Long Caravans Poems
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I hear their idle chatter and wish that sound was optional.
A box checked in a menu, a simple click and forget.
The rapid dilation of my pupils brings me back.
Back to hypnotic aisles of temptation and necessity. A selection of the finest they say.
Right there see, on the cardboard, next to charts and columns of calories and strange
numbers I’d sooner forget.
But buy one get one free still gets me every time.
I stare intently at the dancing numbers until the man with the tie moves away.
Glossy pages shine brighter than the fruit racks they mirror,
Competing for importance in my wallet and my life
The magpie wins and the bananas will wait.
Half the magazines hawk five a day in rounded sans serif, bold against the background of a
chef’s haircut.
Maxims of bizarre cosmopolitan playboys and hustlers marked up at 3.99. Landscapes of
polished flesh glow beneath the loving airbrush of the paycheck. Competing for nuts at the
zoo.
A vanity fair for the hollow, shining in the fading light of a red top sunset.
Paraphrased blogs and condensed morsels of crude celebrity nudes for the I-Generation and
the remnants of New Labour and Thatcher’s Britain.
Anglers, caravans and 50 cent, half the demographic, half the price. Count me out.
I finger a few and find no real desire. The Internet offers this bilge up for free.
They’d all be nude and crapping on each other.
The great silicon toilet of humanity
Past freezers of long dead prisoners, pulped to perfection. Pigs in tubes and flat cow
concoctions.
Pancakes of vomit and fish dishes I won’t ever try. No time for it.
Frankenstein's monster behind glass slides.
Packets of sugar in various disguises. Cereal and chocolate, soft drinks and sauce dips.
Lattes and ladles, loofahs and loaves. The prattle returns through the shelving
I turn around the curries and there is the tie. Talking sport and hard drinking, women and
the weather. Looks me in the eye.
I turn before any interaction and feign interest in something, a scouring pad. Intricately
woven metal coils waste major concentration and he’s gone. Box checked, minimize and move on.
Everything shines in this weird three-quarter light, hypnotic. Confusing. Conscious of the
bottles ahead that I can’t ever touch. Seedy and appealing, puerile and appalling.
Something for everyone.
And nothing for me.
South Of The (United States) Border...
(Reigns A Welter Of Disorder)
Caravans comprising multitudinous
peoples plodded a steady course
analogous to iron filings drawn by
strong magnetic force
gravitational pull generated
by North America
an irresistible source,
which tug felt
nearly all the way round
webbed wide world beckoning
for waves of humanity
figuratively donned as spawning fish,
toward which currently dimming
beacon of democracy flickr
Trump might extinguish
though tis quite heart
breaking to experience
vicariously as one collective soul,
these desperate folks
ambitious to seek asylum,
(and eventual citizenship),
while this "FAKE" president
invents many a...holy SMOKES
outrageous, nefarious, and malicious
dagger o type cruel barbed wire
accusing, condemning, and emasculating,
(I could continue),
but ye dear reader would tire
unless individuals
affected by xenophobia
countenance same stance
as Commander in Chief,
or contrariwise some
like minded
thinkers, rack coon sitter
the migrant situation dire,
would effectively serve me
as preaching to
the Unitarian choir,
yet any sensate
person must admit
tis quite upsetting, lamenting,
and agonizing to witness
hordes of persons treated like
some pestilential
eyesore dagnabbit,
yes this chap can
endlessly spout flibbertigibbet,
though thee crux of my opinion,
inspires a poem express
sing supportive emotions
particularly acknowledging,
how these masses (thousands)
of vulnerable individuals
show true grit,
nonetheless yours truly,
would be hard pressed
for an immediate
humane solution to corral
this extensive kit
and caboodle, though this generic guy
with a poetic knack
shakes his noggin
watching armed flack
delivered from border patrol agents/
United States military, lack
restraint, and who outright attack
trespassers at point
blank range that pack,
a deadly (Judge Judy ish
huss) punch smack
king young ones
upside the head forcing
everyone to backtrack
to their homeland of
persecution by crack
headed gang members, which thugs
violently land a deadly whack!
~
There are legends I've heard, old songs in the dark
of the old folklore tales, and the old gypsy trails,
where traveling caravans of rugged old wagons
still echo, with longing, in valleys below...
Where each treasured belonging,
was packed in a hurry
all the stories, all the worry, all the heartache would travel
all the sunshine, and the sorrow, celebrations to marvel
and dreams of tomorrow, were kept on the road....
The trail was a friend, and the loam was their home
Their needs were quite small,
They didn't expect, to be wealthy or rich.
All the riches they had, were scarce and so few...but they knew
that happiness could be the sun on your back, or a sky, wide and blue...
Not much to expect, and not even respect...
would be theirs to be owned.
As the twilight would come, under a red setting sun,
with the fragrance of loam, and the tired walk done...
they would bed under trees where the heather was strewn
they would burn a small fire, and prepare a warm meal,
with smoke in the breeze, while the whippoorwill's song
and accordion tunes, would drift by the face of the moon
On their heels was the dust, in the noontime sun
They rose with the dawn, and the gold of the past,
wearing the colorful hope of tomorrow's new task
Working wherever a meal, and dollar would come
Then moving again with their band until dusk
over, and over and over again...
Some called them tramps, or small petty thieves
But the heart of the matter, was the love of the sun,
the love of the life that came from the moon,
from the stars, and the grass, and the rust of the leaves
For those who encountered, and who gave them a chance
could learn many things by watching them dance,
and learn many things by hearing them sing,
and pay close attention to how much they knew
that fortune is something that comes from inside
It comes with the pride, of knowing what matters
The tattered, lost life of the old gypsy tribes ....
might be the saddest of stories, or loneliest song...
a song that has faded,
that has dwindled and died....
_______________________________________
5/18/12
101 in a ROW contest - 12
Sponsored by PD
God Save the King! So echoed round
the village halls, the pubs, the streets
the day our Charlie Prince was crowned.
Homes decked with bunting, cake, and treats.
We celebrated with a rave,
or knees-up, as my grandma said;
with piped music via short-wave.
At two pm, it went ahead.
They closed the street the coppers did.
Then out came tables, plates, and chairs
lace runners, doilies, too, amid
assorted china tablewares.
The caravans and four-by-fours
were parked elsewhere to clear the way,
they even shut the local stores
and closed the schools, hip hip, hooray!
Outside of number seventeen,
twixt the sausage rolls and jelly,
rested a crocheted King and Queen
removed from atop the telly.
Not to be beat, at twenty-two,
they placed a lifesize photo out;
which overlooked the cheese fondue,
soused herrings, and some sauerkraut.
Betty and May sang old-time songs
atop a shaky stage, arrayed
with bunting; made from their spare thongs;
while Ruth, the ukelele, played.
The Aussies were there, well, on screen.
Bobby, Kenny, and Aunt Maud too
to toast the King and mourn the Queen
with tea (and a tinny or two!)
Simon and Peter went all out,
made a spread called L G B tea;
with brightly coloured cakes throughout.
Open to all, as it should be!
Douglas and Rex from forty-eight
sat with Lil as she won her prize;
for the most original plate,
coronation jerk shrimp surprise.
Prizes too for best-dressed table,
front door, and garden gate, won by
Teddy, Fred, and Aunty Mable;
all well-deserved, we can't deny.
Captain Brett (self -titled we think)
gave a roaring one-gun salute
sporting a coat of dazzling pink
over his Royal Navy suit.
Thalis, made by Shrimati Nath,
were such a delicious hit they
caused a queue up her garden path.
(They paired well with Andre's Cabernet.)
We kids, long past our sugar high,
so full of cake, shrimp, nans, and stuff,
were told to say a quick goodbye;
we'd been awake quite long enough.
As the sun set on our nation,
Old Fionn Byrne began to sing,
a joyful amalgamation;
Danny Boy and God Save the King!
Last night I watched in silence
At the end of the road in forest deep
I hid amongst the trees watching in awe
As gypsies dance while others sleep
Under the violet hue of evening sky
Haloed by evening's golden moon
I watched gypsies dance and sing
As flames from bonfires leaped high in the air
Dark haired women in shawls and beads
Happily dancing and twirling without care
Casting their spells of magic and enchantment
Performing their honeyed seductions
Blended with aphrodisiacs of scent and sound
Gypsy men with kerchiefs around their necks
Hoops of silver adorning their ears, singing joyful songs
Children laughing, dogs barking
As if they’re singing right along
Oh, I so wanted to join them as I stood watching in awe
Envious was I of their freedom and joy
Caravans painted in bright images and colors
Tambourines jingling as velvet shadows danced in the night
Skirts swirling, gold and silver bangles on their arms
Dancing 'round the bonfire's fiery light
Accordions singing, with happy notes from a fiddler's bow
As they sang and danced barefoot under evening moon
In the coming dawn once again...
It will be time for them to pack and move on
With a last meal served...
The caravans are readied to make another journey long
"Gather yourself up gypsy girls
Wonderful as it may seem…
A gypsies’ life is never their own
Time to move on
Time to find another home
You must have gypsy blood
In order to survive"
As their wagons move along dusty trails
They'll be looking for a place to camp
A place to call home... at least for awhile
A place to hang their colored paper lamps
Until...
Suddenly- a cry rings out
"Stop the wagons, ring the bells
We've found the perfect place
The perfect place for magic spells
Tomorrow brings a brand new day!
Let's feast, dance and make merry
Come on let's get things underway"
And so...
The journey goes on
And never ends!
"Gather yourself up gypsy girls
Wonderful as it may seem…
A gypsies’ life is never their own
Time to move on, time to leave
Time to find another home
You must have gypsy blood
In order to survive"
What's the problem with homelessness,
other than the violence from which it comes
and toward which it further travels?
Why not ignore
and grow tolerance
for the inevitability of caravans
of sojourners
on pilgrimage
toward mirages
of Uniting Promised Lands?
I have more immediately pressing
everyday problems--
trimming my nails,
drying the laundry
on a rainy non-clothesline day,
raking the leaves,
mowing the lawn,
sweeping the front porch
to invite the occasional visitor,
harvesting the squash,
pulling voracious weeds,
cleaning, the gutters, rain-barrels, the truck...
feeding the birds, the kids, the garden soil...
clothing the hungry barefoot kids,
doing my nails...
Did I say that one already?
These are my at-risk immigrating priorities,
my everyday interdependent pilgrims,
projects longing for a more integral,
mutually inviting,
loving,
enchanting,
even possibly ecstatic?,
climaxing! healthy purpose.
Lawn and leaves, con-joined
birds and children, singing back and forth
wet porches and clothes
and dirty rain-barrels and gutters,
tired and depressed
worn-out
sleep-deprived visitors
right here at my doorstep
sharing our cooperatively therapeutic planet
with whatever climate health remains
before traveling further
regenerative and degenerative pilgrimages
of decomposing choice,
no alternative
homeless choicelessness.
Homelessness is too big
to therapeutically share alone.
I am too small to host
and everyday depressing
compressed to receive,
to accept with impressed renewing eyes
longing for healthy integrity
throughout my extensive habitat
of deeply
cooperatively owned responsibilities
to co-produce common healthy outcomes
for ourselves
and all our caravans,
domestic
and wildly foreign,
Internal climate pilgrimage toward integrity with beauty
and external co-empathic journeys
into wayfare homelessness,
eco-sublimation,
timeless Earth enchanting trusts
and disenchanting mistrusts
while cleaning my nails
while washing the truck.
A glib giant of the river borders
The discerning ears of the ancient Power, we mourn
Where caravans cascade to unseen voices
And the rumbling of avalanche bullets invades our peace
This mind captured it with a piercing eye
From river “Nun”
ere wasting wore garbs of gloom
this savage brandishing of the source of livelihood
Wiwa's blood spills, as the Khaki boys obeyed their paymaster
Profligate bands in union vexed by demons hunt sane men "like partridges"
With arms, murderous Pirates just for greed offers bullets as our prize
Subdued our river for gain never known.
Ruined face-stretching pains like coverless carpet
A reservoir of floods tumbles through the eye gates,
Our rich resources ploughed by strangers,
Where is Royal Dutch Shell? or Schlumberger, where is Chevron, Total
when we are hungry,
when we die, of pollution,
where is Petrobras, Equinor or Agip
when we mourn the damage on our offspring
we are silenced by the tyrants in Aso.
Insipid insanity of blood brothers ignored safety
Our tyrants cared for the gains
and for gains, Wiwa was murdered,
And a Massacre in Odi
Kill them all, says the goggled tyrant,
Take the gains to Zurich, I will spend it tomorrow,
but like Mobutu, he never lived to count the cash
For their greed, we die.
As these Lords watch the drama, smiling at our folly
From the coast of ivory, where children groan in pain for jewels
to war-ravaged Sudan, famished by the same burden
and like Esau, we trade the future for ephemeral
And obliterating while reenacting the trade of yore
unending wars for greed, a blinding greed
Who will save these captives from the taskmasters?
Cocoa harvested in Ghana, Indonesia et al, yet not a chocolate plant
but this coffee is not from Ghana,
the Chocolate bar is sent back at the dollar price
Nigeria is rich with crude
Yet they meander around a refinery from far off climes
Congo is ravaged in war, who supplies the arm?
Oh! for a taste of Freedom
Multitudes enter the venue
all know there's something Entre Nous
You Take a Friend to find your place
it's time to just Cut to the Chase
All Losing It, the lights go down
Signals a start to the Countdown
Vital Signs race to Larry, Curly, and Moe
a Distant Early Warning that starts the show
Can't Resist that sound, distinctive
while The Stars Look Down it seems instinctive
The Spirit of Radio starts (with an attitude)
up on your feet you're In the Mood
Making Memories with a Headlong Flight
and straight on into The Color of Right
Might they play The Necromancer
or maybe even Fancy Dancer
Tom Sawyer starts a wild frenzy
One Little Victory follows unrelentingly
No Ghost of a Chance they'd play Cygnus X-1
but books one AND two - they aren't even done
only Intermission
Presto - back with 2112
how far back will they delve
A Passage to Bangkok brings you to Tears
then showing four aspects of their Fears
While Mystic Rhythms start to grow
O Baterista is next, as we all know
YYZ, Working Man both kick ass
Natural Science and then The Pass
Makes The Body Electric and Time Stand Still
knowing you are Here Again of your own Freewill
They Test for Echo seeing all still alive
Red Barchetta makes sure you can drive
Trees stand tall in Cities of Gold that are Seven
swaying themselves under the starry heaven
Limelight shines in La Villa Strangiato
Wish Them Well for it is time to go
But We Hold On....
Malignant Narcissism starts the encore
Spindrifts into The Snow Dog and By-Tor
One can only Hope it's not the last tour
Closer to Your Heart than ever Before(and After)
In the End you know
you are Finding Your Way back home
endlessly rocking
endlessly rocking under starry heavens
As the Caravans travel onwards
riding out into a heartless sea
Remember what, to you, brought these words
Dirk, Lerxst, Pratt, and the lonely letter of E.
song/album titles/partial lyrics-Lee/Lifeson/Peart ©
Vacances en France
Seven hundred miles we travelled,
Across both land and sea.
Because our friends had told us,
France was lovely as could be.
Two caravans we towed there,
To a villa called ‘la Ronce’,
They’d been there, so many times,
But us, well just this once.
We arrived a little weary,
They’d a puncture on the way.
A tyre blew off their caravan,
And ripped the side away.
We stopped and then a gendarme,
Called a man to change the wheel.
Like something from a storybook,
The scene was quite unreal.
We finally reached the campsite,
And drove in through the gate.
To begin our three week holiday,
We thought, now this is great.
They put us on two pitches,
That were near a mile apart.
And placed us both in sinking sand,
I threatened to depart.
They realised I meant it,
So they gave us two good sites.
Where we were pitched together,
And could gossip through the nights.
We spent our days by swimming,
On the glorious Français coast.
By evening we were drinking wine,
To cool our daily ‘roast’.
We took along our teenage kids,
With us they did not stay.
But spent their days, with friends in bars,
And made us parents pay.
The lifestyle there so different,
From the one we had at home,
A slower pace of living,
And not pestered by the phone.
We thought we were in heaven,
As we sweltered everyday.
While watching nudists on the beach,
Where we would swim and play.
But there was ‘one little drawback’,
Just a tiny one, you see.
The site had other visitors,
That drank much more than me.
These nasty little creatures,
Had a taste for human blood.
And feasted on our bodies,
Like nought but vampires should.
Swollen up from head to toe,
And even on our bum.
We looked like we’d been rolled in thorns,
Then toasted by the sun.
Amongst our cherished memories,
When we finally left our sites.
We took home thoughts of sunny days,
While scratching insect bites!
Ivor G Davies
both sides use conscience for a hook
it's a con artist's suitcase
fill your cup in the Ocean of Tears
there's enough of everything in there
toasters glowing blenders humming
dogs humping on lawns across the land
in a cloying oppressive sweetness
that could diverge and go anywhere
Club Med’s Oracle Island for example
blind sibyls eyelids fluttering
hissing spitting twitching babbling
it was the wisdom of the ages incarnate
but Bobby was miles from all this
making that fox up a tree deduction
consumed by the dread of discovering
at death that his life was an in-flight movie
only with less captivity and more wandering
unsure of coming up with an airtight alibi
he mobilized his only shield
the lid off the dustbin of history
held against his approaching doom
they give you anything you want at first
the customer can do no wrong
then the high pressure hose
and subsequent foxhole autopsy
great 3 color graphics
they even have a screen saver
yet fate had a trick up her butt
plucky Lemona it suddenly turns out
as the machinery of Zeus grinds us skyward
has been a spy for the forces of ambivalence
disguised as a bushwhacking retromaniac
gone undercover and surfing the channels
that were woven into the Swami's beard
from the first instant that she knew
the Eel King was a candle lit hallucination
as well as a groping spiritual vagrant
don't you mess with Bobby Eel daddy
it was Lemona and her retinal retinue
of petulant maidens on a magic carpet
Jacobins in Mr. Roger's neighborhood
with its habitual hypocrites and tired liars
a decreasingly sentient society
caravans of slaves needing theater
with which to compare and gauge their pain
the boardroom's feral chessmen
puking up last night's takeover
I mean takeout again
uh oh I'm getting calm down messages
from my fiance Lemona Oblongata
so I can't even feel exalted at last
I've been inoculated against everything except
the Eel King's daughter