Long Dustbins Poems
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Words in the Wind
By Mark D. Stucky
Winds carried away the words
that Jesus, the Word made flesh,
wrote in the dust,
while sitting near a trembling woman,
who was the accused,
who was bait in a trap.
“Adultery! Law! Stone! Death!”
Harsh words hurled by vigilantes,
hushed by the breath of a single sentence,
“Let the person who is without sin hurl the first stone.”
Words from the only one who was without sin,
and the only one who did not condemn.
As accusers slunk away,
he wrote more in the dust.
What were those ephemeral words,
mysteries lost to history?
A list of the accusers’ hypocrisies?
Words of justice and mercy?
Ashes to ashes. Words to dust.
In our dustbins of history,
what do we ourselves write?
What will sum up our lives’ words
before they are lost to the world?
Words of division, judgment, and hate?
Words of healing, mercy, and grace?
Will our words hurled
into the world,
resemble swords to wound
or salve to heal?
Will our words, blown by the wind,
be words written without sin?
(First published in Clay Jar Review, 17 Aug. 2022. This poem ponders the mystery of what words Jesus wrote in the dust as recorded in John 8:1-11. See also my poems “Margin of Error,” “Weapons of Wonder,” and “What Would Jesus Tweet?”)
(Image by HG-Fotografie on Pixabay.com.)
Buttered Fields
It is early when she is tickled awake
as light eases under the eaves
to trickle through a sigh of curtains,
to whisper across the bedroom floor,
to nudge and nestle beside her…..and beam!
Outside the sun has buttered the fields,
mellowing, yellowing the crisp, morning dew.
The girl awakes wearing playful eyes, a zestful imagination,
wishing for a form of storm that might offer up jinks and winks
but the morning is in the process of writing its own story.
Capital letters of trees stand tight and tall
beside commas of bushes, question marks of shrubbery,
sprinkled with colourful, exclamation marks of flowers
and, dotted here and there, insected full stops and apostrophes.
Yes, her day is already penned and punctuated.
Soon, she is washed, dressed and toothpasted
and, with a hip and a hop, she springs outside her house.
All around the morning sings, “All things bright and beautiful!”
while Mother Nature has her skipping rope out
and is creating mischievous merrymaking.
The wind begins huffing and puffing all before it
and after juggling a few dustbins it decides to show off,
performing three cartwheels and a backward double-flip
into a one-handed handstand, finishing with a vault without fault
to win the gold medal in the morning’s gymnastics competition.
The girl now watches, waits and wonders what is what?
So with trees staggering and the wind waggling
the morning now dancing merrily in front of her,
and with a giggle of sunlight, an extra wiggle of wind,
she curtsies, partnering the morning in its frolicsome entertainment.
Suddenly and sharply the sun, like stage lighting,
flares through the clouds looking for something lost,
while the road’s yellow lines appear to hold hands
as they stroll side by side into the distance;
the girl follows, excitement shivering her sleeve.
A jerrybuilt jumble, so shoddy, diminished;
just cubes of grey concrete with windows and doors.
It started to crumble the day it was finished.
Franco’s “solution” for gypsies and moors.
It’s called “La Dehesa”, the pasture, the grange.
The old ones say once there were orchards here, too.
It’s undergone quite a formidable change:
there’s nothing but concrete obscuring the view.
Like rabbits in hutches we live in our flats,
with neighbours on both sides, below and above,
surrounded by dustbins and children and cats,
and noises of squabbling, noises of love.
Each Sunday, some woman (I can’t tell you where)
starts singing, as morning creeps in through the shutters.
Flamenco, like woodsmoke, just hangs in the air,
and laps over drainpipes and outlets and gutters.
She’s clearly a gypsy. I can’t say I’ve seen her,
but singing is thoughtless, as easy as breathing,
and something about her, her aural demeanour,
is caught in her song, which comes seeping and seething
through windows and clothes lines, as if by osmosis.
She sings for herself. She’s not grabbing attention.
There’s no petty ego. Aesthetic hypnosis
is selfless. Seduction, without condescension.
She sings of her pain and her ecstasy. Both
can be borne on the air, like a children’s balloon.
Her art is unconscious, leguminous growth,
yet as hauntingly lovely as the light of the moon.
Gitanos, gitanas – delinquents and whores.
Well, maybe – but, seeing those ravishing eyes,
or hearing The Song as it wavers and soars,
I know in my soul where my sympathy lies.
He lives there, where people love
Land as mother, worship agriculture
People of his nation, after independence
brought green, white, yellow, blue revolutions
to meet with the crisis of food
to wipe out hunger
to up root poverty.
He tills his mother earth
carries plough on his shoulder
sheds his sweats
turns himself into soil.
After a year of severe flood,
several children of his homeland
are at risk of death
due to lack of proper nutrition.
He returns from his polluted land
carrying a basket on his shoulder
full of golden harvest.
Flood stricken cornfields
Harvests destroyed, paddy fields washed
yet he carries food grains on his shoulder
The cattle Kraals are empty
The goats gaunt
No protein food for children
but he is carrying a basket
full of golden harvest.
In his motherland
where people worship food as god
Through away it and feel proud for it
where some people also search dustbins
madly hoping a handful of stale rice
to do away with their hunger.
The experts do research on cropping
Those with power keep their power.
Only he, the nominal farmer
trusts himself with earth’s treasure
is carrying a basket full of golden harvest
on his shoulder.
The sun does not dissuade him,
nor the water logging
that blows against him
as he ploughs barren land,
grows golden harvests
on the other hand,
drowns into the deep sea of loans
beaten by poverty.
He feeds the nation,
cannot feed his family.
He trusts his hand for his countrymen
what they used now,
but cannot do his family and himself.
Between life and death,
he is carrying a basket on his one shoulder
full of golden harvest
carries fear of suicide on his other shoulder.
At twilight I sang
through veils of darkness,
as moon turned heads
with her crescent mourning,
and yesterdays permeate
within this etherized rhythm,
the metronome swung
a lifetime within a crescendo,
violet tears seeped octaves
and feel distantly,
to move in life
and shivers took hold
in old lanes paved
with tears of stone,
streets littered with
tissues of newspaper,
blowing to roll
as a string of
breath past,
dustbins filled with organs
necessary removals of survival,
now
breathe with life again
amethyst and gold leaf,
press all roads of now
to rain,
with feathers of faith
with the debris of horror
gasping at routes end,
a mercy,
street-sweepers cleared
to guard
waiting for the call
to a final reckoning
now as midnight chants,
striking
every memory of horror!,
crushing each torture!
till,
they are nevermore
I sing with amethyst ether
tendril-ed from my lips,
and I forgive them all
in one breath
The city, part awake, part asleep,
part dark, part lit,
strangers all around, repulse me.
I trudge tormented,
hungry and forlorn,
down an unlit cul-de-sac.
Black cats mew,
Unseen dogs bark,
my stomach growls.
Empty dustbins abound,
No smells of food.
Is that a gargoyle in flight?
I duck in fright?
I curse as a piece of paper
flutters to the ground.
The sky too dark,
the angry wind howls,
my soul in agony,
my body weak,
from lack of sustenance.
I lurch into an old abandoned house,
climb up rickety stairs,
hope all would fall upon me,
end my earthly stay.
I see her in a corner
huddled up.
I sit near her,
foul smells mingling.
She stirs,
hands me a piece of stale bread.
Thank God for little things.
Nothing means
anything any more
Empty language
swirls in the fetid air
“signifying nothing”.
Our hard-won Constitution
no longer promises.
History? What history?
Our White House,
the very symbol of democracy
with its famous rose garden,
tended with love by many
presidents’ wives,
destroyed, paved over
like any nondescript
hotel courtyard, sterile,
uninviting, lacking relevance.
East Wing façade only
to be removed (we were
lied to, as usual) as we saw
entire East Wing illegally
demolished, making way
for Trump’s monument to
himself, a tasteless nouveau-riche
ballroom, cheapened by
show-off gold and more gold!
History be damned.
Slavery, abuse of
native Americans
and their children?
Separation of children
and parents, no legal recourse,
never happened, we’re told.
Did we once have a
black president?
Portrait hidden in
an unused stairwell.
Only whites need apply.
“Word of Law” now
meaningless jargon,
Decrees and decisions
bought and paid for
by the highest bidders,
sycophants to the power
at the top, evil radiating in
every direction,
like rivers of sewage
from a burst pipe.
Hate contaminating
all facets of life.
Governmental goals only
power and vengeance.
Grifted cash by a felon,
Our elected representatives,
sworn to protect us and our
Constitution, instead relegate us
to the dustbins of yesteryear.
BACKSTREETS
In the back streets of my mind,
I play again the games of my childhood.
Vehicles few and far between, to interrupt our play;
Our soccer ball, leather scuffed by tarmac,
Thuds against the goal, chalked on the wall
Of Mr. Thompson’s house.
Until, his patience at an end,
He comes out, roaring, red-faced,
To chase us away, fist shaking.
“I know who you are, I’ll tell your parents”.
Further down the street, we start again;
Our goal two dustbins in the middle of the road,
Moved only when the milkman,
In his horse-drawn cart, approaches
When he has passed, before the game resumes,
I race home to collect a shovel and a pail,
To scoop up the horse’s parting gift
For Dad’s prize roses.
Then, all too soon, it’s time for tea
Of bread and jam and lemonade.
So long ago, the world so simple then.
But still those backstreets linger in my mind
25th September 2019
In the Backstreets of My Mind contest
Sponsor - Silent One
This might have been an astounding scene, once.
Though, cracks and crevices, these days, it confronts
The hedge plants, like uncut hairs, have grown wild.
Waste-hills are higgledy-piggledy piled.
Manholes and potholes are littered around.
One who falls in could easily get drowned.
Flags, once painted on the walls, look faded.
With red-spit splashes, dustbins are shaded.
Here's one; there's one; you'd find in each corner
An artist exhibiting his honor
Are these singers part of an orchestra?
Is earning fast pennies their formula?
Hungry beggars terrorize one and all.
Scaring cat-dog-fowl-swine-cattle groups brawl
Beggars share their alms-bread-chunks with stray dogs.
Everyone sleeps together like dried logs.
Amidst sellers' and buyers' hard bargain
One could hear sounds of much party jargon.
Cutting across them rush the pickpockets.
Thieves hide behind municipal crochets.
Floods of populace flow gushing wildly.
Though vexed within, they seem to smile mildly.
Each one rushes as though under a curse
Indian pavement is a universe.
A jerrybuilt jumble, so shoddy, diminished;
just cubes of grey concrete with windows and doors.
It started to crumble the day it was finished.
Franco’s “solution” for gypsies and moors.
It’s called “La Dehesa”, the pasture, the grange.
The old ones say once there were orchards here, too.
It’s undergone quite a formidable change:
there’s nothing but concrete obscuring the view.
Like rabbits in hutches we live in our flats,
with neighbours on both sides, below and above,
surrounded by dustbins and children and cats,
and noises of squabbling, noises of love.
Each Sunday, some woman (I can’t tell you where)
starts singing, as morning creeps in through the shutters.
Flamenco, like woodsmoke, just hangs in the air,
and laps over drainpipes and outlets and gutters.
She’s clearly a gypsy. I can’t say I’ve seen her,
but singing is thoughtless, as easy as breathing,
and something about her, her aural demeanour,
is caught in her song, which comes seeping and seething
through windows and clothes lines, as if by osmosis.
She sings for herself. She’s not grabbing attention.
There’s no petty ego. Aesthetic hypnosis
is selfless. Seduction, without condescension.
She sings of her pain and her ecstasy. Both
can be borne on the air, like a children’s balloon.
Her art is unconscious, leguminous growth,
yet as hauntingly lovely as the light of the moon.
Gitanos, gitanas – delinquents and whores.
Well, maybe – but, seeing those ravishing eyes,
or hearing The Song as it wavers and soars,
I know in my soul where my sympathy lies.