Best Warwick Poems
"Kris Kringle Kisses Kalliope"
A Dream: the 4th Christmas.
deck the halls
with memories
poets whisper pasts
that are ne’er forgotten
where presents
a life
that’s neatly wrapped
and attempts at
frostily forgotten
tucked under
that big
beautiful
green fir tree
where all the dreams
of poets go
gold starred, tinselled
and angel mounted
ripe cherries
kissed
crassly
under mistletoe
Ah Christmas
capture me up
in your safe
magic arms
let me sip
the nectar from
your sweet eggnog cups
like Puck’s flower flows
on sultry lips
and eyelids
“love-in-idleness”
"The juice of it
on sleeping eyelids laid
will make man
or woman
madly dote
upon the next
live creature
that it sees”
poet or pup
crimson berries crushed
against a velvet tongue
bedazzled and
bewitched
fires crackling
logs like legs
drop and wrap around
the flames
while in my dreams
I await beneath
the sugar coated
blankets of a bed
charmed by snowflakes
dusting houses in a row
through misted windows
where “paper people....
dream
their cardboard dreams”
“how unreal
the whole thing seems
can we be living in a world
that is made of paper mache?
Everything is clean
and so neat
anything that is wrong
can be just swept away”
inside is very still...
not shaken
like a snowglobe -
surreal
damned be
the dams of
Love-in-Idleness
where eyes reflect
your shadow
in my dream
like opium smoke
across cracked glass
remember how we
all once were
some beautiful happy
if we could just pull the chord
so fresh out of ...
class
rewind our time
rewind it
to yesterday
like a toy
across the
ocean bobbing
like a buoy
an Iceberg keens and cries
Nutcracker twirls
Sugarplum
Kris Kringle Kisses
Kalliope
Oberon...
reals
Titania in
Slo mo’
Magic
mmm
Romance
lacy
frosty
melting
snow.
An iceberg cries
in time with
Christmas eyes
(LadyLabyrinth/ 2020)
“Paper Mache” / Dionne Warwick
https://youtu.be/85TK2Bia6w8
"There must have been some magic in
That old top hat they found
For when they placed it on his head
He began to dance around"
American Bandstand, Aqua Velva Ads, Aretha Franklin, and, the Andy Griffith Show
Black lights, Bewitched, bean bag chairs, beads, Batman and the Beatles
Cleopatra, Corvairs, Corvettes, Chevelles, Captain Kangaroo, Civil Rights Movement
Dionne Warwick, Derek and the Dominoes, Dennis the Menace, and Dodge Dart.
Ed Sullivan’s Amateur Hour, Elvis Presley, the Edsel, and new expressions emerge.
Fiddler on the Roof , Flower Power painted vans, Free love, Fiber optic lights,
Giget, Green Acres, Glen Campbell, Gun Smoke, Go-Go Boots, “Go with the flow!”
Hello Dolly, Have Gun Will Travel,and the Hippie Movement begin...“Hang Ten”
Imperial (the car), I dream of Jeanie, and new phrases “In your face” crop up.
JFK youngest U.S. President, and Jackie Kennedy stylish First Lady,
Kennedy was assassinated and the nation mourned the loss of their young leader.
Lamborghini 350 GT, Lava Lamps, Lady and the Tramp, Lost in Space, Lassie
Mousekateers, mini-skirts, mobiles, macramé plant hangars, Mash, The Monkeys,
Nissan Skyline GT-R, Nash Metropolitan, and Nestles’ Nestle were signs of the times.
Ordinary people seek peace during the years of war and social change of the 60s.
Pillsbury Doughboy, Petticoat Junction,and Peter, Paul, and Mary, placate.
Queen for the Day TV show, bring a fantasy escape during radically changing times.
Rabbit ear antennas for TV shows: Route 66, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh- In.
Sherri Lewis and Lamb Chop, Shake and Bake, and the sexual revolution start.
Twist to The Four Tops, The Flintstones,The Adam’s Family, The Twilight Zone.
“Up your nose with a rubber hose” and similar expressions are the times’ lingo.
Valley of the Dolls, Volkswagon Karmann Ghia, and Vanilla Fudge, gain popularity.
Wonderful World of Disney, Vietnam War, protests, and “Groovy” words crop up.
Xenoglossia emerges; “Make love, not war,” “Far out,” “Catch you on the flip-side.”
Yonderly Vietnam Veterans return home to social unrest without a hero’s honor.
Zanadu dances around in the minds of the partakers; religion is legal, not marijuana.
Copyright March 7, 2015
Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: The Decades
Sponsor: Kelly Deschler
Just a honeymoon beach vacation,
a fine nuptial love celebration;
we arrived a night early,
we would find hotel surely:
“No rooms” was the sad proclamation.
“An hour away you might find one.”
They were right for we only found…NONE!!
We got off beaten path.
too tired then to laugh,
looked for a place “mom and pop” run.
Well, it must have been close to midnight,
exhausted the lady and her knight;
we found Motel Warwick,
a guest house illicit,
and christened our honeymoon site.
Copyright, July 13, 2014
Faye Lanham Gibson
Fidelity and Curiosity
Curiosity quickly seeks and finds
Tearful times; swiftly
Hiding from view, slickly.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
Poetic Form: Englyn penfyr (Short Head/End Englyn) REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=410
http://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/413765
New Hope Refreshes
As we endure life threshes, heartaches spawn.
Dreads dawn; enmeshes.
New hopes mist refreshes.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
Poetic Form: Englyn penfyr (Short Head/End Englyn) REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=410
http://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/413765
On a recent visit to Warwick Castle,
We saw the death mask of Oliver Cromwell:
The man famous for asking an artist to paint
His portrait and show him warts and all.
I studied the stern features of the wax mask,
And noted the prominent warts.
He banned festivities, games and entertainments;
Had the joyless people preferred their lives
The way they once were with their king?
Or did they continue to rejoice the regicide?
As I studied Cromwell's likeness I wondered
Had the man who cast the mask thanked heaven
For ridding them of another dictator?
Jack Horne for Nette's Mask Time contest
To Lovell's Wharf Warwick and I would go,
In need to find what little of our selfs was left,
After the storm-passions of domestic life had carved their share.
Answering the call, as mating birds do, we took up the song,
Beating rhythmically across her waters,
To follow her scent riding high on the wind,
To amble gently to her side.
Finding our images mirrored in her depths,
Realising the way that lay ahead,
Past feathered lovers feeding quietly by her banks,
Past the place where I dared Warwick jump,
Towards the foreign ships wherein had always lain adventure.
Remembering those nights Margaret and Suzie - the sailor's friends
Prospered fully by surrendering themselves,
Remembering too, but some yards from Lovell's Wharf;
I lost what little innocence I had stored.
Judge Not
Judging human parasites—freeloaders
Foul fodder feeds these plights.
Judges accost not mans flights.
Homeless victims feel the blights.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
References: Englyn Unodl Union (Straight One-rhyme Englyn)
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/411009
Oliver is the cox of the LTA mixed cox four team,
And graduated from Warwick Uni in Philosophy,
Where he started rowing at once in his first year,
Soon to become the cox of lively rhythmic orality.
After graduating, in his time in the summer holidays,
Oliver decided to improve his coxing skill and voice,
So he worked with different rowers and coaches,
At Lancaster Uni and Southhampton Uni of choice.
He then moved onto the hip Leander rowing club,
Which is in Berkshire and stands olympic famous,
And Paralympic famous, where he was coach paired,
With Brian Armstrong and Chris Collerton ramose.
Leander got him into the rich international scene,
Where he raced with the Paralympic team as new,
And from that first row he’s never looked backwards
As he’s collected a string of medals for his mouth, rue.
In 2014 in Amsterdam, the Nethherlands, the Worlds,
He secured his team a gold on the rippled waters,
And 2015, Alguebelette, France, another World lung,
He coxed his para-team to another gold as otters.
Then in Varese city, Italy, he won the team the gold,
Also in 2015, and so Rio’s gold consequently came,
Without surprise or shock in a time of 3.17.17 mins,
Just 1.26 secs short on WR, Lago Rodrigo lake fame.
Fearless Soldiers
Blood and guts fly all around.
Everywhere death screams its sound.
Fearless soldiers still abound.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
Poetic Form: Englyn Milwr (The Soldier’s Englyn) REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://jpicforum.info/types-of-poetry/englyn-milwr-680.html
Lines: 3; Syllable count per line: 7,7,7; Rhyme pattern: A,A,A
Daydreams
A daydream fanaticizes many things.
Romance sings, rises.
But, real life surmises.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
NOTE: There are several forms for this type of Welch poem. This one is called Englyn penfyr
REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=410
http://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/413765
Thelma Leeson.......
is in a nursing home, dementia will take her,
and I will recite this at her funeral.
Thelma Jane was a Leeson and she was premmie born
Size of a sauce bottle to a tent her tiny form
Oh thy bathed her in olive oil, good for her premmy skin
And mother Eva said to Tom no tent for it’s a sin!
Because she needed better care Jane Tattam took her in
Jane and Morry they were childless, second Mum and Dad did grin
May,1930 the ninth, was when she came to earth
Cool day in a rug , snug as a bug, this tiny babies birth
Her parents then lived in a tent for Tom he was a fencing
With Walter, May, and Henry some of the older kids I’ll mention
Little sister Marge arrived, sugar diabetes so grim
Mum Eva did her best to do the doctoring
Thelma would return to Eva and live in the big old tent
But she was used better things a house and all it meant
Marg was in the Warwick hospital, Thelma drove the sulky in
She clung to the reins, but the horse knew the way there and back again
At school in the forties two Soldiers did walk in
One asked for Fay and Thelma, just brother Walter tall and slim
Nervous Thelma took em to see Tom and Eva at home
Eva said it’s your brother, he’s been a Droving on his own
Thelma would become a nurse, but first she worked in a store
Aunt Jane didn’t like the hair clips in Thelma’s hair she saw
It was in Toowoomba forbidden clips were then a sin
Aunty Jane she made the rules, and Thelma wore em thin .
Thelma was a great Nurse with a timid gentle humor
Prince Alfred in old Sydney, and Mt Olivet would groom her
Michael Lalor of the Irish had captured Thelma’s heart
And Mary arrived a love child, right from the very start.
Then Michael he was called away the lord had taken him
Mary married in the church of Michaels christening….Ireland..
Thelma loved the wedding place, in old Ireland lovely crowd
Mary is her father's daughter, Thelma was so very proud
We always laughed with Thelma for at parties she would cook
At cousin Nell’s the Great Grandkids ate her cakes and sometimes chook
We all miss our lovely Thelma, it’s sad she goes away
But written on the mist of time is Thelma this I say…..Don Johnson
A much loved lady....
Dion Warwick shook me awake this morning
unfairly accusing me of being a 'Heartbreaker'
Over coffee, Neil Diamond chimed in
with his girlfriend 'Sweet Caroline'
The Allman Brothers piled in my car
and did a punishing version of 'Whippin' Post'
J. S. Bach pranced with precision beside me at work
conducting 'Brandenburg Concertos'
Cocky ole Waylon Jennings relieved him after lunch
braggin' that he was a 'Honky-Tonk Hero'
Aretha Franklin nagged me all the way home
claiming I didn't show enough 'Respect'
Jimi Hendrix freaked me out in the shower
with a shocking dose of 'Purple Haze'
Had dinner at 'MacArthur's Park' with Donna Summer
(They served some rather soggy cake for dessert)
Then the whole gang treated me to an evening concert
by the Royal Scottish Bagpipes performing 'Amazing Grace'
Wiping my tears, I bid them God's speed and goodnight
Can't WAIT to see who's on tap for tomorrow...
Someone’s Son
Someone’s son buried alive.
Fighting wars evils contrive.
Mother’s joys cannot survive.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
Poetic Form: Englyn Milwr (The Soldier’s Englyn) REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://jpicforum.info/types-of-poetry/englyn-milwr-680.html
Lines: 3; Syllable count per line: 7,7,7; Rhyme pattern: A,A,A
Machine Guns
Allied forces lie down flat.
Strong, brave, ready for combat.
Hush. Hear that. Rat-a-tat-tat.
Armed, they work without brickbat.
Dug-in. Stressed in metal hat.
Distant screams Rat-a-tat-tat.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
January 26, 2010
Poetic form: Englyn
Poetic Form: Englyn Milwr (The Soldier’s Englyn) REFERENCES follow:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/the_measures_of_1/
http://jpicforum.info/types-of-poetry/englyn-milwr-680.html