Water circulates somewhere in the US
Where rain isn't left to condense,
To well, like life leaves space for time.
I'm fanning my hands on a street in
London, Soho, where we never went
But an unplaceable conversation is in the tides of heat, one that spoke of Her.
I decided I needed something disposable -
A balloon-buoy swayed with an unease that carries -
Eyes that make mothers cross the road.
I bought one and he gave me two more, haggled, too hot to... fight. Paid, left with this in my hand.
On the bridge. Wish I had a weight.
It's a pain to hold but I don't want to watch my money sweep past Big Ben and the disgustingly scenic city scape.
Water circulates like these e-bikes.
Round the pre-plotted roads -
I think of the Romans, dead in the ground.
There's probably a few still in the Thames.
Death feels so historical.
We discovered clouds that hold rain forever.
I have everything in my pocket.
Within arms
Reach
We dickered and haggled the vendor and me
The price I wanted to pay he could not see
Fifty US dollars is my final offer, I said.
I’ll keep it he replied; probably until he is dead.
An empty packet of Gauloises,
black coffee, a croque monsieur.
An aromatic café
breakfast in the Montmartre.
Later I switch to Camels,
a bumpy ride to seek out a friend
in the sixth arrondissement,
that night I left my Dunhill lighter
on her bedstand.
The cigarette lighter
had value,
I had haggled for it in Malacca,
eventually a young Hindu guy
reluctantly parted with it
as if selling his own grandmother.
Malaysia smoked lucky Strikes,
sold as single sticks,
you could buy them at any age,
they kept them in a glass jar
on the counter like candy.
Our generation thought it
too high a risk to die old,
and yet here we are
still lingering by the La Brea tar pits
looking for smoke signs.
she conjured up a cunning rasp
a gewgaw lyre-like harp in clasp
to crooked teeth held in their grasp
then twanged at midnight with a blast
this higgled haggled haggly crone
did dance on graves while all alone
her gewgaw raising mottled bone
‘til joined by dead with rotting moan
bats within the steeple saw
the witch’s pointy nose and jaw
and from her mouth came sounds galore
an array of growls from her gewgaw
so off did dance and prance and play
the bones of dead and her away
from grave to street did people say
beware the gewgaw witch today
victorian canal life - the reality (a true tale from from my maternal heritage )
We left our abode
in old Cowfair
haggled a price
for an old shire mare
Onto the
landlord's canal boat
lock stock and barrel
for a life afloat
farewell to our
Buckingham birthplace &
its meagre living
from old point lace
dawdled slow
up to Cosgrove
taking our meals
. . around a blackened stove
our moveable house
painted castle& rose
not a life
we would have chose
Eighteen fifties harsh
&
mean
coal cargo
so nothing stays clean
doff your cap touch your forelock
every two mile
at
the gatekeeper's lock
Fresh food scarce
except for fish
perch & roach
a staple dish
clothes dry
on a washing line strung
out for a timeout
the toddlers young their
number so soon increased & grew
places to sleep
all too few
family life impossibly hard
so back to a tied cottage
in
Aylesbury's Anchorage yard
Copyright © Brian Strand | Year Posted 2007
A black powder 1868 colt revolver.
Dad’s rusty Buck knife.
A few old Zippo lighters.
Ivory figurines haggled over
with an illicit trader in Shanghai,
same for a two hundred year old
silk rug never trod upon.
A tin box with a broken clasp
containing some things
I cannot now speak of.
A few other keepsakes
that when I look at them
remind me of how I got here,
and how I sometimes
lost my place.
We left our abode
in old Cowfair
haggled a price
for an old shire mare
Onto the
landlord's canal boat
lock stock and barrel
for a life afloat
farewell to our
Buckingham birthplace &
its meagre living
from old point lace
dawdled slow
up to Cosgrove
taking our meals
. . around a blackened stove
our moveable house
.painted castle& rose
not a life
we would have chose
Eighteen fifties harsh
&
mean
coal cargo
so nothing stays clean
doff your cap touch your forelock
every two mile
at
the gatekeeper's lock
Fresh food scarce
except for fish
perch & roach
a staple dishc
clothes dry
on a washing line strung
out for a timeout
the toddlers young their
number so soon increased & grew
places to sleep
all too few
family life impossibly hard
back we went to a tied cottage
in
Aylesbury's Anchorage yard
Let me say the earth with stones,
never at times to agree to bow,
if he be haggled to loss wow hints,
let nature pass and winds to follow,
the lied down rules, the stary ways and most,
these laws amidst, one by one and word by word,
to do exactly press of trust.
As I know the road is jeweled and of course,
almost no one may care to monitor a growth of flower,
to know when the mode may change,
and thus needs the earth to watch her,
through, so she may turn to hope,
however, objection is still it is...,
when now the bosom, the flower figure.
Appeared to be more matured than she is,
points to note, the law seems clear for satisfaction not for hinter,
a reference to a maniacals,
is serious; when again most men hither,
didn't notice or didn't feel will.
Lead to havoc and calamity without excuse,
for it is a force of nature that she holds,
though unintentionally she pretended to use,
to fine, to talk, to adorn and furnish the odds,
a sense to say it is alarming piety,
this readiness without how,
of course, table should focus on how to solve it's "y".
I generally mean mine mien mental state
moost occasions heavily marinated stupor
long established as external trait
psychologically time tested trooper
impossible mission to kickstart sanity
doppelgänger regularly revisits his soul asylum
hellbent antimatter he cannot vitiate
despite therapeutic laxative merely exhausts
well bred literate smoking doobie brother
eliminating aforementioned pablum
witnessed courtesy one floundering grouper
among plenty of fish schooled
hyphenated (high finned haggled)
burn hushed scaled poem
courtesy one unionised rebellious party pooper.
Spellbound with colossal mental grippe
(i.e. all-consuming figurative cerebral
obsessive compulsive forced membership)
magnetic resonance imagine indicated jagged blip
and/or nsync microscopy
showed telltale genetic authorship
regarding above stated mental health crisis,
whereby Sigmund Freud analyst did flip
lid freeing leeches imported courtesy Philip
Hansel and Gretel a mere slip
o' lass whose nose she always did turnip.
We had cried to the scorching sun
An expression of youthful forlorn
An orchestration to air our needs
Peaceful but firm were our deeds
Alas! the heralds of her arrival
Our mother ! A hope beclouding hopelessness
Together we scrambled around her entourage
Like wailing babes in need of a mother's massage
But our mama had renamed herself as barren
And turned deaf to the cries of her expectant children
We craved a rescue from our partial darkness
Only to be graced with permanent blackness
Our only crime was the belief in democracy
A misapprehension! A mirage ! A meticulous mockery !
Shots of bullets against our unarmed bodies
Battered,bruised and yet rebirthed as hoodlums
For where is the future of this shambolic nation
If the leaders of tomorrow are perishing today?
When shall justice be not portrayed as auction
Haggled and bought by only the highest pay?
By:Elizabeth O Adams
Lizdiamond world of poetry
Met her first
Where
The meadow stopped
Behind the mountains
Benched on the buffalo's back
A cowherd
Played a riverine tune
Where
The bow-shaped river
Flowed north
The white yachts
Were sailing east
Like the shadow of
A flight of cranes on water
Where
At the market near the river
Away from the crowd
She clutched herself
To keep selling tears
Folks haggled
And gladly bought
The pearl-like tears
It was then I asked her
The reason for such discounted sale
She accounted -
A tree's tears have no value
Only to be burnt to ashes
A seedling grows into a matured tree.
Translated by Prof. Anita Baruwa from the original "Xeh Kotha" in Assamese.
This is the song of my homeland, with its old new feel
A country unique and wonderful, the Land of Israel
A land that is dry, hot and sunny
A land of riches, of milk and honey
A land of a hundred tongues, a modern Tower of Babel
A land reclaimed from wreck and ruin, from arid soil hard scrabble
A land where the barren desert blooms once more
A land where innocent civilians die, the daily toll of war
A land that is holy to Christians, Muslims, and Jews
A land where you are free to worship as you choose
A land where soldiers are every vigilant, uzis at the ready
A land where Holy Men beseech the Messiah, Come already!
A land fought for, haggled over for centuries, for millenia on end
A land where the heart of the stranger and sufferer, the Lord will surely mend
Visions Beyond the Horizon
The doctor incised the umbilical cord, the nurse held him by heel,
They waited; the baby cried not; the nurse nudged and he giggled;
The baby giggled again; new mom laughed; doctors just haggled;
The new age baby breathed normal; ancient medic annals to heal
Had no entries; baby crying on first breath norm, they had a ***** feel;
Like POTUS, medics threw up arms, helpless to his tantrum. Cuddled
By mom, he slept and giggled, never cried for milk. With heads muddled
They fiddled with the issue; he woke up giggling, laughing for family weal;
But it was strange, people thought it his harangue; he was deranged,
Some claimed. He crawled around sparring worries with laughing queries,
And it was strange, people thought. Their frowns chilled the entire loving bond,
And in expiation the mom showed the cradle, as they stood like dolls disarranged
In Walmart malls, waiting to be billed; the infant spoke, dispelling all their queries
And opened their minds; with closed eyes, they saw visions from horizons beyond!
Should I have so many nights as these?
so starry and beauteous bright?
moon hung like silver(an) shine;
breeze eased with earthen mood,
the leaves rustle with lyric....
chimed, with the bustle neath
pinked-rose sky:
Everywhere voices, and smiles ----
pretty girls....
soft little lights,
winking atop heavenly spires
As if a generous balmy-goddess
and her garden of sugar,
rose and peach and cinnamon
sweet, apple pie fermented
earth about:
like a lovers' kiss
Even the brazen haggled man,
cornered out;
pockets filled a little more,
widened smile
(such glint in the eye!)
Like silver(an) shine ----
he knows this be the last
of so many nights,
Starry and beauteous bright....
pinked-rose sky....
We left our abode in old Cowfair,haggled a price for an old shire mare.Onto the
landlord's canal boat,lock stock and barrel for a life afloat.Farewell to our
Buckingham birthplace and its meagre living from old point lace.Dawdled slow
up to Cosgrove taking our meals around a blackened stove.Our moveable house
painted castle and rose,not a life we would have chose.Eighteen fifties harsh
and mean,coal cargo so nothing stays clean.Doff your cap,torch your forelock
every two mile at the gatekeeper's lock.Fresh food scarce except or fish,perch
and roach a staple dish.Clothes dry on a washing line strung,home for a time
whilst the toddlers were young.As their number increased and grew ,places to
sleep all too few.Family life impossibly hard so back we went to a tied cottage in
Aylesbury's Anchorage yard.
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