GEOFF: A Whet Pirouette Poem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
furry, spry squirrel, Geoff
Chaucer he doth channel
"Come and 'whet thine whistle'."
"Poof! abracadabra!"
Really?
Now Georgie,
you're silly!
be smiley,
beguilely!
Categories:
canterbury, 12th grade, irony,
Form: Other
canterbury bells
so delicate and pleasant
white, blue, lavender …
Categories:
canterbury, beauty, color, flower, nature,
Form: Haiku
Canterbury
So long ago, St Martyrs Field Road was there my home
There is the huge Martyrs monument of witch burning, oh
Forty-three names on the stone, mine will be the new one
I am the forty-fourth, yes, very famous my life of witchcraft
So many times I watched from my room’s window this monument
I had an ominous feeling, always, very often and it happened
Canterbury a beautiful city, historian, part of world heritage
High street, churches, the cathedral, old houses and buildings
Parks, rivers, everything, traditions, old culture, time traveling
St Thomas catholic church was there my favorite place to contemplate
Sixteen years ago. Time is gone. Life goes on and on, Past far on
I never forget the beautiful tall blonde English lady’s coffee. I loved her.
A time I will visit again this city in Kent
Kent, picturesque landscapes, fantastic
Garden of England, says the saying
I will visit again Canterbury
Secretly, like incognito
I hope we will meet
Oh, amazing heart
Categories:
canterbury, fate, life, love,
Form: Free verse
The west winds of springtime
Brought forth April showers
That rained on the pavements
Of Southwick for hours.
It was standing room only
And full to the brim
As people sought shelter
At the old Tabard Inn.
A man with a top hat
Sat staring in space.
There was illness and sadness
Etched deep in his face.
A man with a fob watch
Was seen swapping gold
For a bottle of whisky
Before facing the cold.
A woman sighed deeply
Then laughed with a guest
While sipping tap water
And winning at chess.
There was no chef so no food
Since that dark violent day
When the innkeeper watched him
Being stretchered away.
So the sailor (being followed)
Missed having his tea,
And drank five pints of real ale
Before leaving for sea.
Categories:
canterbury, character, literature, london,
Form: Narrative
For the benefit of any non-Middle-English
speakers, a literal, word-for-word translation
has been provided beneath each line of
the original:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote!
When we've already had enough! of April showers
Whan priketh hem Governeur in oure corages
Our prick of a governor locks us down in our garages
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Ha, ha! Our goon squads are itching to go on barrages
And smale fowles maken melodye
And assault thine ears with foul-mouthed serenades
That slepen al the night with open ye
'Twill fershloft three far aye with mnemonic charades
~ A special thanks to Middle English translator, Barry Kanter
Categories:
canterbury, adventure, literature,
Form: Light Verse
If I had time enough to climb
this Everest of rhythmic rhyme,
I’d find my mind is wandering,
meandering through desert clime.
Each ancient word seems so absurd,
countless of which I’ve never heard.
The ear may hear, though wondering
and pondering what just occurred.
If days had space to ever trace
such epic poems of our race,
long hours of ours lost squandering
time, blundering one can’t erase.
Confine the lines under the bonnet
of sweet brevity's lean sonnet -
levity and glee arise!
These eyes will sing and smile upon it.
written 28 Mar 2020
Categories:
canterbury, poetry,
Form: Rhyme
When we retired we were so inspired:
To live free and rest from our labors.
This mobile home park has lived up to the mark,
But oh, goodness gracious, the neighbors.
Jay the old peeper can snoop through the creeper
And tell if the ladies are bathing.
At times he's been caught and the women have taught
him new curse words in language quite scathing.
Denny got back from the hoosegow and that
is the end of his meth lab's production.
He'll have to report to the man from the court
with his pee to avoid re-induction.
Jen basks in the sun and we all see her bum
Though we tell her it's not necessary.
In England alone she's seventeen stone
And her armpits are ever so hairy.
A lady name Myrtle we call snapping turtle
(You never know when she'll attack you)
keeps her trailer quite clean but she's viciously mean
And if talked to she'll snap right back at you.
There are neighbors with tone, who have made themselves known
And we're so glad to know they reside here,
But an odd PhD and a master's degree
Can't compete with the felons that bide here.
Categories:
canterbury, humorous, retirement,
Form: Limerick
“An Addition to The Canterbury Tales”
By Nicholas Giro
There was also a CANDYMAN, a fine seller of his trade,
Who went along the countryside selling the candies he made.
He was a portly, jolly, and merry fellow
Who always wore red and blue, avoiding the color yellow.
With his short and spiky hair that was painted with smoke,
Many-a-child he did cause to become broke.
Opening his chest of delicious wonders inside,
He enticed the little children, though they didn’t know he had lied.
Oh, what an act he could put on for the sport
That he could have entertained in the king’s royal court!
He told the children that his goods could save lives,
Giving them invincibility so that they could even smack bee hives.
He carried an old sack that held his chest with the treats that could please
The children’s ignorant palates, giving them cavities.
For that was his goal – to rot each and every tooth,
Without expressing the much needed truth.
But he was an honest man who always held his head high,
Going by the motto, “A half truth is a whole lie.”
Categories:
canterbury, adventure, irony,
Form: Rhyme
Write their names in better than the dark mud
Where they died; their life like the wasted sud
Of washed out things; they were the soldiers of the village
The warriors of a hidden war
They saved us from plunder and pillage
And wore with honor their stigma and scar
We had the worst address in the world paling Nazareth too
But we had love, cared for each other
Minotaur saw the weak and knew our brother
Wrap their names in flags of honor too.
Teddy, the short one, Galdys' son
Lascelles, the handsome one,
And Big Ben with muscles to lift a ton
The athletes were Little wicked, and Sonny
The fell like leaves one by one
And no flag flew at half mast in Canterbury
But look at the place, how each find its rank
And without order besieged the bank.
O Canterbury, I remember your sons
Your daughters, and the runs
Of formal power without justice to the rooms
Disshevelled like graveclothes in empty tombs.
Categories:
canterbury, political,
Form: Verse
I saw Possu
And we stood beside the old Calvary church
Where the banks now run their business
From the old house of God
Two old men out of a place stitched with poverty
Remembering the patches
And how our noble heroes died
Before the slander of the state
Before the river of bullets rose in spate
Of lies, since their demise cover the lies
Of men in the figment of honorable lives
And in the callous up and down
Of evening crowd
No one saw the old man cried
Something in the past
His Canterbury had died
His pilgrim dreams were no more.
When I met Joe
There was nothing left to talk about.
Categories:
canterbury, political, old, men, old,
Form: Free verse
I use to hike through Flankers’ un-cobbled street
With easel and canvas hawking my mind
Sketching the apiary’s tenement
Dull gray boxes densely scattered
Through the Spanish needle blooming wild
The brimming bees thought of me sometimes
Like a pest … intruding their waist waggling contrariness
And chased me in their screaming hive
Yet I kept going back there, incessantly, again and again
Something about them I could not shake from my pain,
From my matted mind, merging mnemonics of visual antics
Something more than husking their honey songs, frantic anxieties
Before the reap nectar joy, in deep abyss of altered memories
The image tabernacles … perched precarious icons faultless
Houses like matchboxes on tendril feet
Crablike clings on clustered rocks defying defeat
I lived there safe from the menace of winds that wilted
Better structures framed from punctual plans that silted us
Dams unbroken we flowed …leaving trembling shack of dreams
Clutched tightly in mirthless mothers’ unyielding hands.
Categories:
canterbury, placesme,
Form: Free verse
O to be there again
Little boys dancing for calypso dimes
And the US marines, angelic in white
White rum frolicking in the chapel of their brain
Laughing like water on the ships grey side
Sons, fathers, husbands
Finding respite in the sedulous arms
Of intinerant lovers
Milking their wallets with sugarcane charms
Not that significant fact
That stalled my hunger many days
Is my longing now
But the friendhsips we share then
Bees swinging sibilant songs to tease
The honeyed flow from orange blossoms: hookers of the breeze
We fragment of a frantic civilization
Marginalized by the necessity
That sent us pirating sea shells
Selling purple throated conchs for breeze
Of charity satiated with alcohol and disease
And trees for white flesh of almond nuts
And a safe place to sleep
Above the coral theatre our clouds
Meandering like eyes over the city's
Barren breast in delicious idleness
I long for friends again like those
That made time's calcite hands beautiful
As a stalagmite
In our oppressor's concrete heart ...
My best imagination then
Was our racing kites tugging at clouds
For white puffs of affection.
Categories:
canterbury, childhoodlonging,
Form: Free verse