Best Swales Poems
Far across the hills and dales,
Ringing o'er the rills and swales:
Ever nearer, ever louder;
Ever dearer, gaining power.
Drawing hearts and minds to one;
Once sounded out, and once begun
Men cannot fail to hear her calling-
Solders freed from fear of falling.
Calling, crying to her sons,
"All must fight till freedom's won."
Leading them to victory;
Leaving them with liberty.
(Written on the fifth of July, 2015)
It was a fortnight and two days ago
when my spirit set adrift with the summer breeze;
wandering the four corners of this earth
trying hard my curiosity to please.
Searching out the very meaning of life
while wearing holes in the soles of my shoes;
my curiosity ever seeking the truth,
and still my thoughts wander back to you.
Summer breeze fills my sails
billowing against the sky of blue;
guiding me across life’s uneven swales,
and leading me right back to you.
I miss the softness of your warm caress;
I long to hold you in my arms;
to feel your tender lips on mine,
and share in the magic of your charms.
Summer breeze fills my sails
billowing against the sky of blue;
guiding me across life’s uneven swales,
and leading me right back to you.
My darling I will never leave again
no matter how the summer breeze may blow;
you are the very meaning of my life;
for eternity I will love you so.
Summer breeze fills my sails
billowing against the sky of blue;
guiding me across life’s uneven swales,
and leading me right back to you.
August 4, 2018
In scratchy swales emitting Clorox gas,
Matador houseflies cross paralyzed eyes;
A kaleidoscope scene where jagged glass
Cracks beneath footsteps of love’s promised lies;
Forgotten by choice through hell-flickered sight,
Confusion screams at a dead mobile phone,
Gripping slick sanity ever so tight,
Un-stabled by speaking to Nothing’s tone.
Tormentors nearby prepare their escape,
Entrusting blindness to suffocate truth;
Black swans are they, drinkin’ ‘shine to undrape
Wounds nearly healed from a vi’lated youth –
A normal day in an abnormal cave,
Where hatred rules whipping peace claimed its slave.
A Man of Green
(Valentine’s Day)
Blast breathed, bob booted, fiercely tramping, he sweeps down upon the land, hard browed, frozen white, bellowing,
Rude Boreas, the prince of winter, rages, the very rocks withering in his path, his power ultimate, the cold of Satan his liege lord, spent upon the hapless world, in frigid swales, twixt tortured trees, in winter’s scraggle,
midst hilltops bleak, whose hoary frames becrack an icy, kindless sky,
His profound frost’s depth hints that light could lose.
Mortals shudder, birds enclose themselves, becoming smaller still.
All pray this prince shall soon pass.
In earnest fright we take small, guileful hope in his raving’s crystalline wake.
Yet, ‘neath his glacial countenance,
the rime bedecked adamantine glaze,
the polar beard, there glints a hope of green,
A brownish earthen smudge warms at alabaster nape.
Perchance brightening Boreas’ stern eye’s crystal spark of winter,
there now gladly grows a fleck of Sol.
From high above and down below
Bewitching winds from Hades blow
That spread the river’s current thin
And drown with love unsinkable men;
Around they swirl and whisper lies
Of fabled lands where romance flies;
Paradise found upon a beach
Which but in dreams is out of reach.
“She loves you still, she always will”;
Their chilly mantra echoed shrill;
A siren’s call to taunt the soul,
Her prisoner; no longer whole.
As I, but a beggar, survey the sea;
Porcelain broken, bluer than me:
Swales o’er ‘morrows bleatingly boast:
“Thus starves the daughter of hungrier ghost”.
Beaches are where breaches adorn like brooches
Waves curl up to breach the surface of sea,
Then break, plunging headstrong to broach on shore.
Wales and dolphins breach off the beach with spit and spurt.
Crabs and worms breach the sand with holes and borrows
Waves and ripples crease the wet sand with furrows
The surge of tide erodes and reworks the inlet channels
A beach is a shore breached and broached in dynamic equilibrium and flux
Eroded, exposed then sand deposited, accrued and hoarded
With sediment piled up in reserve in dunes, hills, swales and shoals
Birds breach the sky and pierce the scenery
Footprints broach the serenity of beach expanse
Beaches - breached and broached are designed to cope.
I wish that I just had my own road—
I wish that I had my own trail—
I wish the stories hadn’t been told
‘Bout how there’s now no range to sail.
It seems that all the land is now fenced
And there are no more wagon swales—
To most, the Old West now makes no sense
And the interstates are our trails.
I wish for those times of clear creek skies
When the horse and bison ran free—
When the campfires burned and night had eyes
And the trails were open for me.
Oh, I wish we all could go back now
And each of us had his own trail—
And winter never broke summer’s bow
And roads we rode down did not fail.
What lies ahead, I do not know,
But I will confidently go
Along this rough and tumble trail
O’er mountain pass, dank, boggy swales,
To scale the heights, be brought down low.
Though ‘twas ordained so long ago,
I find there is no cause for woe;
Nay, joyfully I look to scale
what lies ahead.
I may befriend a would-be foe
To sanctify and flourish, grow,
Or stumble over some travail,
Cry out in need, or badly fail,
But I know all is apropos,
what lies ahead…
—————
For the Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand
Written on 06/06/2022
Never wishing to wade into too much drama
As her ambulance rushes by; wailing and why..
Should one catch this spindrift adrift amid, their
Churning sea these swales, of ocean tide miseries ?
Zephyr's winds blowing through his shaded tree; roots
Risen through the dust ever winding a maze sunlight....
She'll kiss while parting ? Her Autumn's leaves, embarking
Upon their journey unto this place yet known; be they children
Metaphors shimmering light pirhouetting past Polly's night ? Bright
Love's blue skies tears crashing waves washed away; His northern gates.
The world cannot hate you but Me, it hates because I speak in that, it's evil ?
Yet yourself they shall also despise; for I have lifted you from her crib making you
Mine although their words smooth as butter, tongues devised; heaping up treasures
Which shall never abide; washed away of swales these mountain sides ? Had one known
Then they nay would have crucified, Heaven's Messiah His King; albeit rabbid the dogs....
Howling at her moon entrenched in tombs this blood he seeks; bowing unto Baal their god
His flesh they'll eat ? Turbine ties as turmoil jets sand castle dreams bizarre, she seems ? Babylon.
Surrounding self with shells of snails,
You lie on warming shifting sand
Sifting through your open hand,
Adrift with tidal rifted swales.
Charting ebbs and flows of sun,
Wisps of clouds reveal the show
That hermit crabs and sea crows know
And quietly your brain has spun.
The waters turn, the tables, too,
As comfort’s found in sandy dunes,
And concert in gulls’ shrilly tunes,
Relentless though the ocean’s brew.
Emboldened by the sand and rock,
Self aligns with shale and shells,
Enchanted by the salted swells,
And Siren-like, the gulls’ sweet talk.
You’re only one of millions more,
As grains and shells and showers;
Though insignificant your powers,
Not so the strength found at the shore.
Steadfast again your peace survives,
Near broken on a hidden shoal;
Designed, determined to be whole,
In turbulence the soul revives.
Feb. 8, 2019
Enclosed Rhyme, Emile Pinet
The man who took the tail of a skink
Is safe from the chocolate mink
He stopped on foot to breathe to think
The man who took the tail of a skink
He gained the powers of the magical skink
He grabbed the strange unknown link
For now he could see with the violet eye
He looked inside, to his surprise
With cool, smooth scales
Runs in swampy swales
He ran to the home of the girl who once loved him
To pay her a visit and see how she's been
Through the dusty roads
Dodging heavy loads
His fast feet ran
To go see her man
To the white brick house
The rain would douse
He squeezed between two bricks
To see if his hardy gal was hitched
He couldn't see much from the floor
No bugs and roaches or spiders or more
The skink ran out the way he came
Into the dusty, dry lane
He found a way to perch on the sill
After he climbed the clay hill
He stared inside, motionless
As he waited for his lovely tigress
His imagination ran wild
As her counter was tiled
Rich and pretty and same for me?
I don't know, we'll have to find out and see.
He waited and waited without any glee
The sun went down, out came the sea
He failed to oblige the dry heat
So when his princess came back
He was a shriveled heap
She didn't know what it was
She swept it out just because
She 'knew' the terrible luck a skink
Would bring to someone on the brink
The mummified skink decomposed
As he sat and cried his poor woes
The skink's tail gave him magic
But the end result was tragic
At Sea II
The start of an ocean voyage starts like life; fresh and new
And best served with a brew
The shoreline disappearing from view and star bright
Replacing the street lights fading fast into the night
The seas are calm in that cove as you leave a safe haven
Moving past that beacon with an escort from a raven
The gulls fly overhead their wings spread wide to catch the breeze
And the shrill of their screech fills the air as they escort you out to distant seas
Soon we are alone in an ocean, no shoreline linking safety
There is comfort and a strange sense of calm and serenity
But as time passes and the storms roll in
Rough seas are a sure thing
The waves pound the sides of our boat
Swales high and low remind us we are quite remote
There is no way to swim to shore and a long way to the ocean floor
We say a prayer for all on board and listen to the roar
Our thoughts turn to those back ashore, family, friends, and others galore
And through it all there is hope that we are not a dope for being on a boat
As quickly as gale force winds came they are no longer found
And the smell of ocean air fills our lungs as we look around
Maybe getting there is worth the wait
To make that journey far and wide we shouldn’t hesitate
Instead of cowering inside and avoiding the ride
We should embrace her like a bride
And then it is there for all to see, land I say with such glee
Safe harbor has returned to me
Andreas Simic©
As fortunes wax and wane
In life’s large swells and swales,
We try to ponder and remain
The person who, in youth, prevailed.
But our youthful views have changed,
And our existing needs do not entail
What, when young, were hopes retained,
Leaving our childhood dreams still veiled.
Though life created who we are,
We, as people, made key choices
That made us follow fateful stars
While ignoring more pragmatic voices.
And while our souls did ebb and flow,
We went where were forced to go
And searched for truths so we would know,
What lies beyond fate's plan bestowed.
Written: May 25 for a contest sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
3rd place contest winner
*******************
Line of inquiry:
"This form of dust is by God energised
wherein we are living light housed within
How may this truth be realised
show us, oh monk, how to begin."
*******************
I — Valediction of Authority
This dust is not moribund,
but rumbustious with breath—
skyfoam rising, fogscape shifting,
each speck a spark of sprightliness.
Why wilt your whiter
at a monk’s behest,
Or wade within,
the weight of worship?
Buddha was flesh,
a wanderer of earth,
his catharsis his own,
not a crown for sequacious mouths.
To worship him is a mondegreen,
a nugatory palaver,
a meretricious catchphrase
for those who prowl
in officious dogma.
No viceroy of sanctity,
no ersatz jewel of salvation—
only a human,
finite, quondam,
like you, like me.
Bridge — From Authority to Soul
Yet the skyfoam does not pause—
waves continue unabated,
clouds drift in chiaroscuro,
reminding us: truth is not bestowed,
but discovered within.
II — Realization of the Soul
See the cowslips bending in the swale,
petioles redolent with carotene,
ants dogged in their labor,
wisteria climbing with gregarious grace.
All proclaim: sanctity is not decreed,
It is ubiquitous,
woven into the weave of being.
Oneness is not a god’s decree,
but the soul’s halcyon colloquy,
Atman is identical to Brahman—
a selcouth catharsis,
A veridical ataraxia.
So let us not abase ourselves in acrimony,
nor coddle nugatory hubris,
nor prowl in truculent objurgation.
Instead, let us woolgather in halcyon swales,
pernoctate with skyfoam and cloudscape,
until burden evanesces,
and the soul, amaranthine,
limpid, radiant,
is realized as Brahman.