Moldering Poems

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Have you ever been
haunted (no you have not)
by a ghost from the future not even born yet
in your paper thin realm
trolled from a time post human extinction
it could only happen to you so-called
dead in your grave still tossing and turning
& scratching like a deviant
moldering and unquiet one hundred years now
and the whispers yes whispers from
the parallell (this is how we spell it now)
corridoor (see previous) keeping you
a-threshold in your very well deserved
sempiternal shelf of   discomfort

Out here bebee the fourth dimension
swings in ways you cannot conceive so
don't test your pretty lil head
much of which is mush and thistle
but! you may be due compensation
for the futurama funnel imposition
a leakage episode beyond apology
under section bla bla
please submit your claim within 30 days
via the usual medium and
we shall endeavour to ensure
requiem aeternam thus ceasing
your infernal insomnia
yours the 3am committee

Maze

MAZE
Record 2025/02/20 10:49:07.webm

My maze, a startling delusion, 
confounding explanation. 
Somewhere a goal, a dream, 
a meaning 
motivates me through, 
a dynamic labyrinth of my own making. 
Every choice opens another passage, 
creates a new array of choices. 
A long and convoluted passage, 
distracted by lies and torturous
anger.
Pride leads me away, 
a rat to his cheese. 
Easier ways pave comfortable, 
even pleasurable excursions. 
Rarely, leaving an opening to meaning, 
but often winding away 
in ever-expanding walls and halls 
of hollow treasures and moldering fame.
Desperation pulls me
To rise above the choices.
To meditate within the dreams.
To rest and trust in reality
Walls and halls become highways.
Blue skies illuminate the lies.
Like street lights to the truth.

Autumn Air

A chill creeps in at morningtime,
the harbinger of winter climes,
and yet the crispness feels divine;
at least it does to me.

There’s a scent of moldering leaves,
they flutter down upon the breeze,
the earth below they all will feed;
how it is meant to be.

Then comes a whiff of new wood smoke,
no, not the kind that hippies toke,
a fire that warms like a cloak;
it kicks up the degrees.

Out for a walk, the scent of blood,
that’s coming from the neighbor, Doug,
the deer he hunted, now he cuts;
a winter’s worth of meat.

This raw whiskey, it smells so strong,
in liquor stores in don’t belong,
liquid apple pie can’t be wrong;
the autumn chill it beats.

Trees In Winter

Naked against the winter sky
their autumn finery lies moldering
beneath the season's first snow.
Where now the innocence of youth
and the boldness of summer?
How fleeting do your days appear,
too soon they are consumed.
Regretfully I marked your passage
while looking forward toward tomorrow.

Putting It All Down

We put it all down
drifting lightly over the faceless,
those days between joy and doom.

Looms the write
seeking to thread a life
through a needle.
The print not ink, nor blood,
but only a lip-reading
of the hours.

Events are picked 
like ripe or dangerous fruit,
the dull stays stored
in moldering boxes, or nailed
into the escutcheons of rusting locks.

The specificity of a moment
is given a greater gravity than it ever had,

yet we put it down
fasten it to strings of sounds
and then extoll or deplore
once more.

The Dead

crawling back -

into their tomb,

pulling close

--- for a second time ---

their moldering grave clothes,

mere Western money-grubbers

play dice w/ a world

not theirs to put at risk.

Spoiled

fraying feathers
          darkened wings
               fetid furls from
     perished things ...

          moldering meat
               or rancid minds
     guts with grace
of rotting rinds ...

               evil, monstrous
     saints so small
crept with claws
          a clasping crawl ...

bound for glory
          bound in blood
               stained in gory
     bright red mud ...

          danced, a deed
               from icy breath
     those lips of life
that kiss ... of death.

'till Time Is No More

'till time is no more 
I will glide upon
grace granted and measured 
out to the rhythm 
of the celestial spheres 
within the conflux of
the creator's peculiar light
which cleaves betwixt particles 
to penetrates beneath the surface
of this crystalized cardiac 
and exposes the sculpture 
of the master craftsman 
the great lion tears 
scales from blind justice 
which fall moldering upon 
the carven image they 
once represented
at a roar the firmaments
are rent as 
an obsolete contract 
grace granted and measured

A Hundred Crows

On a walk after the worst of the Sandy storm
I slogged down the still dampening
Green grass valley rutted between
The moldering fences of the shadowed alley. 
 
Under the low, ominously rushing, soggy gray clouds
I saw so many black birds silently
Clinging against the stiff breezes
To the broken branches of the skeletal oak on the corner
As if they relished the fate of the cruelly stripped leaves. 
 
I saw a hundred crows there.
How many make a murder? 
 
Black pointy wraiths;
Scattered commas lined up like
Iron shavings stuck
To magnetic branches. 
 
Dull steel skies slid in vast arcs around them.
Sprinkling windy foreboding,
Their clouds reached down
To Collect their talons. 
 
So many eyes I know they see
Spiny black needles poking out of me. 
 
Bloodless murder, muffling gray gauze No need to caw…, 
 
A hundred crows see it all.

More Epitaphs Observed At Evergreen Cemetery

Cecil the Magician knew a heap of tricks,
But, alas, couldn't get himself out of this fix!

Carl was laid to rest for his eternal snooze,
Brought about by guzzling too much booze!

Pete was a rock-hard liberal Democrat.
Lord, be merciful and forgive him for that!

'Twas well-known that Cletus was such a crooked politician,
That he had to be screwed in the ground by the mortician!

Buster was shot while fencing his plunder.
Now he lies a-moldering six feet under!

Clarice was an avid tea party conservative Republican.
Democrats need her vote - Lord, convert her if you can!

Fred met his doom when his plane malfunctioned.
To make matters worse his parachute disfunctioned!

Here reposes the mortal shell of Marty McCall,
Who met his doom in a barroom brawl!

Bob sank without a trace and things looked grim.
He tried to tell them that he couldn't swim!

At last he found peace when he suddenly died,
But now his shrewish wife dwells by his side!

The doc warned him about all that cholesterol.
Too much meat and taters brought about his fall!

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 2015 All Rights Reserved

People

For those I beheld with toll,
	Half of them made a river,
Half a sea, half the honor to worship
	And the other half a wish
To drown them.

	People changed life, the old teacher observed.
So the lizard, riding back with the bellowing
	Of a riddle, spare you a nickel,
Laughing on the faces,
	For, instant, you balance to death.

Go open with unclearing skin,
	 Hate them not, because no hate
Will be enough for such thing;
	Do the numbers, droning underneath
Who said that: "I'm different

	From the blundered group,
That you or whoever was moldering scribbles,
	Not plot shall tell,
From good return, some delight
	From the same animals in hell."

Vanishing Animals

(African populations are being killed off by war,
famine, disease, and neglect...when will we try to help them?)

Time,
stretching out, encompasses curtains,
on distant savannas, of shimmering heat.
And animals vanish:
ibex and antelope; elephant; grouse.
Here once, now going or gone.
Time vanishes now.

Moldering greenery, mute,
moves mainly in wind --
pliant life, submitting to breezes,
passive in sun. Rooted in spots
not chosen or won.

Plants may not vanish;
they prosper.
We do not prosper.
We vanish, as animal;
some go hardly noticed.

A dirge, as animals vanish:
we vanish unnoticed.

An Old Church Courtyard

In the moldering courtyard I linger awhile
Among ancient arches, in the old Spanish style
Revealed are sad stories...these etched stones hide
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!

The marble fountain would murmur here
Above the doorway, vines withered and bare
Aloft from the tower, are the four watchful eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!

Three vestige bells hang overhead
Their voices silent, songs are long dead
Only the pigeons, with cooing cries
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!

From the ruined walls so simply laid
Shadows of saints...moss covered jade
The weeping old willow, leaves crackled and dry 
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky

Far from today, I will pass on through
This gate, this place brings peace anew
I drink with my ears and my glistened eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky

The flowers still bloom and the overgrowth tells
The ancient tolling, of the song of the bells
When the rest of the world is passing by
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!

The longing to know, is within my heart
Yet a peace I will find, when I finally depart
Tho' silent they have been, over graves that lie
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!

The Abandoned House [for S.R. 1988]

green and white 
he asked  
why was it covering the peeling ochre walls  
and the moldering door  

she said 
it was different then  

an artist used to live 
upstairs

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