Long Homeward Poems

 Translation of Eric Mottram’s Poem 33 in Interrogation Rooms by T. Wignesan

33.  on a vu un homme courir/ de la scène de crime un homme est maintenant en train d’aider/ la police avec...

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Merov’s Ghost (1) and Other Shots Across My Bow!

In mid-November of Fourteen, I published my first web verse here, (2)
the earliest spanned sixty years, composed for Senior English class
one night in Nineteen Sixty-One. Assigned just...

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The summer is over but things are getting hotter
The summer is over and people are getting viler
The sky is overcast and the birds are flying around
It feels like a stranger has just entered the town.

Grey...

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The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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Walk see the mad woman a come
Walk a come she just a come
Listen to how she talk she is not one of us
She sound like an aristocrat and a sensational bureaucrat
The idlers screamed from the...

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#1
"It is a sin to kill a Mockingbird.
While playing games with rocks or guns, defray,
them, please, ...shoot old tin cans.  Each whispered song 
from Mockingbirds, can heal the wounds  of the day"

Virtues are...

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It was late in the balmy springtime, and I was attending a lecture,
On a topic of great interest, which was the history of architecture.

As a great lover of beauty, I admired structural geometric designs,
Like the...

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Young and Strong

She was young, she was strong
Working cleaning all the day long
So much to do, but she carried that load
So concerned about everyone, at Kenmore road.

Then we moved, to Strandfontein we came
A new challenge...

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*There are only two damsels in this tale; all variations were simply for ease of writing.

Once Kate and Isabella went
To see the pretty fields of Gwent
And traipse through forest shade
They packed a picnic lunch for...

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It was Christmas Eve, a Thursday
On the Northern Express Christmas Train
We were on our way north through the wilds
And our  destination was to be old Hornepayne

One hundred and eighty two people
Three kittens, one goat...

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Northward! He frowned into the storm
The wind ever stirring, the snow swirling 'round
Ahead lay destiny, a lone dying form
He felt a stirring, as if homeward bound
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trudging carefully through the heavy snow he watched as Sprinteren...

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China Tour Diary Moment #3
SHANGRI-LA, TIBET
--------------------------------


Paradise on earth: Himalayan range;
A phenomenon carved by elements;
Here magic gives birth to ways that seem strange;
A place where lessons of soul mark movement.


Our tour coach winds round the mountain...

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(Dedication: For Ann)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The tale now mints: a hero hears
A call that tints, a choice appears.


It cannot be, this journey quest
To cross the seas, to face the test.


Denial comes brisk, no hero here
To dare grave risk,...

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Spawned from the loins that 
Perpetuated the loyal serfs mongrel
Seed:-
These peoples of a conditioned and
"Resigned-To-it-all" breed.
Born into the enveloping tedium
Of interlocking days...Interwoven
With interlocking days -
Victims of stark circumstance
And vague promises unmade.
Gregariously living out their lives
When...

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"The Great Forgotten Language" 

In the forest
Love shows
the way
spreading seeds

strange creatures
come forth
into the clearing 
of a known self

some run away
spooked as if 
the bare reflection 
shows their undressed soul

confronting, 
are the peculiar
ghosts risen, speaking 
like...

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The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but an inning left to play.
And when Cooney fell at first, and Barrows met the same,
A hush of sorrow...

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Foggily out of cryostasis, I come ...

A slow, painful waking to a vessel that's shaking
         from the stress of its increasing mass,
And at once I'm made sure...

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To those people who spend most of their life
surrounded with worldliness its cares and strife
this piece is dedicated it is my duty to convey
without any effort not to I'd be left in dismay.

One should always...

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Columbus in the New World

Three ships sailed under Spanish colours
(The Santa Maria, Niña, and La Pinta)
And dropped anchor off the shores of San Salvador,
For Columbus and his crew manning the oars
To set foot on terra...

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This unhappy man, that was me, was always sad and lonely like a dry log in green forest. I woke up one morning, more dejected than the morning before, threw away the flower-embossed curtains off...

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Drifting on the clouds I lie
With my head pointing
To yonder skies
In a sea of dreams 
 Where mind and spirit 
Igniting natures prize
To feel like you are heaven bound 
But feet standing firmly
 On hallowed...

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It’s never too late to cut a slice of cake and walk through that deceptive gate and leave everything behind and take a journey with the divine. It is never too late to part with...

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Chevrolet


Imagine life is a journey in a car, without a map or a satnav.
You can only go forward, there is no turning back.
You only know where you are going to.
Your destination is ‘love’ and it...

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Regarding merit: absent, missing, void
Of all redeeming qualities, save one,
The apple of His eye, His "very good.”
Was He, in pleasant garden, much annoyed
When they His one divine decree did shun
To taste forbidden fruit because they...

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Let the storms of rage pace us by my friends, for we have our islands
Of friendships resting in calmer waters, shelter coves of treasures devotions
Never to be rocked away, or relinquished!
Admits tidal shifting, know I’m...

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