Face of an Angel
I hear the distant rumblings
of artillery shells
I hear the singing sound
of stray bullets
I lift my head to look
around and see the toll
Bodies scattered like
leaves on a fall day.
Some with limbs torn from
them like a barren tree.
Some with their entrails exposed
like a lion’s prey.
I feel no pain, just a
sense of floating
Of being outside my
body.
Of looking at myself
with a red river flowing
from my leg.
I hear a distant cry, “medic”
I sense a shadow above me
and see a helmeted head
with a red cross painted on it.
I see the face of care and
compassion.
I see the face of an angel
I was one of the cool set,
navy blue duffle coat, scarf around
my neck, seated at a table
in Pepe's Coffee Lounge
discussing Baudelaire
and T.S. Eliot and the demise
of the political elites.
The conscription ballot hung
over our heads helmeted
in a flowering of uncombed hair
in the winter of 1966.
We thought the world was about
to tip, that the old regime
was coughing its last
on Craven A and Camel cigarettes.
Booze was cheap and jobs
chased us down the street.
In a hundred buried silos,
annihilation was just a push
of a button away.
We partied hard beneath
the threat of that mushroom cloud.
We're old now, sit under the cloud
of our own thoughts, replaying
scratchy, worn out tracks
retrieved from the sleeves
of our neural LP's.
What we tore down back then
has been replaced with more
sinister demons that eat away
at the collective soul.
In the end, everything
is just reabsorbed.
Some of us still frequent
coffee shops and discuss
Baudelaire and T.S. Eliot,
still write poetry,
shed a tear
at the melancholic beauty
of a setting sun.
He was withdrawing;
inside his eyes he cleaned the glass of his spectacles
they were worn thin now and only looked inward.
Nuclear weapons were threatening
the circuitry of a million neurons,
a conceptual forest of wooden perceptions
had been targeted by alien guineapigs,
helmeted ants were excavating his mind.
He muttered a question to himself:
What's a guy to do when the world
locks you out. even, attacks your long held reality?
What gives when the rope has no more 'give' in it?
He called his dead mother
(the cell phone was really that smart),
she replied from the outer-rings
of some milky nowhere.
"You should get out more,"
said the ethereal voice of the dearly departed,
"stop writing ambiguous and quixotic
letters to yourself."
"Mayb tomorrow," he replied uncertainly,
then he put the phone back
into its shock-proof bunker
at the deepest center
of his hive-humming brain.
Hey, helmeted heads and masked faces
Just doff your boring accessories
Come step into this secluded place
Which makes your mundane minds go crazy
On watery leaves, these little birds glide
Roistering the plain sailing water ride
There, the perky squirrels hoard fallen fruits
Wandering here and there forgetting their route
Butterflies here amaze us by their divine dance
And sometimes they also give us a great chance
Spins the enigmatic web, the signature spider
Writes on all the edges, the welcome letter
Look down and see the tiniest of tiny snails smile
And in pursuit of wonders, I don't need to go miles
A tugboat, a ferry, a Circle Line cruise
All chug by on the river, for me to peruse.
A breeze gently blows as the waves settle down
As I soak it all up here on my side of town.
A ‘copter flits past with propellers a ‘whirl;
A scooter glides by with a helmeted girl.
A yappy white dog trots, his owner in tow
And sitting here clinches the truth that I know:
I’d rather be out on this riverside bench
(For no vista but this will my urban soul quench)
Than be anywhere private, with similar sights
For this cityscape fills me with all that delights.
Your helmet on holiday
While on a highway
Will make Accident Demons busier
And a lot to the Devil easier,
Either party to fracture your skull
For man’s most feared call.
Blame-worthy of you confronting a bike’s gear
Without donning its defensive head gear,
Suicidal, your cycling round the urban
While choosing to not turban!
Helmet dangling on a bike’s handle
Makes same its unlawful wearer:
Some silly, unlawful death nearer…
A barefaced lighting of the Wrong Candle!
Nature abhors a vacuum,
Loathes right angles,
But reveres the Corona.
For Nature so loved the corona
It dirked the form
Atop the penile shaft
Rendering the shape
Like a helmeted soldier
Leading the charge.
Nature bequeathed the Corona
Unto our only unbegotten sun
Whirling its solar winds,
Morphing the heavens into
A frenzied hell.
Nature then knitted corona’s strands
Into tightly wound unseen spheres
Spiked with crimson daggers
Unleashing the globed petard
Of our mutual demise.
LOST
When she is away
My bubble of life will sink
And move but heavily in the sea’s sway,
Her return an eternity’s blink,
My sphere all but lost.
Horned-helmeted Norsemen at night
Drifting too far south o’er the horizon,
The peaks of Spitzbergen out of sight,
Watched without hope their lodestone,
And longed to see the stars of home.
It's freaking cold in outer space, minus 458 degrees
Where does it begin, just 62 miles before hitting deep freeze
Most space is empty
A vacuum quite aery
Mainly hydrogen, helium and some helmeted fleas
Ten men in all
They formed his crew
Some were short
And some were tall
Half were on the left
Half on the right
Working together
They were tight
Padded for protection
Helmeted for safety
Robed in commonness
They were shielded to win
Two of them were short
And stayed off to the side of the others
Wide with girth
They were there to support
Six were average
They stayed in the middle
Performing their tasks
Daily without umbrage
The last of the ten
Not tall nor short
Were the last to join in
Preferring the group to remain open
Each of them worn
Battled scarred and bruised
Their resolve apparent
Through the flesh that was torn
Some still stood straight
While others leaned to the side
Each had serviced this world
With both love and hate
Strong and proud
Those ten could not be separated
Till their last living breath
To their service others bowed
Right and left
Short and tall
A lifetime of service
Free from bereft?
~Ijm Uhl~
Ten men in all
They formed his crew
Some were short
And some were tall
Half were on the left
Half on the right
Working together
They were tight
Padded for protection
Helmeted for safety
Robed in commonness
They were shielded to win
Two of them were short
And stayed to the side of the others
Wide with girth
They were there to support
Six were average
They stayed in the middle
Performing their tasks
Daily without umbrage
The last of the ten
Not tall nor short
Were the last to join in
Preferring the group to remain open
Each of them worn
Battle scarred and bruised
Their resolve apparent
Through the flesh that was torn
Some still stood straight
While the others leaned to the side
Each had service this world
With both love and hate
Strong and proud
Those ten could not be separated
Till their last living breath
To their service others bowed
Right and left
Short and tall
A lifetime of service
Free from bereft?
Like a bolt of lightning it did come
From the top of the hill near the Murray gum,
Wilbur's wheeled wardrobe built for speed,
Racing past where the dairy cattle feed.
There was Wilbur straining at the wheel
As he drove the clothes hanging cupboard with such zeal,
Modified by Wilbur with such inventive design,
Hoping to survive the steep decline.
Wilbur's helmeted head bobbing up and down
As he headed down the hill towards the town,
Perhaps by luck, or maybe divine providence,
He missed the posts and wires of the farmer's fence.
The hill flattened out as the decline unwound,
Wilbur coming to a stop in the middle of town,
Twenty kids came rushing to honour the feat,
Of Wilbur's wonderful wardrobe and the hill he beat.
go out in the field with that
helmeted Go-Pro and press the button,
not that little clearing beside the building
but the field as wide as it is far, far out
look up and stream the dark washed sky
times elapsed in fusioned milky light
watch it arc across the chilled, stubbled field
the cold sparks beautifully splayed across
turn it over now - a bit further, roll over,
refocus, look down close at the loam laid on
set the time-lapse for lengthening days
and watch your shadow pass below you
see the seed casing crack open and
seedlings rise to first season of life
toward the now brightened sky above
listen to the cells elongate springing
against gravity to push away to up, up
sit up, or stand and raise the gaze farther
the slow pan of growth, Jacked up stalk through
sky and clouds to see what's so big up there
© Goode Guy 2015-03-11
DEFEAT
Out of the waves they come.
Helmeted army of crabs
Trundle over the perfect pools
Of starfish and periwinkle,
Murking up the sandy bottom
Of their foxholes,
Armoured claws testing each mollusk for food,
Sidling up to my toes
In marauding hunger.
I retreat inland,
Allowing them their beachhead.
They each have a yellow extension,
Sure there is much more to mention,
Each is known to do a lot to protect,
Neither is known to get much respect.
The Helmeted Hornbill lives in the trees,
Watch out because they might have fleas,
Now the other is on an ice hockey team,
And uses a yellow stick to help fulfill his dream.
As the bird uses it’s beak as a weight,
I doubt very much the player is ever late,
While we watch the bird fly and glide,
It has been great having him on our side,
They both were born in Brunei,
Watch out for the bird in the sky,
Both care very much for their mates,
Wonder if the wife can stay up on skates?
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