Rising above my fears,
Steers my projection,
In the direction of my reflection.
A collection of experiences,
No one has clearance to,
Creates my personal view,
And situations i go through.
Repeating until i learned what to do,
The true reason you feared,
Clearing it from the wheel.
Feeling free for just a moment.
"ENCROACHMENT"
An event triggered the scent,
It went even faster now I'm bent,
Sent reeling into emotions,
A commotion you could hear,
Draws the fear offsides,
Inside pressure is rising,
Deciding how its revealed,
Really hiding a dig deal,
The solution concealed,
Until the pollution is cleared,
Another fear goes down,
I'm bound to find more,
When exploring why I'm here,
Steering clear from what I know,
Getting lost in the shadows,
Growing towards the light,
Fighting fears in my sight,
Face-Everything-And-Rise,
You might get a surprise.
shun the encroachment of the dark
focus intently at the task at hand
blinded to peripheral vision
wriggle free of your silhouette
present beyond the corner
circles encompass
captured by crescents
spinning in their circular hold
neither freedom nor imprisonment will ride
reality is just the ache of the dream
the muddled yell & yawn
every emotion a mere numbing agent
sometimes, I think I peeled away the relief
but the block forms are pattern upon pattern
and I'm a diminishing darkness
at the approach of dusk.
The hills,once green,now bare
yeild to poppy fields.
in rainy season,fierce torrents race down
towards the valley.
And in the valley,ancient rills-
dug by the kings,
most of them now chocked and buried
encroached out of view.
So water gushes wild
past the old foundations deep,
swallowing homes,roads,and,markets
without mercy in the monsoon's cruel roar.
Coming to my locality,
a rill that drain water stood for ages
encroached by the selfish ones
whose places remain dry
even in the rainy season.
And that rainy season brought
floods to our doors.
Our locality drowned,homes flooded once more.
Then the local club rose,
cleared the clogged course,
and waters receded- the levels fell low.
Relief washed over us.
But this very winter,
scourge struck anew;
encroachment returned
as intruders broke through.
The rill level does not drain;
the cycle repeats
the levels stay high again.
Once more we brace
for the rains yet to come.
It is a perennial threat
to our safety,weilded not by outsiders
but by the majority of people
from amongst us.
Pensile clouds of a new Truth loom.
With them are selected versions of
Extinct grief.
Looking through the yellowness of a
Dog’s eyes, this aura of Truth, pervasive,
Sours my palate.
What say the bulletins and tabloids
In their speech potency?
Have they recoiled on the sudden encroachment
Of stale seas
Or have they rolled out drums for Haley’s ROOTS?
Between Kamby Bolongo of watery essence
And the forested, warm plains of Juffure, ROOTS!
And drums fashion themselves out for Kinte,
Who must tap gently the face of the drum
For earthly summons.
From sinuous, valleysome frontiers backward,
We yodel loud,
Fronting bands of ROOTS.
They'd wade at standards to be seen by most.
The Spoon-billed Sandpiper, who shares wading,
to dying, one hundred ten, and counting.
Stretched East Asia, Russia through China ... host.
They've spoon-shaped bills to help them scoop up moss,
insects, shrimp, and worms. They are renowned for
their calls, which males fly and sing a rapport,
sounds like 'preep' and 'wheer' can stretch it across.
Human encroachment on their feeding and
breeding wetlands threatens their survival.
Predators plague their nest a revival,
two decades, numbers dropped by two thousand.
The ascension for most and few still greens,
a descension of value bows night scenes.
Your beauty
does not need to wear a skimpy bikini
or hide behind a painted mask of vanity
Your beauty
may push against the edges of the mold
but that is a mold, cold men created blindly
Your beauty
does not yield to the encroachment of time
but transforms to embrace reality
Your beauty
is in a smile with crooked lips
the tears shed to offer others sympathy
Your beauty
is in arms outstretched for a hug
and in a heart filled with dignity
Your beauty
reads my words before they are written
it inspires my hopes, dreams, and poetry
When i died, hush bequeathed the Scrabble Board
The once weighty tomes floated off cramped shelves
Whilst married letters argued midst themselves
Phonics quivered sans the vowel adored
O' warm vowel with the prominent dot
Disarrayed lost words bowed their heads and cried
On that sonant solemn day when i died
Shrouding the dot with a forget-me-not
Ill-fated, O' How could i bear such strain
Replaced without heart in a scrabble game
From die to dye, opponents scored higher
Of y's bold encroachment on i's domain
And when i died in Craig, one must exclaim
Replaced by a y, does it create Ire?
Date: 11/04/23
I died poetry contest
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
Workers in the rice fields,
Labourers on agrarian land,
They move in rows and columns,
They work assiduously until they are spent,
Until twilight wears its garment over the region.
It's the golden season,
The season that precedes the dry,
It’s a season when the land yields bountifully,
The land births a teeming population,
Nature has smiled over the fields.
They gather their harvest in silos and local shelters,
There’s enough for the home and market,
Then comes the annual festival,
They sing songs in their indigenous dialect,
They come out in colourful attire,
They extol Nature for his kind and merciful acts.
The town is a shadow of itself,
It sits in forlorn hope,
A lonely wind sweeps through its streets,
The fields have become a haven for birds and unseen creatures,
Land dispute, encroachment and trampled rights,
These threesomes have stripped the land of its beauty,
They have pushed the town down the cliff.
November 8, 2022.
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 22 Poetry Contest,
Mark Toney.
A charm of finches flew in circles
disappearing entirely into surreal mist
that now camouflaged the field.
It seethed around rows of trees
until all was invisible:
Silence reigned,
supernatural eerie feeling
took over my thoughts.
Fog's gradual encroachment
over hills and cliffs:
Swirling unearthly atmosphere.
I felt distressed.
My heart beat erratically,
hours of inexplicable mystery
shadows vanished as mist thickened.
I trembled with an unnamed fear.
The finches flew to safer gardens.
Screeching gulls took their place.
Across bay fog horns sounded,
as confounded boats lost direction.
Echoes resounded throughout paranormal night.
Breaking dawn witnessed sea change.
Soon I awakened from my stupor.
Like curtain rising mist dissipated,
leaving memories of that uneasy time.
Pixabay image by: ArtTower
The brown bear
During Yeltsin years when he sold Russia down the river
People in the west loved the brown bear
we patronized the Russian as vodka swilling village idiots.
The cuddly bear died, and a steely-eyed fox to the helm
and the Russians was no longer cuddly.
The Russian federation was no longer willing to play
the game ascribed by the western press no longer willing
to be pushed around and laughed at.
Putin, the fox, turned Russia into a modern state that has
a modern army that is powerful if stirred by the west.
Russia wants peace but does not like the encroachment
by NATO/US, that is like Indians in western movies
encircling the wagons.
Putin, president of Russia, vilified by the western media
and the EU, ain’t forgiving
even the capitalists know this and stalk carefully.
The waves rolling in crash against barren rocks
Where seagulls nest in the stark narrow crevices,
Their sharp squawking cries are heard for miles
Warding off the encroachment of large raptors
Which swoop down and threaten the fledglings,
While the smashing surf mutes their angry cries.
Time has honored the integrity of the boulders
Against the sea, nature’s fortresses, separating
The lower sea water from the high chalky cliffs
Nature, too, protects the stronger of the gulls
That will one day soar high above the whitecaps
And forage along the isolated shell-rich beaches
Only to return in spring to the shallow fissures,
Their birthplaces, to lay their eggs high above
The persistent pounding of the breakers below.
FIRST PLACE WINNER
written June 17, 2021
Brian Strand's "All Yours" Poetry Contest
Indus River Dolphins are listed as, endangered
and are only found in the lower parts of Indus River, Pakistan
They are believed to have originated, in the ancient Tethys Sea
when it dried up, about 50 million years ago, an antient discovery
They are one of four, river dolphin species and sub-species
and they spend all their lives, in fresh water rivers
They use echolocation to navigate, hunt and communicate
as they’re functionally blind, and adapted to muddy waters
Numbers have declined, because of human encroachment
destroying their habitat, with all this human development
building dams and barrages, that degrades their migration
and other threats are, bycatch, poaching and pollution
Black-Footed Ferrets are listed as, endangered
and are the most endangered mammals, in Northern America
They inhabit the grasslands of, the Northern Great Plains
and are the only ferret species, native to Americas colonies
Native American tribes, landowners, conservation and organizations
have given the black-footed ferrets, a second chance for survival
but habitat loss from, human density encroachment developments
and ongoing plagues and diseases, only decreases their revival
Voice of Mother Nature
From the centuries
My time was under pain
By the evolution of researchers, scientists
Revolution of industrializations
Diggers ploughs wounding in my chest
Encroachment from my womb
Fossil fuel, coal, sand, stone, river banks, rivers, forest etc;
In the name of industrialization and human settlements
For the benefits of human being
Due to this I was suffered a lot
I feel my children’s suffered more than me
Now I feel relief some extent for a short period
Today my children’s are praising my status
At present sky is clear, air quality is better to breath
I feel proud my children’s are aware on their health and future generation
I am not different than your mother
I am Mother’s nature
By nature I am kind and cruel
You must have experienced pandemic in the past and now
Please understand my capacity and follow my advices
Important is your mother’s health and yours not wealth.
01st May 2020
Along a country road,
beyond the guard rail,
past the visible vines,
lurks an ancient jungle.
Most who travel pass
don’t have an inkling of
the depth of the danger—
this cliff so close by,
this mystery in their midst.
The steep-slanting ground
and lush vegetation
in quintessential green
drop, and drop again
to a long-forgotten brook
that one can only hear--
though perhaps by peering,
one can glimpse refracted light
sparkling from its surface.
After blithely flowing
through this lost world
of twisted roots and tree trunks,
the creek quickly merges
with the Quaboag River,
and, coming into normalcy,
loses some allure.
Another mystery calls from
this roughly hewn valley
(gouged out by ice sheets
and still too severe
for human encroachment).
More resonant than the birds
and deeper than the stream,
it registers in a region
somewhere in the soul.
Taking one by surprise,
this precarious paradise
suddenly feels familiar,
as though we’d been there once,
as though we all belonged there,
long, long ago,
before the last ice age,
in some primal place
before mills and industry,
before roads and rails.
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