Best Spanned Poems
_________
The sun-yellow house seems smaller somehow,
viewing it now, after all these years...
The street seems narrower, and the trees have grown tall..
And where once open fields spanned both sides of the road,
there are small tract houses, where fences have bloomed.
Neighboring orchards have all disappeared
But, somehow we knew the house would be there....
As if seen from a distance, edged by seasons, yet clear
There's the path that we laid one hot summer day,
in the yard of this house that sits at the bend
near the end of the road, where the sycamore grew....
Someone else left their footprints that lead to the door
There's a rusty-red bike, and a skate left behind
by the squeaky old gate, that tomorrow will find.
As suddenly as wind will spring from the dust
thirty years fell away, and flew into in the past
And quickly alive, all the memories rise,
like a whirlwind of leaves, in a springtime of lives.....
_____
...Our first Christmas trees, and our first holidays...
Anniversaries we spent with just pizza and wine
The place where I cried long into the night,
as the child in me grieved for a mother who died...
Long, starry nights, I was bathed by the moon
rocking my babes to a lullaby tune
_____
Yes....it is all captured there, in the small yellow house
Our very first house, with the snow-white trim
Strange, it may be, but I'm glad it's still yellow...
Still wearing the face of the warm summer sun
The sun- yellow house, with a flagstone path
Where old slate stones bring the sun to the door
It's a path we laid on a warm summer day
in a place that we knew as our very first home
Just a small yellow house, with its snow-white trim...
that sits 'round the bend, where the sycamore grew...
"Shhh, look there they are.
No one believed me.
Now you see them too.
A blessing of Unicorns.
If anyone knew where they were
it would be the end of the Unicorns.
The one with the wings is the Queen.
See how sad she looks.
She has separated herself from the blessing.
She loves the other Unicorns
but she is dealing with her own issues.
They love her, she knows that.
This is different.
She has to deal with this herself.
She knows she is loved.
She knows they all care for her.
Deeply!
She is their Queen after all.
What?
A song?
Maybe!
I don't know.
I brought poetry.
I brought soup.
I have to try.
I hope she believes me.
She is going to be fine.
I dreamt about her.
In the dream her wings were spread.
You should of seen them spread
they must of spanned farther than the horizon
higher than the milky way.
In my dream her magic horn was a beacon,
it was leading her through the dark
but she was also a beacon for everyone else.
Everyone who was trapped in the darkness.
She led them too!
She always has.
She is our Queen after all.
I stood there amazed
she was magnificent.
She waited patiently and the light filled her.
She knew it would happen and she was right.
That hand from up above
the one she always trusted
filled her with light.
She is the Queen and in my dream
she had returned in her full glory."
Linda was back.
It starts with an L
L stands for love.
Maybe It's not a dream.
'Fairy tales can come true -
It can happen to you...
life gets more exciting with each
passing day...!'
I believe dreams are
just a window to reality.
I believe in Fairies.
I believe in Unicorns.
And I believe in Linda!
08~12~2014
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Contest Name: Fighting Depression(poems for PD)
Today I found you cornered, drenched in cold,
your fur coat nothing but a newborn's down,
a tiny ball unfolding while I hold
you shivering. Your lacerations frown
and at a distance, I can see the why
of your abandonment, the birds of prey.
I’ve saved you, but you’re causing me to cry:
serrated weapons, Nature’s passion-play,
as blood-attracted sharks, still circling, wait:
I sense the breath-starved fright that made you flee,
those teeth, those claws, you were their blameless bait.
You can’t yet comprehend that you are free.
I see the wounds, some healed, some raw and new,
they're deep, beyond the matted fur and skin.
Four little paws, so tender, sprawled askew,
I seem to feel that you and I are kin.
You mark each move. Mistrustful eyes, so green,
incapable of rest, stir to suggest
you'll try to bite if I will try to clean
the bloodclots, so I hug you to my chest.
You flinch to feel my cuddle. Have I planned
some fiendish way to torture you anew?
The tiny space your wretched life has spanned
has taught you only suffering is your due.
Careful now, I’ll wrap you in a cloth,
And whisper words you cannot comprehend.
Oh tiny one, you're no more than a moth!
It’s alright now. You’ve come across a friend.
Your warmth is blossoming against my breast.
I want to teach you gentleness and calm.
There’s nothing here to threaten you: so rest,
You’re safe now from anxiety and harm.
I'll guard you through the night until you sleep,
until the chesty wheezing eases up.
This is protectiveness, it's seated deep:
I’ll always help a vulnerable pup.
Your heart is racing hard against my hand,
awaiting pain, as wizened captives do.
Believe me, Little One, I understand.
For I have been a broken prisoner, too.
***
May 30, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
On the day after Christmas, they started appearing,
cast out of houses, stripped of their finery,
lying crooked in the gutter, garbage bags flanking.
My brothers and I walked to school
and halfway there, three blocks away,
was a steep ravine called The Hollow.
A place of some dark mystery in summer,
one hundred feet deep and forbidden land
according to most parents, The Hollow
sang its song to all neighborhood kids.
Returning to school after Christmas,
my brothers and I would drag the discarded
Christmas trees along the sidewalk and onto the bridge
that spanned The Hollow, then heave them over the railing,
watching their graceful tumble earthward,
their air brushing final fall.
"Hey, I used to do that too!" Donnie was a lot older,
almost done with high school, and his walk took him
right by our elementary school - he laughed to see us
hauling the trees to that concluding bridge.
He grabbed a large one, bigger than any of us could handle,
and upon the bridge had us help him hold it upright on the railing,
as it stood in life, as it looked down upon Christmas gifts;
we watched it slowly lean into Gravity,
watched the balletic descent into silence.
Donnie kept with us that first month into the new year,
the pile of trees growing in the bottom of The Hollow.
He told us things, we told him things,
we asked him things and he told us more.
My brothers and I still talk about that big tree
on the railing of the bridge over The Hollow.
It hit right on top of the pile of other trees
and bounced off to the side, its own special place.
As January wore on, we didn't find as many trees,
and ultimately it was all done.
Eventually the school year too was done,
and then more years, and school itself was done.
The trees at the bottom of The Hollow rotted away to nothing.
Somewhere in there my mom told me that Donnie
had been shipped off to war, killed within a few weeks.
We had that one magic month.
December 25, 2016
For Anthony Slausen's contest - 'The Day After Christmas'
Two years ago, when I was down,
I’d lost my father to cancer found.
My life was empty and full of pain,
I never thought I would feel again.
One night I awoke to a startling sight.
Thought I was dreaming or left on the light.
A kaleidoscope of colors seen glorious in the dark,
I couldn’t tear my eyes away and felt my beating heart.
The room became brighter, my body began to shake,
And then a clearer image unfolded before my wake.
Its wings were spanned far out, from wall to wall to wall,
A celestial image revealed itself, in a display of heavenly awe.
Then in a perfect higher pitch, I heard a heavenly sound.
I couldn’t tell just what it said but I knew it was profound,
And as it happened, in the moment, I felt my body ground,
For a radiant heat of golden light released my pain unbound.
To this day I stay amazed by what I saw and felt.
The fact that I was free from pain right then and there I knelt.
I Thanked God in heaven for this miracle that I obtained,
For the Angel that he sent me, gave me strength to live again.
03 August 2018
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
Refrain:
You shimmering waves on the ocean blue
Dance not again, he cannot dance with you
You weeping forests where the winds wail too
Let your bright tears fall in the pool of dew
The world of pop will never be the same again
The king is dead, and life is a dream so vain.
Did you know the king? Did you listen him sing?
Did you hear his heart breaking like daylight
In each song? Did you see him dance, or bring
Your sense to space invisible wounding his flight?
I was thirteen, just walking away from twelve in
Time when dreams lie broken at the white wall
I heard with his brothers five, and saw him spin
The great magician dancing for each curtain call.
Time spanned dust: a five year old sensation rose
In white clouds with black glory beaming rainbow
"Stop the love you save may your own" had expose
The urgency of his soul: the anathema of scarecrow.
O, but who will listen to the artist's pain? Did you
Stop and think that rage could become so beautiful
On stage? Michael sang and still you had no clue
About the hell he was going through. Twas wonderful
How he became the initiator of our reconciliation. O
"You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back
Where there is love, I’ll be there" they sang, and so
All the while building a bridge between White and Black
"I’ll reach out my hand to you, I’ll have faith in all you do
Just call my name and I’ll be there" but we doomed forgot
What cities were burning, and what he was yearning to do
The subtext to greatness has an eternal sorrow for plot.
Ah, the rustic charm of our old uncovered bridges
built in a century not quite on the verge of major industrialization -
back in a time when connections were vital
for fledgling communities just starting to survive and later, to thrive.
They spanned an entire era with a semblance
of simplicity and romance, providing shelter
in a world still moving slowly yet steadily toward progress.
It was not long before they’d be left behind.
Today we travel across vast expanses of bridges – uncovered ones
from which the world we view flies past us
through the windows of speeding automobiles
and virtually from screens of phones and computers.
No longer are we isolated from the world.
Today’s bridges span global communities
in a society where everyone on the planet is privy
to almost everything happening everywhere!
Today’s bridges, forged of steel, are longer and stronger.
We take them for granted, feeling secure in our convenient technologies
as we communicate and travel at faster rates
than ever dreamed possible two centuries ago.
Alas, once the last remnants of such things as
old-fashioned covered wooden bridges are obliterated,
they will be as ancient Egyptian artifacts viewed on Google
with less and less interest shown by each new generation, and
the yet unborn poets of tomorrow will one day write with nostalgia
of today’s uncovered bridges of steel.
Aug. 27, 2017 for the "Covered Bridges" Contest of Craig Cornish
One day a scruffy looking dog turned up on the doorstep,
an independent sort of lad. Now to who do you belong?
wondered the boy calling for his dad. "Look Dad can we keep him"
"Well while we look for his owners. He must belong to someone"
Time went on and they called him Wag as his tail never stopped.
He always stayed near to young Tim somehow knowing he was ill.
Saved his life too a few times until the day came when
Tim fell into a coma his young body ravished by the cancer.
After the funeral Wag went to the man and laid his head on his knee,
Then the man realised that Wag's time here was done and he was saying goodbye.
The last he saw of him he was trotting north, purpose in every stride.
He thought to himself in nine years he never seemed to age.
So he did some research and the stories of Wag were astonishing,
where ever a child was mortally ill Wag would turn up bringing Joy.
These story spanned over sixty years yet Wag looked around three.
What ever you are he thought thank you for making Tim's life easier.
As for Wag, well he travelled on until he got to Mary's home.
There he stayed for twelve years bringing her cheer each day.
Yet when ever a picture was taken, he would not be in it.
To this day none know why but all love him and all call him Wag.
So whimsical was that fine summer’s day,
Radiant one moment and dull the next.
So tenacious was that fine summer’s day,
The day spanned long, and the night watched, perplexed.
O here comes July, the height of summer,
Cicadas sing and young pink daisies dance.
Alas, cyclamens blossom and summer
Grows dumber; the sky’s tears fall in a trance.
Erelong, ere we know it, August creeps in,
A chill seeps through and the cold comes drifting.
Like a storm, a tempest, August sweeps in,
Summer packs up – wait, where are you going?
The summer meant naught to last, however,
The season turns; nothing lasts forever.
Fly like an Eagle
Soaring so high
On thermal winds
On the open sky
Pride in their glide
Awesome in pose
Downward wings
Upward flows
The elegant Eagle
Feathered in brown
Spanned for flight
A bird so right
To stand below
And look above
This bird of birds
I've grown to love.
I've spanned these banks for many years,
made evident in the rusty tin adorning my roof
My sides are scarred , colors been stripped
from angry storms through hundreds of seasons.
My river bed ran dry back in late October
then Winter snows frosted my planks
but I was still fit for anyone crossing over
from one side to the other of the Kanawha River.
Come Spring, rushing water will flow under me
splashing over rocks as it rushes to the sea.
Bird droppings will build along each window sill
when nest-building robins arrive in flocks.
People walk across my wooden floor
some hesitate before taking each step
for my trusses tend to creak now and then
and I swell in places; curses of growing old.
I've been crossed by deer, hoofed by cows,
wheeled over by bicycle's and horse-drawn buggies.
They were all kinder than the smelly fumes spread
by those disrespectful autos that never slow down.
My weathered brows face North and South
making me a tunnel for bold Nor'easters
that swiftly tear through me and chip my paint.
I like to think it enhances my pastoral character.
I might be 'rickety,' but if you call me 'shabby'
that rumbling you hear will be me grumbling.
I'm proud of the state I'm in, physically sound
and geographically, two miles outside of town.
As long as I can stand on my supporting piers
I'll relive memories made beneath my roof.
A covered bridge spans more than the waters
of the gentle river where life flows free beneath me.
August 25, 2017
Vintage Retro Period
As for our periods of furniture–
not sure if Vintage Retro's one!
However, since I spanned so many years,
it seems to me this should be done!
My influence can still be seen in homes.
Some people often think it strange,
to cling to my old Vintage Retro look
and never want to make a change.
So pleased my unique period ruled well –
for thirty years I did endure!
My decades had a flavor of their own–
so powerful was my allure!
My special time was dominated by
the colors green, orange, and gold;
Formica, Lucite, vinyl, walnut, chrome –
outstanding – very sleek and bold.
My Vintage Retro period – well-loved
by most – did fade away, its true.
Still Retro-furnished homes are so enjoyed
by visitors who get a view.
My long-remembered items bring a crowd
at Vintage Retro store displays!
The prices paid are unbelievable –
so pleased I'm worth much more these days!
To prove my point, you might take time to see
the photo grouping up above!
My Vintage Retro gems still grace their home
forever more for them to love!
Sandra M. Haight
~First Place~
Contest: Punctuation Personified
Theme: Period Furniture
Sponsor: Debbie Guzzi
Judged: 10/06/2015
Note: Vintage Retro means actually made in '50s, '60s or '70s
The term Retro by itself can mean old but also newly made to look like old
Vintage Retro includes: Mid-Century, Mid-Century Modern, and Danish Modern styles
From dawn, you've been the gentle glide upon
my tranquil streams of morrow's sky alight.
You've curved the earth and spanned blue wings in flight.
Through life, you float on rising streaks of dawn.
Through life, in motion, in your sun-kissed face,
your path is shown to me in dusky sink
of sun and stirs my softening reds to pink.
From dawn, you sprang from light's eternal grace.
From dawn, you've been a hue of blush in truth,
bold and bare, transformed in love's essence.
As breezes tame, you flow like heaven's breath,
and through life's beauty, days return to youth.
From dawn, I cling to you and you to I.
Through life, we drift just like blue butterflies.
Written 2/13/17
The Bible Is The Inspired Word of God!
I heard someone say “the Bible was written by man.”
But there’s a truth I don’t think he understands.
God used man to simply be an “inspired instrument.”
This was more than some type of “experiment.”
God used many different people from various places.
He used them from both the Jewish and Gentile races!
Though the words spanned a long period of time…
They were written with all of us in mind!
It was as if God himself had taken the pen.
He spoke directly through different men.
All of the books are together with a common goal.
To bring the words of God to the common soul.
I would encourage to read the Bible for your direction.
Allow God’s words to daily be your inspiration!
Won’t you read from Genesis through Revelation?
You can learn about God’s gift of salvation!
The Bible speaks of God’s love and holiness too!
And speaks to the heart of how much HE LOVES YOU!
You can also learn about eternity in a heavenly mansion!
Your life can receive a blessed “abundant life expansion!”
Through the words of Christ, you’ll be blessed!
As you find in him a comfort and a haven of rest!
I invite you to read and apply God’s truth today!
And be transformed by what he really has to say!
By applying Biblical principles in how you’re living!
You’ll be blessed by the awesome words God is giving!
By Jim Pemberton
A dry habitat where sailing boats were invented
and the paper, pens, keys and toothpaste.
Also where beer was a national currency
and the last dress standing is preserved.
This dwelling offers worship to more than a thousand deities
and cats’ funerals are honoured with the shave of the eyebrows
The most numbered Arab citizenry
possessing the globally most spanned river course.
Eye painting is practiced by both genders
for healing ability and a cover against the sun.
Even with the myth of mummification and the awe of Giza
It is certainly true that one of its habitations
Was found to be swallowed by the sea