An anonymous artist had named the painting:
'Bertram Crumm'
it was simply a depiction of a man
trudging over a blank Landscape.
No one had heard of this man,
but this enigmatic fact alone was intriguing,
and now he was perfectly framed.
After many years
an art critic tracked him down.
Crumm claimed to be a meatpacker
who worked in Allen Town,
yet no one could see him as a meatpacker
working in Allen Town.
Some saw nobility in his gait and posture,
some saw a furtive mindset, most declared
emphatically that Crumm was definitely
a poet!
If we had known
that Crumm had often confessed to his family
that he loathed poetry and was indifferent
to art in general
then that landscaped/portrait
would still be gathering dust in a Goodwill shop.
However, a billionaire owns it now,
and ironically,
he also can't write a lick of poetry either.
I step outside, a world of beauty greets me
landscaped gardens, lush leaves on each tree
Yet my stomach feels so queasy
a vague sense of doom leaves me uneasy...
Sans freedom of speech, life is hell
afraid to break a single eggshell
It started with a blank canvas-
just another mid-spring day;
no sun nor rain, or gentle breeze-
an atmosphere so still and gray.
A day in May- a fresh-mowed lawn;
leaf-laden trees, soft velvet green.
Yet, at my window, looking out
no birds or squirrels on the scene.
Then came that rush! The canvas filled
with fear and horror- in one stroke!
Six trees were downed- the roots exposed;
outdoors, unreal- our hearts then broke.
A strong tornado- with wide brush,
painted a jungle at our home;
blocking our house and driveway too-
we felt so trapped, nowhere to roam.
The twisted limbs and branches lay
like pythons in the throes of war.
And splintered tree trunks stood in shock
as landscaped beauty was no more.
Stretched out, a canvas of distress;
strewn damaged trunks and tangled limbs.
How one tornado- wild and free,
repainted life at nature's whims.
In parts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire
there are still pit-valleys,
where industry and nature collide,
marry, and have their natural born children.
The earth once gouged, raped and laid desolate,
is landscaped by those who once despoiled.
Time plays its part, plants its seeds,
it up-roots high piled slagheaps,
softens broken mountains of concrete.
I have walked these valleys,
in some I had to stumble over the fractured bones
of abandoned and rusting machinery;
the fire scorched detritus of coal mines.
I have also strolled through resurrected Eden's,
vales recreated out of the unspeakable
into the bright eloquence of beauty.
The hands of men
and the wings of gardening angels
have covered-up all self-made wounds,
have put to bed the deeply trammeled.
The Lord of daisies and daffodils
strolls unmolested once more,
through the worst and the best
that good intentions can do.
Summer's green vistas sang a farewell tune
as bare limbs gently swayed in a chill wind.
It swept o'er hills, beneath a harvest moon,
filching leaves; a theft it could not rescind.
Autumn is gilded with bucolic hues.
Fawn feathered birds wing in indigo skies.
Burnished umbers and rusts imbued with blues
on a landscaped palette, my eyes apprise.
Nature's artistry paints without a brush,
picturesque valleys in ginger and gold.
Rouged in the season of red crimson blush.
Fall's grandeur provides bright scenes to behold.
Vivid, the months when from mountain to sea,
they're washed in beauty's prismatic esprit.
OUTLOOKS
A shifting
play of angles
multilayered
that morph
into
landscaped
abstractions
already
enmeshed
about to
embark
the density
dissipates time
with
lights
&sounds
flickering
thr awake
hushed
&enshrined
by the curious
white seeps
through
from underneath
a blossoming
light from memory
that glimpse
of nature
blurs
the boundary
between
temporarlilty
& the transient
becomes
the frame
to inhabits it
to savour
every
fleeting
element
Midst those the second viewed heaven;
Blue based white clouds drifting floating;
Pageantry of coral blues hues;
Greenery trees stance tall seven;
Waves of curling flows waves boating;
Early morning viewing grounds dew;
Those breeze pushes waters session;
Toward my mind heart eyes coding;
So esthetic blue, whites, green view;
Rushing to me stream waves weapon;
Eye gate viewed scene brilliant growing’
Mountain ranged background hangs down dew;
Picturesque, flowing painted earth;
Sculpturesque, landscaped visage worth;
6/24/23
Trilonnet Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Joseph May
Picture #2.
Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 0 8 8
Total # Syllables: 112
Total # Lines: 18 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 76
Today, all is landscaped by mist.
North, South, East, and West
all are one floating sea.
The hedgerows are reefs,
a familiar tree-line
seems like a gray cliff face.
My own face
feels as if swept over
by a tidal spume.
Now a kitchen radio is turned on,
a truck blasts its air-horn, a child shouts,
and as if the sun were only now roused
to scatter ocean dreams
with a newly rinsed
and blotting wind.
Still searching for my permanent address,
seeking where I really live, fit in.
Suspended between life’s already-happened
and soon-to-be-memories moments.
Longing for a white-picket-fenced home,
landscaped in self-trust, self-respect,
with room for a full-of-love heart.
Instead, I discover a crumbling castle,
mossy, dank dungeon of the mind
imprisons me.
The jagged nettles of cruel abuse
doled out by my dark thoughts
pierce my soul.
Spirit sapped, barely staying alive.
Hope, in one tiny sliver of daylight
in the cracked castle wall,
penetrates the darkness.
When push comes to shove,
will there be enough shove left in me
to rise above,
to finally reside in happily-ever-after?
My choice.
A meadow is described as an open grassland with non-woodsy plants
but the garden bird carrying rose seeds from afar was wild and free
unbeknownst to him, a rose drooped into his bird seed-- to share,
plus he was too lackadaisical a fellow to be so precise as to plant
the rose into a landscaped rose garden row, where it'd be pruned
besides when you gotta go, you gotta go -- the same goes for birds
so when he made a pit-stop in the rose-less meadow, he shared, too
thus a red & white Double Delight blossoms and wilts, as she grows
scattering petals on the ground, or into the breeze, every which way
unhampered by rose-petal cakes, or pressed-flower bookmarks
providing rest whenever the little bird fancies a flight overhead
hence it is now called The_Rose_Meadow, for this singular rose :D
May 6, 2023
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I completely made this up! :O For:
"Rose Meadow Poetry Contest"
(Free verse poetry form only)
Deadline: Saturday, May 20, 2023!
Sponsored by: Julia Ward :D
When I was in my teens
Hollywood set the scene;
Powerful producers called the shots
On manufactured landscaped lots,
Adventure,humour excitement
In simple wholsome movie plots-
Hayward and Mature
Wayne & westerns..for sure,
Russell and Marilyn Monroe,
Hope & Crosby.. with miles to go,
Rogers & Astaire,
Hudson & Day with love in the air-
Just to name a few....
Each Saturday standing in a queue..
Awaiting escape ..to somewhere new.
,
Copyright © Brian Strand | Year Posted 2009
Where did they put all that sand
When they dug out the land
To create the Blue Med Sea.
Where on earth could it be?
Well they dug a big pit
And they just and buried it;
Course it caused a big bump
A gigantic type of hump
Which looked just that bit strange
Until disguised as the Himalayan range.
Hence we got Everest.
They did do their best,
But on contract renewal day
They gave the next job away;
So a firm from the planet of Gan
Landscaped the Sea of Japan,
And as the contract said they must,
Created the moon from all of the dust
Anyway, when they dug out that land
That’s where they put all of that sand
Many years after leaving London
I return to the city
it is still dreaming of better days.
I am burdened with landscaped memories,
recordings taken with out-of-date electronics;
one is a Betamax video player,
the other by a VHS machine, next a DVD
that has no space for recollections.
An elderly Vauxhall Astra follows me
like an ever faithful dog.
The metropolis
is built on the brick-dust of era’s,
The young look dazed,
as if worm-holes in the River Thames
had closed
leaving them stranded here.
I imagine that nightly,
an older populace hang upside-down
from bell-tower rafters
to dream of Imperial Lions.
I have recorded the trip
on that clunky Betamax;
only I have the arcane skills
to operate it.
Back in Ohio
I store London in its original box,
then make my way downstairs
to photograph my wife
with a once brand new
polaroid camera.
a growler is running
clouds are being mown down
then replanted inside wind-scapes
Popping seeds
crunch together
spill their fill into the air
a word on the lip of imagination
is chopped out of existence
ears ring
with dead bird songs
a silent space of myself
flaps away
i would rather be
a bat orbiting the moon
than here and now
the grass under my feet is cut
a grave undercroft of being
turns over and over
a restless mind has long searched
for my house
but the house is cut down
and landscaped to pieces
i need an enemy to love
or a love to hate
nothing less will do
This morning
all is landscaped by mist.
North, South, East and West
are all mist-made
also mist-lost.
Faces have no features
submerged eyes
seek themselves.
We turn this way and that
listening;
a radio switches itself on.
A truck on a rolling sea
blares a distant air-horn,
both these sounds
are in the mouth of the mist.
No one can sense
their ears this morning.
We hear though,
but what we hear
is neither near or far.
for we are in the dreaming mind
of the mist,
and the world has gone
to a far shore -
we not where.
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