
The greenness of your field faded
The fruits fell into false labor
The trees gave up their flowers, their true beauty
Oh trees thou were made to shed your leaves
When we needed rest beneath your shadows
Oh sun thou raced and hurried from west to east
When we needed your rays most, not even for hays
But for the journey of the days
The moon also took refuge in the silver clouds
It made your walk through the night a solo walk
The stars bring scares of scars
But I could hear the blue sky calling onto the blue sea
When I miss you
I bake the ashes of burnt photos
of you when I've given up lies
I chew memories of you like bittersweet cuds,
mix it up with my tears
to paint the tragedies of a war
that never made it into any history book than our diaries
How our children mourns from the future -
Seeds beautiful to enchant angels away from their first estate!
When I miss you I laden fireflies
with wishes and sonnets from my sighs
and lyric themed with the man you left smashed mercilessly against the door
Do they ever get to you
swinging between stars?
Could your tears be this dew on my roof because they touched your heart?
When I miss you, I price the smallest things that reminds me of you as a goldmine
Misery comes as a stern auditor to account for every tear I stole from your eyes
Evil cackles from 'this-could-have-been-us' leaves me to the hangman within who would not be appeased with diamond blames and golden excuses
When I miss you
I cry, coiled sadly under my blanket
I gnash my teeth
staring at the ruins that fitted well in the mould of paradise
I sit up at midnight to write to hope now too blind to regard letters
I still walk down spots
I saw magic graze in your eyes
and eat up the leftover hays your unicorn left in between the pages of your thriller
holding it proudly to my chest like sacred scriptures
I wish I was not too holy
to have pushed your filth away
when I knew I had so much acidic tears to wash you clean from guilt
I stagger into your arms in my head
when I'm drunk with my favourite beer pouring from my eyes
While I'm stabbed by every note of our favourite song on repeat,
playing softly on the radio.