Polar bear at the north pole, floating on a lone ice floe,
thinks to himself, 'What happened to my world, where did all the ice go?'
If to the south pole he did depart, penguins to compare,
would he then be, a well-traveled bipolar bear?
Amid the glare and glitter at this jolliest of seasons there lurks a deep rich human impulse born to halo moons.
Glowing cheek of cherry blossom offspring,
lovingly they tug at universal father figure Santa’s blood red garb,
sugar coated pledge that leave our budding spirit spellbound, in a trance.
Ice floe dreamscape wonderland a Mecca for this incandescent childhood phase,
where fantasy meets heart of gold creation.
Christmas pudding marinate, citrus peel aroma, coal fire nuggets ring dance round familiar carol bursts
Mourning doves sigh on ice floe clouds
sand dune crickets pierce red dawn shrouds
bull’s-eye squall deluge from on high
on ice floe clouds mourning doves sigh
Vapour trails omen or a sign
grand stream whirls silver mist divine
blackbirds snatch and claw eggshell pails
omen or a sign vapour trails
Golden oak valley‘s crystal belt
Blue lagoons ripple where hearts melt
campfire hoolies spark woodland folk
valley’s crystal belt golden oak
Withered spot in dim twilight phase
dark moon whispers cloak glow worm rays
damp squid thunder blights skyline plot
in dim twilight phase withered spot
Date written ; June 22nd 2020
Date posted ; July 3rd 2022
Contest Name ; 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 6
Sponsor ; Mark Toney
These are the stones
that ground nails and sharpened talons,
they have slid under mountains of ice and fire,
have been polished by the glacial dead.
The stones endure now in layers of motion and stillness,
some are wind-tools shaped by a tireless chisel,
other’s glint with a past and crushed starlight.
The river has left signs of its scouring trace.
I turn a stone over –
look backward to a molten world.
I can hardly imagine
the slow burnish of such immutable forces,
suddenly I am a fish out of water,
my mind wriggling across an ice floe.
Everyone who has money
should drop it in a vat and
anyone who needs money
should take what they need
a Swede, a Dane and two
Norwegians tell Fred, also an
economist who flew in from Yale.
After a three-day seminar in the
Antarctic, the four men sit down
with tankards of ale, each comfy
in a chaise lounge chair on
an ice floe slowly melting.
Back at Yale, CNN interviews Fred
about his book on the seminar.
The CIA is now investigating.
Donal Mahoney
Cold as an iceberg
For the whole life deceivings
Was the tender heart
Until an overwhelming
Wildfire melted the ice floe
3-15-2016
A Fisherman’s Tale
Out o’gloom, her pale siege comes to menace our humble dwell
I look to celeste fix, yet no stark smile to traverse me
So I grip my girl, now graceful, as she slides in churn swell
My girl’s effete bones shiver, I hold hand tight, she begs flee
‘No my love’, so steel she plough’s on fierce, ice slapping her cheeks
I plea for celeste fix!.... yet no stark smile to traverse me
Enraged, her howls come screaming! shakes my lass ‘till skin comes weak
I say ‘be farer my girl’, shy, she tries turn forth our scow
‘No my love!’.... so bold she ploughs on fierce, ice slapping her cheeks
Her fury hurls, first flot then ice floe… splints… fly from loves brow!
Marred…. lets cry! bones cleft, I whisper ‘we have each other now’
I say ‘be brave my girl’, so steel, she try’s keep float our scow
I slide aged hand across my beautiful salt licked bough
Out o’gloom, her pale siege came, broke apart our humble dwell
Marred tried ‘vain, bones cleft, I whispered…. ‘we have forever now’
So I sooth my love…. now peaceful…. as we slide in churn swell.
I had lived on the ice-floe for about a year
My world had become absolutely geometric---
everything within my vision was linear.
And the whiteness had taken me past the point of madness.
Learning the language of the wetness of the wind,
of a smell in the air,
(there are no shadows on the floe),
and, beneath my feet, the ride of this frozen crust on the sea.
Nights come when the wind rages, roars, and screams in my face.
I sit, solid as I can, and face it, best I can,
trying to keep a hold on myself to the ground
Knowing if I think about it, my mind will tether its hooks to the thought
and that one little jerk in my synapse will be like my body
as the wind jerks me up and (blows) (blasts) me into the sea.
Thoughts on the floe become spare.
Feeling is frozen and Truth has become solid,
the mass of it being the very essence of the ice beneath my feet.
06 February 2010
Ice Floe
The glacial epoch is now part of history
The spectacle of glacier widely seen in the Arctic
A habitat for Arctic mammals and where the trees end
This is the land of the midnight sun
A huge mass of the glacier is shrinking
Detached to become an iceberg
And now melting into chunks of an ice floe
Resembling a broken and frozen waterfall
Steller’s Sea-eagle flying over the sea
Do watch the Inuit hunter stranded on a high cliff
The orcas' graceful dive into the deep
And the flickering of an iceblink
Extremely cold slowly subsiding by this global warming
Shrinking Arctic ice and rising the sea levels
Can there be another aurora borealis to glow in many colors
While the last polar bear clinging to the top of the last piece of an ice floe
Even the ground looks cold.
Your left hand wanders like a rabbit
nipping for green things in a dreamscape.
It looks like a hermit crab
on an ice floe in a conch shell.
I will just lay here anesthetized.
My knee swells in its cast like a rock in a bonfire.
We can go out soon and see all the mittens
and things we lost in the yard!
My palm’s tender tongue can not wait;
I hug you but you frown.
I hope you are sleeping.
It's morning and there is a trench in the yard
that was not there yesterday.
Your tires must have cut it sometime last night
when you left with your reasons.
A rabbit wanders through it like a tiny glacier.
It isn't able to find any green things.
The whole time I watch it my palm licks the heart-shaped wound
you scratched into my coffee table.
Ice floe in my heart
River Styx once frozen fast
thawed by your great love
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