Peaked like a gambrel roof.
Gambling for dun gold.
Axion, axiom, aloof.
Red ochre, old sold.
Cairn by the roadside?
Stacked rocks, a cache prepared.
Treasure someone tried to hide?
Looks like he got scared.
Snow, cover the landscape.
O ice, freeze others out.
Mellifluous, monster? Gape.
Crowd, you saw the rout.
Wasp and hornet, stingers sharp?
Yes, and barbed as well.
Angel, do you play the harp?
Demon, dwell in hell?
Chaos, birth in me a star!
Dancing free and fine!
Gaze, through haze! From near to far!
Belladonna, wine!
Resonance, a game of chance?
Let us play to win.
Downpour, between drops we dance!
Flippers, flick thy fin!
Ichor, wicker, nicker.
Thicker than water, blood?
Well, it's in the liquor.
Get sicker, O my brood.
Xiphoid, grip and push upward.
Solar plexus, wait.
Guts of mine, thy life is hard.
Fortunate, O fate?
Demon, bitter are thy days.
Pore o'er, anima.
Raking leaves for bonfires? Blaze.
Ice within me, thaw.
Weathervane, point to the stars?
Sky is full of these.
Half the year, like lids on jars.
Hide, O mysteries.
Blossom, honeysuckle.
Grow wild as ivy vines.
Knees of challenger, buckle.
Ocean, boil thy brines.
Tempest, grow tall. Hurl, O cloud.
Gun, thy machine nest.
Famous faces, lost in crowds?
Blessed bid bile best.
Ray of sun, burn evil out?
Sure, if sure you can.
Shade, what is thy life about?
Love, span what's began.
Frenzied fate, sing. Loud, my Muse.
Hound dog, quiet bay?
Proserpina, disabuse?
Well, sir, I just may.
Gauntleted fist, hard thy strike?
Don't fall off thy bike.
Spend time with a girl you like.
Barracuda? Pike.
Spike atop the city walls?
He who mills then mauls.
Chaos, how thy dancing calls!
Entropy, thy awls.
Perception, thrum! Warp, thy woof.
Steady heartbeat, ply.
Gambrel are the peaked roof?
Dreamer, thought must fly...
Sacred are the living?
And just why would that be?
Decay, gifts a-giving!
Under the skin to see.
Light, fall fast! Soul, fly away.
Poison, work thee hard.
Sunlight in my sky, shine grey!
Crystals, bear thy shard!
Emperor of ancient world?
Best that ye revive.
Spear in warrior hands a-hurled!
No longer alive!
Doom, claim all. End Times, begin.
How else can we win?
Blanch everything, light of Sin!
Drown it all, O vin!
Wicker man and bickering mare.
Tortoise, eat the hare.
O tornado, on a tear!
Thunderstorms aren't rare...
Warp and woof. The Devil's hoof.
Gambrel, pitch and roof.
Smoke of bonfire, in a poof!
Joker, time to goof!
Hated are the days of man.
Lengthen not each span.
Clock of mankind, how you ran!
Eat, reptilian!
Aim dead center, O aeon!
Era, this is now.
Ergo, O my stern scion;
Come to anyhow!
Looking-glasses are like wind.
Reality grinned.
Terror, tiger, tamarind!
Sacred til he sinned...
Gaunt the gambrel goblin?
No smile a-face today.
Whirling dervish, loud the din!
War, be on thy way!
Grey of the nebula pond;
Why is waiting good?
Yellow-speckled viper yawned!
Gone but understood!
Kingdoms are like prophecies?
Yes, in this context:
Rife, roil, rampant, rare! Disease!
Hell and Heaven, hexed...
Sort it out, O sordid sigh...
Do not ask us why?
Sylvan silver, art thou shy?
Bargain basement buy?
Syllable, unleash thy wrath!
Letters, break the chain!
Poems, place us on the path!
Language, take the lane!
Young is this old harpsichord?
Harpy, use a sword?
Bull, matador. Which gets gored?
Folly gets you floored.
Holly. Mistletoe, thy doom.
Poison, flow like wine.
Ivy, rune, ice, ancient tomb.
Cyanide strychnine.
Drag along the prophet?
Oracle, break the grip.
Tools of iron and Tophet!
Let the heavens rip!
Flippered horrors on the crawl?
Subterranean tour.
High hells? Hand in overhaul.
Liquid has its lure.
Dour the towers in late spring?
Rim of crater wide.
Drench the world, O undying!
Ocean, loose thy tide!
Grim the gambrel gangrel?
Volcano, downward run.
Belladonna, bell and spell!
Young and yellow dun.
Coals a-glow, infernal life?
Dance upon my knife!
Demon-sultan, play thy fife.
Rampant round and rife...
Strife, goals. Remotest controls?
Lost as ancient souls.
Broken, are ye, golden bowls?
Doldrums, dole and tolls.
Holes producing matter?
Apogee, twist with pain...
Night upon the latter?
Floodwater, course from main...
Amid the glacial hills of central Maine
There stood forsaken, gray, an ancient farm,
Which always filled us with a vague alarm.
Atop the humpback ridge of a moraine,
Abandoned now, for centuries it stood,
Defying time, and ice, and hurricanes.
Its windows now were yellowed, cloudy panes,
Its weathered clapboards, bleached unpainted wood.
We’d see its silhouette against the dusk:
Its gambrel roof was reared against the skies
With dormers like two staring, evil eyes—
Unyielding in their aspect, heartless, brusque,
Perhaps a touch of malice in their glare.
And though untenanted for many years,
It never failed to stimulate our fears,
Because the house seemed gleefully aware.
But was it haunted? So we all assumed.
Yet still each May we’d watch as swifts would nest
And use the eaves and dormers for their rest;
And in its dooryard fragrant lilacs bloomed.
February 16, 2019
Enclosed Rhyme Poetry Contest
Emile Pinet, Sponsor
one more day
just one more day
to kill your memory
and wash away the sin
I’ll use a bolt gun and straight
blade for the slaughter
a gambrel hook and clothes
line for the hanging
your pink nose and cow
eyes will crumble in the wind
and I’ll dance on the mustard
ceilings of our farmhouse
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