The high moors slant giddily over gritstone edges
where torrents overflow gallons of sky.
Grouse are blown sideways
by a bone-twisting gale.
The land is harried by fishtailing winds,
a sparse tufted earth blown beyond its roots.
In the valley, cats crouch; dogs snap the air
their barks as full as storm-drains.
Torrid echo’s outrun stampeding frights.
In the village pub,
locals move away from the smoke grimed
rattling windows,
gather around a coal fire in the taproom,
speak about past storms, compare and contrast.
Street sparrows survive
by doing what they always do,
though nobody knows how, what or where.
Life has surely broken me.
I’ve flunked out at Everything.
Why consider equally
When Options just desert Me?
Too grimed up, I cannot see
A single reason surfacing,
Hiding Places changing,
Constantly and arbitrarily,
Disappoint inevitably.
It only ends up baffle-ing
That the Ones who stuck by Me
Were No One and Nobody.
The Needed ones Abandoned me,
Never even wanted me.
Been let down by EveryOne
And 100% of Practically
All and and Every Single Thing,
Left for dead and wasting
To a husk of Me.
So what's the point,
Quite pointlessly,
When you will only
Start new things?
Old ones failing,
Interest lost and dropping,
Forcing hands repeatedly.
Home to pack a bag and leave,
All doors slammed resoundingly,
Locks all changed and shut to me.
Happy Endings Abruptly.
Don't care what you do to me.
Lost my sensitivity:
Burning hurts so painfully.
Once Angry scars
Protect My Heart
From all Hope,
Now lost to me.
It doesn’t hurt, just disappoints.
I have no mass, I’ve been disjoined,
Won’t shatter when you drop me.
All do eventually;
A mere eventuality,
Forgone Conclusively.
We were always a little ash white,
the girls always a bit cleaner;
the soap always green carbolic
the toilet paper always slick and hard to scrunch,
six year old bottoms always a little sore.
The nuns who ran these grey bricked barracks
called it the: Covent of 'Saint Hilda's Sacred Tears.'
There were lots of tears but no saints.
No black kids either, though there were many
seen on the grimed streets. They looked well fed and happy.
We were different. Our parents had sinned,
had broken the golden rule and got caught
birthing the unwanted.
Back then the birch cane was an instrument of love.
From here-on I must paraphrase...
Each Sunday, The scrawny priest
would look down upon us -
speaking thusly:
"You're all sinful
fit only for cannon or factory fodder,
forever doomed to poverty."
A pause while he did the sign of the cross
while mumbling to himself in Latin.
"The righteous must
resign themselves in good grace
to their natural place,
to humbly throw themselves
upon the mercy of their betters."
Such sermons filled us all with much joy,
and we were all briefly uplifted
until the hatchet-faced nuns
led us back to our own special hell.
CIRLCLE OF LOVE AND SELF-REGARD:
Here's now a real prevised time...
Some people only get you grimed,
Since you don't disclose your plans,
For them to know what's on your mind.
Even if you accept to at least opine,
You sagely do that through a mime.
And they see it as a very wicked blow,
That you opt and unpredictably throw.
Which makes them grow insanely cold.
Hence, they unwisely become your foes,
Who always try to kill your beautiful soul,
As they unnecessarily stand to oppose.
But they don't get to know your goals,
That you've kept in a well covered bowl.
Truly, as you work manificently to grow,
They assume you to be acting saucy,
Though you don't stay by being flossy.
Yet, whenever you decide to speak,
You're being tagged as a rebel on heat.
So it's good you've been able to decide,
To intelligently move in the best line.
With regard to your mind and heart,
By holding yourself deeply with trust,
In the circle of love and self-regard.
A mirror up from the Earth world
Was brought, and placed before God.
"My billion and one likenesses!"
Angels with grimed hands just nod.
Grandfather relaxed
While I cleaned his grimed toenails—
He was a tugboat captain.
It was tradition,
As soon as he fell asleep,
I painted his toenails red.
© February 22, 2012
Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: Sedoka me any subject
Sponsored by: Russell Sivey
A Joke on Ellie!
There once was a boatman named “Ellie”
Laughter jiggled his belly like jelly.
He was a fun loving bloke.
That loved to play jokes.
Guess who played one on him; it was Kelly!
The joke that she played was great fun.
After his shave and a hair comb was done,
She carefully groomed his big feet.
His snoring soon meant he did sleep.
Toenails UN-grimed, painted bright red…deed done!
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
February 22, 2010
Poetic form: Limerick x2
Written in memory of my Grandfather. Kelly is fictitious (smiles) but the story is not.
The swaying of bamboo outside,
The ever-flushing ocean of air,
Spoken through the tongues of leaves...
And this is merely outside my bedroom window.
Oh no, folks, I needn't go anywhere on my day off.
Nature pours the Lord right through these grimed screens.
I suggest we do the same:
Find the heart
Pour it out
Breathe the easy-rolling spirit.
Sharing all of our parts.
Paper people frayed blowing scattered
Dilapidated faces of stucco and brick
Mumblings of drivel media jargon
While I sketched my eyes with skyline scrapes
Of tomorrow
Televisions smarmy ooze
A toxin injected with neon deception
Voices droning inconsequential clamor
Between shallow breathes of saccharined guile
While I paint my eyes in landscaped snippets
Of yesterday
Moments will mirror lies whispered in ears
A manufactured beauty of unneeded necessities
Singing radio tunes of superior society’s chaos
Spirits dipped in engineered sorrow
While I pencil my eyes with pieces of sky
Of discovery
I escape this modern world...
In grimed secluded alleyway’s it’s his key into the divine,
Believing deliverance has arrived while he walks this narrow line,
Those eyes begin seeing reality his mind now lucid has cleared,
The truth’s of his past now a cacophony welling up within perfect ears,
Numbing out his nervous system a blind faith blanketed brain,
Sporadic lighting of violent flashes lost within his mind deranged,
Everything once believed assured now snippets of a life long elapsed,
Consigning his soul to valueless spirits his self worth allowed to collapse,
Without destination a wandering shell conforming to push through the days,
Ignoring the voices of pleas and salvation sinking farther within mired haze,
Memories taunting of mandible grasps devouring slowly his will to survive,
Nightmares convulsing those hideous features transforming beauty into
despised,
Shrinking in angst from real vindication devolving back where the journey began,
He ties off his arm inserting the needle releasing the demons inside once again.
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