A gossamer hung on the graveyard's gate.
A spider clung to steel, consuming its meal.
It had no need to know dinner was served late,
Nor sensed ghostly keels the summer winds conceal.
The owls flew on, unperturbed by midnight's scare,
That made dead men howl silently in each grave,
Fresh ghosts were blown toward the gate in despair,
The gate creaked loud at each brush of ghostly wave.
Grief-stricken men earlier brought a fresh stiff,
Whose spirit roams about as if still alive.
His shroud still sweetly scented for winds to sniff.
Where otherwise smells of decayed corpses thrive.
Rotten bones left near the godforsaken gate,
Lay scattered by the snouts of some groaning pigs,
As scavenging and ruin became their fate.
While restless souls lay buried beneath their digs.
A canary pulled
The trick of his life
When a cat
Moved in for the kill
The canary hung on
An unlocked cage door
So, when the cat leaped
The canary slings open
the door and the cat
Leaps inside, the cage
Door slams shut
With the cat locked inside
He presses his
Pitiful looking face up
Against the cage, as if he was
Begging to be released
But the canary looks at
The cat, and then burst out
Laughing, he laughs so hard
That he keels over and falls to the floor
Gluggy margarine marine grips keels
Apex sun spreads sickly circle of lard
Plugged lungs, gust momentum marred
Strait elongates co-ordinate, pace killed
Gliding knife grease fixed current kestrels
Impotent motor pendulums drowsy matelot
Vacating tranquillity served seas slow
Exoteric tampers spatula flat vapid vessel
Crusading armada cruise aquatic canyon
Rigid crucifix mast meanders evangelical
Illusive land sinks split quills, sodalite inkwell
Top-gallant swallowed, whale snack plankton
Inert surrender line honours, hundred strong
Quelled by existence Earth centric
Universe of solar centre offensive
Encourages complacent latent symposium
Rigging ties tradition to methods regaled
Order drifts on brittle fine line filament
Oceanic only planet confirms familiar
Moribund remains phobic, slick oil sailed
18th February
Fear of Anarchy
GAPS GIVE CRITIQUE ROOM
lean ships run
each stroke more
driving them ever
nearer shore
almost silent
in the night
sudden appearance
adding to fright
shield and axe rest
ready to taste to the full
hot red blood sunk
in body buried in skull
grating keels
in the sand
sliding on
to alien land
battles cries
battle screams
pierce the night
enter dreams
too late to save
men half asleep
women endure
and later weep
another round
in the game
another raid
in odin’s name
Turner's artistic gift is sought to a working-class dream sequence.
His visual poetry beats the factory revolt's time and place.
In a stunning display of moonshine, which erupts through the sky.
At the right, Keelmen, flat-bottom keels hauling coal along the Quay
1st Place Contest Winner
Written: February 3rd, 2022
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-pag…
Enter the 'A STRAND (1066)' Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
A brook cascades daintily extant
~ flowing gayly heart’s incited joy
Meandering, nestles on Peace
~ quivering restraints strain ‘n squirm
Breaking-bank, careens downwards
~ extols faith’s grim heart-bomb
Undulating, veering waves extrapolate
~ Yonder’s zooming blue-adieu
Sojourns, so-longs, traversing under veils
~ weathering wry extremes
Heart’s incessant journey keels love’s mainland
~ new opaque's reach...
(10/7/21 For 'Islands in the Stream' contest)
2135,
Crest Hill Drive,
In the summer of ‘79,
We arrived,
stifling heat,
Sandburs in our feet,
At Joseph Keels,
I started 3rd grade,
After school,
In the street we played
Cicadas droned all night,
Bats chased insects at twilight,
Gamecocks weren’t very good,
But Atop college football,
George Rogers stood,
Flea market every Sunday,
To try and make ends meet,
The tragedy of suicide,
Of the man across the street,
Such are my memories of,
2135,
Crest Hill Drive
JEV
Brunhilda married a fellow named Horst
For their first meal, she treats Horst to some borscht
She serves him with sweetest smile
But Horst cries, "This stuff is vile!"
Then keels over ~ should have filed for divorce
‘Eau De Cologne’ breaches his senses as he walks towards the lady,
Her attire befitting of a bygone age; tastefully blending in with-
Her elegance and sophistication. She keels over like a ship in –
A stormy sea, yet within a moment her face straight laced passes him by
Affords him the slightest of smiles, as he touches his cap to salute her.
© Harry J Horsman 2018
IV
Once more I have been given cause to dwell
On that ill-fated romance;
I saw you again yesterday, years hence...was
It just another casual dalliance?
The affected tilt of your cruel and
Arrogant chin, the high piling of a mass of
Staggering auburn hair;
And often I have wondered, just how did it
Come about that former calamitous affair?
Spontaneous they say? Personally I suspect
It was all rather contrived.
At that moment when I looked into those
Unaging, dispassionate eyes,
Still so very black, still so very heroically
Beautiful,
Although saddened with all the sorrows
Of a tragedy that only he and you full knew,
I found what had always been there and was
Most evident...
I needs not guess at your deeper discontent:-
A blind man's tale of lust and infidelity;
Your abhorrence of those sworn oaths that set
Sharpened keels upon white breakers of a
Sapphire sea.
I watched as you raised a hot cappuccino
To those perfect lips.
But what cared he for war and death? He took
His chance, plunged his mouth - and kissed!
I'm trying to sing the heaven songs that ring within my ears,
Now got Fakes waiting for myself to doubt my fears,
So every night when they sleep I'm putting in the overtime to be where I want to be,
For they stay here, in the land of broken dreams fantasies become reality,
My demon's wear the faces of myself in the room of I,
Nobody knows what I mean, when I'm confusing you to make you think,
Let it sink that my words speak,
believe in the higher being when I voyage,
On The spirituality growth I seek,
cage the anger I felt when my father passed falling in the spiral of guilt,
Doubting everything I did to once I learn love,
Open my eyes to the world I was blind,
Yet loneliness fills my time my social self is incline,
Heart races as the lips stay shout, everything at it's keels,
Waiting to be hear yet sunken I be in front of thee,
Now lost you be, I left my impression wrong.
4/3/17
The Pillar of Time.
Love is God and God alone who died
Offering himself, cross gifted, self denied
Vow paying esteemer, making low high
Eternal giver, repenting no gift, you I glorify.
Love has no meaning in dictionaries, no place
Oystered in feelings like princely pearls
Valued in the market of the common race
Each man in himself alone defines his content by grace
Love is not the feeling we feel when desire peels
Only God in man recovers the power of love
Vessels are we filled where the spirit keels
Emotions in the heart. Only God is love.
Tidal breathing lunar pull ocean
Heaving monthly passion waves.
Measures of timing in surely repelling
Slow steady repeating gravity law
Winds of tomorrow and yesterday's keening
Fill canvas dreams as keels argue sorely
Rippling and driving in moments of yaw
Time tied in tidal moon fluctuation
Swinging and tolling to crash on the shore
As we spend our days
Hoping for more.
Book ^Delta" 2005
http://www.allbookstores.com/Delta-Bozhidar-Pangelov/9789549700480
***(Have the life)
The wings are bending of a dead
wind.
Under the fallen papers with words
blank
not burnt cockroaches are running
back
and forth
making noise…
And the ocean dries up.
The death is whispering in eyes
every single while,
when you’re bent above the oars.
The oars are making after the hits
circles
and they’re expanding.
A twitch and the end.
But the tries are repeated.
It doesn’t matter.
They leave sweat and tears,
pieces of keels,
trails of activity,
grief.
Where are you going in the early afternoon,
When the twilight
Is lying on your shoulders?
(but love is a place sedentary).
Repent –
know-it-all.
Have the life!
-----------------------------------
Contest "How will you stand?"
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