“This is a familiar route and one of the most common ones (at least to my seasoned eyes; you may find it beautiful)” — overheard.
______
A day like any other,
but also
a day like no other—
She’s losing the threads again.
No—she’s finally starting to see.
—A day like any other.
The bus hustled over
cracked cement in damp air—
a sight scorched
to the back of my skull.
I sat in my window seat
like it’s a
reflex—
a voice nudges me in the ribs
break something— it said
—anything,
just stopping sitting here.
I switched sides
before my brain can question
if it makes sense.
I let my eyes drink out
the other window—
A smidge of red—a balloon.
Something navy—a child’s backpack.
A birdless branch wobbles—
My gaze drifts up,
the sun reply with dazzles—
For a second,
everything rhymed.
It’s a birdless situation in the trees today
Birds have changed the location to stay
Could it be they can’t find any food
If they doubt the spring, its no good
Buds are opening the sun shines on me
But I can’t hear the birds happy twee
They have flown, or they lie down and die
If I only could see the reason why
I would tell you, if you care to know
Hope the birds will return, flying low
At the end of the spring, or at least
With the autumnal winds from the east.
*Image of Ashes Volcanoes Eruptions by Pixabay.
A Cause and Effects
Richter scale gets dynamic
Seismic activity is registering
Voluminous debris goes errant
Birdless skies turn smoke-bound
Land beasts scurry about cornered
Afterward, man gasp-nature acts asap
2021 June 28
*HM*
Bite Size Poem no.9
~~Line Gauthier: Judged 2021 July 02
plastic seas sick and
dissipating birdless skies
swaddle ash and dust
***
Under this asphalt sky
i sit pondering life
enjoying these quiet hours of the night
by myself
no unwanted guests
to throw me off my thoughts
I sit for hours
then miraculously
the dawn breaks through the night
like a knife
awakening every critter
the birdless sky
begins to fill with life and sound
I am embracing every moment
I never know which way to turn per se
Enhanced emotions flooding to the top
My lifestyle once was simpler than it's now
Gone are those years of equilibrium
Shades of the night now blending into day
Those tears for joy now stranger to my cheek
I shuffle while the world moves on full speed
Fading faces giving advice to heed
But I have only feet for regret street
Down on the boulevard of broken dreams
"Hope is a wickless candle" I once read
Though I must hold hope closely to my heart
With faith for me to be the air to breathe
For life without both is a shallow pond
Imagine if you will a fishless sea
A birdless sky, a world animal scarce
14~June~2017
(Iambic pentameter)
I want a day of full repose
With only Nature within sight,
For only then I truly might
Attain the peace which she bestows.
A while ago, two swallows came
To raise their younglings in a nest
Below the roof, and I felt blessed,
But then they vanished all the same.
The chirping birds were scared away;
Their glade and merry woods are gone.
As for warm shelter, there is none
And, without birds, my life is gray.
I cannot blame their choice or rage
Against the deeds of my own kin;
Although man’s craft and will can win,
A birdless world is but a cage.
Find my poems and published poetry volumes at www.eton-langford.com
Alas, in the entirety of my composition I see, I feel, now, a part missing whose shape is strange, a form which nothing, without and within, might fill;
It is you, My Dear, whoever, wherever you are; you are the missing part, My Love, the phantasmal modicum;
One day you will come to me, and the hole will be plugged, and this frosty winter draft will cease to blow about the creaking corridors of my being; My Dear, the leaks will stop;
I won’t feel so heavy, so down; I will be full yet light, cumuli; I will be complete; alas, you are but a fiction, My Love, a lie, a distant note of hope, dishonest as a child’s laugh above a funeral’s solemn load;
For it too will cease and perish as the white dove, above turmoil and war, will fall and rot;
But you’ll see me through this hueless, harrowing day of trees crawling about my blank, birdless sky;
My Dear, for now, at least, My Love, for now, at least, My Lie, from now till the last, everywhere, nowhere.
FROSTY DAY IN THE CITY
Wetless day, birdless trees,
Witless denizens of metropolis
Long await the bus into
The delights of Manchester.
Townless bus waiters -
Their earphones are essential
For Deaf Man’s Buff -
Tuneless music.
In this season of dry winter
Cold winds dusty streets dry surface
Leafless willows barren fields birdless trees,
I can’t offer you!
A fragrant rose or a leafy twig of unripe almonds
Or raw fruits of peach or dried Ladhakhi apricots.
Nor can I show you!
Farmers visiting their ripening crops, trout-fishes fluttering in pond,
Sheep herd in green meadows, goats climbing mount,
Or free-horses in vast pastures graze;
Garden of hundred flowers—lovers holding each other close
By the breezy bank of the gushing stream;
Emerald grass shining dew singing birds sprouting bud roaring streams serene shade
Sauntering buffalos sleeping shepherd
And beside surging springs nomads tent,
Or white clouds so-scattered
Floating low in the blue sky.
Nevertheless; today I will!
Present you my voiceless love,
In the form of a long hug, and eyes brimmed with tears.
TWO-FACED TREACHERY
January is the warmest month. Her loss grips my heart,
Her treachery is colder than two-faced Janus:
My innocent youth feels old and lost
As the cold and frost grips my coat.
Snow Queen month: in eye and heart solitary
Ice pierces and everything’s a distorted way:
The frost ferns on the windows of my soul
Are hostile, cold and cruel in January.
January starts from a cold past
And leads to hope of naught but cold.
January stops each river’s flow, but cannot withhold
My tears splashing in winter’s blast.
Lifeless heart connot fly nor soul blossom.
My future’s given away to her who betrayed.
Birdless January, leafless January, heartless January -
No hope springing eternal in this year’s bosom.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written and entered by Sydney Peck
In Nette Onclaud’s Contest PERSONIFICATION OF JANUARY
Mission Accomplished
Basra, 2005
He doesn’t cry about it
anymore. No tears
in years. On occasion, though,
those who know him
see his good arm fly,
fist up, just above his eye.
So far the sun each time
has backed away,
allowing him to walk,
his good arm ready,
through the village
one more time
where he and others
picked off Shia
on a birdless
summer day.
Donal Mahoney
Basra, 2004
He doesn’t cry about it
anymore. No tears
in years. On occasion, though,
those who know him
see his good arm fly,
fist up, just above his eye.
So far the sun each time
has backed away,
allowing him to walk,
his good arm ready,
through the village
one more time
where he and others
picked off Shia
on a birdless
summer day.
Donal Mahoney
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