Best Heartlands Poems
I wander the landscapes of solitude
Unchecked and unhealed,
Beneath heavens speared with bamboo rain,
A blade on my back concealed
Beyond where the eye can envisage and see,
Deserts burning dry,
Beyond where the temples sink in the dust,
Under a storm laden sky.
There is no one to swear allegiance to,
The loneliest decree,
To walk the earth as the years dissolve
And land crumbles into sea.
I wander the heartlands of yesterday,
Of feudal souls no more,
Where the killing fields were hearth and home,
My brothers men of war.
No master to slip the chains and unleash
Honour and ferocity,
Belonging to nothing, beloved of none,
Rootless, accursed and free.
Categories:
heartlands, allegory, history, people, time,
Form:
Verse
Where the earth,
either scorched or drowned,
meets the fire of war
or the floods of indifference,
where the sky,
once pristine, now flight-scarred,
meets the trawlers and the oil rigs
on the dying sea,
and the righteousness
that you wore as an amulet
became a millstone
that you could not bear.
Where the industrial heartlands,
robust and cruel,
run feverishly to or from the inner cities,
painful, seething and morose,
where the last suburban outliers,
fading and sanctimonious,
meet the first agricultural small-holdings,
desperate, stoic and resilient,
and you happened upon wealth
too bountiful to be shared,
but mostly succumbed
to the will of the mightier few.
There waits The Serpent,
there waits the heel of The Chosen One,
there waits the reckoning
that no malevolence can escape,
buried so deep within you
that they can never be seen or found.
28th December 2018
Categories:
heartlands, truth,
Form:
Free verse
There is a place called tomorrow
Where this set of politicians
Who claim we elected them
Will all be gone
Even the last trace of their names
Will be no more.
No need naming names
Or pointing fingers at them
You and I know them well.
In that place called tomorrow,
Even their distant seeds that dare
Shall whisper those names in fear.
There, our government will be
Occupied by those we actually chose
To represent our interest as a people
Not marionettes brought forward by any party.
A government that will clearly
Define our economic system
And regulate it with sound policies.
There is a place called tomorrow
Where every Nigerian life
Will be held sacred as it should be.
Where there will be
Dignity of labour and
No man will be enslaved again
Where all the hinterlands
Will be linked to the heartlands
With love and respect
For man and the environment.
In that place called tomorrow,
Our enterprises and agencies
Shall wear a human face
Not bureaucratised in
Bureaucratic bureaucratese
So that resources can be explored
Rather than exploited
For commerce to thrive.
There is a place called tomorrow
A place where we will look
At the children’s faces and see
Joy, laughter, beauty and innocence.
Not pain, hunger and criminality.
Where everyone will be
His brother’s keep
So that together we may conquer
Insecurity or the fear of it.
In that place call tomorrow,
Families shall gather together again
To eat breakfast and/or dinner.
I desire so much that day when
We all would have realized that
We were first humans
Before we belonged to any tribe
Or religion
Before we attained any status
We were first humans.
So everyone will be respect
For who they are
And not necessarily what they are.
In deed there is
A place called tomorrow
Where all we desire will be
Yet it is in us fight
To make that tomorrow be.
Categories:
heartlands, faith, people, recovery from...,
Form:
Free verse
And it will be served proudly
Shore to shore, long highways roam undignified
through heartlands of wounded fields, crying
overgrown long of factories closed,
unemployment, crime,
homes foreclosed on, lives given to dust,
coughed in past dreams now dissipating
along barren horizons, where prosperity
once flourished and visions found a future waiting,
not running to hide behind another’s idea
of the perfect way
When at last, a friendly sun finds its peak
and hope is reborn, replenished hearts reach,
hands held high, not open and low,
hanging in lines, creating excuses,
taking, taking, unearned…
Promises echo and are held, common words,
Thoughts spoken, not disguised for popularity,
Strong words spoken in truth,
to matter once again, to be a man, a woman,
a child, proud with bright eyes and a destination,
regardless of color, blinded by opportunities,
wondering why hate still screams, loudly,
from near left alleys it bellows, chanting victims,
confused, ignorance is confusing
A new day comes, people will matter,
living will mean something,
difficult days lie ahead, but few…
the greatness will shine, the country will prosper,
and the forgiving will unite,
accepting those who can’t, but will
and we will be great again,
and proud to be who we are
Still some will linger in the offices of old,
faded ceiling tiles and paneled walls,
buying the lies at three times the price,
drinking the tainted kool aid,
following those who would lead them to the edge,
jumping because they are told
and blaming it on another….
Noon today means lunch, not free,
nothing is free, but it will taste so sweet,
not the bitter aftertaste we have grown use to,
something to be enjoyed,
nourishment that has been needed,
desired, waited for,
and it will be served proudly…
to everyone
Categories:
heartlands, pride,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Loss fills the air
As people queue;
Death can speak
~~~~~~~~~
A common thread
Links us in gloom;
Mindful faces
~~~~~~~~~
Dry humid March
National mourning;
Heavy hearts
~~~~~~~~~
Gratitude speaks
Multi-racial tones;
Heat wave trials
~~~~~~~~~
Gun carriage cortège
Last journey route;
Crowds salute
~~~~~~~~~
Heavy rains fall
People brave downpour;
Final goodbyes
~~~~~~~~~
Public affection
Never seen before;
Singaporean grief
~~~~~~~~~
Six days of heatwave
Hellish hot and humid;
Seventh day torrent
~~~~~~~~~
What a great loss
A Singapore icon;
Stuff of legends
~~~~~~~~~
Old and young
All races here;
Braving the rain
~~~~~~~~~
Sea of faces
Shouting your name;
Astounding legacy
~~~~~~~~~
Mood of the moment
Loss feeds the strain;
Sky oozes tears
~~~~~~~~~
You cried for us in '65,
2015 we cry for you;
History shows
~~~~~~~~~
Huge debt owed
Our hearts know that;
Rainy salute squares
~~~~~~~~~
See the flags
The heartlands wave;
Broken hearts wail
~~~~~~~~~
History will write
We will remember;
Lasting legacy
~~~~~~~~~
Two names stand out:
Lee Kuan Yew lived
For Singapore
~~~~~~~~~
A people mourn,
In your passing;
We gel as one
~~~~~~~~~
Rest now in sure peace
Your work is done;
Singapore prospers
~~~~~~~~~
Sign a few words
Condolence Book filled;
Gratitude uplifts
~~~~~~~~~
Leon Enriquez
29 March 2015
Singapore
Categories:
heartlands, blessing,
Form:
Haiku
Wandering past bungalows
Sneaking through high covenant areas
Setting servants and dogs barking.
I go home
Desperation crawls in to the heartlands
As dawn crawls in.
Bastards!
They’ve built towers
Everywhere.
Down below I will build a house no bigger than myself
There will be no roof and no walls
I’ll step out into the darkness
If you are nearby one day pay me a visit
And please, plant me a sunflower
For a little glow.
Categories:
heartlands, angst,
Form:
Free verse
Drumming from the amps, bristling with snares and hooks,
(“I see in your eyes, castles in Spain.”);
Aide memoirs of the past, post-war resurrection, stubbornly,
Wreathed in wires of smoke and delineated by baselines,
(“I see in your eyes, castles in Spain.”);
In the imaginary glare, scrubland plains play host,
The homeland of bleached white sonic structures,
Aspiring to touch the scorched stonewashed sky,
(“I see in your eyes, castles in Spain.”);
Ravaging the cold corpses of pastoral dictators,
Burying them in gritty sand, interring with their
Emotional fascism for companionship on the final
Journey into the heartlands of the dead conquistador,
(“I see in your eyes, castles in Spain.”);
In that hopeless kill zone of love and promises,
That vain and empty body of soulless night,
That reflective insult of scorn and terrible beauty,
Replications of dreams laid bare, films on her iris,
Panoramas populated by citadels of waste,
(“I see in your eyes, castles in Spain.”)
(“I see in your eyes…castles… in… Spain!”).
But what can I do?
Categories:
heartlands, allegory, angst, death, history,
Form:
Verse
Storyteller weaves his tales
throughout my mind and heart.
He alchemies my leaden days
into golden thoughts.
We soar above the shrinking earth
on word-filled wings at night,
glide on intellectual planes;
it’s Truth we seek to find.
Charting unknown territory
of heartlands, minds and brains,
we plumb the depths of mysteries
that rule cabbages and kings.
Like Capote penning portraits,
his stories glow so real.
Their 3-D essence touches me
in déjà vu surreal.
He’s captured me in tidy yarns,
with friendship for a knot.
Allowing him to nurture me,
he feeds my starving heart.
He takes me here, he whisks me there,
with legends of the fall.
But one place I can never trod
is deep inside his soul.
Categories:
heartlands, emotions, feelings, friendship love,
Form:
Blank verse
Steps on mud, a stalking thread,
Red strings wind through dying groves
Where life needs time, to find footing,
Red strings halt hands in greed which hold
The axe of ignorance, the axe which bleeds
A people in flight from homes bulldozed
For one brute mine more, to feed empire
Which jangles keys, which confines in loaned
Dependence made, our trough withheld
By bloated old speculators whose cold
Lies obscure serfdom; worded as freedom,
And the east wind is chided,
For fetishism, advert slogans uphold
Impotence among them who create,
They are given consumerist mirrors,
As leeches of mankind are weighed in gold;
And as burns away our way of life,
All bonds formed in toil shared,
The market-canker births hedonism
The imperial axe bloodies us, brothers of old
But hold tight onto the strong strands
Of crimson in the heartlands,
Seize imagination, seize thought
Beyond nettle laden garlands
And thorn crown of parlay,
Rip with the iron of hardship
All parasites, them whose is the whip,
Can’t be pleaded with, can’t be controlled.
Categories:
heartlands, class, community, political, poverty,
Form:
Free verse
Between the fibers
of this page,
an ancient magic
has been laid
Pressing leaves
with mystical power,
and kissing the corners
to grow sunflowers
Cherish a word
a wish or rhyme,
making it grow
deep in your mind
Taking the letters
that are your divine,
weave them into
a master design
Make your own mold
and pour yourself in,
to not be yourself
is the greater of sins
Feel the earth
beneath your feet,
build your own kingdom
a heartlands retreat
With the gift of hands
you can shape a world,
and the only barrier
is what your mind holds
Sowing the seeds
you collected through life,
tend them with love
they will flourish with light
Dream with your heart
and ever be true,
the universe will gather
just to know you
After searching for faults
letting pride blind my eyes,
I stripped off all masks
to soar a blue sky
Now planting my seed
with love in my sight,
I wish it to flourish
a precious long life
Covering these pages
in tendrils sublime,
Thus binding loves magic
I send it through time
Categories:
heartlands, fantasy, inspirational
Form:
Verse
When all the marbles leave the bag
Fret not, weekend wrangler,
For the beat of your heart
Wobbles the very Earth
This your wounded year
With waves calling from pier to pier
Rise, rise your gutless cheer!
Fear not the flashing spheres
Running over shadow-patched cracks
Gleaming with the glory of unkept dreams
Sending shockwaves through Heartlands.
Categories:
heartlands, life
Form:
Free verse
On a mild Spring’s night
In the heartlands of Ulster
A prodigious child was born
For Ireland, to save her
A man of modest means
Yet formidable wit
The mystics he joined
A cause to commit
In poems and paintings
He found self expression
Yet through a noble pursuit
Would leave his impression
He traversed the country
On a campaign of recruitment
To free the impoverished through struggle
And the Co-operative movement
With Horace Plunkett and Connolly
He struggled for justice
Yet the Gombeens and the despots
Outweighed Caesar Augustus
Though Russell did not stop
In this quest for social reform
From misery to prosperity
One sought to transform
But the inconsiderate dogma
Of the Irish Free State
Meant to delay his mission
As the ‘Homestead’ must wait
George William Russell grew older
Crippled by usury
To wretched cancer, succumbed
Rest in peace, ‘AE’
Categories:
heartlands, ireland,
Form:
Rhyme
was a strolling through the heartlands
and you are in the foliage
Woodlands
When I thought of the woodlands
there are the trees never pining
Death shall never come to the maples
and the peonies never foresting
the burr oak brought such sorrow
Tomorrows
Much I marveled the thorn less butterfly bushes
Take thy grassland from out my heartfelt kisses
Woodlands
Tomorrows
Embracing much I marveled those grassy cypress trees
My mind always strays to hedgerows also surrounding me
I saw the forests by the grave
All those host of nest those insects they enslave
Well behaved
and the prairie never soiling
As the arboreal barberry bushes bowling
The woodland wetland waiting
An echo murmured back the word, 'rain-forest!'
Tomorrows
Woodlands
2/27/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.2020©
Categories:
heartlands, analogy, appreciation, environment, rainforest,
Form:
Free verse
Let destiny create a distance...
Firestorm of roses will set an inferno...
Arrow goading the scented sceneries.
Maniac in love, heartlands of homophiles.
Lovely heart cradled in my lover's arms...
Glass dome saving the last petal...
Canvass the soil for a sepal...
Eclipse eyes yearning forever this memory,
Century of love marking romantique history,
Chancery charming this unsettled elapse...
Bowing on the vow of your untangled fragrance,
Heart on your heart always.
Categories:
heartlands, angel, black love, care,
Form:
Free verse
Where leads the heavy road, please take me there
On spines of chrome and steel,
On the silken backs of angels,
To where the heartlands are so real.
Where leads the heavy road, please take me now,
And lay my past to feathered rest,
And usher out the time of old,
And fold it's arms across it's chest.
Where leads the heavy road, please take me soon,
On winds of sweeping change,
On the brightest asphalt trail,
To where my life roams on the range.
Where leads the heavy road, please take my hand,
And spirit guides will weep aloud,
And bid me face a new beginning,
And she will greet me standing proud.
Categories:
heartlands, people, places, time, me,
Form: