aboard the 71, about halfway down the left side
i sit facing forward, heart leaping as he embarks—
he’s on the way to the grocery store,
or his sister’s house,
or work, but he’s running late;
standing room only
he grabs a handle facing me.
he catches my eye and i his,
waves at me with all five fingers and
i wish to hold them in mine, trace
the outline of the bones in his hand,
look into his eyes deeply,
see what’s true;
two stops later, a seat opens up on the right—
one row ahead.
dark, curly hair.
i take measured glances,
don't stare don't draw unwanted attention.
i want his arms around me,
to look into his eyes some more.
he disembarks.
Categories:
disembarks, boy, crush, desire, dream,
Form: Free verse
The fleeting epitaph,
The changing song,
The changing tide,
The bus disembarks its passengers.
The fleeting epitaph,
We go through the final door,
The night comes for us,
We no longer have a seat on dawn’s bus.
The fleeting epitaph,
The shrivelled meadows,
The looming darkness,
The unseen carriage.
The fleeting epitaph,
The sadness it brings,
The grief that hides in us,
The separation that is harbingered.
The living sing a dirge,
They converge and diverge,
The carriage is duty-bound,
Unseen and tenacious in its duty.
Categories:
disembarks, death, grief, inspirational, sad,
Form: Free verse
In that endless night
we heed; cold and bitterness
unto the morning light
Sightless vision binds our eyes
madness disembarks into our lives
A cold dark prison earned
is the bittersweet sentence served
A life stolen and a life lived in hush
tis golden silence upon that burning bush
Trembling utterances on the grave
it's the human heart that we poets save
In this final night and in that coming day
let all that you dream become what may
for once the fires lit, the dream is here to stay.
--------
In response to:
"Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night"
From Auguries of Innocence, by William Blake
Categories:
disembarks, spiritual, writing,
Form: Free verse
A black fly in midwinter
has burgled the warm air of the kitchen.
It struggles for height,
a brittle-winged air-bender
reaching for plateaus,
higher footstools,
grasping for spice shelves
or the slope of a slick cooker hood.
The splutter
of an over-revved engine,
the bolted clicking of insectivore plates.
Up it lifts again
turning like a wounded helicopter
only to crash-land
on a dish of cooling porridge.
Mired, it scoops gravity out
from a clogged exoskeleton
staggers to a porcelain edge.
Heavy airfoils battle a steam laden air.
Its weight now cannot be sustained.
It falls to the hard kitchen floor
spins disorientated on its back.
A dervish dance.
Sibilant thunder-claps
of a now dismantled buzzing.
Will it try again
to lift its wreckage?
Between the paused silence
of a ticking wall-clock
a burnt-out fuselage trembles.
Nothing disembarks.
Categories:
disembarks, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Dawn arrives in a dark widow’s shawl.
A hard sea rubs raw
the knuckled bones of the shore.
The first thing a sailor sees as he dreams of arrival
are the white hands. Sometimes the hands
are land marooned seagulls,
sometimes the hands are the open fists of the sea.
When in a stony village by the waves
he disembarks from the tossing dark,
when he clambers over its sea walls
he laughs, but it is not a merry laughter
more a harsh cry of a wild and restless of joy.
The cobbled streets are shedding their scales.
Fish heads are poking through net curtains.
Mackerels swim in world-weary eyes.
Old men leave their cots
shave their whiskers with a clam shell.
Seaweeds hang like dreadlocks from dripping eves.
Bare cold feet roll over paved stones
all is slipping backwards.
A sailor must wash his face with beer
while bailing green water out of his shipwrecked eyes.
Categories:
disembarks, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Florida is definitely in the USA
I’m kinda worried because Milt will soon be on his way
I found a map and studied it and found a ‘Melbourne’ there
I hope he gets the right plane or he could get quite a scare
So if Milt disembarks the plane and gathers up his clobber
I hope some Shiela doesn’t ask him, ‘How ya doing, Cobber!’
But fear not, Milton, if it happens, you’ll know what to do
Just dial zero, zero, zero, option eighty two
That’s should get a special secret agent sounding man
Just say the coded sentence which is simply, ‘I need Gran.’
Turbo Gran will meet you in her Speedy ice cream van
Her secret code will be to wink and say, ‘I need a man’
You say, ‘I need chocolate sauce, for chocolate sauce is best’
She’ll take you and your luggage and she’ll drop you at Key West
From there though, you’ll be on your own, for I must tell you that
They’ve got crocodiles and they’ll try to eat her cat
But Nitro-Cat will sort them out for he’ll know what to do
Which means that we can only hope those crocs do not eat you
Happy holiday Milt!
Categories:
disembarks, animal, holiday, travel,
Form: Rhyme
NORDIC ECSTASY
You asked me a question, a nostalgic one
Where I was in the seventies
I was in the land of the midnight sun
With the descendants of the Vikings.
Looking at Norwegian rocks, their structure
Along the corrugated coast of the North Sea
I found myself on the lap of pristine nature
As beautiful on earth as it could ever be.
The ice-age glaciers have all melted away
Carving deep valleys for the fjord networks
To enter the lofty land the sea gets waterway
Where on azure clarity the sky disembarks.
Summer sun touches the arctic horizon
Goes up unset at the midnight hour
The sunshine on the night hangs on
Making the body clock go haywire.
The grey sky flushed with the aurora flare
Gleaming winter nights danced on the snow
I could still feel the Nordic ecstasy of the air
Though it touched me such a long time ago.
February 22, 2018.
Categories:
disembarks, beautiful, memory, nature,
Form: Rhyme
When the unforeseen mistrel swipes the land,
tiny warriors trudge against the force.
“Back down! Retreat!”, the general commands.
The musketeers recoil back on course.
Then the torrent readily disembarks,
the entire army rolls up horse and foot.
A few lucky ones hop on Noah’s ark,
their chiseled armors soaked with sludge and soot.
When many lightning bolts descend to strike,
the runnel puts on a golden brown cloak,
keep spinning to show and tell, like a tyke.
Unheeded, the beast goes berserk and croaks.
Then emerges an ugly tsunami,
too marred, the canoe gives in to this strife.
Unyielding, the orts repair unity,
primed to take it down head-on with their lives.
When the wreckage is wrecked with such a flair,
then their raw thumbs stands upright in the air.
Categories:
disembarks, boat, soldier, war, weather,
Form: Iambic Pentameter
A creamy white egg clings to a milkweed plant
As a gentle spring breeze blows
Within a time not too distant
A caterpillar will emerge and grow
A short time later it will transform once more
As it turns into a cocoon
Something beautiful is in store
Which we'll see quite soon
And then from its cocoon it disembarks
As it feels the warmth of the sun
This is the birth of the Monarch
A creature from which poems are spun
It waits awhile for its wings to dry
Before it makes its maiden flight
And then, when the time is right
It takes to the air with royal delight
And I watch in awe as the butterfly flutters by
A regal beauty soaring through the sky t
Categories:
disembarks, butterfly,
Form: Rhyme
As the moon shines on
You become my dawn
Softly as the rose petals
Moisten in the morning dew
So does our love
sparkle in this worlds view
Your love becomes me
I pamper a new melody
My eyes receive a new spark
My heart subtly disembarks
My life sails in the sea of hope
I pray to God to let our love show!
Categories:
disembarks, happiness, husband, love, wifelove,
Form: Romanticism
a church softball team
disembarks from a truck bed
and hits the ball field
Categories:
disembarks, art,
Form: Haiku
So she disembarks and disengages, -1
People try to read her like a book,
But she’s missing pages,
No one even noticed her gone for ages,
So her mind just rages on,
No one ever knowing she’s gone,
To him it’s just another one of her cons,
But he decides to linger on anyway,
Doesn’t want to be another statistical runaway,
Yet, he still can’t ignore what the people say,
Their words of hate that scar and fray,
So he does is best not to stray,
And remember what his mother used to say,
Another time, another day,
Another place, another way…
1- First line is from "Death of a Martian" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Categories:
disembarks, death, friendship, peace, sad,
Form: Free verse
With you - to some quiet space,
from lurid qualifying's haze,
that sanctions less of you in my embrace,
and disembarks all holiness in grace.
I pray to know thy substance in mine - brace,
as no foul wind could obstinate with trace,
and sound of hurt confine to one exchange,
thy building in my mind, as in thee, place.
Away - some timeless hold, as when thy face
is in all life I know, as seeing raise
a hope, that God's true promise not appraise,
from when a value subjects cost, then stays.
This happening - all life that lifts to praise,
is love from God for you ...satisfied ways!
Categories:
disembarks, love, life,
Form: Rhyme