Best Portents Poems
I'd have loved to see the bluebirds fly
above the white chalk-cliffs of Dover--
and as they were blithely soaring over,
immersed in thought I'd lie
in calm repose upon that beach,
admiring their swooping forms,
evanescent, in fleeting storms,
like ballet ... far beyond my reach.
Frisking, fragile, carefree birds,
symbolic through intrinsic meaning --
like sterling hope and freedom's words
light English springs, forever greening:
while England fought the bitter fight
to hold at bay the 'fall of night.'
Author notes
November 20, 2004 - approx 112 words
What makes Britain great? The entire world would be speaking German and Japanese right now if not for British courage in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Setting, approximately June, 1941, Dover Beach, immediately following the Battle of Britain.
This is a published poem, copyrighted, and it takes you to a specific place as well as a specific time, when the world was at war and the fate of all mankind hung in the balance. It is relevant because we are fast approaching another such time. Bluebirds are not found in the British Isles, but I wrote the poem before I became aware of the fact. The curator at the Dover Museum said I should just leave it that way, as bluebirds, since the song, The White Cliffs of Dover, specifically named bluebirds.
Update: BLUEBIRD is an old country name for swallows and house martins, which have a blue sheen to their plumage. These migrants arrive from the continent in spring and leave in autumn, crossing the English Channel. So these bluebirds appear at least twice a year over the white cliffs and no doubt many spend the entire summer in the vicinity of Dover. As portents of improving weather, swallows and martins are traditionally believed to bring good fortune.
The poem, a quasi-Petrarchean sonnet, is being archived with other writings about Dover and The Second World War by the Dover Museum, in Dover, England.
This sonnet was published in Sonneto Poesia, Volume 3, Number 1, Winter,
2003-2004
Written July 20th, 2003
The
portents
of danger,
seen in our mind's
eye-
an
x-ray
picture that
whispers to the
heart
WINDOW OF THE SOUL
She painted herself as a cathedral window, sometimes in pieces, surrounded by ethereal color, true eyes, full lips. The windows of her soul, open and attentive. Will you recollect her countenance? Will you frame the friendship or glance at another portrait more to your portents - a shadow crossing?
3/5/2018
A governess, a guardian of the young, so known and dear as to be called “Mother” and a noblewoman, just barely 12 by age, named Portia, sit talking as the sun sets the stage for a cool, cloudless night.
“Mother, who invented candlelight and the slow, delicate brush of lips?”
“Some rakish boy, pawning his experience for present pleasure, no doubt.”
“Say true, Mother. If you were a man, would you find this common body worthy of love?”
“You show no blemish child, and display a certain bony voluptuousness - I should think.”
The governess begins to comb and braid Portia’s hair for sleep.
“I saw Portincio this morning, in the courtyard.”
“The boy from Padua?”
“He’s a man Mother, and his cast portents a passion so sweet - it shakes my very frame.”
Mother chuckles, “Even hopeless birds sing in cages.”
“I am not hopeless!” Portia writhes angrily, like a snake about to strike but mother calms her.
“Shoo, shoo, now,” Mother purrs, brushing all the more gently, “I meant nothing of it.” After a moment, she continues, “Love is more than coquetry, little one, and it soon passes - like a parade, or a rash. For now, be happy, you are like the chaste stars - unreachable.”
NUN FUN IN THE SUN
There was in hot Tashkent in the orient
A religious uprising - a convent dissent.
Army was ordered in with gunnery,
The soldiers targeted the nunnery.
Here are the events in vista:
One lovely sista was forbidden a mista,
But a certain young soldier kissed her
Unaware of the portents
For the jewel of the convent’s contents.
In her cell he wanted his love to foister.
(She had made his cloister moister.)
His inclination was to osculate ;
The incident threatened to escalate.
Her kiss made him forget his gun,
Which overheated in the sun.
The magazine cooked until done,
Then bang, their love was gone.
Oh, how cold you are, heavenly lights! But there are the earthly lights that promise weary travelers a rest. Interrupting for a moment the eternal movement from dark to light, we stretch out cold fingers to a fire and look up. The Universe gets cold, galaxies flee, supernovae explode and turn into interstellar ghosts, stars fall and their long-long tails as the portents of our coming wanderings, measure the distances of empty spaces. Oh, how hot a sip of coffee is! How sweet is a random kiss in the dark!
get some rest and go
to where cold heavenly lights
eternally shine
14.08.2019
Shooting Stars Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nayda Ivette Negron
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“My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire....”
Dramatica; expect the worst and hope for the best is what some say!?
In life and breath and love and death; portents ~
Stopping in front of the Azteca's theatre; admiring the lovely mannequin girl
Adorned as a communal daughter with long flowing hair and beads of many colours
Sitting amid the tickets booth draped aneath cobwebs smiling and speaking
Unto my spirit in hues of yesteryears arrays; these pantheon coronations?!
Red double doors with circular windows trimmed in black; conversing
An entrance to cross through its beckoning; a schizophrenic passing by again....
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....“A Portal Unto The Sun` *
Once foretelling portents swam within the
Apogee bath.
Torn wounds in flesh,
unequip the afflicted. Lack.
Unilaterality Undesirables systematically
inspect an overture unto the future.
Incisions.
Indecision.
Discussions.
Decision.
Resolution Found between
Thigh
and
Breast Fat.
We spoke on the old West.
Distain allowed to follow
in
shadows' shoes.
Walk-
from the gravestone tomb,
Talk-
from the cemetery plot.
prefer amnesia, anesthesia, or euthanasia,
the lot.
Apposed to this undying pain,
grief,
return of
disbelief.
A contrite
Sorry resentment
Sodden in maple
Solidity.
Solidarity pushed well past
comprise while
the unconvinced so
remained that,
a sacerdotal yet
antidotal dissenter.
Go on.
Permission to let Pessimism steep in dark tea leaves.
Reverse dove beneath the San Fernando crust.
A real friendship is truly what men should adore,
Its fragrance persists when its colors grow wan,
The rhapsodic new thrill of a blest metaphor,
A question like curve in the neck of a swan.
There is mystery too in its magical rune,
A wine that has legs that climb out of the glass,
And with boundaries soft as a lullabies tune,
Sweet portents of good times that never will pass.
Could a star grant a wish that’s more truly fulfilled?
What sun cast its light with more luminous glow?
Or a muse spin a rhyme that’s more perfectly quilled?
To share you with God is the best man can know!
Brian Johnston
June 17, 2015
As Sol arises, greets the morn
the soon test taker wails,
"I'm doomed! If I had only read
The Canterbury Tales!
Or more of Samuel Collerige,
or Wordsworth, Yeats or Shelley,
More Medieval or Old English,
some Eliot or Browning!
Or how to spot a romantic
or how a Victorian,
or who saw Tutors on their shift
in this timeline Aenean?
I know not Byron from Whitman,
or Herrick from John Donne,
or Frost or Pound or Tennyson,
cannot read Piers Plowman.
There's just too much literature,
(I can't believe I spoke
this thought, it's blasphemy I'm sure)
like the Raven I quoth.
And though most know the Raven, I
do too, and that's not bad.
Though I think the extent of my
knowledge's not ironclad.
Though I can say with certainty,
amidst my sad lament,
the technique I used priorly
is known as enjambment.
And I know too that rhyme royal
is seven verses long,
where octavia rima's whole
is eight - one more verse strong.
And I've read Paradise Lost and
many Shakespeare works,
and much more Poe than The Raven,
and know Dickinson's quirks.
And I know Marvell and Camus
Gogol, Dostoyesky;
perhaps my portents were untrue,
my knowledge not so petty.
Perhaps I'm ready for this test,
though not well-versed as some.
Like caesuras, I'll take a rest
and stop acting so glum.
From a review book, I'll apply
this truth which first appalled:
If you know all this well, then why
attend grad school at all?"
Let's look around us: is the slowly-spinning and stunning Earth
the happiest place to spend a lifetime and then suddenly die?
Sorry to say it has never been such, unless we're portents of faith;
where can we go to find our peaceful haven and not cling to a lie?
During the Holidays some cry, some smile: what a social contradiction!
Spot the weeping souls around the corner, their tears are real!
They wish they had it all, we but they can't change their condition;
now, meet the ones who smile and always control life's spinning wheel!
The Frasers have a beautiful home with a pool and tennis court,
during the Holidays they display their wealth with the jolliest heart:
while the Dickson's run-down house has cheap garlands and lights;
often their kids stare in awe and wish they lived there on chilly nights!
Although they are neighbors, they seem to be living many miles apart,
they never exchange greetings: it's a wall built on total selfishness;
shouldn't they be like good friends that feel selfeless love in their heart?
The Johnsons and the Frasers refuse to settle their huge differences!
Written on 11/29/2015
What Remains
by
Rick Folker
June, 2017
Kansas City, MO
When the crowd clamors
And the tocsin clangs
When the mighty and powerful
Crush the weak, the vulnerable,
The poverty that chains and shames
When fear fights fiercely
With the menacing gang
Silencing the prophets
With their poisonous slang
When the refugee seeks safety
Those sojourners are met with a
Door slamming
And a deafening bang!
When these omens and portents are
The normal sturm und drang
Of a soul-less people clinging to
Myths of endless positive change
When all of these mindless, pointless,
Endless
Strife-filled days
Divide and dwindle down
To the ashes of the last
Death pangs
A Remnant Remains
A Remnant Remains
And life and love are reborn and return
Again! and Again! and Again!
*readers think of this epic as classic Latin badly translated into English.
Brutus Iulius Trois page 1
Only the oldest among us all
can truthfully tell the tale
of the way the world was
after noble Troy fell
Priam's kingdom scattered to dust and ashes
escaped had Aeneas cousin to Priam
westward fled guided by Venus
weary of wandering finding sweet rest
in the lands of Latinus, ruler of Alba Longa
Princess Lavinia warmly welcomed the widower
gifting Aeneas her dowry, the ancient Dardanian Shore
If he but challenge Turnus her suitor
Duke Turnus who desired land more than a wife.
After Aeneas the Trojan took Turnus in battle
he settled his sons in his ancestors home
Cruesa's surviving son, sad eyed Ascanius
Known as Iulius Trois, The hairy serpent of Troy
And Lavinia's sole spawn Silvanus Dardanus
Heir of the all the Arsian woodlands
So great was the bond between brothers
Ascanius named a son Silvanus Trois
and Silvanus a daughter Julia Dardanus
both bastard born by lords rights with bond women
acknowledged still for so few were family
for the sake of the lineage none could be left
exposed to the elements, abandoned orphans of fate.
On Silvanus's ninth day his name day
two bright stars fell, flaming
Ascanius sent for the soothsayer Merlinius
A seventh son of veiled Despoina
came he to prognosticate and predict
the meaning of fates portents
solely to Ascanius spoke Merlinius
spoke he first of fell and faraway times
When Hercules stepped on Troy sacking it
Troy was destroyed but not the Trojans
When Paris chose Venus, his prize was Troy's curse
So again broken and burned was beloved Troy
The survivors scattered, Aeneas settled here
Troy was destroyed but not the Trojans
No words or portents of goodbye
Your leaving had really made me cry.
I thought, you’ll just have your break
To recover with a longer period to take.
Your leaving was a heartbreaking news
In sadness, so hard for me to get my muse.
We’ve been together at PS for a long time
Reading each other’s verses and rhymes.
I enjoyed your delightful and awesome poetry
As lovely flowers on fields, hills and trees.
Thank you so much for sharing your talent
Friendship, comments, words of encouragement.
You’re now in heaven with our Almighty Father
No more pain or tears, only smile and laughter.
God has called you to rest in His loving Hands
He will be with you our dear poet, Harry Horsman.
"History doesn't repeat itself,
but it does rhyme"*
like the whine of swine
all drunk on wine
this viscous valentine
vents turbid turpentine
volcanic tectonics
of violent landmines
such slovenly, serpentine,
slips of sand
at end of time
as tears weeping
tsunamic sweeping
cesium creeping
the we rereading sky braille unseeing
signs and portents
content with contents
insistant attempts
at repealing events
and blindly concealing
our rifts and our rents
we prefer our unfeeling
and selfish intents
*from a quote of Samuel Clemens