How the moon shines the ghost girl, pearl
If the ghostly mirage is under
Today is the day
We came to stay and play
The locomotion sends silver
We spend most of our lives
in transition
Trading wishes for dreams
— undefined
(Dreamsleep: May, 2026)
Life isn't perfection,
It's progression,
Reflection and correction,
Direction and intention,
An invention in progress,
The process unique for each,
To teach others what we learn,
Burning through experiences,
Earning a degree in chance,
Dancing to your own beat,
The cycle is set on repeat,
You cant retreat,
Treat it like a treasure,
Full of unknown pleasures,
Ensuring a packed experience,
Backed with Conscience,
The consensus is clear,
Love is the way to steer,
Through the fear of choices,
An inner voice you hear clear,
Navigate by how you feel,
The real question,
Lies within your intention,
A dimension of emotions,
The locomotion of reality,
Carrying the remains,
The train of thought is free,
You bought a ticket to ride,
It goes where you decide.
An album once a year – a cushy job!
They toured to flog the disc. It’s called ‘promotion’.
From Paul McCartney’s Wings to Billy Ocean,
they did their vids to earn a couple of bob.
In those days, Stayin’ Alive was not a prob,
since every Aucklander, each Nova Scotian
aspired (was wired) to do the locomotion.
Though Patty Hearst could steal, she could not rob.
Today it all occurs on Spotify.
No videos are made now. People ‘stream’.
Epocs of plenty pass. The pendulum swings,
and groups who don’t play live are groups who die.
There are no Doobey Brothers, Canned Heat, Cream.
The truth? I’d rather hear the Gypsy Kings.
Self-proclaimed gurus, though they may mean well,
are not equipped to contour divine light,
so all they do is shake mind-body shell,
reciting scriptures to say what is right.
Mantras we chant are not the prognosis,
being but a fad, a habit routine,
which but deepens state of our hypnosis,
since at end of days God remains unseen.
Observe how a rose bud blossoms slowly,
magic in motion, without commotion,
grace bestowed by touch of God so holy,
metamorphosis, the locomotion.
Save entering silence and letting go ~
The truth of our being, we’ll never know
A former place this, a patch where roots rattle,
where stubble has a ferrous frizzle.
A long-truncated railroad stop
humming still with a faded reality.
As dry voices on the wind, they return
- the homesteaders and journeymen,
the harnessed horses.
Pants' cuffs carry kernels
long planted elsewhere.
Caps, coats, and carts
Sweat, rustle and creak,
an invisible locomotion of leaving and arrival.
employed upon an iron labor.
The tall dry weeds are talkative.
Brown boots seem to shuffle
as they wait here or idle.
A hollow clock clacks,
its innards now
are a nest for ticking birds.
Dandelions anticipate twirling flight
under a corn fed sun.
A mid-day heat thrums fragmented rails.
The station seems almost ready
to receive
as if its bygone world
had not forever disembarked.
When summer is gone
Clouds start their move with a scurry
As if to attend to some urgent work
Taking their move as a harbinger,
Birds and animals reset their homes
And preserve foods in secret stores
Get ready, the farmers, with ploughs and processed seeds
Men take out their umbrellas from lofts.
Mothers wait eagerly for children’s comeback from school.
Children look like heavy weight champions with waterproof jackets.
Youth rush to restaurants to relish hot and yummy savouries.
The poor old men try to patch up their thatched huts.
Villagers offer reverence to gods for good rain
A huge locomotion everywhere
Pitter-patter rain drops
Come down with flashes and splashes.
Placed: 1st
“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
—Langston Hughes
Cream of Crop Showers
The world seems smaller, inside within quarters, no sun.
But the yellow wonder is like lightning outside, not done.
Inside there is the brightness of the youngest grand.
Consuming all the rays of sunshine, each grain of sand.
The community park would burn within minutes our skin,
so the schoolager finds friends, swings his arms to win.
The VR helps a bit on closeted days that aren’t cooled by rain.
Those greedy clouds won’t spill their shimmering champagne.
With “cream of crop” showers, I imagine us stomping, making pies
with mud, running through the streets, splashing, loving the rise.
Dare the lightning to strike, we’d grab our swords and fight.
We’d reduce its commotion locomotion to a wee little light.
All wet, with flip flops flying like frisbees into puddles deep.
We’d be like fish, who don’t care if they’re slippery, and leap.
The skies today hold promise, covering over the brightness.
Will the heavens lie to us today or do they hold forthrightness.
Fueled by affection, once carved to a tree
Strong as a hard-working honey bee
Found selfless in you, a sworn guarantee
I hope this devotion answers her plea!
I hold you next to them, as we both sway
A never-ending nights finest fiery array
But our song is humming in defiant foray
Yet it's being felt in every way
Remembering you, I'll walk an abyss
The consumption I could never dismiss
Heard like drum beats; her true beauty is this
To the end of days, we will be able to reminisce
A singularity of grandest notion
Vast is this lovely swirling ocean
Wild; like the time of locomotion
Perfections elixir set into motion
The chitinous mechanics
of head, thorax, and abdomen,
clicking exoskeletons,
the chirring of dry whispers.
We admire the purposeful
simplicity of the heedless.
Houses crumble as evidence.
Trees rot and give witness.
Caves crawl
with their evidential passing -
they command the locomotion and menu,
of the inevitable.
We who must be consumed,
know that as prey we are not too large,
and so, we lumber on as elephants will,
on their way
to long prepared graveyards.
You’ve got to swing your hips, now. Come on baby…
—The Locomotion/Larry Nored
WHERE MY THINGS
Wear my boots?
Track with my foots -
my feet.
Wear my gloves
with all their loves -
cleaning the tub.
Wear my underthings?
Clings
to you, darling…
Wear my pants
and the ants?
Do the “Locomotion.”
Wear my shirt?
Now that’s overt!
Hand it back!
Wear my socks
and their aftershocks -
hanging by a thread.
Wear my wig?
You’ll get a gig,
tower rappelling.
Wear my ring?
It’s on a string
with my honey’s.
You’ll wear his fists
flying from his wrists -
you’ll meet your Maker!
Wooòt woooo
Wooot woooo
Hear my train comin' watch the
Hope spew from that smokestack
Oh watch that locomotion comin'
Round the curve
Wooot woooo she got nerve
See that smokestack shinnin'
Brightly like a BOLT OF LIGHTNIN'
STRICKIN'! listen to her singin' on
The track
I'm boardin' the 1137 to
New York City keep your self
Pretty 'til I get back
I'm tellin' you like it is tellin' you
Where it's at there ain't gonna be
No change in me only charm
listen to my train
Pullin' in, look at that solid gold
Smokestack the engine too see the
Moon Beamin' brimmin' with love
For this locomotive
Don't cry I'll be back one day
Ridin' this bright new train I'm
Goin' all the way yeah! look at that
Smoke risin'
Here i come New York City!
I'm comin' to play at the COTTON.
Sprinklin' trumpet notes everywhere I go
Shinnin' Brightly such like a bolt of
Lightnin' strikin'!
That's the smokestack Jack
Look at that baby function
Woooot woooo
Bye bye New Orleans
Farewell bay bee Farewell
And all that Jazz!
Woooot woooo
Internal inhibition is a virtue of the day,
A conscientious calling to be true in every way,
A vision of decision in the things you say and do,
Internal inhibition is a moral issue too,
In spite of what you think of it you have to face the fact,
Internal inhibition is the fiction you subtract,
The urgency emergency of agency remains,
The subtle way that surgency is summoning your brains,
You may have thought your feelings were the first to be explored,
The primacy of dealings with a stranger you ignored,
The notion of emotion is a cautionary state,
A stage of locomotion with a customary wait,
The modesty of wisdom is a wonder to behold,
A coat of many colors with a condom in the fold,
No matter what the wonder in your functionality,
Internal inhibition is your cloak of honesty.
May 17, 2022
Pick-A-Title, Vol 30 poetry contest
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Poisoned rivers,
Fishless streams,
Is this really the fruition?
Of all our dreams?
They drill in our oceans,
Just for our locomotion,
To enable the money grabbers,
To gratify their own needs.
They cut down our forests,
And say it’s for all of us,
Leaving our children without any leaves,
Is it possible since our birth?
We’ve been wiping the smile,
From the face of the earth?
I am captivated by the ever-rushing tide
Small, distant tsunamis raping the beach,
Granting the tiny sand crabs a free ride
From way beyond the frothing surf’s reach
Causing the terns to flutter and screech.
They tell me it ebbs and flows with the moon
Shifting back and forth, this rocking motion,
Tiny shells along the sandy beach are strewn
Noisy seagulls emitting a raucous commotion
The aquarium ocean in constant locomotion
Sometimes it creeps up to an exposed tush
Or swooshes through a hole in the stratum
Sounding like a steam kettle, or a loud whoosh
Leave it to the oceanographers at N. Chatham,
Constantly up-dating oceanographic datum.
HONORABLE MENTION
"Summer Sea in Your Window" Poetry Contest
All Poetry
April 14, 2022
written February 5, 2022
submitted to Poetry.com 2/8/22
FEATURED IN POETRY.COM COLLECTION
February, 2022
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