Long Westward Poems

Mission Control, this is Flight Z924693744, do you read?
We're having some technical trouble. How should we proceed?

We have spotted a planet, that appears to be suitable to abort;
But, to return to earth, we will need...

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Groundhog day 2024 or Forty one days since 2023 Winter Solstice

Rather than be a day late
and dollar short, I opted   
to post poem acknowledging
the second of February,
where eponymous groundhog
gets his (most often male)
foretelling...

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Sunday February 2nd, 2025 Groundhog Day

Location: Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. First held on February 2, 1887 prognosticating how many more weeks of winter weather without a shadow of a doubt. Aforementioned site chosen for...

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The past was locked in with very little 'right of passage'.                        ...

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Awakened and degenerated, I feel I am clashing somewhere 
The clouds appear and then depart, just another face amongst billions  
Millions of colors of the rainbow at one point I thought I was rare...

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Opa John

The caboose sits red—its iron spine cradles the earth like Atlas
rails stretching into nowhere. The stream murmurs softly
its voice threading through Ellie’s laughter like silver wire

"Do you see it?" I ask her my voice...

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Sometimes faith lives on the edge of a knife
as Sviastoslav the Rus sacker came to know 
the Khazar Khanate knew how to cut a slight
his gilded skull stole the show,
the Vatican went from a marsh...

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Poet:  Ken Jordan 
Poem:  One Knee 
Edited by:  Sparkle Jordan 
written:  September 2017


One Knee

Yes, I kneel down on one knee 
damn right I do -
I will not honor an Anthem 
of...

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Gateway town, Mississippi and Missouri river flooding confluence,
with its celebration of manifest destiny, its looming, iconic archway.
Stainless westward marker, its culture flowed southward for influence
within the lawn-jockey, pink flamingo neighborhoods of moral decay. 

T.S, Eliot,...

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Crazy Horse Monument

Up there! On the Black Hills Mountain, 1
A work in progress sculptured in granite,
Of a stern faced warrior, strong and determined, 2
Unadorned in a war bonnet, with his hair flowing in the wind,
And...

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I: THE UK

Poling, Patching, Nether Wallop, 
Matching Tye and Droop

Plumpton, Lickfold, Puddletown, 
Westward Ho! and Throop.

Hole of Horcum, New Invention,
Boghead, Bath, Cat's Ash

North Piddle, Staines and Pen*stone,
Wash Dyke, East Breast and Flash.

Six Mile Bottom, Mudford...

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I usually don't have the patience to read long novels, but this one                      ...

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Himalayas

Eons ago in the planet’s evolution,
During tectonic plate movement: 1
The Indian Island Ma moved northward
Crashing into the Eurasian continent,
To form the Himalayan mountains. 2

Out of the chaos, towering peaks arose,
Piercing heavenly soft, white cotton clouds,
Bursting...

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.                           Darkness    there   was...

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I was a professional flutist, and performed in orchestras and symphonies,
To express the sheer joy of living, like the birds sing to summer's breeze.

Becoming accomplished took many years, and I'd played since childhood,
As a late...

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I was an avid, lifelong book lover, and I could read forever and a day,
Like the pleasing, scented lilacs, always and forever blooming in May.

Though my house was very disorganized, I would read where I...

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Awakened and degenerated, I feel I am clashing somewhere 
The clouds appear and then depart, just another face amongst billions  
Millions of colors of the rainbow at one point I thought I was rare...

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I float …
in the ether -
a roll of sea swells below,
pier toward the west,
little island I know so well -
endless hours there,
but rarely alone ...
then …

moon pixies …
sparkle at my feet,
dancing underneath "me" -
soft, yellow-blue...

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THE BUFFALO
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


THERE WAS A TIME I ROAMED THESE PLAINS
FAR BEYOND WHERE THE EYE CAN SEE
IF YOU LIVED ON THESE PLAINS 
YOU HAD TO DEPEND AND FOLLOW ME
IF YOU WANTED QUALITY MEAT TO EAT
GRASS...

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Back in upstate New York
she was a girl with stars in her eyes
She hopped a freight out westward
And tried Vegas on for size

Off strip hotels, little shows
Young Delores danced with glee
She was working in Las...

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I float in the ether ... a roll of sea swells below, pier toward the
west, island I know so well - endless hours there, but rarely
alone ... then.

Moon sparkles dance at my feet, underneath "me"...

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Love ever green
attributed to King Henry VIII
translation by Michael R. Burch

If Henry VIII wrote the poem, he didn’t quite live up to it! – MRB

Green groweth the holly,
so doth the ivy.
Though winter’s blasts blow never...

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Odyssey from Africa 14f

This colossal ratite was the
Largest bird on all the planet
It would live on Madagascar 
Till the time of William Shakespeare

“Let me tell you” said the monarch 
Quietly pleased at Han’s reaction 
“What...

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Eighteen hundred and three begins U.S. destinies.
Merriwether Lewis and his comrade, William Clark, agrees –
They will go forth, avoid Frenchmen, fighting growling grizzlies.
To find a water trade route that flows west to the Pacific seas.
Louis...

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I was a fashionable horticulturist, for elegant flowers keep eternally in style,
Like the saffron sun, coming and going, always causing dark skies to smile.

Plants were a jade preoccupation, long before glad days of my rosy...

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