Dock of the Cosmic Bay
Did Sun Ra think in holographic time/
past and future turning on one wheel/ Saturn ringing like a cymbal beneath Marshall Allen’s horn and its cosmic cry/
The Arkestra boarded freight trains of sound/ smoking rails through midnight skies/
robes bright with Egyptian constellations/ saxophones splitting the dark into day gigs of wonderment/
Then Otis rose from the Georgia gospel/
His voice is rough as rope/ warm as bread/
singing from the Dock of the Bay where silence waits/ and every wave remembers the dead/
One built a vessel out of thunder and space time/
One made heartbreak a soulful testimony/
Both knew Earth was only a classroom/
Space is the place/ Soul time music was the reason why/
When time has officially ended/the stars lean close to hear what/
Sun Ra's Arkestra drifting across the water, a cosmic chord dissolving fear/
Space is the place/
Otis Redding's Soul music is the way/
And love/ the oldest spacecraft/
carries us beyond today.
Contest: poem dated Aug. 1st onwards
Brian Strand
Taking stock of our present inventory
Is great insight and a wealth of wisdom.
It matters not if there's glory; it's our story.
There is no joy in carrying yesterday's burdens.
Yesterday, as the song says, may have
Been an easy game to play , but this is today.
Oh, make no mistake, yesterday has much to say.
We may draw much wisdom from yesterday;
But remember, that was then; this is now.
The weight of yesterday's burdens is different
Today than yesterday. Much of what we once
had has boarded the plane. It has moved on,
and we must do the same.
Indeed, let us take stock of our present inventory,
Appreciate the lessons learned from yesterday;
But ever treasure the now and value the future.
When he said his name didn't believe it to be
thought the boy was making fun of me
Through diabetes had lost two toes
wearing sandals and it shows
Gordon was really an okay kid
kinda thin like he needed to be fed
Bushy wavy hair with eyebrows to match
as if above his eyelids bushy caterpillars had hatch
His voice was squeaky being a growing boy
lips thin, eyes big and ears like a Dumbo toy
He was average height looked healthy enough
but breathing through his little nose looked tough
His smile was his charm and lighted up the place
had to smile back seeing his cute smiling face
Gordon skate boarded and the boy could fly
soaring off ramps into the sky
He must have done skateboarding for awhile
falls were few and he had that skater's style
He looked young but was tall for ten
as a kid likable always with friends
Growing fast as a boy should
that Gordon kid in my neighborhood
Was polite and respectful but a tinge of sass
but that smile cover for him his laugh oddly rasp
Never had children through the point may be moot
If I ever had a kid hope he would be like Gordon Oddfoot.
A winding, desolate road stands before me,
Covered in white ashy soot.
As nuclear winter stagnates,
Grey corpse clouds spill a thousand secrets,
While asphyxiating dust cakes a boarded-up shack in the faint distance.
Loneliness settles into obsolete bones.
I've been searching for what feels like eons now,
For any semblance of humanity.
Scarcity of food looms with each passing second,
For even the few remaining animals have become paper-thin,
Their skeletons protruding through stretched flesh.
A bitter cold silently encompasses the atmosphere.
Summer evaporated that fateful day,
Never to come again.
Continuing my treacherous trek,
I come upon the frost-tipped shack.
Peering through the gaps of a door half blown away by the aftershocks,
Hope dies, as once again, emptiness is all I find.
My eyes well with tears, only to be interrupted by an uncontrollable cough.
Spitting blood into my hand, the symptoms are getting worse.
Residual radiation is taking its toll.
Death's warm embrace will be welcomed.
But until that fateful day, I continue this journey alone,
Perpetually seeking any voice to ring out in a macabre, self-fulfilling apocalypse.
It was five to midnight.
The railway station,
Dark and cold.
In a pool of light,
A woman stood alone on the platform.
Waiting.
Suddenly a tall man in a mackintosh coat
Clattered down the stairs,
And walked briskly towards her.
Sharply she swung round to face him.
He checked, and spoke urgently,
His words hanging like droplets of blood
Suspended in water.
Without removing her eyes from his face,
She brushed past him
And boarded the train.
Yellow yield light
Don't blink -- you'll miss it
Faded boarded churches
Faith for sale
Billboard salvation on the side of the road
Red traffic light
Pink clapboard House
Speed down to twenty
Bump over the tracks
Blind crest ahead
I blinked
A square building called Gilbert's Cove Lighthouse,
built way back in 1904 high above the water;
it was home to a man, children and spouse.
The cove calm but it could get white-water,
the red beacon guided boats of all shapes;
keepers kept them from the underwater.
Often rain would crash down like thick white drapes,
the children would huddle in real dread;
for 50 years the family enjoyed dreamscapes.
It was a lighthouse- a home white and red,
in time, it fell to decay and boarded up;
a Nova Scotia lighthouse and homestead.
But, a historical group did a huge cleanup,
now, museum and tea room pick-me-up !
Sent out with a mission;
Embraced with a assignment;
Running through the forest;
Tracking through the valley;
Discovering a boarded cave;
Traversed through a tunnel;
Stumbling upon a hilly place;
Climbing a mountain;
Feeling a lot like a race;
Requiring a ton of grace.
Bad Luck for the Vampire Teeth
It was such a gloomy Halloween day
The Vampire Teeth tinted with blood,
and delicate pinot noir (bottled not yesterday),
went flying over a field of western redbud.
From his side,
a drunk goose
struck him. The Vampire Teeth cried,
‘Watch where you fly, you goose!’
Then ten more geese smacked into him (frown, frown)
So so winded he couldn’t stay in the air,
and he fell quite fast down down down
into a big crack the length of a bear
in the road that boarded the field square.
No one heard his cries for help.
Then his voice box broke.
Then a limping construction worker Mr Kelp
who was too broke
filled in the crack (with some egg yolk)
with cement angrily demanded by the folk.
No more ancient Gaelic Festival of
Samhain for The Vampire Teeth.
All because of
those stupid geese, and that worker Heath.
Miss Tarantula Gets Grounded
Miss Tarantula’s mother was bawling
as she grounded Miss T for eating all the cake
every time she went sleep crawling.
Her mother screamed, ‘That cake,
these cakes, took me hours to bake!’
So very sad Miss T was sent to her full of gloom
warm cobwebbed attic room.
It was already boarded up.
The lockset was covered, covered up
with silk of high tensile strength
of great length.
On a beam above, she was weeping
at the outside hurly-burly of the trick-or-treating.
Which direction are we to take?
Which choices are we to make?
We do not have the luxury of indecision
Great decisions assist us in our mission
Good or bad, we have boarded the ship
Waters, troubled or calm, we take ownership
We or others often get harmed and burned
Then, we apologize, and from them we turn
In the pictures, I’m smiling,
My face deeply tanned,
Surrounded by friends
In a faraway land.
A summer in Israel,
Without any cares,
To spend meeting people
At work picking pears.
We woke at 4:30
And, after a meal,
We boarded the trucks;
Oh, that life did appeal!
So different from all
That I knew from before.
To sweat in the orchards
Felt not like a chore
But like an adventure,
To be there among
Others on their own journeys,
All carefree and young.
What did I not do to achieve it
What did I not do to be fit;
If its recommendation that I'm talking about,
What did I not do to receive it?
Days turned and so did the tide,
It was my turn to get on the jolly ride;
Didn't last too long though,
And all thats left now is sorrow to confide.
The earth says: you're too weak,
So drown into the ocean way too deep;
Believe me, I did get below the ground,
But it was hope there that i found.
Hope said: If its not right,
its not the end;
Its not just the bird that flies,
You too will, just aim for the skies.
And that made me ask myself out,
That "Am I really BOARDED OUT?"
even though we know we have impulsed this dream
from time to time maverick ego taunts us
we just smile and move on atop God’s moonbeam
so thoughts as wisps of smoke no longer nonplus
that earth life is unreal as we so deem
we dwell in peace, having boarded God’s bliss bus
simply enacting our role here as ordained
from erst fears and cravings of ego unchained
Escape: Tribute to George Oliver
"People can't fly when they're backed into a corner." -Tami Longaberger
Centenarian, I can only imagine
What you were thinking
When you boarded your wheelchair,
Headed out the door of the Ewing Wing,
And took the downhill runway.
Surely you meant to take flight-
Bystanders who saw that you had left your Rocking chair
Could only gape in awe at your audacity of hope.
The California Highway Patrol,
Noting that you forgot to fasten your seatbelt,
Rushed in where the federal aviation commission could not.
The CHP took you back to John C Fremont
And bound you to earth for the few days
you had left.
Trapped, we often get our wings late.
My friend, I can only assume, that you,
Despite the new alarm on the door of the Ewing wing,
Are flying high above us
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