Best Keening Poems
The swordsman who draws his blade
Heart racing at the keening of steel on scabbard
Tension coiled, poised for the unleashing
Held back by muscles tight with glee.
I am as the soldier, held in stance,
The lioness crouched beneath the concealing grass
As it sways back and forth, as insects sing along the day
Her every breath is halted, her veins do not pulse,
And just as the swordsman stands
They are statues in this moment,
Statues of derision,
Mocking, with their stillness, the very charged tension within.
And I am as the lioness frozen before her pounce
Coiled with motivation and purpose,
And I am as the tongue held with words clinging off its’ edge
Ready to lash out and strike with direction
But I am as the frozen purpose, held tight
Waiting, for a warrior to stand before me
For a reason to uncoil, to lash out with words and pounce.
But I am now as the pen halting before the purest of paper
White and supple, in askance for the lightest touch
A slash of the tip, drawing lines in ink
Lines like a hunter’s bowstring, taut with intent,
As the pen lies frozen above its prey, the falcon petrified aloft still winds
I am the need coiled tight like a wound jack in the box
But alas, there is no victim to frighten,
No pray to pounce upon, no sword or bared neck to slash against
And I am here, with pen frozen, ink ready to be drawn taut
And I have nothing to draw in the ink, no prey or purpose to evoke
I am coiled tight with energy, but it is release that so eludes me,
I am coiled tight with purpose, but it is direction that so denies me.
And here I am, pouncing at ground before me,
Slicing away at the air around me
Scratching away with a dry pen, on paper still white in askance
I write about…
I write about the coil within, and the lack without
And alone I wonder,
Is it enough, is it enough to go on, a wound up box
Waiting for the slightest touch, the weakest parry, to live.
Tombs begin to bloom like raw, bloodless wounds.
Tomes are written with truths of her dead moon’s
tones. A keening lunacy keeps the dirges alive, while
bones rise out of repose. A degloved hand on the dial
hones into a night rainbow's radio, she runs on solar,
hopes for the rhythm to wrench free from her toller—
copes with the captivity of being bodiless hands. Twilight
comes to chance escape—open palms toward birthright.
Coves burst into flame; a hungry fire wants holier water.
Coven circles, recovers the skinless limbs of their daughter.
Woven like song, sirens' balm to restore coats of missing arms,
women are spells read correctly, using words as our alarms,
woken to language, resurrecting ancient pairs of sacred charms.
I dreamt my mother mourned a broken doll,
porcelain, sad brown eyes, and five feet tall.
Entombed it in the finest place she could,
a cottage encircled by sunlit wood.
She danced a silent waltz with it, keening,
encouraging life in the wretched thing.
And it mended as she was worn away.
She did not hear when warned of her decay.
I was left a pristine porcelain doll,
and a broken mother in its enthrall.
in the bright light of day you appeared...
a gilded angel with falcon wings,
you rose up out of the desert sands
and your gentle beauty struck me dumb -
sending a tremor through my soul...
marvelling, pretending an air of studied uncaring
i watched you through a veil of wind-blown hair
and tried to ignore the yearning sighs of the
blood in my veins,
and the keening of a heart that was broken -
that, seeing you, healed briefly -
only to fracture again every time you turned away
you were fatal...
i knew this in my marrow, even as i stared,
riveted, at your cherub's innocence,
suffocating, slowly - sweetly -
in the decadent gold-striated hazel of your
hawk's eyes
you were a killing blow out of the blue,
and once again i was lost...
"angel" i wanted to cry, "angel, ask my name..."
but, naive as Adam, you lost yourself in the bustle
and sand-blasted clamor of your clawed companions...
bereft i hovered, a lonely kestrel riding the chill wind
of your ignorance...
a single tear slid down my cheek;
oh i would have impaled myself on a thousand spears,
if it would only make you run to my side
and scoop me into your bronze embrace
but time slid by and planets shifted -
the day's end drew near...
desert dunes dissolved into the hazy purple of night,
and i was forced to say goodbye;
to pretend love at first sight was just a giddy adolescent joke,
and that your image wasn't tattooed on my heart
in blood and fire...
only then, as my soul swelled with the bitter bile of
disappointment, did you turn and behold
the torment of your beauty written on my face...
boyish, innocent, your eyes clashed with mine -
and melted my core to lava -
and gave my battered heart wings;
clipped wings perhaps, but wings nonetheless...
you smiled, a saccharine-coated admission of acknowledgement,
even as your eyes stabbed cruelly, violated my bruised soul,
and the sun set at your back -
gilding you in demonic flame...
and in a blazing flash, that was it, the die was cast,
reeling, bleeding, i broke our searing gaze;
'angel you may be, my oblivious love,'
i thought as i walked away
'but devil you are for wounding me this way -
and never even knowing my name'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Siren,
your fluid
hymn lures
me past tense
gray gulls
who eye me,
anxious
for my safe
return
They circle,
keening...
and the tide
moves to
free me of
my moorings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lay me gently down on a cold wint’ry day,
While the fireplace sparkles and blue flames rise
A day when the sun shines not to brighten, nay
Snow cloud blankets denying warmth to the eyes.
So you know, death comes to me as no surprise
For too long have I waited, on this soft bed lay
Suffering intoning voices filled with hopeful lies,
Lay me gently down on a cold wint’ry day.
I can no longer yearn for the beach or the cay
For springtime will likely find me not, I surmise,
Nor fond visions of summer’s long hours at play
While the fireplace sparkles and blue flames rise.
Though mind will foment, as the tongue still tries,
My time will have come with nothing left to say
Time inevitably comes when a thing of value dies,
A day when the sun shines not to brighten, nay.
All has been accomplished, come what may
Little or no remembrance of the lows and the highs
No more time to relish things frivolous, or the gay,
Snow cloud blankets denying warmth to the eyes
Likely I shall hear the low keening and the sighs
The mourning sounds of sorrow, the bereaving way,
As last breaths accompany the end of earthly ties
May there only be one desire left for you to obey,
Lay me gently down.
Written May 14, 2022
So many voices, some pulling, others pushing, one spearing.
I feel the spear, and know she will not stop until I acknowledge her
What is it?
What do you want?
She gives me some directives knowing I will rebel
and rebuke them.
She never gets her way.
She wants me to do things she knows I will not do.
I hate medicines! I tell her. They do not affect me like others.
Leave me alone! But still she persists. Two are pulling, one is pushing.
She is screaming, shrieking, wailing, keening in my ear.
I take a couple of blues and a pink,
to try and fool her.
She knows what I am about.
For she is in my mind’s folds and recesses.
Another personality shows up.
A new one.
What the hell.
I thought I knew them all.
Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!
My hands are shaky.
If she is another spearing one,
I give up.
I cannot do this any more.
I have tried too long already.
I am Sherenna, she says, seductively.
Hell no. I already got rid of Dixie, my other nymphomaniac.
I close my eyes, trying to drown them all out.
All tidy and neat, smelling apple sweet
Life pranced forward in an amazingly great way
Then there was a hiccup, a screech, a slap
Or something else that changed it into a foggy mean thing
For a second but most did not hold a grudge,
Reverting back to the happy joyful way it used to be
Before the event
Not all
Some held onto the hiccup and screech
Wailing and keening
Tearing their eyes out of their faces
To prove the horribleness of the slap
To retain its power
To stop living
And it all happened
Secretly in a subconscious world
Where no one else could go
No longer tidy or neat on
Stanton Street.
I put my arms around you, your heart melts into mine;
the borders of your anguish I can easily define.
There is no need for language explaining agony,
I perceive a griever’s heartache in black telepathy.
Your landscape is familiar, I know one similar
in the trackless barren places, in the lonely city spaces
where people neither know nor care.
I gleaned shriveled fruit from withered vines,
crushed, distilled, and drank the acrid wine.
I climbed the treeless summit, trekked the tundra of despair,
heard the mountain winds dark harmony
to a mourning mother’s keening prayer.
I know because my heart has heard
within its depths your soundless words.
Copyright, July 11, 2026
Under the wrought iron arch and gateway
crawling with both wild and deep red creepers
complimented by evergreens.
The fall colors are splendid.
Most of the flowers are giving way
to the chill, and the swans are graceful and content
with the breeding season now over
Walking slowly along the narrow drive,
spots of color scatter around the green grass.
What beautiful yards,
each house made of stone,
granite - marble - sandstone.
The foundation of the earth
Dark stone black, pink, white, gray, burnt umber, rose
beautiful houses inviting you closer,
please see my name.
I was here many years ago.
Cholera came to me and took my spirit away.
But I was pretty and young and full of joy.
For a little while.
Old stones to the early 1800's.
Stones with angels guarding a lamb
baby tears fall, in time giving the stone soft edges.
One from yesterday.
Come see me in my house. Mausoleum strong and tall.
Handsome and successful.
Each as individual in death as their homes and places were in life.
Over here, I fought for my country. Me and all my buddies here,
laid out under each of these many white crosses.
Hello, don’t forget my free spirit ... riding high over the houses
touring where ever the wind wishes.
Swirling fine invisible ashes through the trees
sparkling in the late closing sun.
A town’s history. Natural, tragic, sickness, murder ... all here
The history wraps around the casual visitor.
Keening out not to be forgotten.
Calling, we were important pioneers.
The end of day sun setting on their windows
Aglow with the spirit of yesteryear.
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired." -- Anton Chekhov
Chekhov declared that it's clearly imperative
That a gun given billing must duly be fired.
The bullet obligingly cinches the narrative,
Sating the thirst that the gun first inspired.
Yet the world is awash in objects inutile,
Which clog our disorderly narrative streams.
So why should a playwright adhere to so futile
A diktat pertaining to props in a scene?
Myself for example, habitually arming
The darkness that swaddles me, inkily deep,
My mind so occulted its doubly alarming
To grasp the black Kimber, now sprung from its keep.
The prop having found its way on to the stage,
My untethered demons start chorally keening,
Quite certain they know what the gun must presage:
That this is the moment that holds all the meaning.
Not a flag was unfurled,
and no cornet trilled,
as the rain-swollen clouds,
the bleak valley filled.
The wind blowing cold
with a chill that pervades
as the caisson's old wheels
creaked through the glades
where leafless Live Oaks
their limbs upward bent
as if to acknowledge
the young soldier’s lament.
A tousled lone drummer
in tattered old grays
led a dog and three mourners
to the dead soldier’s grave.
The muffled rataplan
of his red and tan drum
was beating forlornly
rum-dum d’ dum-dum
And along the bare hillock’s
long, rough-rutted track
both mule and cart
were carrying him back
to the land that he left
to fight a grim war
tho’ he ne’er understood
what the fighting was for.
When one fateful day
in a field of smoke
a fusillade violently
tore through his cloak.
His battle had ended
as he fell to the ground
his lips mouthing something
but ne’er uttered a sound.
Now his casket was lowered
in an uncaring grave
as the sad words were read
his poor soul to save
whilst a single red flower
was forlornly tossed
upon the young warrior’s
funereal box.
Unseen by the mourners
yet a color guard stood
a bugler and flagger
peering down through the woods.
Then high from that ridge
at the hillside’s top
the bugler rang taps
and all motion had stopped.
Each eye in confusion
turned looking around
in search of the source
of that sad, mournful sound.
Though ne’er to be seen
the bugler still played
the keening that echoed
down through the glade.
Then just for a moment
the sun had now shone
as if angels descended
to take him back home.
The mourners and drummer
filed out of the glade
except for the old dog
that steadfastly remained.
The elegy was over and
all farewells had been bade
that gave honor and glory
to his last parade.
John Henry Gardner
© 2015 – All Rights Reserved
Sharp piercing pains
rendered me breathless
I double over,
crouching low like a panther.
Fire, searing fiery fire
leaped at my sides,
licking my backside.
I groan and writhe,
growl and curse!
only the ticking clock
dares to surpass my loud moans.
Sweat trickles down my backside,
flowing down, forming rivulets as
they meet and scamper downwards.
Another tormenting wrench!
This time a wounded lion’s roar echoes.
And so it went on—
Doctors and nurses
mumbled words meaningless
in the face of my helplessness!
I was gripped in the throes of labour pains;
my body betraying me
as it struggled to give life to another.
Seconds, minutes, hours ticked away.
and finally at the eleventh hour,
my energy spent,
my body bushed,
she burst through--
piercing the birthroom with a keening protest!
I lay down my head,
too exhausted to even offer her
a proper welcome
but a weary smile.
Perfumed memories drift
across a sensuous universe
delivered sotto voce: Smell
of morning mist, me into you,
you into black coffee
wearing your silk caftan
as through an open window
city smells melt up
from littered sidewalks,
sparerib bouquet flies out
from juke joints and you,
always you, like fudge brownies
hot from the oven until
one day at thirty-nine,
you fell into a heroin spoon
wafting death
in our cold empty room.
Now, decades gone, in my still-keening mind
passes down a long imagined hallway
with many closed doors,
where a light beneath each sill
waits to be opened to smell,
where memories dwell
never far
from sweet potato pie.
~~~~~~~~~ revised 8/09 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the eye of the storm I hover,
daring not move close to the edge.
My comfort zone moves with the core,
waning, wafting through life situations.
My brain aches as I weave the syntax.
Laughing at the storm of my design.
A wife, a child, a lover, a problem,
the perfect pain of self incrimination.
Loving my family, what can I say.
Their scent is upon my heartstrings.
Resonating in pristine harmony,
faint vibrations of self biorhythm.
Love infinitum, a family trait.
offers no source of absolution.
I find myself crying in silence
as I muse in search of forgiveness.
Forgiveness for what, I ask myself.
I should hate myself for loving to lust?
Or do I lust for loving to love.
Semantics, pure semantics hogwash.
No one is there to offer solace.
Could my wife and lover get along?
What would my child think of that?
No, I’m sure I will give someone up.
Adrenalin flowed as a river tide,
keening my senses beyond reason.
Taking my breath, shadowing reality,
demanding as an old flickering movie
But, lord what will my decision be.
Best to leave God out of this decision,
except to pray to him for guidance.
And I already know what I should do.
But I also know what I have to do.
For the one not living in my home,
I know my love is more lust than love.
If I have to hurt, I have no choice.
As I moved away from the core
the storm subsided within my soul.
Gentle spring rain caressed my heart
as I knew I had but to confess.
© 01 Dec 2010 for John’s “jaded partitions” contest