Best Stanchions Poems
Springing free from glistening
Fronds
The summers heat leaps for
Height;
Whilst drifting obscurely far
Above
A distant lark now hangs in
Flight.
Floats down his sweet trill,
Accompanied by joyous and
Uplifting revelry,
Over the black crows nasal
Calls;
Whose draped shadow,
contemplating devilry,
Flaps and furtively falls
Into ripening bean fields
Planted in neatly sowed rows:
Nourished in darkest till,
Enriched by pedantic verse of
Gaelic odes.
Do now these gentle Slopes
Pause to yield
Where secretive song,
Bursting forth, is much concealed
inside the plain of Aidhne;
For here the great rock of the
Burren,
Whereby so implored upon,
Revealed its grey stones...
To rebuild ancient and deserted
Thoor Ballylee.
Sweeping briskly past a tors
Grassy island busy in bloom,
Eagerly cramming under four
Crouched arches,
Skim the borrowed waters of
Thee immortal Cloone;
Dappling currents
Dawdling around squat stanchions -
Staunchly carrying the quiet bridge
Over the old concourse:
Momentarily loitering -
Wantonly begging to coyly swoon...
Now, joyfully sporting in gushing
Discourse,
Gleefully courting elusive and
Glimmering enchantments:
Mirrored reflections enticed to
Enter -
To be forever trapped within a
Burbling rivers sacred rhyme and
Tune.
Higher and higher the spiraling
Stairs of de Burgo
When through airy woodland
Glades
The towering shadow sought;
And higher and higher the spirit
Of an ageing poet...
His crowding thoughts
Roaming freely amidst these
Fabled legends of Gort.
Harken then to the feathered
Herald -
Tis Gods design that calls on
Ye!
For few men know of what he
Sings...
He sings of the forgotten paths
Forever lost within Innisfree.
there's a spot on the horizon
in the ripple of the sun
where railway lines and stanchions fuse
and merge becoming one.
I was staring from the platform
when a distant dot appeared
it grew in size and shape and form
and sounded as it neared.
I caught blurred faces turning
as they thundered by so fast
to briefly glimpse where strangers met
each thursday in the past.
back then the steam and music
lit up life's black and white
- by tugging strings when love went wrong
rachmaninoff was right.
Half flesh, half steel, sinews and twined wire,
Begotten in the heat of half-love, tempered
By hatred and the axe, fathered by one
Who killed her mother, the male chauvinist boar
Whose eye-teeth, razor-sharp, saw through the spine,
Joy-sword in sheath. Wrought iron, blood vessels,
Bone and cable, one part conceived, the other forged
On the hard anvil where gusts of blood are seed
Of all the axeman most does fear – cast iron woman
With stanchions for a trunk, iron breastplate,
A malleable black heart, a metallic chastity belt
No man may boast of stealing and still live,
Who beats men at their own battle games,
A dab hand with the axe herself, as salty tears
And globules of mercury exude from grey glands
Days of Forever
With every day,
we plant a bit
gather a bit,
use a bit.
Time’s waning irrigation
renders dry many tributaries.
From high in the ethos-sphere
some of purity’s regeneration
meanders down rivulets of calm
while certain regrets clamor endless echoes
from mind’s canyon to canyon.
Some may ask…
What of the times
when fragrance fills the air,
when Alpine’s flower reverence
dances its season beside trickling brooks?
And lest we forget our concrete avenues
where stanchions of glass and steel
hold mysteries aloft with lessons’
East side to West side,
seeking out willing listeners.
We always remember those rough and tumble planting seasons of growing up,
when sunlight seems clouded
and food for flesh
momentarily begets starvation of thought
Yet with temperance of satiation,
we arrive at harvest time
and suddenly new sprouting appears,
the cycling conundrum of time blinks open again,
the bard’s handiwork resounds: to be or not to be.
For such breath-held moments of question
ushers out the darkness of sleep,
begetting the radiance of sunrise,
the waking from Nature’s perpetual dreams,
opening eyes to harvest from those of seed.
from down on the flats we can see
high-on-the-hills poetry
sonnets like mansions
sestinas in stanchions
they fill our dulled hearts with much glee
A distant dampness wrings the air.
A weight most profound presses chest
as indrawn breath holds silent;
in the stonehedge of overwhelming gloom.
So, the mighty have fallen
auguries of a mortal doom.
Without missive,
bluestone bones, stanchions silhouette
onto a plane of pastel sky.
Gargantuan, they rise, a tomb.
So, the mighty have fallen
auguries of a mortal doom.
Brittle brown blood expunged
by millennium three,
the still, symbolic, oak forest rises.
Frozen sarsens, five, forming an open grove.
Megaliths beaconing a golden eastern dawn
So, the multitude will rise within the circle
without earthly substance, soul;
through green grasslands loam
ashen augury of a different tome.
Purple mountains, majestic against an azure sky,
Rise to greet the passing rain-filled nimbus clouds
Above the verdant forests along the canyon rim,
Where sparrow hawks and other birds of prey drift
The surging updrafts from the river valley far below.
Rays of the sun find paths through thick pine stands
And glint from the silver stanchions of the bridge,
Hover over the pensive grandeur of the scenic view.
I long for my home near the edge of the park lands
Where wildflowers bloomed next to our cottage there,
And memories accumulated over the ensuing years
Continually bring me back to childhood adventures,
So free, so happy-go-lucky, during hot summer days
In the wild, wonderful wilderness of West Virginia.
Originally written July 5, 2021
Edited for All Poetry.com
Chosen as Cover Poem for All Poetry.com
March 18, 2022
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Brian Strand 1096 Poetry Contest
March 20, 2022
High above gray Manhattan’s marge,
‘Midst toothsome towers in the sky,
A construction crane there looms large,
Dwarfing the crowds of passersby.
A new building grows, rising high,
Clouding another patch of sky.
A tower for trade will arrive
Where businesses may fail or thrive.
An unsung Mohawk warrior,
And an iron-ribbed Spartan crane,
Raising stanchions; bolting girders,
Work in harmony on the frame.
Clutching the cables of the crane,
Beam rider goes where most aren’t fain;
Riding angled steel slabs, held tight,
High aloft, nearly out of sight.
In their union, we may marvel:
From out of an architect’s dreams,
Row by row; level by level,
They unfold a right-angled frame.
And when the beam rider has gone,
Who will recall his days bygone?
For those who make real others’ dreams,
That is the way it goes, it seems.
10236 Charing Cross Road
Holmby Hills, CA. 90077
To go where young rabbits frolic and dance
Would be a sweet treat if I had the chance
To swim in the water where famous cottontails get wet
Where champagne bubbles are spilled by the elite jet set
Maybe I might win a million dollar lotto
That could be my ticket to enter the grotto
Past muscle bound bouncers, inside velvet ropes and stanchions
To ogle, google and spill my own bubbles at The Playboy Mansion
To escape normality and alter reality before I grow old
Playing with Playmates and Bunnies and this months Centerfold
10236 Charing Cross Road, Holmby Hills CA. 90077
Without a doubt this is the address of Heaven
Thank you
Mr. Hefner
Sometimes the chaos of the world invades
and shells of home and skin are not enough.
And we must find a safety deep inside
within the rhythm of the breath.
Move with intention
like a tree supple in the breeze
stanchions strong on nimble limbs
mantra’s giving geas.
Stimulate the nascent soul with balance.
Still the whirling top of mind.
Extend each tendriled thought within
gaining harmony in exhale,
within the rhythm of the breath.
Clean, purge, polish, shine
The sluggish blood, the worrisome nerve
The jewel faceted form we’re given
mind, body and spirit serve.
Sycamores standing bold and naked
Leafless limbs facing the chilly breeze
Without broad leaves appear wasted,
Sycamores standing bold and naked
As stanchions are almost over-rated,
Still the most imposing of all the trees
Sycamores standing bold and naked
Leafless limbs facing the chilly breeze.
Written November 15, 2022
The wolf wind rakes its teeth
across the stanchions of paper birches
seeming to peel strips of bark
rolling back the pristine white flesh
to the tanned heart.
Bankrupt Inner Lives
by Odin Roark
At night
The vacuous feel only their emptiness
Lining up in the dark
Beside stanchions of velvet rope
As condor sentries lift anchor-like hooks
Time’s soulless theme park is open
Clamorous the surge
The decay of centuries past
Swirl their biting dust storms
Vying for another chance
Surging through the dervish-like desperation
A continued vacillate turnover of todays
Crowding the ceremonial skin shedding
Like a pit of serpents struggling to dislodge
The torn
Lifeless
Parasitic past
Trusting the new will provide survival
As light breaks such a dawn
The ravaged and bruised spineless
Merge upon barren landscapes
Raven guides screech welcoming echoes
As undulating mirages of immortality
Invade their delusions of control
Lulling them into drug-like satisfaction
Such continues the stratagem
A parched enigma forever waiting
Another group of self-deceivers
Endlessly visiting their
Inner life wasteland
Clueless
the Golden Gate, she sang to me
in a darkened whispered voice
El Niño crying like a spoiled child
of all the sad souls brought to her
with desperation’s choice
that flew like angels
from her transoms, wild
oh dare I hearken to that song
that pressed to tympans, sweet
a secret that commanded I impart
the answer I had sought so long
of darkened dreams, complete
and one last sleep that
plunged the ocean’s heart?
it was a day of days - the sort
that put most days to shame
as Sol daubed on the sea her Sunday best
as though to woo me and to court
my coursings for her flame
with all the sparkling
jewels upon her breast
to put to rest these passioned pains
midst such a gloried breeze
would be to deign those somber voices true
but life and loves and loss had brought
this madman to his knees
my last adventure
meant for bounding blue
so there atop the stanchions stood
one man of heartened breaths
a smile as broad as sun upon the waves
and though the bridge had sung of
sweeter dreams and grander deaths
the raw breath-stealing beauty
of that wondrous glistened sea -
the thoughts of one hereafter
where a soul could wander free
and all the joys that filled me up
like that gold, tender sea
made that the best of
blue Pacific graves …
so off I flew -
the freest of her slaves.
In the safe refuge of lyrical poetry, I cocooned.
My broken shards fell on a tear-stained screen.
I am the one who steers my own route attuned.
With every brushstroke, many specks are seen.
My broken shards fell on a tear-stained screen.
A flawed creation leaves footprints in the sand.
With every brushstroke, many specks are seen.
On a dying star, view the last rays of a light band.
A flawed creation leaves footprints in the sand.
A sorrowfulness may discharge excess perfection.
On a dying star, view the last rays of a light band.
A quivering waltz into the pert halls of reflection.
A sorrowfulness may discharge excess perfection.
Perception releases a melody into the devil's lair.
A quivering waltz into the pert halls of reflection.
Too spry to chase metaphorical kaleidoscope air.
Perception releases a melody into the devil's lair.
A rescuer in the shape of stanchions in the storm
Too spry to chase metaphorical kaleidoscope air.
Sieved in mellifluous rhythm exotic in fictional form.
A rescuer in the shape of stanchions in the storm
Worlds slamming silently into a moonless ocean.
Sieved in mellifluous rhythm exotic in fictional form.
I grasp best in the gloom, smell, passion, and devotion.
Worlds slamming silently into a moonless ocean.
As moths to flame, poetry keeps me alive in my dream.
I grasp best in the gloom, smell, passion, and devotion.
Jaded lack of past, present, and future is my stream.
As moths to flame, poetry keeps me alive in my dream.
As the world, alternate contractures and bruising.
Jaded lack of past, present, and future is my stream.
I'm simmering, burning, splashing, and fusing.
As the world, alternate contractures and bruising
I am the one who steers my own route attuned.
I'm simmering, burning, splashing, and fusing.
In the safe refuge of lyrical poetry, I cocooned.
Written: December 2nd, 2022