You said to speak
To say when it was wrong
But with every whisper
To every scream
Everything is silenced
As if nothing was a thing
You say to speak
But never hear
Nothing but anger at the words whispered in a broken voice
Nothing but rage at the thought of speaking up
Then in the silence
Again you say
Speak up
Broken between different verses
Unable to state which way to go
To be as loud as a thunder storm
Or stay quiet and be chided for not wishing to be heard
Would you even listen?
No, I thought not.
Henrietta Hitch had done it again
I know because I am one of her kin
we all ran over to try to shake her awake
it took an army of relatives and an earthquake
You hypnotized yourself again, her mother chided her
Henrietta came around suddenly, the cauldron gave a purr
we all turned around to see that it was doing a spell by itself
You need to retire that thing, her mother said. Put it back on a shelf.
What none of us knew in that magical witch-like dell,
Was that Henrietta was completely under the cauldron’s spell
The cauldron was waiting for Henrietta to do her bidding.
She sent us packing, saying “I’m not kidding!”
"She reassured me with an unfamiliar line."
Love is a mystery school, yearning for sages
well able to reckon sixes from nines.
True wits should elect sin's disbursements
rather than reflect on love's scenes of rushing bunglers.
Love is sick, blind, unkind. Aren't we cruel?
She chided: brush your flapper, dying blue
between that pair of cheese crackers.
Remove the Devil's Pitchfork from your hair.
Doubling as Dracula, your zeal repealed
by loving an unpersuaded other.
Stay not inconsolable, my weaning one!
She knelt beside me, interpolating my orations.
Entreat for veritable blindness to take better blame.
Apathetic to any flame, resisting even sipping sunshine
interred in the long night of voluminous drapes,
pray for cardiac arrest to efface 1700 hours of shadows.
Perhaps, pray you would love me, and I shall say something of it.
How the birds chitter chatter and the church bells ring.
Daffodils fill the graveyard and are picked by passers-by.
Families attend the spring fair where a florist sells arrangements.
The chided children are guilty of picking flower petals but are
Pacified by their parent’s sternness by partaking in a Spring dance.
Dancing deer dart away out of view in the village field.
Freshly hatched chicks are made victims of the foxes.
But not before the farmers so threaten their temptation by
A gunshot or two.
Another Spring rainfall, the grass greener and greener still.
Dogs are walked in the woods where children accompany wilfully.
They attend church with holy communion and in his honour bread and wine is consumed.
In his remembrance of his resurrection, it is such a ritual, and they are thankful for his offering.
‘You’ve had one too many’
Declared old Paddy’s wife
She always spoiled his evenings
With her ‘trouble’ and her ‘strife’
‘I’m absolutely sober’
He replied with much aplomb
‘I’ve only had a couple
And I’m drinking beer, not rum’
‘I don’t care what you’re drinking,
You don’t know when to stop
I rue the day I married you
You useless, boozy sop’
‘Oh, hold your blather, Missus
Give that whinging voice a rest
The day you married me
I’ll have you know you got the best’
‘Got the best? Well I’ll be buggered
You really are a pain
I wish that you’d get off yer ass
And fix that broken windowpane’
Now at this Paddy got real pissed
And sat up in his chair
‘Don’t you talk to me of work!’
He said with wild-eyed glare
‘I’ve worked myself to death for you
But you only whinge and moan
I swear I’ll clobber you real good
If you keep on with that tone’
But she was unrepentant
And continued with her rant
On and on she chided him
With never ending cant
The last was one too many
For this much maligned hubby
So he lurched across the kitchen
And he hit her with his stubby!
Tied up
Condemned to death
Cursed
Spat on
Guilty of being alive
No escape
Fugitive of life
Slave to desires I'll never get
Beaten
Bruised
Forgotten
Cast in the deepest cage
Loud cheers
Happy faces
Denigrating stares
Scourged
Ridiculed
Scorned
Like a lamb to the slaughter
Chided
Derided
Covered in sores
Noose around my neck
One
Two
Third
Cut.
He hid his Draconian side from her
She was a Pollyanna, her heart pure
Her family disliked him immediately
His serpent-like qualities most of them could see
He whisked her away, out of town and state.
Chastised and chided her if she was missing or late
She had to give away her family and friends.
No one ever knew when or where her journey ends.
(1)
I was frightened in the dark; my panic heightened tonight
by eerie carved faces that left me teary eyed in the park
I froze when I heard evil caws from a murder of crows in flight
I was taunted by friends to go in this haunted place of gloom
My skin bristled; the wind whistled. I was a ghost's mark.
Tried to scream to wake myself from this horrid dream of doom
I was chided so decided to be brave and opened the door
There was a grave bearing my name. Was this a game, a lark?
I'd find new friends. These can never make amends. Nevermore
If this increasing darkness conveys a fear not chided,
as ghostly shadows conspicuously confer mystery:
do I hide or firmly resist being threatened
by their miserable aspect of susceptibility?
Anxiety builds fret inside first slowly, then rapidly?
I squeeze and snuggle a fluffy pillow deep red,
expecting the worse nightmare to appear;
agitated by eerie sounds, I invoke the Almighty!
Dazzling sunrise, come quickly to dissolve
the confinement that obscurity has created;
fog rises, owls scatter seeing glints above...
even bats escape from the awakening world!
A gloomy night such as this is not made for romance,
shivering poet, stay away from the delusive pretense,
the drummer's beats would be more somber
than your verses: be realistic, not a dreamer!
For love cannot walk away
From a searing pain
Scathing its senses
Nor flee the distress
Of fractured tears
Dried at their origin
Thus, does it hide
Within a bit of humor
A silly dance
A chided rebuke
Of memory’s kisses
For love cannot walk away
For it is love
Not a sappy swoon
Destined to wither
In the heat of passions angst
Nor a butterfly
Afloat on wind-blown wings
It will at times shriek loudly
Into the raging darkness
Of billowing despair
Weep softly in the absence
Of a failing presence
Curse in angered arrogance
its fate of loving
And yet it will endure
For love cannot walk away
Proud Earth when prided in a solar meet:
Look I'm alive; none of you as I view,
Ye all are frozen, scorching else, unfit,
Nature has blest me with a rare virtue—
An asset O for eons to cherish,
Destiny’s experiment, you’ll perish.
Sun, ever benign, smiling said sans ire:
I burn my flesh and my very being,
You know not, I get singed in sacred fire
That thy womb warms, my child, autumn to spring.
Feel blessed, and never be such an ingrate,
O pompous wretch, proud to get put-on cheers,
Is this what ye teach to life you create?
For years in right place, go thank all your peers.
___________________________________________
Sonnet | 01.11.2007, revised Jan 2024|
Poet’s note: An odd sonnet which starts with a sestet, followed by an octave. Smug atop the pyramid of life, Earth once felt proud of having created intelligent life. The sun then chided her and advised her to set a good example to her brood, the so-called intelligent life out to destroy her. Beware, as this sonnet says to earth: Grey shall turn thy Green Pride.
“You have a wicked sense of humour”
Someone recently chided
Twisting what seem like serious events
Into silliness quite one sided
That's why I'm here to lighten things up
Adding sunshine to the group
From the great responses coming my way
It seems everyone's happy as poop
It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it
To counter the doom and gloom
That permeates the airways every day
Whisking them away with my broom
A broom of happiness of very good cheer
Coz life's a very short trip
Just live love and laugh at the world
With a happy-go-lucky skip
“You have a wicked sense of humour”
Had it since I was a young'un
Now decrepit but still chuckling away
Every day is for funnin'
A spirited moon skipped and skid
across the silent snowy steppes
as a pale sun sidled and slid.
Her passionate sensuous steps
softly seduced the stars to shine
across the silent snowy steppes.
I beseeched the night to be mine,
singing a sentimental song,
softly seduced the stars to shine.
The Milky Way formed a sarong
surrounding me with deep desire,
singing a sentimental song.
I followed lustily in dire
need of fragrant vanilla grace,
surrounding me with deep desire.
The mystical night chided me,
a spirited moon skipped and skid.
Her radiance had blinded me
as a pale sun sidled and slid.
“You have a wicked sense of humour”
Someone recently chided
Twisting what seem like serious events
Into silliness quite one sided
That's why I'm here to lighten things up
Adding sunshine to the group
From the great responses coming my way
It seems everyone's happy as poop
It's a real tough job but someone's gotta do it
To counter the doom and gloom
That permeates the airways every day
Whisking them away with my broom
A broom of happiness of very good cheer
Coz life's a very short trip
Just live love and laugh at the world
With a happy-go-lucky skip
“You have a wicked sense of humour”
Had it since I was a young'un
Now decrepit but still chuckling away
Every day is for funnin'
DO NOT STAY GENTLE INTO THAT SHELL
Do not stay gentle into that shell,
Old age and death sails to snatch your day;
Wake up against the quenching bell,
For many will think the dark is theirs to sell,
Because time has failed to open the heap of their bay,
Do not stay gentle into that shell.
Great men with great talent, now the wail in hell,
If they had had, the legacies would in silence pray,
Wake up against the quenching bell,
Wise men, who had their gifts in use and so well,
And now too late, they’ve chided with grief on way,
Do not stay gentle into that shell.
Grave men, rot with these gifts, I’m sorry to tell,
With great minds and ideas not heard, what I have to say,
Wake up against the quenching bell.
And you my comrades, with gifts and wisdom, I quell,
Pull out and do the unimaginable now and not to play,
Do not stay gentle into that shell,
Wake up against the quenching bell.
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