Best Tors 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...

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All across these scattered shining isles,
Framed inside a bright clasp of sapphire sea,
A softly persuasive wind that so beguiles,
Reaching gently out, thusly prevails unto me.
And in that wind that so insistently blows...
I hear tenderest words only my heart knows.

And high over, behind secluded wooded hills,
Beyond...

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I know I’ve made a thousand journeys,
withstood the tests of time and foe
shed the dust and shouldered worries
struggled onward against the flow.

Unconforming, seldom bending
straight the path I ever took.
Challenge was my unending passion
contradiction I forsook.

I’ve battled tempests ‘fore and ‘hind me,
I’ve seen the devil at...

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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
But stars do not cry.
Into Ochs valley, through the Vale of White Horse...prancing 
besides a Dragons Hill;
It was here that a Roundhead - did a Royalist Cavaliers blood in 
Oxons streets so spill!
Where Great Alfred strove to drive out...

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HAIKU & TWO SENRYU
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


white sky... low the clouds
winter... stuck in a drift again
spring... where are you...
~~~
the bobbin dipper flies
below our secret rivers
spring... summer delight
~~~
ring ouzel... moorland
high craggy tors... upland moors
birding adventure
~~~
the avocet
fenland treasure... coastal dream
no spade required
~~~
harbinger of spring
declining population
drives birders cuckoo
~~~
be proud... sing aloud
needs...

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Ah, disperse, dissolve, deploy, aqua vitae, 
all through the depth of primal forest rise,
turn the shades of green toward blue-gray.
Soften shades of purple shadows, disguise,
and bath the chill of night with damp display. 
Ah yes, rise to treetops and tors, comply, 
and hide the prey...

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TEMPEST

Twin limestone tors thrust up through valley floor
Like isles or icebergs in a calm flat sea
Deep green save where shear rock can hold no spore
To spawn in fecund niche a vine or tree

Midday and all is calm untroubled, still
In tactile heat, all movement paused, restricted
No...

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Summer sunsets o'er majestic Pikes Peak are a wonder to behold.
Unequaled hues gild the western sky in flaming red and gold!
Mere artists will never portray on canvas such a glorious sight.
Magnificent ivory clouds enhance the scene much to my delight!
Embellishing this exquisite panorama with colors...

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Oh, give me a home where majestic buffalo roam,
Where antelope graze and rushing streams foam!
A place where snow-capped mountains reach for the sky,
And gentle winds waft through blue spruce with soothing sigh!
Oh, give me a home where golden eagles soar on high;
Where skeins of geese...

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I believed that I was rural … that I lived in country style,
where the city was close handy … that big distance was a mile.
Trains and buses ferried daily; a freeway ran close by …
comforts of the modern world easily reached with hand or eye.

All...

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Eternal granite, crystalline scree, agates, boulders, rise
to hills, towering tors,* mutinous mountains, endlessly growing
rising, lifted,  then toppled by the fiery rebirth of draconic lava**

Like the cracked shell of an avian egg***/ **** both molten yolk
and watery albumen mark the passage of time, the swings
of...

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To the legendary teacher I pay tribute
For imparting live voices to the mute
You paid gratitude
To the multitude
On the mountain top you stood
And all the heads understood
You never said ‘Never’
As admired in Geneva;
Tremendous work for real
Remains in me a thrill!

You explored the world
Left in me a...

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In the winter of 1873, Alfred Packer was hired to guide a prospectin' trek.
In the San Juans of Colorady they'd heard of gold that they wanted to check.
Alfred claimed that in Colorady minin' camps he'd driven wagons of ore.
He guaranteed he'd show 'em the valuable...

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Moorland
mist rising
over gritstone tors
Climbers exposed on sheer
Edges...

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Oh, fleecy vagabond clouds scudding about this turbulent earth!
The things you must witness drifting o'er its expansive girth,
Arrayed in the heavens by that Benevolent One Immortal!
What peace and beauty you bestow upon this restless mortal!

For the fleet moment you're in view, you capture my imagination,
As...

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