Best Scything Poems
Was it at the close of wakeful light
Rough cutting field and town,
The dark blade-cleaving deep,
Eyebrow sharp and scything down,
The landscape hacked to sleep.
And if it were my dreamless sight
Of haloed streetlamp flicker,
Murdered shadows spring
To lope and slither quicker
As the chimes of midnight ring.
What if the eyes cannot adjust
And discern the rise of day,
Screening past the chilly tomb
That so engulfs and hides away
In a heart of darkest gloom.
What if I no longer trust
Evaporate of hearthside yore,
And apparitions die as must,
Would I freeze forever more
Beneath the sheet of nightfall's dust.
Standing hoeing garden stones
Eyes awash with tears
As memories flood back from
More than sixty years,
To the little village churchyard
For which my dad cared
And which duty I, as a child,
So very unwillingly shared.
He dug the graves, cut the grass
Scything carefully around
Each sheared and flower strewn
Humped burial mound.
All the paths were of loose stone
Which, after ever spring self seed,
Just attracted and harboured
Endless stretches of weed,
Each year it was my job
To shim and hoe them clean
So that those spick and span paths
Matched his carefully mown green.
I was a spoiled, lazy, idle child
Complaining every single year
But dad was quietly firm in spite
Of my every tantrum and tear.
Now he comes gently back to mind
As I hoe my stones, laid for easy care.
Just for a while it’s the old churchyard
And we are both back there.
Good job done he says
As we stand side by side
And we both inspect that path
And my chest swells with pride.
And now I stand here
Leaning on my garden hoe
Thinking of things I wish I’d said
All those many years ago.
But the past is the past
And we both know it’s for the best
That I wish his memory goodbye
And let him slip gently back to rest.
KILLER
Saturnine sleeper of the night,
Soaring slowly, out of sight,
Sleekly shadowing the gloom,
Silent harbinger of doom,
Innocent assassin, surreptitious, sly,
Stainless scandal slipping by,
Scything swiftly through the dark,
Hark the herald warning: Shark.
The January snow has thawed and gone at last
And in its wake a single snowdrop stands :
It grew unseen beneath a shining shroud
Which melted to reveal the hope of Spring,
While daffodils all spear towards the sky.
Already rooks have built their lofty nest
And robins, seen in pairs, fight over scraps.
The brightly coloured pheasant, struts on by,
His tail, a rapier, scything through the grass.
Against the light a dancing cloud of gnats
Hangs lightly in the clear fresh morning air,
Where hazel catkins, swinging from the trees,
Puff clouds of yellow pollen to the winds.
Eternal joy, to mark the signs of Spring !
Flippers so languidly beat
As mates float in the deep
Coupling dreamily on a lazy tide
And when it is time
She shall lie
Upon a secret hollow
Known only to her
And the King of tides
To pledge her young before a setting sun
And when it is time
They will rise from a sandy womb
To begin their panic in search of the sea
Sculling and skittling they
Inch their shells
Scything sand at terror
From swooping gulls
And cranky crabs
To giant hands that hold no pity
Yet those that nose
The frothy sea first
Begin a quest that will ultimately test
These gentle souls
To the brink of damnation
Upon oceans deep
And yet we weep
And yet we weep…
Poetry Contest “Turtles”
Sponsored by Cyndi MacMillan
Aug 2014
Hear the shout of “SEA!” where ends the land
down Manzanilla way on windward shore -
on coconut road, on golden turtle sand
and follow a far trail of palms to its door.
Upon old plantation footprint I stood,
coco lillies and beach flowers I’ve smelled,
when beachcomber island castaway driftwood
my mother’s full and cradled arms held.
In seine nets from Cocal to Mayaro
villagers pull carite, wahoo, mackerel, and shark,
and dig for chip-chip and watch fireflies glow
as bright the pitch-oil lamps burn after dark.
Like leatherbacks in Grand Riviere I will return
before my oil and lamp do cease to burn,
when eerie is the billfish feeding ground
and missing are the pelicans stormbound.
Gaze out to sea upon blown rig and sail
in our fright’s strand on stormwatch to the south,
heed the mighty whirlwind, its scything trail -
Galleon’s Passage to the Serpent’s Mouth.
See the bended trees on coconut row
when lightning fork flashing turns night to day -
let it thunder, let it rage, let it blow
across river and swamp in Cocos Bay.
When jittery estate cattle away are led
and heron, egret, petrel, ibis, and frigate bird
take flight for cover when all else have fled
till a cockcrow at early dawn is heard.
Like leatherbacks in Grand Riviere I will return
before my oil and lamp do cease to burn,
when eerie is the billfish feeding ground
and missing are the pelicans stormbound
Written: July 1996
An advent of raptors haunts the scant gray woods
or loiters over mall roofs.
We wake to their screams as if this were high sierra,
not Ohio where parents try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets,
tend to flocks.
Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose federations.
Their young, mob-handed and loutish,
the mature work in pairs
scything small birds, ripping through
the thinning, the hold-outs,
the weakened and walking.
And the first born listen with the last of us
while the hawks dance proclaiming their time.
A time of fervid litany and electric barricades,
of bobble hats and mittens,
while a black brier
raises bloody thorns in chary praise.
~~
You know they are coming
See the dust in the air
Feel the ground tremble beneath your feet.
Can't quite see them
But you know they are there
Suddenly your face is white as a sheet.
The Horsemen are riding
Your world is ending
No use complaining it just isn't fair.
Swords scything down
Trumpeting stallions
The battle is over so don't even care.
Man's castles are falling
His caverns no respite,
Armies are dust in a flash of might.
The judgement is binding,
The deep dead are rising,
Their sad faces form in the fading light.
You're torn and your tattered,
The scent of blood heavy
Old Earth is shaking, you try to run.
The darkness is closing
You better be ready
The Horsemen are coming, the end has begun!
Night rain on the window pane is the night sweat of my fevered life dream. Time bloats like the reflection I try to avoid. Tears on the bedroom floor for however many minutes or hours. I crawled in here, felled like a sick elm, sickly scooped-out, hunger hollowed, word emptied. Hands...hands that feel like they don't belong to me any more. Something moves within them, puppets them: a tingle like lightning.
icicle fingers
too cold to hold a teacup -
wrists are winter twigs
Fingernails mauve-mottled, heart struggling to pump, circulation slow-crawling. Hands are too blue-numb to grip, and I'm watching the teacup slip...
white pottery shards
mosaic of tannin stars -
the carpet is stained
I found an anthology of short stories I first read years ago, before dream winced into nightmare. Opening the book, a slip of paper floats out, white-dazzly as a snowflake. My hospital admission letter, the sudden white shock of it bookmarking a favourite story.
Bedtime stories. Sweating between the sheets with Ray Bradbury, electric singing sentences pressed to my skin. The push and pull of his prose singing my body electric, giving me a word-**** I won't forget.
Ray Bradbury's everywhere, he's in the air, his words rearranging themselves into kaleidoscope patterns; strange lexicon of snowflakes, of stars. But voices are reassuring me It's just a little fever dream.
Strange how the memory sea floods me as the mind becomes ever more disconnected; the past's wisps floating like feathers through the fog. Fever flicker of faces: Sarah's, silver-shimmery through tears, her blonde hair haloed in teardrop light.
Tonight, anorexia's voice is the knife strike in a slasher movie: a killing, shrilling eardrum drilling. It's the chainsaw buzz scything corn, the shadow knife behind the Psycho curtain.
My immune system is failing, body breaking down.
waves of nausea
crashing on my body's shore -
gastroparesis
slow fast slow fast slow
stutter stop start slow stop start -
arrhythmical heart
Sibilant strobe of whispers, voices, the past's echoes, floating through fever fog...We don't think you're looking after yourself...You're a risk to yourself...I'm sectioning you under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act...
The minefield mind-trap closes on a single word: How?
How has it all come to this?
Sister Aloysius rings the bell
iron-railing straight she stands
habit flapping blackly
her triple-bolted thin-lipped smile
pursed against assault, or love,
while children shuffle past
their tulip heads averted
from her scything gaze
Jimmy from the Chinese
chip shop, smiling, filing past
What is so amusing?
children freeze, ice-blooded
in breath-held silence.
"Lovely morning."
Sister Aloysius
unlocks her bolted lips
hisses a crack-small stream of air
allows a Yes to escape.
the children
march, backs braced
into the shadow
of school
prisoner of retribution,
he was buried under a salt lake,
elusive, his crotch,
not far from stings of wasps,
the blood spills,
he would wonder how to catch the truth
in black river,
wrapped in imperforated causes,
leaking with curses,
black conjugation of greeds,
with the grief unbuckling the grudges,
uncut wounds, festering under the skin,
the stink starts scything, he starts
folding the denials, in self praise
SATISH VERMA
(Let it be recorded far and wide
That the sun shone brilliantly with pride
And bright azure were the skies
The day he entered Paradise.)
Slight of build,small of frame,
His ginger head weel kent throughout the game.
A buzz of excitement ran round the ground
When his name the PA did sound.
His presence promised electric thrills
As he paraded his rich range of skills.
He made his name out on the wing
Where he could make the ball dance ,and almost sing,
A dip of the shoulder,ball tied to his foot,
Skipping nimbly over a cruel ,scything boot.
Whenever he was forced into a fall,
Back he bounced like a rubber ball,
Ready to launch another mazy attack,
Body prepared for more pain on the rack.
Finally time made him hang up his boots,
He retired to Uddingston ,the place of his roots
There were dark days,they say,of drink addiction.
Thanks to family and friends,he survived this affliction
And went on to entertain guests at his old alma mater
With jokes and songs and his bright ,breezy patter.
Glorious were his years upon that hallowed stage
But the finest hours arrived with his advancing age.
Was it a stumble or losing his grip
That alerted his doc to his physical dip?
Those limbs,once fluid with beauty and grace,
Were now imprisoned as though with a steel carapace.
When he was diagnosed as having motor neurone,
That's when we saw the true strength of Jimmy Johnstone.
More cheerful than ever, he offered all comfort and solace
And made the world a much happier place.
We shall never see his like again
But,thank God,the memories will remain
As we recall Wee Jinky in his football guise,
Now Lord of the Wings in Paradise.
Daybreak
So cold the night, like dead man’s hands,
Alone the weary watchman stands
cloak wrapped against the scything breeze,
His salt burned eyes cast to the seas.
Charts, geometric instruments,
In Illuminated casements,
All glint and gleam by candlelight,
Dancing devils in darkest night.
Useless tools for starless skies
adrift and blind until sunrise,
The crew uneasy, standing too,
Awaiting dawns first signs of blue.
Then, with a hint of indigo,
Heavens wide edge begins to glow,
Slowly, nights darkly shade rolls back,
Bright gold expelling deepest black.
Our spirits rise to greet the dawn
as details of the world, redrawn,
by the rising fiery lord of light,
Appear to our returning sight.
Why did your hand
become the fist ?
You were thinking about the indignities
heaped upon the lake,
when you were retrieving a song
of freedom from the depth of questions.
There was no capitulation.
You went on opening the congealed-
blobs of blood to know
the keynote of violence.
The sectarian hate.
It outlives the love of brotherhood.
You want to go back to, from where
the jungle starts. It had swept
away the snow-white young
peaks.
Footprints of some movement.
Can you see that ?
Satish Verma
prisoner of retribution,
he was buried under a salt lake,
elusive, his crotch,
not far from stings of wasps,
the blood spills,
he would wonder how to catch the truth
in black river,
wrapped in imperforated causes,
leaking with curses,
black conjugation of greeds,
with the grief unbuckling the grudges,
uncut wounds, festering under the skin,
the stink starts scything, he starts
folding the denials, in self praise
SATISH VERMA