Best Transom Poems
THE BLOSSOMS OF HOME
Heaven must be this sweet -
Old Pilikov across the street,
The Schillings there along the shore,
Apple trees just outside door.
In the softness of lush pink shade
My children grew and played
With their heavy laden giant blooms
And inhaled their pure perfumes.
To start each day in blossom,
In display perfect and fulsome,
Spread low over my transom -
Is surely life in heaven’s bosom.
1.
My head is a transom
Light pours in but cannot escape
There is no window into me worth peering
2.
I hold dear to things
A grip so viced it defies metaphor
And my clutch does not know the difference
Between love and rage and I don't
Bother to correct it
3.
I am no one
I am nothing and yet far too much
I am selfish, and ugly, and brutish and even
My art is only ever about me
4.
I dreamed I was a butterfly
Free and open and beautiful
And when I woke up I knew it had been a dream
My head is a transom
Light pours in but cannot escape
There is no window into me worth peering
I dreamed I was a butterfly
Free and open and beautiful
And when I woke up I knew it had been a dream
I am no one
I am nothing and yet far too much
I am selfish, and ugly, and brutish and even
My art is only ever about me
I hold dear to things
A grip so viced it defies metaphor
And my clutch does not know the difference
Between love and rage and I don't
Bother to correct it
I hold dear to things
A grip so viced it defies metaphor
And my clutch does not know the difference
Between love and rage and I don't
Bother to correct it
My head is a transom
Light pours in but cannot escape
There is no window into me worth peering
I dreamed I was a butterfly
Free and open and beautiful
And when I woke up I knew it had been a dream
I am no one
I am nothing and yet far too much
I am selfish, and ugly, and brutish and even
My art is only ever about me
I dreamed I was a butterfly
There is no window into me worth peering
Between love and rage and I don't
Between love and rage and I don't
Between love and rage and I don't
Between love and rage and I don't
My art is only ever about me
My art is only ever about me
Between love and rage and I don't
I dreamed I was a butterfly
I dreamed I was a butterfly
I dreamed I was a butterfly
I
I dreamed I was a butterfly
Balanced on a Red Rider wagon,
a wooden boat with flaking paint;
split transom
poorly repaired. Ten year olds
with borrowed tools, untrained
in fixing leaks, or boats,
or knowing what a transom was.
Christened the "Neversink,"
but often did, with bamboo fishing poles askew,
the used nine sixteenth nut sinkers
spilling into warm water;
sunfish laughing.
A doomed soup can ship,
crewed by worms,
going down.
Young toes to search the liquid silt
for clams.
Proem
After Sir Thomas recovered the Spear of Destiny and returned it to the Pope at the Vatican in Rome, he remained there for several months serving His Excellency, attending meetings, and recovering from several minor injuries sustained while recapturing the Spear that pierced the side of Jesus the Messiah. Sir Thomas could have stayed as a guest of the pope in one of their lush suites, but he chose the bare walls of a guest bedroom at the local Knights Templar castle. The pope then called upon him for his next assignment: Leave Rome immediately, by boat, again, back to Constantinople. “Head off a Scot by the name of Sir Robert Bruce, whom our intel indicates has a map and is currently on his way in search for the Holy Grail. Sir Robert is a stubborn ally. You will help Sir Robert, but convince him that the chalice of Jesus belongs here in Rome.”
Prior to shoving off the west coast of Italy, a few miles from Rome, Sir Thomas wrote the following message, and placed it in a bottle.
______________________________________________________________
A.D. 1301
My dear sweet wife and babe within her womb
The five long years since I had lost you both
I prayed for inner peace despite my joy
You're both in heaven; worship Thee Most High
Because your love exceeds all life itself
My lips will glorify you ever more
I praise you for the rest; my living days
Your name I lift on high with my bare hands
Was on my bed that I remember you
I think of you the watches of the night
The shadow of your wings I cling my soul
The depths of which my sword shall honor thee
I yearn affections taste where two come one
The seed by faith that yields abundant life
Endures celestial kingdom's perfect place
It brings this missive to its endless oath:
To bless, release my restless heart that bleeds
Commit my swords allegiance to the Lord
To you Dagung the earth is smaller still
For every inch be searched to see your face
You disappeared, not dead but still alive
I feel the transom temper my resolve
For in this ship another search begins
The Holy Grail; Dagung I'll find you both
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Postscript
I toss the bottle through the wind to stormy sea
Inside the missive of a knight in love with thee
__________________________________________
Within the passage of time
I see you, my enchanted ecstasy,walking
Down a cobblestone street in silhouette.
Carefully placed footsteps echoing the
The pavement without the slightest of regrets.
Through the faint gas lit corridor
Vintage smells and a whispering wind
Accompany me.
Now matter where I go -
No matter when I go –
Footsteps going forward
Revealing the past.
In a cumbersome transom blended
With a tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap
Of a horse drawn carriage –
Therein our song is revealed.
Where else but in music do thoughts
Blend reality with emotions?
There in my mind’s eye
Tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap.
Do I have any life but this?
If not - let me lead it from here.
No death there be ‘lest
Dispelled from there.
Nor any ties to earths to come.
Nor any action in any effort of new.
Except in the blessed extent
In the realm of loving you.
And in my mind’s eye –
The music,
Tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap -
Of cobblestone and hoof –
Ta-tap
Always
Ta-tap
Returns me to you.
Having eyed the edges of eternity
Scornly decorated
With a draping psychotic sable
Within this brief glimpse
I chanced my doppelganger staring
Studying the lines of my face
Before I smashed the hoary transom
Wholly terrified…
Hiding under the candles cloak
Anxiously searching
For the windows to my escape
Headlong through
Tenacity dripping from ceiling cracks
Searching my identity
For that which separates truth from replica
That transitory player…
Left behind to endlessly wander
A morose phantom
Pursuing any face in the looking glass
Feigned banal life
Hoping to savor one taste of reality
But ever locked away
Inside his negative plane reflecting
Another’s desire…
The Lunette
Above the transom of the door
leading to the courtyard
a half-moon of yellow glass,
pitted and bubbled,
shows you fragments of garden.
From mullion to mullion
now bourgainvillea,
now ivy, now jasmine
sway and snake
against old limestone:
cool green emblazoned
with sudden mustard,
viridescence dipped in citrine.
A hot, yellow half-moon
trapped in the inner gloom
of Mdina.
Margaret Clerici
from "Glass:Glimpses of Malta"
bad situations
active imaginations
can kill relations
creating conspiracies
with broad designs to deceive
bloody mockery
shinigami lottery
a dichotomy
of preaching false brotherhood
so others will do no good
trying to obscure
real truths which should endure
facts filled with manure
some choose to communicate
into codes filled up with hate
white lies and false sums
psychological ransom
untruth the transom
when gaslighting has begun
take hostages without guns
multiple faces
yet none which more disgraces
truth which lies debase
dishonor become thy name
as this world is set aflame
As I stared despairingly at the transom,
my daughter declared, as she gave a smile winsome:
“I wouldn’t stand for such a name, if I were Janell!
It’d be okay of course, if Janell refers to the vessel…”
Captain disdain abounds in fields chock-full of chauvinism
A female pursuing a career within must be into masochism!
Put on a brave face girl, and grit your teeth shut
The ponytail pretties better go or you ‘are’ the promoted ****
As seriousness cannot be equated with feminineness,
it is best you strut like you’re swinging two pe!!ses…
Now it’s nice to see more of the younger generation,
accept it’s work and education, not gender identification!
(9/16/20 – Searay 400 sedan bridge; DMS)
Nick was a young man who was handsome,
got stuck in a strange basement transom.
When trainer offered gold
to be free, his wife told-
“NO! THE VIEW'S WORTH MORE THAN THE RANSOM!"
*How I feel about my handsome hubby. I love all his views…*
Transom- A strengthening crossbar, in particular one set above above a door or hanging from the ceiling.
Written: June 1, 2019
syllable count: 9-9-6-6-9
howmanysyllables.com
A Limerick, Old or New: Your personal favorite Poetry Contest
Staring through the sullied glass
Ever present…
A transom of silent reflections
Standing amid us…
Dirtying with every irate grousing
Thick and hazy…
Our windowpane painted shut
Always locked…
Gazing through at one another’s faces
Slowly fading…
Eyeing the desperations of moving lips
Hearing silence…
Tim looked at the strong box crafted in oaken wood saplings and reason
Inside a map of his world he had travelled with dreams gusto and passion
Far away seas crested in a whirl wind of passage collected within and
Not without a longing desire for sails full of change and direction afar
A faded cross right pointed to where the treasure must lie and to where
The chest was buried deep in the quick sand of time or was it a coffin
He was nailed boxed in wrapped up in oil paper stabbed with his anchor
A pirate had pulled the plug and Tim perched on a dry dock of thought
Cliff faces and reefs obstructed horizons and sails were glued to the mast
And the ‘must’ to end suffocation but the bilge was flooding and scuppered
The crow’s nest for outlook swung precariously from one side to other as
Jacob’s ladder had lost most of its rungs as even the transom cried treason
His torso wriggled in the trunk but the binnacle bowed not for the compass
But then the needle found headway where scrawny worms had gathered
Punctured the confinement and the boom chain snapped emotional drought
At long last and long may it last Tim found a ferry to the chest in his heart
02 March 2019
Today she Decided,
To expose all sentiments without trepidation
Though broken by another’s dissatisfaction,
Inhumane and callous betrayal of her certitude
She chooses to unveil and unmask all residual pain
And focuses on His everlasting, unrelenting beatitude
Today she Decreed,
Never to allow her haunting past to hold ransom
Her subsequent future strong like a transom,
Though at constant war with doubts from her other
She vows to love him still through good and misfortune
And embraces all of him without a trace of a bother
Today she Prayed,
Supplicating to The Almighty to heal his humble heart
Discarding all perturbed doubts of the unknown depart,
So he sees her through untainted eyes of pure certitude
Breaking free from ghosts of past gone miles yonder
And taking sanctuary in the wings of God’s great omnitude
Bukowski Contest
Its a video -- Bukowski has a
mistress, she is younger than
he and beautiful.
They fight before the camera
and, she flees like words on
pale paper across the transom,
out the door...
He sits for a while unaware of
the camera, the poems quiet for
a while, his brow naked except
for regret and sorrow.
Then, he calls out to her in dipthongs
of need, his boastful alcohol wearing
off -- the frail, lonely intellectual
peering moist eyed around fleshen
corners.
Genius
APPLE BLOSSOM HEAVEN
Heaven must be this sweet -
The Schillings along the shore,
Old Pilikov across the street,
Apple trees just outside door.
In the softness of lush pink shade
And their heavy laden giant blooms
My children grew and played
And inhaled their pure perfumes.
To start each day in blossom,
In display perfect and fulsome,
Spread low over my transom -
Is surely life in heaven’s bosom.