Best Horsehair Poems
Alone the bones of the room
bear no weight of responsibility
nor does it bare its breast of secrets
a broken pane
provides a breath with a pang of lavender
a wistful inhale
inhabits the lungs of this space
as the room tries to embrace...
oh embrace the breathing breeze
to squeeze a semblance of life into this place
but the breeze— a gypsy whisper-warm
needs freedom to come in and sweep
sun-dust into swirls of pinprick-stars...
then to go not beholden to bones
stoic and standing still
not beholden to dust stranded midair
only to fall in despair— abandoned
with less a good-bye
as bygone laughter and lullabies
are held on lath-tongues
behind horsehair plaster walls
but mute memories
mingle in dust like fireflies in dusk;
her suckling coos
the woe of rocking chair nights
hot plashes of mud-puddle tears
—a colored canvas that minions of time
would rather gesso white
in its bones the room
remembers its worth as a womb
nurturing a baby’s breath
beneath blue-skin-skies
where rows of purple spires grow
till Mistral winds blew hard and cold
and flew her lavender soul
far from home
oh the loss of life
wind-crashing-seas-onto-rocks—
loss of life
skeleton-ribs-of-the-crib
stripped-of-her-lavender-sprig—
loss of life
Fantasy sold on a 50’s bottle cap;
a party-girl side-saddle sits
on a double-edged crescent moon
up high —a silver scythe in glamour-night-sky
corners of her cherry mouth tilted up
her left hand raises her glass a toast to the stars
frothy head of champagne-beer flirts
with lips spooning the rim
right hand holds the bottle instead of reality
look! no hands on a razor’s edge
precarious hilarious
a redhead with bouncy-curls and a flouncy-skirt
boot-heels over head when she laughs and Oops! falls
clouds catch her without friction and pillow her fiction head ~
but you with wild escapade eyes fell hard
fell
hard
far beyond Earth with not a soft cloud to cushion you
glam-allure just a sexy lore a filthy lure
but once you’ve been star-dusted and angel-dusted
it’s all the same…
vintage Miller bottle cap
a perfect circle like the fattened moon face
leering through broken windows
shards glitter the floor like fallen constellations
your black pearl eyes two muddy puddles
life drained through rows of tiny needle holes
slip-knot above your elbow just tight enough
your pulse beats its fist against the restraint
—pounding —pounding —pounding
impatient to be bled and fed
you and this dragon’s den a dilapidated pair
abandoned and without family
you share the blank stare of broken windows
veins collapsed like crumbled staircases —
empty inside of empathy and dreams..
a junkie’s spot where shooting stars crash
embers in your bloodstream turn to dust
— you cook in a rusted bottle cap by candlelight
candle’s glow your Sun in a dirty universe
with your teeth you pull back on the syringe
this house unused by the living a cold corpse
but in the warm rush of your skin’s flush
your gaunt gray body melts like hot wax
pale horsehair walls a slouchy silent witness
... your soul escapes as it scrapes across the floor
flurries sneak through broken windows
whirl of wind whistles on its rounds like a jailhouse guard
rattling beam-bones jangling ghost-bones —
user-litter kicked around like a pile of old brown leaves
burnt fingertips and a junky "High Life" bottle cap
all you have left
Violins plucking strings
of horsehair, satin ribbons
violet violate a dark
foresaken world
like a beautiful dream
romance unravels
the sweet pain
comes undone
then those wild horses
dance macabre neck-to-neck
racing all the way home
for want of a better country,
these beautiful creatures
limbs racing all lathered
opening wide
and unconquered
plunder new territory
in the red seeded seat
royally the hidden thing
beats like a machine
underneath the skin
a ripe juicy red apple
no cherry pip
feeds the mind of
marquis de john donne
and dorian's sybil vane
gone all wrong
Violins the shape
of a woman
the music inside
her intense jungle
prowls around
like an exotic
soft pawed purring
black leopard
something wicked
or wonderful
in the garden
this way it comes
the soft satin
that binds metaphoric
minds like wrists
the will to resist
comes undone
something wicked
or wonderful
in the garden
dappled in shadow
shining and hidden
like a solitairy secret
like a morning star
this way, it comes
Candide Diderot. ‘24
It was a tin-roof wooden house standing
Across the red brick cobblestone street
Adjacent to a wide open field full
Of shady live oak and sweet smelling tangerine trees where
My father’s boyhood home was nestled
Quietly in his home town.
Often times we’d travel to visit
The grandparents still living there
In that Americana corner of our lives.
We didn’t know much of anything at all except
The sky was blue, love was true and we
Youngsters were the apples of the old folk’s eyes.
We’d sit for hours in white wicker rocking chairs
I helped paint one time with newspaper on the floor
And a horsehair brush grandma gave me
To teach me that painting needn’t be a lesson
In staying between the lines. “Sometimes,” she’d say,
“It’s better to let the paint flow
And speak for itself in time.”
And granddad liked to watch the sky – especially at night
When stars were burning bright and would point towards Polaris and say:
“Heaven’s over that a-way.” And during daylight hours
When storm clouds appeared and we could hear
Thunder and lightning all around, he’d laugh and dance
As if the circus were coming to town.
We watched mocking birds and blue jays flying in and out
Of all the tree top branches and leaves singing
Their love making lullabies to us and one another and then
As quickly as they arrived,
Disappeared into the wind.
It seems we’re not much different
Rather family, foe or friend.
Accordingly, the old house still stands today
But the dear old folks have slipped away.
Perhaps to the place once pointed to
High above that night sky view
Where comets roam and grandpa liked to call “Up yonder,”
Leaving me with thoughts of gold
And memories made to ponder.
On the Isle of Skye, water runs down the Cuillin mountains into waterfall streams
It's a beautiful and tranquil place
Where the local fairies live, play and dream
A red-bearded Scotsman walks from his village
He carries his beloved bagpipes in hand
He heads to the magical Fairy Pools
To play for the fairies hiding among the heather stalks growing in the lush green land
Clad in a kilt of dark blue and green
They know it's their friend that's come to play
His emotional bagpipe songs are the only things
That make them emerge from their hideaway
The fairies love the skirl of the bagpipes
It brings their soul delight
Their tiny wings flutter with joy and elation
While they surround him in flight
When he's finished playing, he reaches into his horsehair sporran
Hanging from his waist
To feed the fairies bits of wild-grown raspberries
They absolutely love their taste
He will come back to play for them soon on another day
They love their friend in the blue and green kilt
With his beloved bagpipes and the songs that he will play
I. Creation
Before the troubles of the world infect the soul
The magic of imagination creates a womb
Devoid of torment, pain, and stress. Rainforests,
Jungles, beaches, other worlds of elation where
You are always the victor in battle, the one
Who finds true love, alpha and omega. Never
Landing in withered trees or dead grass, only
Strong trunks and rolling plains, an ocean
Of stars, a blanket while lying comfy on
Palm fronds floating down calm dreamy
Rivulets of turquoise streams. Locomotives
Wind down vast forest covered country sides
Their tracks gliding to the warm earthy
Humming sound only they can make.
Only now with danger, inherent only to your peaceful fire
Bring you to this happy place, a place desired.
II. A Home all Your Own
In the world of yesterdays and tomorrows
And days lost in the gyre of solstices we
Create a world unto ourselves. Paradises
Lost to the antiquity of children trapped
Inside their adult armor. Lies tipped with
Poison seep into the wells of being, melting
The oil from the canvas’ that dreams are painted on.
Cheap reminiscences flash through tattered wafting
Curtains. Nightmare doppelgangers wait in quarries
of fire breathing mountain giants laying siege to
Rapture found in a good escape. Chemical
Demons like iron maidens brandishing your
Favorite drugs, syringes close in creating
An eerie starry night
To you alone
In a home all your own.
III. Repent to your inner child
To regain a solid footing on the gun deck
Of the warship you’re riding in the flotsam,
Hearken lessons from the playground,
The bruises, nicks, and cuts proudly earned
Ensure the necessary skills are acquired
To embark on adventures of the body.
Hiding in shrouds like an angel
White egret with horsehair-like crests and
Misty wings is the caged fury of joy, her
Wings mightier, beak stronger, eyes sharper
And love unabated from years unvisited.
Swelling seas are sailed, reefs can’t breach
A flying draft when joy carries her burden
Aloft. Hair amber and aflame in the setting sun
Amidst a new sea of clouds, only anchor
In a child’s heart when the dream fades
And the soul returns among the shades.
B52s above the Aleutians?
It never was a Red Dread global mission.
Fidel was just Galician patrician,
and Ho and Mao were scholarly Confucians.
They wore those uniforms like horsehair vests,
to carve from abject nothingness an entity,
a national and regional identity,
ingredients which only coalesced
when nascent nations donned that soviet skin,
abhorrent to the blinkered Baywatch mind:
unowned, untethered, boundless, non-aligned –
but with Kalashnikovs airlifted in.
As Mary Jane moved in on moonshine stills,
the five-year-olds rehearsed their fallout drills.
A lonely fiddle, its strings once taut tense and
stretched, waiting to be tuned and played.
The limp horsehair bow, longs to be tightened
and drawn in sweet reverberations.
From the poem "Strings"
posted Jan 27, 2018
for Greg's Arbitrium Divisa contest
Bought home in a battered case one day
He took it out and and scratched away
Playing out of tune and terribly flat
He scared the daylights out of the cat
The horsehair that ran along the bow
Had escaped and departed long ago
Never mind, he played without a flinch
While next door the neighbours winced
Melodies unrecognisable to human ear
He can't keep time or bum notes hear
'I'm a virtuoso!' he likes to boast
But in truth - he's as deaf as a post
20 April 2023
V words writing challenge poetry contest
Constance la France
her fingers play like spiders
nimbly dancing on a web of iron
it lies on the smoothest rosewood
her prey is built of horsehair
such powerful vibrations!
such music to her ears!
quickly her prey dances back and forth
tho never does she escape
the wooden casket sings songs of old
still the iron waves dance
nimbly does our spider creep
and back to her position
And once again the horsehair prey
Dances to the casket song
They waltz to the beat to the spider legs
Until they cannot dance anymore
Cloudburst Louis
Paints in colors bright
Imagination driven
With all of his might
Blessed canvas glows
Pure horsehair magic
Beauty born from pain
Muse favors tragic
Autism schism
Torn from the world
Quiet little dolphin
Oceans unfurled
Goin alone,
Why must my travels be so stale.
No love to quote, no tales to tell,
I'm on troubled waters, no beacon to see.
At home I'm always alone.
Why O' why?
No satiation in my soul,
I'm idle and dark like a noir stained bowl.
Pale face, lonely state,
O' blind man I be.
Imagine no walking cane to take,
and pierced with a cold blackened stake.
Alone, no life do I see.
Why am I on an a empty isle?
No paddle or ship to sail,
and my inner self is so blatantly pale.
Fore my painting is alone.
A horsehair brush I must take,
to paint me a new mirage,
without loneliness in my forage place.
Being Painted Alone says a thousand words.
Your voice is tossed on the breeze.
I'm flying kites that have no anchor string,
my conversation forever lost with no words to bring.
The judge is snoring for victory of my conviction
Every night, I merry in comfort of his spouse
My skin has become a palimpsest of fleeting sensation
And each layer bore the imprint of my Doxie
Instead of a red carpet, to flaunt my asset
I walk on a green mile, toward an electric chair
With fans on the other edge, cheering my conquest
I am the champion of the west wing with horsehair
Dawn is here and I must face the light
In a roll of two, I lead
To cast my secrets in light without weight
I always lead, whether it's death or food
Without doubt, I am the best on earth
I have fans cheering me at death
A lonely fiddle, its strings once taut tense and
stretched, waiting to be tuned and played.
The limp horsehair bow, longs to be tightened
and drawn in sweet reverberations.
A grounded kite, too long flightless -
too long not tethered to laughter
and coaxed to fly in a summer sky
on the breath of smiles.
A forgotten puppet - still strung;
a keepsake perched like an ornament
that never moved, never danced and
never brought smiles nor tears
to those with inimitable imaginations,
waits patiently for a child to say,
"Daddy, will you help him dance once more?"
Pick a place you want to go
The answer never will be no
How about a rustic inn?
One where we have never been
With cottages on private coves
Overlooking lilac groves
Horse and buggy romance rides
Snow capped, pine tree mountainsides
Cozy, warm, big fireplace
Reflecting, glowing off your face
Nooks and crannies, old heirlooms
Like corn cob pipes and horsehair brooms
Mornings, evenings, crisp and cool
There's only one unbending rule
You have to let me do it all
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner call
Clean up after, make the bed
Wake up early, plan ahead
Have your coffee, fresh and hot
Waiting for you on the spot
Bring it to you where you are
Serenade you on guitar
Songs of love I wrote for you
Other playlist favorites too
Solely you for company
I only want you there with me