Long Northwards Poems
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One rain-soaked morning at the mill owner’s behest they assembled on the hillside.
High above his workers’ harsh existence, building commenced on the mansion.
Brick by brick, inch by inch I emerged.
First floor reached, two sturdy hollow legs joined to form my trunk.
Upward they built, two more storeys, the roof and then my finery.
Ornate brickwork topped with a jaunty pot – I was the dandy of the mansion.
In cast-iron fireplaces fires roared sending hot smoke through my body.
I was alive, smoke belched out announcing my arrival.
Days turned into weeks turned into years – I became the house’s backbone.
In those early years small boys would lovingly clean my inners of tar and soot.
But this intimate relationship would soon be replaced by cold mechanical brushes.
Decembers arrived and the children posted their secret letters to Santa.
Once devoid of paper their words flowed along my warm smoky currents upwards and northwards.
In war years I served as a refuge for family treasures lovingly packed in tin boxes.
Some were forgotten and still wait to be rediscovered.
On cold winter’s days my warmth was like a homing beacon.
Rooks, crows, pigeons circled like aircraft waiting to land on my warm terracotta pot.
But alas I was not part of the modern way – my starring days were over.
Birds migrated as metal veins connected to gas fires transported toxic cocktails to the rooftops.
Then gas fires were removed, fireplaces blocked up – stale air lingered deep inside me.
My pot no longer a crowning glory was replaced by a concrete capstone.
And now I’m hidden – my external limb amputated through reroofing.
I’m still, I’m silent but I will always remain chimney.
...The sharp-shooters opened on him first,
Cutting down fifteen of his dragoons,
Tartleton ordered a grand charged,
with his infantry now on the move.
The sharp-shooters fired and fell back,
were absorbed in the second line,
who had been ordered to fire twice,
then get out of there double-time.
They targeted British officers,
took them down with accurate shots,
then retreated back as ordered
giving much more then they got.
But Tarleton saw them running,
and assumed that his men had won,
then ran into the Continentals,
three-hundred-fifty men with guns.
The militia moved behind them,
tnd out came a thunderous roar,
Swathes of British fell to the ground,
their ‘victory’ now nevermore.
Then that same militia regrouped,
swung right to hit Britain's left flank,
then came colonial cavalry
from the right into Tarleton’s ranks.
Fire poured from three directions,
the British now in an enfilade,
caught in a double envelopment,
like the Romans trapped at Cumae.
To add to it the British
hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours,
the will to fight went out of them,
to keep on wasnot in their power.
Without getting word from above
most threw up their arms and they quit,
six-hundred thirty were captured,
one hundred ten dead before this.
Tarlteton himself road back to
his remaining cavalry troops,
tried to get them to charge again,
but this order they just refused.
Knowing what would be done to him
if by the rebels he was captured,
Tarleton fled with three hundred men,
all of his force that had endured.
Cornwallis’s army remained,
but had lost the cream of the crop,
he marched from South Carolina,
his efforts to pacify dropped.
Instead he headed up northwards,
to chase General Nathaniel Greene down,
leading to a chain of events
that would bring about doom at Yorktown.
For the hard-pressed Americans
it was a huge moral victory,
bringing back hope of success
thanks to Daniel Morgan’s masterpiece.
A speck drifts in the wind blown hither and tither,
Briefly settling then takes to the air once more.
Now a charged particle thanks to the storm,
It flitters around like a beautiful butterfly.
Travelling the world at the whim of winds
visiting Australia, Asia and Africa on its way.
The frozen plains of Europe weigh it down
As it mixes with ice that freezes it hard.
Drifting aimlessly northwards, it, then
picks up the gulf stream still heading north.
Finally over the Shetland Isles it comes
to rest, Oh the tales that it could tell us.
Now it adds richness to the thin soil
here spring plants will take a grip
and burst into wondrous blooms
all due to a small mote of dust.
I hate to chortle at the sound of broken laughter,
Just like I refrain from weeping when dancing smoke fills my eyes . . .
But when dogs mourn alone,
I chafe my hands with the cold of tears of solitude.
Monuments and cairns I crave among the icy
Terrains, where dogs’ paws leave eternal marks —
The print-marks of an important visit,
Evidence of life on desiccated earth.
On board The Fram they sailed majestically
In the beginning,
Before joining a steam of blizzards they escaped from,
Returning home, northwards, gelid and depressing,
For a funeral of dogs,
The ceremony of age,
Attended largely by silent yaps of strayed thunder.
These vast plains of steadfast savannahs
Haunt me joyfully with the silent hissing tune
Of the setting sun, smiling at the
Sashaying clouds of low skies, and ogling select woods.
The earth is brown here (snuff-brown, I insist),
And with the courage of humble humus soil
Into whose fecund wombs the fattest disciples of yam —
Each tuber a testimony to nutritious creation —are nursed.
Need I guess correctly the mating time of sorghum — in the rains
Or in droughts?
Millets keep decent trysts with their kind,
Aping the pullulation of scattered corn, tomatoes and cactus,
And peripatetic weeds, and all other refractory modules of tillage.
Anointing breeze is wafted by the league of seasons,
The illustration of grazing cattle, and singed
Hirsute peaks of knolls near totems hoisted by
Ancestral masters —on foot and on teething caravans.
The pasture, gold-trimmed, reaches the edge of the world,
And glitters with the power of mirage.
Within you, you belabour the point of nostalgia for mind’s
Aging peace fluttering in the distance, a faint, glistening ray greasing
The elbows of noontime.
Large, mourning boulders jilted by jealous streams serve as tour guides,
Deflecting pirouetting spectrums that harass the eyes as you ascend northwards . . . .
Welcome, Rover!
This is Northern Nigeria,
The foothill of God.
I had wandered a path
and followed a star
traveling northwards
it was quite bizarre
this will inside
was not my own
but something foreign
ill have you know
I finally rested
at a palms broad feet
wiped off my face
the night I did greet
far into the darkness
a stable was lit
then I knew
stars had brought me to this
for a god made flesh
was right there inside
only just born
with Gabriel beside
there on a hill
three men did appear
on camels they traveled
without any fear
Magi had come
to honour the birth
down from their camels
their feet touched the earth
the first of the men
approached in awe
sat down offerings
of gold and myrrh
the third of the gifts
frankincense’s the air
for it was presented
with a humble flair
Gold for the king
of all time
Frankincense’d
priestly he is divine
finally they laid down
the urn of myrrh
for a sacrifice was made
of that I am sure
"Westward, further out ..."
Dusk washes over you
warm like honey
saltry and sweet
immersed in amber tones of
apricot alerts and rose
swirling unfurling peonies
the blooming silent dancing clouds
rush over white horses
crashing against
bracken green emeralds
the depths open
and unfathomable,
who can read the eyes of
an unexplored ocean,
the shallows
slide under your feet,
you turn your face up to the Sun and smile,
you feel like you’re bathing in Manuka,
it’s moorish and incurably medicinal,
the salt spray chasing northwards
up along bare legs mid thigh
on another shore
the uncertain sure calls,
the stories are a legion
in multitude of treasures
like beached shells whispering
to ears that are not listening;
you think of wading out further
where the turning back is harder,
the song calls you evocatively
further westward like a drug
you’d gladly holster star shot
drinking life in like a last shot
like a burning addiction,
your world is sliding strong
tide-drifted under your feet,
flesh and bone trying to bed
the undertow and its
neverending mystery
dragging you further out
westward
incomplete
complete
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
The rains are here, relentless
as ever
The grass blade is excited like
never
The season of hibernation is
over
Swirling in water, as duck dumpling
in sauce
The blade of grass has come home to
grow
It is a rich gourmet of moisture and
nutrients
Thrusts the roots, taking its journey
southward
And the shoots also going
northwards
The grass blade has come to take its
place.
As the rains continue in its
season
The lush of greenery fills the
reasons
Natural beauty in such lyrical
passion
Paradise in a paradox,
Laying her among
the lilies.
...A jolt ran though the broken men,
like wraiths they rose, streamed for the door,
Gobayth waved them on until
nobody remained anymore.
They raced on towards the small hut
where all of the pick-aces lay,
some guards were starting to notice,
running about every which way.
Gobayth wished the poor men luck,
but he did not follow their path,
and instead ran to the side gate
the guards used to go out and back.
It was little more than a door,
and Gobayth figured these keys
might just be what could open it,
one of them did, and he was free!
He heard the fight behind him race,
but raced toward the stables dark,
ducked low as two guards raced by,
the sight nearly stopping his heart.
He slipped in and grabbed a lean horse,
didn’t bother with a saddle,
rode it out and cantered northwards,
by the stars, through night, he travelled.
Come day he hid in deep forest,
usually laying low by a stream,
he’d eat whatever he could find,
then make ground under the moon’s beams.
Several days brought him to the moors,
the great, rolling plains of his youth,
he wanted to cry out in joy,
but came to see a brutal truth.
The grass was blackened, turned to ash,
only some young seedlings poked through,
fire had consumed everything,
at least everything in his view.
He saw no horses, cattle, goats,
no herds ambling through their home,
but as he pushed on he soon saw
scattered heaps on animal bones,
And further still, charred, half-burn tools,
seared rawhide, skeletal ten frames,
whole families were set ablaze,
very little of them remained.
He rode to where his family
usually grazed this time of year,
the landscape didn’t change that much,
his stomach was a knot of fear.
Then he found a burnt-up lodgepole,
a falcon totem on the top,
the metal bird, his family’s crest…
Gobayth’s heart and reason stopped.
Around the site were scattered bones,
picked over by the scavengers,
what remained of the ones he loved,
Which were his sisters? His mother’s?
On the bones he saw deep sword-cuts,
this hadn’t just been the fire,
people had killed them where they stood,
a massacre had transpired.
He searched the grass around the site,
trying to find some sort of trace,
he found a broken, steel spearpoint,
the kind the Black Flint people made…
CONCLUDES IN PART VI.
I am an introvert freebee snorting buffalo
brainwashed zombie always confronting your conspiratorial
faulty gloatingly unpleasing uninquiring sociopath
as she was my reflective lyrate queen
we understand misleadingly but blamable thoroughgoing flightiness
through unfalteringly our spiteful reminiscence .
never again will these marches tactility concenter
unawares they signal the latex submarine
to drive northwards into reactive ooze ,
were he could demonstrate cryosurgery at bicuspid biont
those cookstove are a bannerlike varicosity
is that abusive bovid breath idiosyncratic ?
you would coolly autoclave his unmodifiable buttercup !
(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • September 21–27, 2026)